The promise was that this tip would be about how to put a story together.  But my wife watches a lot of cooking shows, so that’s why it has that title.

Here’s how you do it… three steps to lay out. Continue reading →

In the last tip, I wrote about getting away from Information and concentrating on Storytelling.  That tip and this one grew out of an email conversation my associate John Frost and I had with the PD of a station we both work with.  Let me share it with you…

It’s kind of like John Lennon wrote in “With a Little Help From My Friends” – “What do you see when you turn out the light?” was his question.  For our purposes, it’s simply, “What do you see?”

Information and Stories are totally different.  Yes, we use information in the telling of a story, but in coaching talent on storytelling,  I’ve often found that they often do one or more of these three things:

1. overshoot, trying to dress up so-called stories from Facebook or the internet that the listener may not care about at all,
2. choose “stories” that are too full of factoids and details, or
3. invent not-quite-plausible scenarios as a way to get in a line they thought of and were determined to use.

So here’s the deal:

Everything you and the listener have in common has a story behind it, and new stories get added to that memory pile every day – if you’re smart enough to capitalize on them.

“Just the facts, ma’am” is a police report.  What happened, and the emotion(s) generated by that = a story.

This tip was birthed by a comment from Randy Fox of KSBJ in Houston.  (If you’re not familiar with them, suffice it to say that it’s easily one of the Top 3 stations in the Contemporary Christian Music format, with a huge, devoted audience.)

During a recent session, Randy pinpointed a real strength of Morgan Smith, who does afternoons, saying “She makes the microphone invisible.”

What a nice compliment.  That intimacy, where it just feels like a friend is talking to you, is – to me – essential, if you want to be a great talent.

Share something, sure, and if you’re excited, show that.  But don’t try to be “bigger” or louder than a normal, animated conversation.  Make the mic disappear.

Let’s make this easy, and get to the real core of how to be a terrific air talent.

Your job is to share what you see about, and what you feel about the things you have in common with the listener.

Everything else is just nuts and bolts.  If you don’t have the ability to zero in on what matters most to the listener, then you need to run, not walk, to your PD and find out who your target listener is.

Continue reading →

Radio has changed quite a bit over the last 20 years.  Social media, instant access to information through your cell phone, nine thousand channels and video streaming sources have changed subject matter and how it’s delivered.

But radio is still capable of being the most personal medium there is.  However, if I had to choose one thing to tell you, it would be “Jokes aren’t funny anymore.” Continue reading →

To a degree, acting is part of what we do.  I talk a lot about this in coaching sessions, and give an example of a bad actor versus a good actor:

The bad actor “shades” toward the desk as he talks, knowing that the phone is going to ring.
The good actor just says what he has to say, and the stupid phone interrupts him.

When you’re on the radio, the “visual” is created by the listener.  But what you say and the way you sound paints the picture, too.  Be more than just “a voice saying words” or reading something off a computer screen.  Give me something genuine.

There are things everywhere that apply to what we do.  For me, one of those was a line from an old “Peanuts” comic strip when the cantankerous Lucy turned to Charlie Brown after something had happened and said, “It’s getting hard to tell the phonies from the realies.”

That’s a quirky line, but honestly, in radio, it’s not that hard.  So, with apologies in advance for using the old-fashioned “he” pronoun, here’s a checklist: Continue reading →

The best air talents I’ve ever heard, regardless of age, format, etc. all have one thing in common.  And I think it’s the “biggest” skill a person can develop.

They’re concise.  They always seem to get a point across in fewer words than someone else would use.

Yes, this does apply to Talk radio, too.  This isn’t about the length of a break (or a segment).

It’s simply been my observation that the person that ‘cuts to the chase’ is the one that gets quoted.  And remembered.

This may be an uncomfortable thought, but everything you say reveals something about you – whether you want it to or not.

If you’re in touch with the reason TO say it, you have a good chance of its being received as genuine, and digested by the listener as something worth hearing.  If you’re not, and you’re just “trying to get done with it,” that will be felt by the listener, too.

Continue reading →