When Interview’s Over and Host ‘Thanks You,’ Say ‘My Pleasure,’ Not ‘Thanks for Having Me’

I couldn’t help thinking about this phrase “thanks for having me” after watching probably the 50,000^th interview on CNBC to which I’m usually glued when the stock market’s open and either congratulating my picks or chuckling at my puts.

When I hear a guest conclude a segment saying, “thanks for having me,” it sounds to me like they’re saying thanks for turning me, a nobody, into a somebody who finally has something important to impart.   Thanks for making me now into an expert, an authority . . . for giving me a lift to notability, an exhilarating rocket ride on an air wave to a much higher place in the financial world, somebody-hood.

Simeon Gutman is definitely a somebody, a smart retail analyst at a firm I look up to, Morgan Stanley.  He held my attention and admiration the other day, distracting me from tedious work for a couple of interesting, insightful minutes.

He was on CNBC predicting the bigger retailers would keep getting bigger now at an even faster clip thanks to AI tech reinforcement providing clearer data, even robots to manage data centers.

I was paying rapt attention as I had read Gutman covers stocks with a 62.36% success rate and an average return of 3.03%.  I’m listening as I have my investor eye on retailers from Walmart to Target, Cosco to Kroger.  Don’t forget Lowes.

With still relatively high interest rates slowing home sales, people are staying put longer in their aging residences needing constant fixing up, therefore owners are spending more on repairing and replacing things from washing machines and dryers to big screen televisions and lawn mowers. 

But what does Gutman say when at the end of the interview he’s thanked for all the knowledge, wisdom and experience he just shared?   He responds with a phrase I hear much too often on TV: “Thanks for having me.”

To me that phrase sounds like thanks for rescuing me from Indifference Island . . for this grand exposure, this handout to share what morsels I have . . . for yanking me out of the shadowy dullness of obscurity . . . giving a grateful beggar a big tip.

A friend of mine joked how that tired phrase sounds like something a man might say to a woman following a sexual encounter . . . thanks for having me.   

So, dear interviewees, let’s ditch that phrase “Thank you sooooooo much for having me.”

No!  No thank you.  You are experts, already somebody’s.  If anyone deserves thanks, it’s you!  You are loaded with important content, maybe even wisdom, which you graciously share for free on TV.

Thank YOU so much.  Thank You, for being a guest, an expert in your field.

So, when your CNBC host or whatever network or podcast host thanks you, it would be more appropriate and wiser to say, “you’re most welcome” or “my pleasure” or “nice to be here with you and share what I know.” 

Anything but “THANKS FOR HAVING ME.” 

Please put that phrase away into a chest up in an attic somewhere.  Next time when concluding a TV interview, smile confidently and say to the interviewer who’s thanking you:

“My pleasure,” making it sound like they were lucky to have you as a guest because you sure as hell know what you’re talking about.

Tom Madden is the proverbial word guy as one of his books suggests titled “Wordshine Man.”  His latest book is Planetary Lifeguard, Blowing the Whistle at Climate Change.  When not writing words and blowing whistles, he’s managing along with his resourceful daughter, Adrienne Mazzone, TransMedia Group, the PR firm he started when he left NBC where they thanked him for being a vice president, to which he responded “you’re welcome.” 

Related