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Does The Brand of Coffee You Drink Matter?
February 12, 2020
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“They don’t give a $h!# what kind of coffee you drink,” one of my bosses said, as he addressed the entire radio staff in a meeting. He was attempting to say that the mundane things about you don’t matter to your audience.
One well known morning show coach encourages the shows he consults to do a bit where the entire show will tell the audience what they did over the weekend and the audience must guess which person on the show is telling the truth and/or lying.
So, one is saying the little things you do don’t matter, while another is saying the exact opposite and encouraging you to highlight the things you may have done yesterday, no matter how lame it may be. But which one was right?
The answer to that is “neither.” Yep, I am saying that they both have it wrong.
I asked my boss following the meeting which coffee he drank, and it made him laugh. He assumed I was kidding and acting as if coffee mattered when clearly, in his eyes, it did not, but as I stood there staring, he finally said, “It tastes like mud, all of it. I don’t drink the stuff.”
Judge Not, Lest Your Drink of Choice be Judged
And that let me know where he was coming from. It didn’t matter to HIM what kind of coffee you drank, but to say that nobody cared was a huge miss and a grave error.
Favorite coffee is like a favorite sports team, or the difference between a pen you buy at the Dollar Store, and that of a Rolling Writer Pentel pen. But if you hate writing, you might erroneously state that writing with pens doesn’t matter since the invention of the computer.
Get someone who loves Starbucks and then someone who loves Dunkin’ Donuts and light the match by opening the conversation and what you will find about coffee, is that many of those who drink it have a lot of passion about it. So, if you’re on the air or on a podcast and coffee means the world to you, letting us know that like America, you run on Dunkin,’ then we get to know something else about you that ultimately builds the complete picture of who you are as we listen long enough to glean more character defining qualities.
Why would a fact so small mean so much to the person listening? Because, if they agree wholeheartedly with you, or adamantly take the other side, you have reminded THEM, not of who you are, but who THEY are, and they are for that moment ALIVE, aware and thinking…living.
Jeffrey Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself
See, the fact is, they care about the things you do, when it resonates with the things they do. The listener wants to say ME TOO. (Not to be confused with the recent #MeToo movement. #respect #selfcontrol)
I’ve heard four different morning shows do the “we’re gonna tell you what we did this weekend and you have to guess which one of us is telling the truth gag.” What was revealing about this so-called game, was that it did the opposite of what it was hoped to. When we do a bit like this, we are believing that once we share ourselves with the audience, they will know us deeper and like us more.
I hired a morning talent when I programmed in the Carolinas and we had this kind of moment once in an aircheck session. He was sharing things he did, but they were things he did, that very few people do, and it came off non-inclusive. My response was like my boss’, who made the judgement about coffee. I said, “Nobody cares about that part of you.”
His response. “If nobody cares then why I even doing this?”
“They will care about you, when they can see their life in yours,” I responded.
Mirror Mirror on the Wall
You score when they see themselves, their spouse, their mom, their dad, their kids or their best friends in the things you share. All of that strikes a chord with them and they can relate, but that only happens when you are specific.
Drinking coffee is not as powerful as needing Starbucks to make it through the morning. Needing Starbucks is not as powerful as needing a Skinny Vanilla Latte from Starbucks to make it through the morning. See specifics amp up the ability to relate, but none of this is as powerful as simply getting your coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts because it’s just better. ☺
When a morning show in NYC executed the game of ‘what did you do this weekend,’ one of the members shared the story that they played video games with a cousin. The story turned out to be the lie, but they missed a lot. Since it’s the lie, they could get ridiculously specific and increase the exaggeration.
Wouldn’t it have been a more interesting game and story if the talent said they were playing Fortnite until 2 in the morning with their four-year old nephew? But do it your way, keep it generic, and while you’re at it, start your day with a cup of coffee from Kwik Mart. Yum.
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