Beyond Powerful Radio
If you are in the radio or podcast business or want to be in the radio or podcast business, then your goal should be to reach your desired audience in the most straightforward way possible. In order to do that, you need to tell stories, be engaging, and not waste your listeners time.
If this is your goal, and you truly want to entertain your audience and keep them listening for as long as possible, then the newly revised third edition of the book Beyond Powerful Radio by Valerie Geller, a longtime veteran audio storyteller, coach, and consultant should absolutely be a part of your toolbox.
In fact I’d go ahead and call this required reading for anyone who wants to get better at the craft of telling stories as it cuts out the fluff and gets right to the heart of the most important topics in audio which is mainly figuring out what you want to say and helping you say it better.
Each of the 37 chapters of this thick tome has quotes, bullet points, lists, cartoons, and story after story that expound on everything Valerie has learned in over 40 years of experience. It’s so practical since you can easily skip to any section you want help in from show prep, newswriting, how and why to use modern AI tools, and a lot more.
There is literally a companion workbook sold separately for this book as it absolutely is used in college courses due to its readability. This is hard work and Beyond Powerful Radio treats it that way as every single section has bullet points of do’s and don’ts along with questions to ask yourself to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward.
Valerie’s friendly and motivating voice can be heard on every single page giving you exactly what information you need, and not a scrap more. From the formatting to the font, it’s obvious it was put together with care with an extreme eye for detail and a desire to see her audience succeed.
It feels like it has a lot in common with best selling success books like the famous “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie as it takes the same tried and true winning formula of teaching people with stories and asking questions and applies those techniques into the modern era.
If you are a podcaster only, then lessons on screening calls and finding out what an aircheck is may not seem important to you immediately, but by podcasting you are opening yourself up to a world that has a lot in common with radio and you may never when you might find it useful.
If you don’t want to take my word for it alone before reading be sure to visit her website Beyondpowerfulradio.com to find some of the many many recommendations of her book by veteran radio and podcast people the world over as well as some of Valerie’s keynote talks and an entire table of contents that fully lays out what you will find within.
If you take advantages of these lessons then you just might become a powerful radio communicator yourself.
