Roy London: Actor, writer, teacher and coach.

If you watch the Academy Awards, you’ve heard his name.  Brad Pitt, Sharon Stone, Forrest Whitaker, Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and dozens of other actors have spoken about his coaching’s impact on their careers.  At one point, he taught over 250 actors weekly, and coached many more privately.

I’m a radio talent coach, and have worked with over 1500 radio personalities and a few TV personalities and anchors, but my background is in acting.  And believe me, radio IS about acting.

So here’s a piece of advice from Roy London: “You have to live in your vulnerability.” Continue reading →

It’s always amazed me how some people resist coaching.  Where would any great actor or any great athlete be without coaching?

They’d be in the minor leagues, or be selling shoes to make money while they did Shakespeare to 10 people in a park for free.

Critique and Coaching are not the same thing, so there is that.  Some people have had the “under the microscope” experience that makes them feel like they can’t do anything right.  But coaching – real coaching – is always about finding what you do best.  The rest is just “weeding the garden.”

Yes, you do want to master “the basics” and understand structure and vocal technique and a hundred other things.  But if you’re not trying to identify and cultivate what you do best, you’re not growing.  You’re just doing the same show every day.

So if that didn’t sway you, here’s the short version:  Not being boring and predictable; that’s why coaching is a good idea.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What does the Program Director want the station to sound like?
• Does the morning team have the same vision?  How about the other dayparts?
• Do YOU know what makes your station sound different, and unique?

I deal with this all the time.  Great stations have common factors.  The thread of consistency; the gold bar at the core of the station, should be not only known, but clearly identified and discussed among the staff. Continue reading →

Radio is full of people talking to an audience.

This is a mistake, because we say things differently, more casually, when we’re just talking to a good friend.  We repeat points unnecessarily, use language that’s a little too “formal,” and sound just a little distant, when we talk to more than one person.

There is very little space between you and the listener.  You’re in my car, two feet away.

ALWAYS say things like you’re talking to ME – a friend – instead of a group of people.  Radio is at its best when it’s one-on-one.

The Prime Directive was the guiding ‘mission statement’ in Star Trek.

Here’s ours, in music radio:

Whatever you want to say needs to be as good as your best song.
If it’s not, why are you saying it?

This manifests in two ways – Subject matter, and Delivery.

Subject matter should be top of mind, and you want the listener to be able to easily see himself/herself in that situation.

Delivery: “as good as your best song” can be in the WAY that you say something.  Sounding like you actually care (with some degree of emotional engagement).  Painting a good word picture.  Or simply being a good companion to the music, rather than an interruption.

Unless I’m working with you, I can’t tell which of these you need to work on.  But I’ll bet there is one.

We’re not taking a car trip together.  We’re taking an elevator trip together.  I’m gonna go up three floors and then get off.  You need to be done by then.

BREVITY.  We owe it to the Listener to be concise.

Radio used to be populated by “big” voices, guys with a cannonlike delivery who ANNOUNCED or PRESENTED things.

But then it changed, and one of the best examples of how is my friend Robert W. Walker.  Rob didn’t have a huge voice, but it was an ultra-easy-to-listen-to voice.  He wasn’t “jokey” funny, but his insights (especially when he made himself the butt of the joke) were often hilarious.  He pulled you in toward him.  It seemed intimate, one-on-one.

He also was a brilliant writer and Production talent.  Some of his station promos raised chill bumps when you heard them.

But I would classify his main talent as something that sounds very simple: People just LIKED him.  He was what everyone in radio thinks they could sound like, but not that many actually can.

I think there are two main things to learn from Rob:

1. Never underestimate being likable.
2. Never think about your voice.  Just be you.

Sometimes, something 180 degrees away is what works best.  You can’t do it all the time, but it’s one of the first things that I consider.  Here are three examples.

1. The opposite of what anyone would think: Homer Simpson, “If Jesus had a gun, he’d be alive today.” (I thought I’d fall off the couch when I heard that.)
2. Wally, on Contemporary Christian Music network WAY-FM: instead of automatically playing an artist’s songs when he’d have that artist on as a guest, he’d do “Win it to Spin it,” meaning that the artist had to do some challenge in less time than Wally did it in order to get his/her song played.  One I remember was when he had a singer form a pyramid of Spam “cakes” – without using his HANDS!  (The guy had to stack them up into a pyramid with his MOUTH.  Ewww!  Hilarious on the air, and as a YouTube video.)
3. Once when I was on the air, my boss wanted me to do an all-request hour every Friday night.  After doing it the “plain vanilla” way a couple of times, I went in exactly the opposite direction, saying “This is an all-request hour, but I’M doing all the requesting.”  Totally unexpected, I had more people call in when they COULDN’T make a request than when they could.  (A couple of weeks later, when I got a novelty album with 20 different versions of the song “Louie Louie,” I started the hour with “You can request any song you want… as long as it’s ‘Louie Louie.'”  Believe me, there’s nothing funnier than hearing an “anthem” song done in Mariachi band style, or as a waltz… or hearing the same song requested for an entire hour.)

Try the Opposite once in a while.  It opens up brand new roads.

The old comedy axiom is that the 3rd time gets the biggest laugh: watch any old sitcom or comedy movie and you see it over and over.  Something gets a laugh.  A few minutes later, it gets repeated, and gets another laugh.  Finally, much later, there’s a “call-back” and it gets said again, and that’s the “big” laugh.  That’s the Rule of Three.

But now, that’s outdated.  Everyone’s attention span is shorter now.  The Rule of Three doesn’t apply anymore.  Now it’s just 1, 2 instead of 1, 2, 3.  To sound like TODAY, you need to shorten that rhythm of yesterday.  If you do it a third time now, it usually just sounds like you’re trying too hard.  (Or maybe it doesn’t even make sense, because Time Spent Listening is so much shorter now.)

Watching ‘Jeopardy’ these days is strange for the millions of people of all ages who grew up watching Alex Trebek emcee the show.  First, Ken Jennings, the greatest contestant of all time, hosted.  Then the Producer of the show, Mike Richards, came in with his “Don Draper” looks and professionalism.  Then Katie Couric, enthusiastic, but…

While we know a little about Jennings and a lot about Couric (but in another setting), we knew a lot more about Alex.  He loved travel, his pride in Canada was cute, and just the WAY he conducted the show spoke volumes about his respect for what could have been just another Game Show.

Continue reading →