Tommy Kramer Tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #656: Kids

If you accept the old saying that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” then it’s my firm belief that the way to a woman’s heart (on the air) is through her kids.

So if you target women, trust that even if she doesn’t have kids, someone else in her family does, or at least one of her closest friends does. And, everyone has a story to tell; it’s “common ground subject” #1.

In my own on-air career, I found countless ways to involve kids – like having a different kid do each phrase of “The Night Before Christmas” and then editing it together, or a montage of kids doing one line each of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (for opening day of our Triple-A team in my hometown). And now, all these years later, I’m still helping talent come up with more ideas in our coaching sessions. “Kids Only” contests, “What your kids want for Christmas,” etc. You talk to her about her kids, or even better, put them on the air, and you’ve broken through in a way that no contrived joke or aggressive approach can.

Kids. (In the words of the sixties group Jefferson Airplane, “Bless their pointed little heads.”)

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Frost Advisory

Frost Advisory #800 – “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it”

This is my 800th Frost Advisory. It really is a lot of trouble, you know. I hope you feel sorry for me.

I’ve written this blog diligently every week for fifteen years and four months. I did the math. That’s longer than I’ve held any one job. That’s longer than I’ve lived in one city, minus one.

Frost Advisory #1 was prompted by my programming mentor Alan Mason saying bluntly to me, “You should write.”

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Tommy Kramer Tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #655: Faith and Hope

It seems appropriate as we head toward the end of 2025 to offer this tip:

The world runs on Faith and Hope.

Either one of those will do, but both of them together is what everybody wants.
So – in the coaching process, and in the learning process, you have to have faith that you’re going to get better. And you have to hope that this next step will get you up that talent staircase to where you’re really a top-level performer.

Another year of coaching passes, and I wish everyone reading this a great next year.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Frost Advisory

Frost Advisory #799 – More Than Just A Radio Station; An End Of The Year Perspective

The Christmas season brings out the best in our format. More people tune in than at any other time of the year, some stations topping a million listeners per week, once unthinkable. A handful go to the top ranking #1 in their market.

Many stations often do the best job of connecting on common values with stories of hope, forgiveness, and fresh starts. Over the last several weeks I have heard some amazing stories and songs.

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Frost Advisory

Frost Advisory #798 – What’s Christmas Got To Do With It?

Is there a connection between Christmas and your station’s strategy? No, I didn’t say Christmas MUSIC. I said Christmas.

I’m told there are more “religious” radio stations in the United States than any other format category. They also say that those religious stations often have fewer listeners than the other format categories. Ouch!

Many Christian radio stations could best be described as “A bunch of stuff all on one station,” consisting of a little of this and a little of that with little connection to the WHY.

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Frost Advisory

Frost Advisory #797 – Music And Ministry: A Christmas Perspective

From time to time I’ll hear radio stations use the phrase, “music and ministry,” which, ever so subtly, infers that music isn’t ministry. Perhaps that dates to a time that many of us remember that Christian radio stations had long talk blocks, and that music was often considered the “fill” between what was considered the real ministry.

That still is in the conversation as stations discuss the value of playing Christmas music to reach new listeners.

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Frost Advisory

Frost Advisory #796 – You Never Have A Second Chance…

By the time you are reading this, Christian music stations up and down the dial have swapped out their typical playlist for the 137 best versions of “Holly Jolly Christmas.” While the strategic upside to that wacky Clark Kent-to-Superman identity change has been well chronicled in these 15+ years of weekly Frost Advisories, I reckon’ one aspect of this format flip may not have received enough attention. That’s the part that isn’t about the music.

“You never have a second chance to make a first impression.”

Will Rogers
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