Years ago at a radio gathering in Nashville, a dear friend and outstanding morning show talent and I did a Content seminar.
My friend had himself drifted a bit himself, doing old creaky bits like “This Day in History” and “Stupid Criminal Stories.”
…until I started coaching him.
In the seminar, we talked about dropping stuff like that, and being more real-life and specific to his area, when a person in the audience asked what was wrong with trying to get a little humor out of something like “This Day in History.”
I explained that it’s “empty calories” in diet-speak, because it doesn’t really tell us anything about you. And since it’s just factoids, there’s no connection between you and the listener doing stuff like that.
Then I said, “You need to be talking to the woman who’s in the grocery store and has a hundred dollars…but the bill just rang up as 120 dollars, so she’s having to take some things out of the shopping cart, and she’s embarrassed.”
Talk about what people FEEL. It cannot fail. You’ll be a star.
Yes, there are techniques involved, but I’ve seen this work for literally hundreds of people that I’ve coached.
What do you have to lose by throwing away stock bits that don’t mean anything to anyone now? Crack your chest open and let us see what’s in there.
