Don't Sell Out Like 'American Idol'

The talent was strong, but the show was drowning in an annoying amount of commercials, product placement and iTunes pitches.
By Steven D. Strauss ,

Well, at least the right David won.

Although Fox's

American Idol

got a lot wrong this year, and suffered a much-discussed ratings hit in the process, it nevertheless got the most important thing right: the singing.

And that is no small thing. From a business perspective, if your business is bringing the top new talent to the fore, then you best do that. The last two years, the winners were the forgettable Jordin Sparks and the gimmicky Taylor Hicks, which meant that

Idol

simply was not delivering on what it was supposed to do.

But this year, offering up such strong contestants as the Davids, Syesha Mercado and (my favorite) Michael Johns created a much stronger show.

So why the ratings slide?

It's not hard to figure out, really, and it's a mistake that any business can make -- big and small alike.

The problem? They got greedy. As my sweet grandfather used to say, "Too much of a good thing is a bad thing."

If I were to ask you "what was there too much of in

American Idol

this year?", you know the answer (and no, I am not talking about dread-locked Jason Castro).

The easy answer is ... commercials, product placement and advertisements. Whether it's the ever-present

Coca-Cola

(KO) - Get Report

glass that Simon sips from, music videos to sell

Ford

(F) - Get Report

cars, pitches for

Apple's

(AAPL) - Get Report

iTunes, or commercial blocks that felt like they lasted 12 minutes, this year

American Idol

seemed to take the pitching of products to a whole new, and unwelcome, level.

No wonder people started to turn the show off -- it became a turnoff.

Profit can make people stupid. It is not hard to understand how the producers of

American Idol

let their show get away from them and became a never-ending pitch for this product or that. The money that was dangled in front of them was no doubt intoxicating.

But that doesn't really excuse it.

You own or run a business for one reason -- to serve your customers. You may think you are in the architecture business or ice cream business, or whatever -- but you are not.

You are in the service business.

The better you serve your customers and give them what they want, the stronger and more successful your business will be. It is when you lose track of what your job is that you fall off track.

Or, put another way, when you start to think you are in the business of pitching products instead of creating great TV, your customers lose interest.

So don't make the

American Idol

mistake. Remember what business you are in. Serve your customers. And remember -- pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered.

Steven D. Strauss is a lawyer, author and USA TODAY columnist. His latest book is the

Small Business Bible

. He has spoken around the world about entrepreneurship, including at the United Nations, and has been seen on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC,

The O?Reilly Factor

, and many other television and radio shows. He maintains a Website at www.MrAllBiz.com.

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