How NOT to be invited on a Podcast: Big Mistake

George Torok June 24, 2022Intended Message, Podcasting Leave a Comment

When you want to be a guest on my podcast, I want to know the answers to these questions:

What will you offer my listeners?
What will you do for me?
How will you promote my podcast?

Is that fair? You want something from me and I want something from you. That’s how the exchange goes. That’s how you build business and relationships.

When you want to be a media guest, whether on the traditional media (radio and TV) or on a podcast, you are selling. That means you need to clarify what’s in it for them. When you want to be on a podcast, the host needs to see what’s in it for them.

Sometimes the conversation goes wrong because one or both don’t recognize that there is an exchange.

Here is a recent exchange gone wrong from a person who asked to be a guest on my podcast. Notice the mistakes. Remember that my podcast is titled, Your Intended Message.

Hi,

I was born and raised in Mozambique, Africa to Portuguese parents, and came to the UK in 1975 without a word of English. We settled in East London, and after school and college,

I joined Barclays Bank in 1985, the year of the financial ‘Big Bang’ in the City of London learning the ‘ropes’ of the banking industry and studying at the same time.

I quickly rose through the ranks to senior management level. For the first time since the age of 8, life settled down and was pretty conventional but it wasn’t to last. A marriage breakup and emotional breakdown put paid to all that.

I then took some time to travel and work for myself as a ‘day trader’, dealing in the foreign exchange, stock, and commodity markets in addition to helping with my family’s catering businesses. We moved to Cornwall in 2006 to settle down and start a new family. I worked for a local currency exchange brokerage.

I was the fourteenth member of staff., and eight years later there were one hundred and seventy-five. I then got head-hunted to help a currency start up. Over the next four years the company grew to seventeen staff in Cornwall alone, and had multiple offices in Spain, the Netherlands and Australia. In 2020, recognizing a gap in the marketplace,

I registered and started Cosmos Currency Exchange with the idea of marrying the latest technology, including a 24/7 platform with the convenience of local collection accounts that clients could pay into, with an old-school relationship based pro-active business model. Despite launching in the middle of a pandemic and doing no marketing (all our business comes from referrals) we are now in our third year and finding an ever increasing demand for a personal, relationship based service to go alongside all of the tech of modern day life.

Mistakes in this message?

You might have noticed that his message wasn’t personalized. It simply said, ‘Hi”.

Did you notice the overuse of the word “I”. Not one mention about “you” or “your audience”.

He didn’t mention my name or the name of my podcast or talk about the interests of my audience. He only talked about himself.

That suggests that this was simply a cut and past message. Not personal. Just a spray and pray, I did him the favour of a response. My guess is that that he receives few responses to a message like this.

My response was this…

I see, it’s all about you,

You might be surprised at his response.

Wow. I would recommend getting yourself checked out. No, its about how life’s experiences, good or bad mould you, teach you and the moral of the story, the more you others, the more you empathize and problem solve and help, the more karma rewards you.

I couldn’t be more disappointed in your response. I can be accused of a number of things but ‘all being about me’, i don’t believe even my enemies would throw that at me so for a stranger to make up their mind and happily accuse another human being of that is not a person I want to get to know.

Notice how quickly he attacked me. He didn’t ask for qualification. He didn’t ask for further conversation. He simply attacked. Notice the language of his attack. Would you want to work with this person? Remember, he was asking me for a favor.

And he was right about one thing. I don’t want to interview him on my podcast. I wouldn’t dare submit my audience to this type of arrogance.

You can gain lessons about communication from everyday conversations.