TV Interview Fail

For many companies, getting the CEO on TV is still a great opportunity to tell the company or product story. Unfortunately, these stories don’t always have a happy ending.

One of the biggest mistakes that will torpedo a broadcast interview is not making your product immediately relevant for the audience. A recent example of this: Sir James Dyson, the debonair British inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner, who was on the Today Show to pitch his newest creation - the bladeless fan.

To put it bluntly, Sir James blew it. Big time. He had two minutes of quality airtime with not one but three anchors. Even with their softball questions, he still didn’t make the case for why anyone should pony up almost $300 for his new cool product. Instead of talking about enhanced safety features and cooling efficiencies, Dyson went the tech route, ignoring the anchors' blatant clues to take a more practical direction.



Sure, you can say Dyson obviously has an upscale audience in mind for his fan. But he was speaking to Middle ‘Merica on morning TV, where it’s safe to assume the majority of those viewers are not the early adopter crowd. So, in my book, he failed.

Dyson's loss, however, is your gain. Here’s what you can learn from his fail:

• Shiny new objects don't automatically translate into value without making that connection
  

• You can’t fall in love with the Wow factor and forget to ask why anyone would buy your product

• Listen to the questions people ask– sometimes they offer up accurate clues for how to connect more effectively
  

The major takeaway from this story: speak your customer’s language. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about TV interviews or social media, the ability to connect your ideas and have them be relevant and meaningful for your audience is a must-have ability. Everything else is rapidly becoming table-stakes.

There's never been a better time to tell your business story.