Use The Inverted Funnel For Great Results On The Air

What's your process for getting ideas on the air? And what methods are in place for collecting show content and converting it to stories listeners can relate to?

Many stations sound stiff and factual, rather than alive and interesting, and that is almost always because of the struggle in the process of curating content.

Here's a system that may work for you. It's called the inverted funnel.

The most valuable source of content on the air comes from personal life experiences and observations. But just living life on the air usually leads to boring, self-absorbed shows. The trick is turning real life observations into stories listeners can actually relate to.

And that can be hard.

But Mandy Young, one of the air personalities on the Air1 network, has discovered a great technique that works for her. She calls it the inverted funnel.

The Inverted Funnel

Here's Mandy to explain how it works for her:

There's a lot to the inverted funnel system, yet it's also simple. The inverted funnel forces Mandy to craft content that appeals to the broadest audience. It helps make content more relatable.

Content Sources

Mandy's workflow starts with being alert to what is happening around her. As she goes through her everyday life, she's always thinking about the show. I call this the art of how to Harvest Your Life.

So when she sees a fork in her kid's bathroom, she makes a note of it. She doesn't stop and develop the break immediately, but she knows there's something there. That's major.

Whether you keep notebooks, sticky notes, send an email or make a note in an app, train yourself to gather random thoughts that can become content later.

There's always time to come back later to figure out how the story will get on the air.

Developing The Break

Mandy knows that just talking about finding a fork in the bathroom is going to be self indulgent and the audience just isn't going to care. So she develops the idea into a story.

I love how she turned it into something more interesting just by adding "Why" to the segment.

Now there's the start of a story that can start working it's way through the inverted funnel to find a broader audience.

Isn't it interesting how Mandy talks about collaboration? When she gets stuck, she gets help from others around her! Develop your network of collaborators and contributors that can be used as a show prep and topic development resource!

Plan The Hook

In you want to include the audience in your inverted funnel, they have to hear it.

Thanks, Captain Obvious. But listeners will never hear the story unless they're hooked quickly.

Mandy admits finding a great hook isn't her strength. By the way, she's being modest. She's actually quite good at it. It just doesn't come easily for her!

The hook is often overlooked in planning on-air content. Don't let that happen.

You can't just wing it and hope listeners are intrigued. Some shows spend as much as 80% of their prep time on finding the right entry point, story angle, tease and hook. The other 20% is on planning the rest of the story. That's actually appropriate. Get those things right and the rest of the break will come together nicely.

Rehearse It

Many personalities think they can wing it on the air and take their chances for a good outcome.

Not Mandy. She rehearses.

She performs the break and records it before airing. Then she listens to it so she can hear it the a listener will. Then she can edit the story in her head before performing it live. This is a lot of work, but her audience is worth it.

I love this, especially for solo shows. There's a good argument to not practice breaks in multi-cast shows, but most shows get better when spending more time with the content.

Then, once it's performed, listen to the air check. What would you do differently? What is learned from this break that can help in the future?

The Performance

The topic Mandy developed turned out well.

It took root and drove several breaks of interesting listener calls.

In the first break, Mandy sets up the story.

It's not rocket-science. It's not going to change the world. But her small adjustment to ask listeners "Why" gets the story started.

Isn't it amazing how listeners respond to the most common things?

In the next break, Mandy maintains the topic over the intro of the a song, and does so with an efficient, and funny phone call that acts as a link to extend the story arc to another phone call segment:

And now the audience has taken over the story. She's sharing it with listeners. In the third segment, a listener tells a story that gets a good laugh from Mandy.

Mandy's natural laughter is contagious. This is an excellent example of how to develop a story from an everyday life event.

Conclusion

Building a segment on the air isn't just substance. It's more about story. And many times, stories can be built from a very small inspiration.

All of this time and effort goes into one topic for one show. That's a lot. And it's worthwhile, because without the time invested in preparation, this could have become a generic, less relatable break such as,

What's the oddest thing your kids have left in the bathroom?

And the calls wouldn't have been as good. That's an example of going for the low-hanging fruit. And Mandy's personality wouldn't have been showcased. Instead, she curates the content and mastered the art of building a personality break.

These methods may not be ideal for every show, but everyone can apply some of Mandy's inverted funnel for getting a life experience from your brain to the audience's ears.