Why Local Business Owners Are the Most Underrated Interview Subjects
Local owners have taken more personal risk than most funded founders, have no media training, and have never been asked. That combination produces the most honest interviews available, and almost nobody is doing them.
The business interview world is obsessed with a narrow group of people. Founders who raised capital, executives at recognisable companies, anyone with a book coming out.
Meanwhile the person who has run a shop on the same street for eighteen years has never been asked a single question about it.
They took more risk, not less
A funded founder is usually risking somebody else's money. An owner who remortgaged to make payroll in a bad quarter is risking their house.
That difference shows up in how they talk. There is no abstraction in it. When they describe a hard year they are describing something that happened to their family.
They have not been media trained
This is the underrated part. Practised interviewees have a smooth answer for everything, and smoothness is the enemy of an interesting conversation.
Somebody who has never done this has no prepared version. What you get is what they actually think, sometimes arriving in real time, which is exactly what makes good listening.
Nobody has ever asked
The most common thing guests say afterward is a version of the same sentence. Nobody has ever asked me that.
That is not because the questions are clever. It is because most people ask business owners transactional questions. What do you charge, do you have availability. Almost nobody asks what it took.
What this means if you are making a show
- The supply of untapped subjects in any town is effectively unlimited.
- They will say yes, because nobody else has asked.
- They will bring stories no researcher could have found.
- The audience knows them, which makes the episode matter locally in a way a national guest never would.
And if you are one of them
The story you think is ordinary is the story nobody has heard. Most owners assume their own history is unremarkable because they lived it.
It is not. It is the most interesting thing about your business, and it is the only part a competitor cannot copy.
Questions, answered
Why interview local business owners instead of well known founders?
They have taken more personal risk, have no media training, and have never been asked. That produces far more honest material than a practised interviewee with a prepared answer for everything.
Do local business interviews get an audience?
They get a relevant one, which matters more locally than a large one. The people watching are people who might actually walk into the business.
What makes a good local business interview subject?
Somebody who has run something long enough to have survived a bad stretch. Length of time in business matters more than size of business, because time is what produces stories.
Know a business that belongs on the Honor Roll?
Seats are by invitation and a seat is never for sale. Tell me about your Santa Clarita business, or recommend someone else's. I read every one personally.
Or call and text 661-400-1720