Okay I admit, my guilty TV pleasure this summer has been the series “Next Food TV Network Star.”  I watch for two reasons, one that I love to cook and two because I am a marketing consultant and I love the process that the contestants go through to market themselves on their journey to winning this competition.  There are so many lessons all business owners can learn from this TV series, so let me share some interesting marketing parallels that I learned.

1. Define a unique point of view.  The contestants are all experienced cooks and are required to define their culinary point of view and why they are unique and different.

All businesses also need to define their core marketing message and their unique point of differentiation from  their competitors.  You must be able to communicate that point of differentiation in all your marketing communications.  People make a decision to learn more about you when you give them a clear reason to do so.  If you cannot communicate this, people then defer to price because they don’t have another way of making a decision.   Most of the contestants on this show fail because they cannot communicate their personal point of view effectively.    Oh sure, the quality of the food matters, but as in business you can have the best widget in town but if you can’t explain to people why your widget is the best they won’t buy it.  As one of the judges so appropriately said  “I think and maybe’s won’t work– if you don’t know your point of view, than fans won’t know either.”

2. You must be an authority – own what you know!  The goal of any Food TV Network star is the ability to teach home cooks how to prepare great food.  They must be an authority on their personal culinary point of view and be able to teach that to others. For example the winner Lenny McNab owned not only his unique point of view as the gourmet cowboy chef, farm to table food  but he was able to teach us how to cook it!  There was no question that Lenny was unique and he certainly owned his expertise as a seasoned chef!

3. Speak to your audience in terms they will understand and can learn from you.  The final three contestants were at the top because they had the ability to speak and teach the audience how to cook.  What you can learn from them is simple – if you have the ability to teach your target audience something that ultimately solves a problem for them and you communicate in a way they understand then you win.  Nicole Gaffney the personal chef with the coastal cuisine point of view did a great job of this, she had the ability to teach us all how to cook great seafood!

4. Have confidence in your skills.  The Food TV Network contestants had a bigger challenge than most of us, not only did they have to cook but they had to perform their skills all on camera and under pressure.  Most of us don’t have those challenges.  Lesson here is to own your skills.  Stop comparing yourself to others, there will always be people who know more than we do – let it go!  If your skills are meeting the needs of your target audience than you know enough!  

5. Brush up on your communication skills. It was obvious when watching this series that most of the contestants struggled to communicate clearly.  I’m sure a lot of that was nerves having to perform on a national TV show, listen I would be tongue tied and forget my lines at the most inappropriate times too.  For us average folks we can practice our communication skills. For example if you are not good at networking in person, you clam up not sure how to engage a stranger, you can practice.  If you want to be a better communicator, join a local Toastmasters Club and practice speaking. Take time to memorize your mission statement, and core marketing message and you too will be a star!

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