How To Sound Like an Amateur

I was listening to the radio recently and was horrified, not because of any particular news event, or the trials and tribulations of my sports teams. What horrified me was the sound of two local business owners doing their own radio spot.

The spot was supposed to be a witty banter between the two owners – one female and one male – about how great their heavy equipment rental services are. All I could hear were two grating Boston accents mixed with weak reading. They sounded like two high school students forced to read Shakespeare aloud and not realizing they were reading about sex and violence.  Everyone can relate to sex and violence, unless of course they have no idea what the words mean.

Now, I am not the target demographic for this business – I don’t intend to bring home a backhoe just to give it a spin. If I were in the market for heavy equipment, I might not be listening to the radio for inspiration. 

I don’t doubt that those business owners may have a natural witty repartee that the producers of the spot were trying to capture. They may even be great people to do business with. However, their spot did their business a disservice. They came off as amateurs and sounded foolish in the process.

Some business owners can handle the demands of radio and/or TV and don’t sound wooden when reading a script. For some reason, this happens to be only furniture dealers; maybe it’s that furniture dealers are natural hucksters. If you are a business owner doing a radio spot, the sound does matter. Either work with a producer who will get you to your comfort zone or hire a professional to be the voice of your brand.