Category Archives: Tommy Kramer Tip

Tommy Kramer Tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #658: Who You Want to be Like

In coaching somewhere around 1700 people over the last 30 years, I’ve found that a handy tool – particularly with young Talent – is to ask who they want to be like.

Think of how many kids growing up wanted to “Be Like Mike” (Michael Jordan). Kobe Bryant, for one. While he couldn’t be exactly like M. J., he definitely was the closest thing to him.

For me, personally, it was a guy named Larry Ryan. When I was growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, Larry was THE guy on the radio. Funny, engaging, always interesting.

While I couldn’t possibly be as good as Larry, watching him navigate his popularity, and just seeing what he brought to the show each day, was inspiring.
I never got as good as Larry. But I did have the highest ratings in Shreveport history, was #1 in both Dallas and Houston, and made it into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.

Just TRYING to be like your influences can lead to things you never dreamed of before.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2026 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #657: One New Feature

One of the things I always challenge morning shows to do as a new year begins is to come up with one new “feature” for the show.

This means dropping one old one.

One of the definitions of a feature is “Something offered as a special attraction.”
SPECIAL attraction. Not just something you start doing, but something you draw attention to.

Here are a few keys:

• It has to be focused. (Know your target listener. Aim for the bulls-eye.)
• You should have several examples in mind of how it’ll unfold before you ever air it.
• Think about a produced intro to make it stand out. (But make it short. A big buildup can backfire on you.)
• Think of how each “episode” ends first. THEN think of how to start it.

If you get into the habit of letting older bits go, and replacing them with new ones, you’ll probably put a little more distance between you and your competitors.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2026 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

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.

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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.

Tommy Kramer Tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #651: The Importance of Timing

There’s a good lesson to learn from the World Series. Or the Super Bowl. Or the NBA Playoffs.
They all have one thing in common: It’s about doing the right things.
But not just that. It’s doing the right things at the right TIME.

It’s the same, in any music format, for what you say on the air when you make a comment. First, did you cut off the very end of that last word in the song’s vocal? Is that because you’re too anxious to talk? (Would you do that if you were the emcee for that artist’s live show? Chances are, the crowd would boo you, and the artist would never want you to be the emcee again.)

Patience.
Timing.
A sense of rhythm.
These things are essential to a great air talent.

Tommy Kramer Tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #650: The Non-Competitive Pitch

If you’re not familiar with baseball pitcher David Cone, here’s a cool fact:

On July 18, 1999, he threw a perfect game (that’s 27 batters in a row,no hits, no walks, no runs, no errors). Pretty cool.
But even more notable was that it was “Yogi Berra Day” at Yankee Stadium, with Yogi and the pitcher of the only perfect game in World Series history, Don Larson, in attendance. (Yogi was the catcher in that 1956 game.)

David Cone is now an excellent baseball analyst. And one of his terms really stuck with me; what he calls a “non-competitive pitch” – a “waste pitch” that a pitcher will sometimes throw that’s out of the strike zone. It doesn’t make the batter do anything. No adjustments need to be made. No fielders move to field it. No baserunners try to advance on it.

As it applies to radio…it’s kind of the same when you do a break that’s just some “click bait” thing that you’ve added a punch line to.
SO predictable.

Nobody goes, “Oh wow, I’ve never heard that before.”

You have to search for what matters to your listener today. Don’t settle for anything less than that. It cheapens the whole listening experience.

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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.