Tommy Kramer Tip #21 – Phone calls: 7 fundamentals

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I hear from so many air talents, “How do I get more phone calls?” The first thing I ask them is “Why?”

Yes, phone calls can add a dimension to any show, but only good calls. Unfortunately, most of them are not good. Most phone callers you hear on the air either just kiss up to the deejay, try to be a co-host, or prattle on too long, so the momentum sags. Start with the thought that any call you run had better be as good as your best song.

Now here are the seven basic rules for phone calls (in music formats), and the real secrets of how to solicit and use them on the air.

1. NEVER ask a question to solicit phone calls. “What do you think?” only invites the same caller that you used yesterday to call in again, because most people don’t believe that you really want their input, and/or don’t have time to call in anyway. (It’s a strange phenomenon that asking “What do you think?” only attracts people who DON’T think.) Make STATEMENTS that trigger emotional reaction, instead. Then, if you simply must solicit calls, say “Maybe there’s something I’m missing” or “Maybe you see something here that I don’t” and give the phone number. No “I want to hear from you” or anything else. Your NEEDINESS is NOT a reason for me to call. If you sound like you NEED phone calls, you either won’t get them, or you’ll only get bad ones. Really useful responses have to be driven by emotional reaction to something that’s said, not manufactured “topics” or nebulous “Tell us your story” solicitations.

2. Avoid “regulars.” The minute a caller is identifiable, damage is done. You give off the vibe of being a “closed community” of people that have somehow gotten into an “inner circle” made up of “favorites” that get on the air. This does not welcome in new callers.

3. You don’t need the old-fashioned, “And you had a question…?” lead-in to a call. Set the subject up, then cut to the “meat” of the call. No extra verbiage required. Also to be avoided: “Ginger had a comment…” I don’t know “Ginger.” Her name doesn’t matter. Plus this “narration” doesn’t have an organic feel to it, so it puts the call into the realm of “artificial radio stuff.”

4. Phone calls are NOT conversations. They’re sound bites, used to further the subject and the forward momentum of the show. So you don’t need the gratuitous “politeness” of “Hi, how are you?” “Oh, I’m fine, how are you today?” stuff on the front. Just cut to the POINT of the call. And cut off the “Okay, thanks for calling. Have a nice day” stuff, too. Real life may be about manners, but great Radio is about MOMENTUM.

5. In the “body” of a call, remember that the moment anything is repeated, the call will AUTOMATICALLY sound long, no matter what the actual length is. So anytime you have a bad connection and have to repeat something, or the caller goes off “chasing rabbits” instead of staying on subject, cut that part out.

6. You don’t have to find the perfect beginning point, voiced by the caller, to air a phone call. You can intro it live by giving the subject line, then play the “sound bite” from the call that serves your purpose. Example: You say, “I lost my rental car the other day in the airport parking lot, ‘cause I couldn’t remember what I rented” into a caller saying “I always tie an orange ribbon to the radio antenna so I can see it.”

7. ONE point made per call. The minute you go into a second point with any call, IT’S TOO LONG.

I love good, judicial use of phoners on the air. But like everything, it has to have a useful strategy behind it, and be done well. I promise you that if you use these techniques, the calls you do choose to run will sound noticeably better.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #20 – News tips

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We’ve all heard the old saying “No news is good news.”

Seems like a lot of radio stations believe that nowadays, but I would remind you that no news is NO NEWS, and unless you’re aware of what’s going on today, Pandora or my iPod is a better choice.

So whether you have newscasts in your shift – or even on your station – at all, you need to be my smart friend who’s keeping an eye on things for me, because a school shooting, a tsunami, or a giant wreck on the freeway could happen at any moment.

Let’s just approach this from a News standpoint, and how it’s not still 1963, so it’s not the Huntley & Brinkley and Walter Cronkite world anymore. Today the newsperson you watch or listen to it the one that seems like a real person who’s into being right up-to-the-moment on what’s going on. If you’re just a jock, not a newsman, hopefully a lot of this will still help you on the air when you have a big story to talk about.

1. Use real words. Words that real people use in everyday conversation. It’s not “Judge C. Arnold Jamison of the 3rd District court ruled that…” etc. It’s just “the judge said…” etc. It’s not “the alleged robber was apprehended by authorities two blocks away,” it’s “the police caught the guy they think did it.” It’s not “A fire department spokesperson said the blaze will continue for several hours,” it’s “Jim Green, the Fire Chief said it’s still dangerous because not all of the fire is out yet.”

2. Don’t “announce” or “present,” just share the story. Big, deep voices speaking in grave, authoritarian tones just sound like old men lecturing small children. Lighten up. Just talk, like you would to a friend.

3. Rewrite every story for every newscast. It revives YOUR interest in the story to see it from a slightly different “camera angle” each time. One time, it’s about an explosion in a warehouse. The next time, it’s about the guy who got out safely. The next time, it’s about what happened in the neighborhood when the big boom hit. Starting the story a different way each time keeps it from getting stale. And you can take that “other person’s shoes” perspective and follow it to get a whole different take on the event.

4. KNOW the story. Know it well enough to talk about it with some degree of clarity and credibility. Like Will McAvoy on “The Newsroom,” actually learning the facts can set you apart from the people who are just reading news print off the wire.

5. Talk to ONE person. I can’t stand stories with things like “30% of you agree.” Thirty percent of me is just a leg and a forearm. “30% of people agree”—talking to me about those “other” people, is a better way to go.

There’s lots more, in terms of performance, but these points are a good “starter kit” for you. Let’s make News a reason to tune you in, instead of a reason to tune you out.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #19 – Great in 9 seconds (or less)

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Let me tell you about my friend Howard Clark. Imagine hearing this nice, big, round voice – not announcerish or pukey, just God-given great “pipes” – saying these things over song intros:

[into ‘Mrs. Robinson’] “The amazing Funkel Brothers, Simon…and Gar”

[into ‘I Remember You’] “Here’s a song about a man and his sheep…” (think about it)

…and especially when he would foul something up: “Every move…carefully planned”

Howard Clark could be great in 9 seconds. Or less. Because he always came across as (1) actually listening to the music, (2) clever, and (3) totally here to have fun.

You had to listen carefully to Howard, or you might miss something that would make you giggle, or make you think. It’s not always about being funny. It’s about being a “must” listen—the person I want with me in the car when I’m driving, or by my desk when I’m working.

If you can’t be great in 9 seconds, if you don’t sound like you’re listening to the songs, and/or if it only seems like you’re just talking about things because you feel like it—regardless of whether or not it means something to me—you may be good, but you’re not great.

But I can show you how. And I think you’ll be amazed at how easy it is. It doesn’t take more work; it just takes knowing exactly what to work on.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #18 – Don’t tell me what to think

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Nothing is more annoying than being told what to think. You’ve seen those promos for new TV shows or movie trailers that say things like “This fall’s brightest new comedy” or “The first great action movie of the Summer.” But we never believe that.

Look, America is a “Not me” country. Always has been, since the first settlers came over from Europe.
“You will pay a tax on tea.” (Not me. Let’s dump the tea into the harbor.)
“You will worship at this church” (No, I will worship wherever or whatever I want. Maybe like George Carlin, I might just want to pray to Joe Pesci. He seems like a guy who can get things done.)
“You will live on the East Coast.” (Nope, heading to California now. Hope the wagon wheel doesn’t break, or I’ll be stuck in Oklahoma.)

Now think of how many times you’ve heard a deejay say “Here’s a new one you’ll really like.” (Not me. It’s putrid.)
Or “You told us what songs you wanted to hear.” (I didn’t. No one ever contacted me, or you’d be playing a lot more Mark Knopfler or Kenny Wayne Shepherd.)
“Your Favorites from the 80’s, 90’s, and today” or “Today’s best bongo music, and your all-time favorites.” (Seems like this is always followed with a song I can’t stand by an artist I’d like to hit with my car and leave lying in the road.)
“This song just makes you feel good.” (No, this song was my ex-girlfriend’s favorite song. Now, it just reminds me of when she dumped me.)

It’s not just in promos or Imaging, either. I hear it in Content, too. Just the other day, I heard a jock talking about a giveaway, and he said “So you’re thinking ‘I’d like to win that’…”
No, I was thinking “Why would anyone want to win that?”

So here’s the deal. You can tell me what YOU think, but you can’t tell me what I think.
Example:
“I think that’s a great movie” says something about you. Whether I agree with you or not, I’ve learned a little about you. You’re a little more familiar now. There’s another thread of connection between us.

And THAT works.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #17 – Two more thoughts about “One Thought Per Break”

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We’ve all heard “one thought per break” as the goal of great radio. (And if you haven’t heard it before, you have now.)

The reason for that is simple: It’s extremely difficult, maybe even impossible, to do more than thought in a break and have it work. Listeners don’t respond well to more than one thought. Two thoughts in the same break compete with and dilute each other, so the break is, at best, 50% successful. But take those two thoughts and put each of them in a separate break, and you can be 100% successful. Twice. It’s kind of like the old Saturday Night Live parody spot: “It’s a floor wax. No, it’s a dessert topping. No, it’s both!”

No, it’s neither.

But there’s more here than meets the eye, so let me give you two more guidelines.

One EXAMPLE per break. I don’t need a laundry list of examples. Just give me one good one.

And even deeper than that is something the great Bobby Ocean once said: One EMOTION per break.

Embrace these additional rules, and you’ll be amazed at the clarity it gives you. And clarity – simplicity by design – is what works best. (Think iPad. A 2-year old can use it, even though its inner workings are very complicated.)

And notice that I’m stopping there, because you only need one example to “get it.”

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #16 – PERFORMANCE is King

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The articles are everywhere, every radio convention has a session on it, and the thought is drilled into every air talent’s head: Content is King.

But that’s not true. While Content is a huge factor in your success, it’s only half of the equation. PERFORMANCE is King. If you give the script of The Odd Couple to inferior actors, it won’t work. The best Content in the world won’t matter if you can’t get it across to the listener in a way that stands out against all the puking, quacking, promoting, and hiding behind empty liners across the dial.

Here’s something you might have noticed – almost all jocks with musical skills turn out to be pretty good on the air. The timing it takes to play an instrument well, to fit into an arrangement with punctuation at the right time, and the diligence it takes to refine raw skills are all strong qualities that make for strong air talents.

The other side of the coin is that “Club deejays” make horrible air talents, because they’re about screeching to a house full of drunks OVER the music. They’re not voice actors; they’re just people on the street corner trying to get attention.

While you may not be a musician, there’s a fast track to gaining those elements of timing and patience.

In music radio, simply fit the song. Match its mood and tempo with your delivery. “Up” song, “up” delivery. Soft song, soft delivery.

Sometimes the best influences in creating great radio can best be learned through a different medium. That’s why in Talk Radio, I recommend renting The Music Man and noticing how the dialogue unfolds with a certain rhythm. Each line spoken (or sung) by each character or group of characters in the movie defines the era it’s set in, the general spirit of the film, and the collective rhythm of the mythical town of River City. You remember lines from the movie, or lyrics from the songs in it, because of that rhythm. Paul Harvey had his rhythm, Rush Limbaugh has his, and you have yours. But if we’re not already hearing it on the air, you’ll have to look for it, find it, and sharpen it. COMPEL people to listen by having your performance draw people toward the sound of it. It’s equal parts your voice, the construction of each break or segment, and your pace.

A great performer can make average material sound really good. But if on top of those performance skills, you add great Content, you’ll have a fine career.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #15 – How to give Time Lines

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I keep hearing these dysfunctional Time Lines…”coming up,” “in a few minutes,” “later” or “later in the show,” “soon,” in minutes, ” “straight ahead,” etc.

All meaningless. To the listener hardened by “teases” with no follow-through for years, all lies. You might as well just say “…but not now.” Or “sometime before we all die.”

Here are the ONLY three ways to give Time Lines that actually work:

1. A SPECIFIC time—“7:20″ (NOT “about” 7:20 or “around” 7:20). If you make an appointment with me, be on time. (If you’re a network, use “at 7:20 Eastern” or something similar.)

2. A DURATION—a clear time FRAME, like “in the next twenty minutes” or “this hour.” Use five or ten-minute increments, not “in six minutes” or “within nine minutes.” (That’s too exact. I’m not listening with a stopwatch, and it isn’t the way people really speak.) If it’s going to come up in 17 minutes, say “in the next twenty minutes.” Keep in mind the purpose of giving a Time Line in the first place—to tell me how long I need to listen in order to make SURE that I’ll hear what you’re promoting. So you want toovershoot to the next five or ten-minute increment, so I won’t miss it.
Oh, and instead of “just after 8 o’clock” or “in about an hour” (too vague), say “between 8 and 8:30.”

3. “Next,” meaning that it will follow what’s playing now—this song, or this stopset. Do NOT say “after this” into commercials (or the silly “on the other side”); that just points out the commercials. Don’t say “when we come back,” either. That just says you’re “going away” somewhere while I sit here, waiting—or more likely, tuning to another station. And don’t say “in sixty seconds” or “in two minutes.” (Again, too exact. I’m not sitting here with a stopwatch. I’m busy.)

The CBS promos don’t say “The Big Bang Theory…sometime Thursday.”

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #14 – Don’t ask Questions, make Statements

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We’re constantly barraged with questions on the air—in radio and TV. You’ve heard them…

  • “Do you want a great deal on a new car?” (No, I want a crappy deal on an old car. That’s a really stupid question.)
  • “Got milk?” (No, got Gatorade. Oh, and those billboards you have up, the picture of some athlete with a milk mustache—tell him to wipe his mouth.)
  • “What do you think?” (I don’t care, and neither do you, really. You just want me to do your show for you.)

I’m convinced that questions are the death of radio, including those vapid little rhetorical questions, like ending a line with “Right?” or “Okay?” or “sound good to you?” If you need my response, you’re out of luck. I’m busy. I have a life. (George Carlin covered this best with “When will all the rhetorical questions end?”)

Questions don’t sound like you’re talking to me; they just sound like you’re pretending to talk to me.

So put everything in STATEMENT form. You’ll get a totally different kind of reaction – an emotional reaction – and the things you say will carry more weight, because making a Statement tells me what you think—which questions don’t do. Plus, using a Statement is a stronger “call to action,” so people respond to it differently. “Vote now” is much more emphatic than “won’t you vote now?”

Start today. It’s easy. Say “You can win Eric Clapton tickets” instead of “Do you want to win Eric Clapton tickets?” Say “I’d love to know what you think” or “feel free to weigh in with your thoughts” instead of “What do you think?”

Oh, and this “make Statements” philosophy should be applied to your recorded Imaging and Promos, too. The answer to ANY question in your Imaging is “No.”

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #13 – Talk TO the microphone

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Many air talents, even experienced ones, BROADcast. They talk too LOUD, sound really exaaaaaaaaaggerated, and can’t seem to relax into a more conversational delivery without losing energy or enthusiasm.

So here are two things to help you:

1.  Remember that it’s not theater, where you need to make sure the back row can hear you. It’s more like a movie, where the camera might be just a few inches away. The mic is not a megaphone, it’s an I-Max screen where everything is magnified. Be subtle. Sounding “interested” or “animated” is a better thought than having “energy.”

2.  See the microphone as the listener’s face. Whenever I worked in a female-targeted format, I just talked to my wife. In a male-targeted format, I just talked to my cousin Ricky, who was more like a brother to me. When you put a FACE to the microphone, it stops being an instrument and becomes a human being. You wouldn’t shout into someone’s ear from a foot away.

You want to talk TO the microphone, not through the microphone.

With a little practice and true commitment to get away from “announcing” or “presenting,” you’ll still be able to sound excited, enthusiastic, serious, thoughtful, intimate—all of the “crayons” in the box. You’ll automatically sound different from 95% of the blathering, loud-talking, blowhards who apparently think the listener is 20 feet away. And setting yourself apart from the rest of the herd is what careers are built on.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #12 – Interesting versus Relevant

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Often in coaching sessions, I hear something that laid a giant egg on the air justified by an air talent saying “Well, I just thought it was interesting.”

“Interesting” is okay, but remember that “interesting” is not the same as Relevant.

Relevance is the starting place. If it’s not relevant to the listener’s life, just being “interesting” won’t save it.

When your show Content matters to the listener, he or she tunes in again. When it’s just “interesting”—or even worse, just little odd stories or innocuous “fluff” Content—that’s a roll of the dice. Save the dice for Las Vegas. You don’t always need to make the listener gasp, or laugh. As a listener, the most important thing to me right this second might be just knowing if it’s going to rain, so I can keep my kids from getting pneumonia while they walk to school. Your doing “The ‘Um’ Game” or “Brain Teaser Trivia” just isn’t relevant to my life while I’m waiting to see if my kid needs to wear 14 yards of bubble wrap, his Darth Vader helmet, and rain boots. (It’s a long story. Suffice it to say that if you lose your raincoat, you get to start early on being seen as the Class Clown.)

Look at everything through the “Is this relevant?” lens. Throw out anything that’s not relevant to the listener’s life.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.