Recently, a station manager brought me aboard to work with a new air talent that had just come to the station.  Even though the new guy done a couple of sessions with me a year or two ago, he’s still afraid of being coached.  The boss told me the guy’s exact words were that “He doesn’t want someone coming along trying to make him sound like everyone else.”

Well, first of all, that’s not what I do.  Yes, I have some basic principles that have been proven to work over the course of coaching over 350 stations in all formats.  But a lot of times, a talent will harbor this fear of making changes simply because (1) he didn’t work with a good coach, (2) he thinks he knows all he needs to know, and/or (3) he associates the “bits” he does with BEING his identity.

So in case you’re approached with working with a talent coach (and there are only about three that deserve to be called that), I’m going to lay out my 3 Steps of Coaching over the course of the next few tips.

Step 1: Correcting bad habits, and “weeding the garden.”

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A very good talent I work with did a contest the other day, and had a great winner, who was really surprised and happy about winning lunch for her office from a local deli.

He did a good job with her in the winner call he played on the air, but at the end, he added a whole bunch of “blah blah blah” about the specific hoops the winner had to jump through to get her prize and, along the way, he mentioned the name of a person in the office that no listener would know or care about.

This is what I sent him in his coaching session recap:

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In the last tip, I talked about learning something about you each day, and how essential that “reveal” is to becoming a three-dimensional personality to the listener.  Here’s a deeper look at it:

You should reveal something about yourself EVERY day, but not with an agenda.

Last week, on an automotive Talk show I coach in Houston, the female cohost said, “Ask Mike your question, ’cause if you ask me, I’ll just say ‘Pick the fast one, in black.'”  That changed her from being just the “announcer” of the show to a Personality – in ONE LINE.

That’s the kind of reveal that works best, because it seemingly just slipped out as you were talking.  And that’s the key: It has to sound accidental or incidental – NATURAL to share, not just you bringing up a subject so you can sound off on it.

When something revealing just plops out in the course of the conversation, that’s when people actually NOTICE what was just said.

Here’s part of a post-Halloween coaching session recap with a morning team I work with in Austin, Texas…

Steve and Amy.

Well, look at what we learned about you in Tuesday’s show…

You’re aware of what’s going on, and you have hearts (coverage of the New York City tragedy).

Amy has managed to rationalize not wanting to go out in the cold to ‘Trick or Treat’ with her kids as THEIR decision.  (And Steve called her on it.)

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In August of 1972, a group named The Main Ingredient released a hit single called “Everybody Plays the Fool.”  (The lead singer, by the way, was Cuba Gooding, Sr. – yes, the actor’s father.)

None of that has anything to do with this week’s tip.

Last time, we talked about really starting to gain understanding and control of your inflection, so you lose the “disc jockey” sound and simply become the one voice in the room people just want to listen to.

Here’s another step.

What all great air talents and great voice actors have in common is that they’re INTERESTING.

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