I retired from active coaching at the end of last year, after 30 years of trying to help people get better. This will be my final coaching tip, and a conversation with my brilliant friend and mentor John Frost gave me the theme for it: Perspective.

Here’s my perspective…

This is kind of a two-fer tip – a reminder, or 10,000 mile checkup:

First, forget about your voice. Trying to have a deep voice, or anything forced, is not fun to listen to. Be you. Thousands of air talents have been wildly successful with no “radio voice”.

Second, talk to a specific person. Ideally, you should have a listener profile that “draws the picture” of who that target listener is. You probably know someone who matches that. (For me, it was simple. When I was in a male-targeted format, I talked to my cousin Ricky, who was more like a brother/best friend to me. When I was doing a female-targeted format, I just talked to my wife.) Note that this is singular. Talk to ONE person, not “listeners”.

I’ve had dozens of stations put a picture of a specific person in the Control Room, on the back of a chair or somewhere you can SEE him or her. If not a photo, visualize that target listener. The minute you talk to “people”, you’re not just talking to me anymore. The intimacy is gone.

In nuclear physics, there’s a principle called the radioactive half-life. It’s defined as “the time required for a quantity to reduce to half of its initial value.”

Let’s think about this for a moment. If you’re in the Talk arena, pay attention to where this half-life is. Breaking into a lot of math/data, for example. Make it simple; make it brief, before someone zones out and plows into the display of pumpkins outside the grocery store.

In the music-radio arena, know where you’re going, go there, then move on. Trying to extend something is often fruitless. When you hit that downslope, the momentum (and interest) will fade.

Self-policing just a little bit can really add some ‘snap’ to your show.

Think about this: the way our minds work is incredible. It filters what it hears and sees and decides “this interests me” or “this doesn’t matter to me.”

Every word you say – and that choice of wording, and how you say it is being digested almost unconsciously and is put through the “does this matter?” test.

I thought this was killed off years ago, but no…I heard it on a local station today.

They had a little contest, got a winner, and then at the end of the short conversation, the deejay said, “And what station made you a winner?” – to which the caller/winner said “K-TOY 98!”

Don’t. Just…don’t. This is like telling your dog to sit, then when it does, you give it a treat.

I’d recommend treating your listeners better than dogs. “C’mon, say our name. Get your jerky treat” feels like crass manipulation to SO many of your listeners.” Just celebrate the winner, and leave your idiotic “branding” effort out.

We have to treat our listeners like they’re AT LEAST as smart as we are.