Helping Talent Find Their On-Air Destination

A roadmap is a lot more beneficial when you’ve got a destination in mind. In fact, your phone’s map function requires the address of where you are heading before it shares the route for you. 

If you’ve got an on-air talent that struggles to move a break from point A to point B, I’ve got a great coaching exercise to help them get past it.

For example: 

• Your talent might have decent content ideas, but their breaks never really “land” anyplace.
• Or, they have good story instincts but struggle with adding too much “detail”to their presentation (turning a :40 second story into 1:30). 

If someone on your air staff struggles in either of these areas – set aside 60 minutesthis week and take them through this exercise, so that they can begin to apply it in their show prep every day:

Before they ever make any decisions about the structure and details of the break idea they have, get the talent to write out a single sentence that specifically states what the talent would like the listener to do, think, or feel about the topic. (A one sentence statement– no paragraphs, bullet points, or questions) 

The discipline of this exercise does 2 things: 

• The exercise helps talent to crystallize their thoughts and ideas about the content into something more cohesive and focused.

• This one sentence statement acts like a mini “mission statement” for the break. 

Once the talent is clear on this single statement, the next steps become about crafting the beginning, middle, and end so that each leads the listener specifically to the takeaway of that sentence. It is now a lot easier to determine what story details move the listener closer to the single sentence takeaway, and which don’t. 

One other “bonus” benefit of this exercise… if your talent is struggling to come up with a single, clear sentence about what the goal of this break is (ie. it’s so vague that it needs more than 1 sentence, or they’re not able to clearly articulate it), it is a good sign that the content idea is not ready for air yet… it either needs some more time / thought, or needs to get scrapped for something else.

So, just like that GPS app won’t plot a course without a destination, don’t let your on-air talent wander aimlessly. That single sentence? It’s their destination, their North Star, their “you are heading here” on the map of their break. Get them to nail that down, and suddenly the path becomes clear, the details fall into place, and those rambling stories find their focus. 

Need help with an air talent that is struggling to “stick the landing” in every break? I’d love to chat…text me at 206-552-6848.