Program Your Station So The Audience Feels Like They’re Listening in a Mirror

Content Directors: Concentrate on making your station like a mirror… not a sponge.

The art of winning friends and influencing people is all about taking an interest in the other person, making them feel important and really listening. When they feel good about being a part of your show, loyalty follows. Like the host of a party, your job is to make sure those guests have the time of their lives. Every day.

The biggest mistake personalities make is being self absorbed, talking about themselves rather than relating to the listener’s world. It’s fine that you and your partners have an inside joke about others on the staff, but if the audience doesn’t know the joke, it’s a tune-out. We bore the audience with internal ramblings about headphones, microphones and the temperature in the studio while they tune out because they just don’t care.

Reflecting the listener means engaging in a language of intimacy, sharing values as friends. Don’t tell them you’re wonderful, let them discover it. Don’t tell them you’re funny, demonstrate it!

One of the ways to do this is eliminate, or at least reduce, self-reference. Develop the habit of replacing the word ‘I’ with ‘you.’ This simple tactic emphasizes the audience while still featuring your personality.

It may seem contradictory, but this idea is consistent with the practice of revealing character. A careful balance of ‘me’ and ‘we’ allows personalities to share thoughts, feelings and personal experiences, but with a discipline to relate it to the listener’s world.

Great talent draws on personal experiences, opinions and observations to tell stories that their audience can relate to their own lives. It’s one thing to understand your audience’s world, but quite another to relate to the audience!