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Unleash Your Inner Company with John Chisholm

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

08.03.17

Episode Summary

Today’s guest on The Successful Pitch is John Chisholm, the author of Unleash Your Inner Company. He has such an impressive background from MIT and Harvard and has coached thousands of entrepreneurs on how to be successful. He shares those secrets with us today. In fact, he said, “Passion is an attitude but perseverance is a behavior.” He does a deep dive into the psychology of growing your mind from the inside out. He really shares what he looks for when he hears a pitch as an investor. I think you’re going to get a lot of value into learning what it takes to reduce the risk by hitting certain milestones and showing an upside potential so that your pitch becomes irresistible. Enjoy the episode.

Listen To The Episode Here

Unleash Your Inner Company with John Chisholm

I am thrilled to have John Chisholm today as my special guest. John has an amazing background. He went to MIT. In fact, he’s now president of the MIT Alumni Association. From there, he went to Harvard. He was one of the early employees at Hewlett-Packard and Silicon Valley. He has an amazing book called Unleash Your Inner Company. He has also founded two companies. He co-founded a third. He sold a fourth company. He’s advised literally thousands of entrepreneurs across five continents. John, welcome to the show.

John, thanks so much for having me.

I have so much respect and insight for what you’re doing. You have such an amazing career and journey. Let’s start with this whole concept of you’ve been both an entrepreneur and an angel investor. Let’s just dive right in. What do you listen for when you hear a pitch?

Unleash Your Inner Company: Use Passion and Perseverance to Build Your Ideal Business

I think it’s helpful to have been an entrepreneur, when you’re both evaluating pitches and trying to be helpful to entrepreneurs, I listen very closely for a real unsatisfied customer need. Until I hear one, it’s hard for me to get very excited or to be very focused on the opportunity. So many entrepreneurs focus on their really cool technology rather than a real customer need. I like to say, I started my first company with a really cool technology for which there was no customer need. It took me six to nine months to let go of that cool technology and swap it in favor of something for which there was a real customer need, namely doing surveys on the internet.

My first company which I founded in 1992 was Decisive Technology which published the first software for automated surveys via email and later via the internet. Start with a real customer need, that way you know that your business will be addressing a real customer need. It’s okay to use your resources, including your technologies if you have some, to suggest real customer needs, but make certain that you’re satisfying one. In the book, I talk about ways to come up with a potentially infinite number of unsatisfied customer needs even just in the areas you’re passionate about and to test them and to confirm that they’re real.

How do you suggest somebody test that the problem is real? Do you have any ideas on that?

Yes. First of all, let me talk about how you come up with unsatisfied customer needs. Start with any product or service in an area that you’re passionate about. For example, you’re passionate about running. One of the products and services we runners use are running shoes. Then ask yourself, what are the limitations of that product or service? I can think of three for my running shoes. Number one, they start to smell after I’ve worn them too many times. Two, if I want to change the shoelaces to match the color of my outfit, it’s a hassle to thread and re-thread them every time, two laces of different colors. Three, the shoes don’t tell me how far I’ve run or how fast I’ve run and they should know that, shouldn’t they? Those are three possible customer needs.

I have to confirm that they’re real and unsatisfied. Real means that other people besides just me have the need that means talking to people, going online seeing if other people seem to have the need, doing interviews. Also, I have to confirm that they’re unsatisfied, which means that another product or service isn’t already satisfying them. That means seeing what products and services are currently available, going to shoe stores. If I can satisfy myself that they are real and unsatisfied, great. That’s an opportunity for me to come up with a possible solution to that need. Let’s say, I can’t find anyone who addresses the problem of changing shoelaces easily to match the color of my outfit. That’s an opportunity to be creative and maybe I can think of a way to let a set of shoelaces to snap on or off. For the other needs, the shoes that smell and the shoes that don’t tell me how far or fast I’ve run, there are obviously solutions for those footpads and sprays and so forth.

Then ask yourself, what are the limitations of those solutions? Sprays have to be done every day. Footpads have to be changed frequently. What if there were a way to go for weeks or months without having to use the spray or change the footpads? That would have some advantages over the current product. Now, I have a new potential customer need that is the leftover need from the original need that’s not fully satisfied by the product or service currently available. Similarly, for the shoes that don’t tell me how far or fast I’ve run, there are solutions to those. There are Fitbits, there are odometers and so forth that you can wear while you’re running, but those I have to put on and take off. What if there was a way to have it built into the shoes so that I didn’t have to worry about putting it on or taking it off? Then that’s another potential need.

You can see I started out with a single product or service in an area that I’m passionate about. It blossoms into a tree of potential unsatisfied customer needs that I can consider evaluating. That’s how you can get a potentially infinite number of unsatisfied customer needs from even just one product or service in an area that you’re passionate about.

Unleash Your Inner Company: Come up with unsatisfied customer needs.

That’s so helpful. I’m always telling everybody: when you pitch, paint a picture. You just did that for us, John. You talked about it blossoming into a tree and you showed us how each branch leads to another branch by this logical way of exploring what the problem is. You’re really getting into the head of a potential customer’s problem that they may not have even thought about. “Yeah, my shoes smell.” They accept it. If you can really figure out a way to prevent that, they would love it. That’s really helpful.

John, sometimes I hear from budding entrepreneurs, “What if my areas that I’m passionate about aren’t very business oriented?” Let’s say I’m passionate about long hot baths, kittens and comic books. None of these sound very businesslike, do they? But even in these areas, there are potentially an infinite number of unsatisfied customer needs.

Warm hot baths. People like to read, listen to music, talk on the phone when they’re in the tub. How about a floating waterproof case for my iPad or iPhone that lets me do those things when I’m in the tub? Kittens. They lose a lot of their cuddliness when they grow up to be cats, don’t they? What about a diet or genetic therapy that allowed a kitten to stay a kitten its entire life? There would be a lot of demand for that, wouldn’t there? Comic books. The hugely successful and popular tradeshow Comic Con in San Diego attracts about 150,000 people. Hugely profitable, people sign up, attend dressed up as their favorite comic book character. No matter what your passion is, even if they don’t seem very businesslike, like those three, there will be unsatisfied customer needs in those areas. You just need to find them.

I love that. I’ve actually been to Comic Con. Talk about finding people who are passionate. This enthusiasm, whether it’s somebody who rides a Harley and they get that tattooed or the Nike people that get the swish tattooed. If you’re that passionate and there’s a whole other group of people that are equally passionate about what you’re doing, that’s great advice, is to focus on solving that problem and you’ll solve other people’s problems. In your book John, you talk about using passion and perseverance as a positive feedback loop, which is just the very beginning of Unleash Your Inner Company. I would love to have you talk about, how we can get a positive feedback loop going in our own head?

What do we mean by positive feedback loop? I mean people or things that reinforce each other. Passion is an attitude, perseverance is a behavior. In many aspects of our lives, our attitudes and behaviors reinforce each other. If I deeply love an activity, you know how the hours can go by like minutes when I’m engaged in that activity. It’s easy to persevere in those circumstances. That’s an example of passion driving perseverance. Similarly, if I just stick with an activity long enough so I start to get good at it and then get better at it and then start to like it and then start to love it, that’s an example of perseverance driving passion.

If you can think of any aspect of your life where you’ve experienced this positive feedback between passion and perseverance, that’s probably a really good area to consider starting a new business. It could be in any realm of life. It could be in family, sports, some area of scholarship, travel. You name it.

[Tweet “Unleash Your Inner Company: Passion is an attitude, perseverance is a behavior.”]

You talk about the psychology of entrepreneurship, and certainly passion and perseverance is a big part of that. Is there anything else that you want to share with us about the importance of the psychology of entrepreneurship?

I have an entire chapter in the book called Growing Your Mind from the Inside Out. It’s really hard to start a business. You’ll run up against lots of obstacles. I talk about many of the obstacles I’ve run up against in the last 25 years starting businesses. I’ve had to lay off people, cut back salaries, factor receivables so I had enough cash to make payroll. At one point I reduced my salary to minimum wage. We had to move to smaller more modest offices. All of these are hard and humbling steps to take. You have to be very deliberate about building your own self confidence to be successful as an entrepreneur in my experience, or at least it’s helpful to do so.

In this chapter, Growing Your Mind from the Inside Out, I offer a number of techniques. One of the techniques I offer is this: If there is some aspect of yourself that you genuinely can’t change, find a way to view it as an asset. I use myself as an example. When I was in my early 30’s, I accepted the fact that I’m gay. Most people wouldn’t view that as an asset, at least from a business standpoint. I disagree. For me, it’s been an asset for at least five different reasons.

[Tweet “Unleash Your Inner Company: Growing Your Mind from the Inside Out”]

One, when you are growing up gay, you know unambiguously with absolute certainty that at least some of the world’s routine assumptions aren’t wrong. People routinely assume that guys are attracted to girls and vice versa. You know that it’s not universally correct. I think growing up gay has helped me not necessarily accept the status quo, think outside the box. That’s made me a better entrepreneur and executive. Two, it wasn’t socially acceptable to be openly gay when I was growing up and so at least some of the energy I might’ve put into dating, I put into sports, studying and career instead. 30 years later, I’m hugely enjoying the benefit of that early investment. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone to MIT if I hadn’t been gay.

Three, I’m not a minority in any sense that I can think of other than being gay, so it has sensitized me to what it’s like to be a minority. Four, when people see that I’m not trying to hide my sexual orientation, they can see I’m being honest with them and that helps build trust between us. Five, I think it further conveys that I have strength and reserve if I can be open about the fact that I’m gay.

Similarly, if there’s some aspect of yourself that you genuinely can’t change, find a way to view it as an asset. Set the bar very high. Don’t use this as an excuse to accept some aspect of yourself that you can change and would like to change. If you genuinely can’t change it, if you can find a way to view it as an asset, it’ll be hugely empowering for you as it was for me. That aspect of yourself will become one of your strengths.

A few years ago, I was telling this exact same story to a group of undergraduates in Guatemala in an auditorium. About half way back in the auditorium, a young man was sitting. As I spoke, he slowly made a fist and gently moved it up to his chest and pressed it against his chest. At first I thought it was a small gesture of agreement or support for what I was saying. Then, when I looked again, I could see he wasn’t making a fist at all. His hand had no fingers on it. I imagine he was saying, “This I cannot change. This is my strength.”

[Tweet “Unleash Your Inner Company: Turn your challenges into an asset.”]

How moving. I love what you said so much. I personally relate to it as I’m also gay. I know that before I was comfortable talking about that, it was always a secret that you’re keeping. In order for anybody to trust you, I’m a big believer that before anybody wants to work with you, hire you, invest in you, they have to trust you. The best way to be trustworthy is to be authentically who you are, because otherwise people feel like you’re hiding something and they can’t put their finger on it. If you’re comfortable with who you are, more times out of not then other people are too. They pick up your energy, whether you like yourself or not. Thank you for sharing that so much. It’s so great.

One of the questions I always get asked by people I’m helping with their pitch is, “Is this the right time for me to be looking for money? Do I have to have a lot of traction or can I get funded with just an idea and a minimum viable product?” What are your thoughts on that?

Unleash Your Inner Company: I definitely think there are right times in a startup’s life to raise money.

I definitely think there are right times in a startup’s life to raise money. They’re not when you’re running out of cash. Then you have no credibility or negotiating leverage at all. They’re not even when you’re about to run out of money. I would say that the right times are when you either, A) significantly in reduced risk or B) significantly increase your upside potential as perceived by the investor. Let me say a word or two about both of those.

First of all, significantly reduced risk as perceived by the investor. What do I mean by that? Each time your company reaches a milestone, such as a positive cash flow of revenue, your first customer, your first working prototype, each time you reach one of those milestones, you have eliminated a risk in the business. If you have positive cash flow, you’ve eliminated the risk that you can get revenue. If you have revenue, you’ve eliminated the risk that you can get customers. If you have customers, you’ve eliminated the risk that the market will accept your product. If your market is accepting the product, that eliminates the risk that your prototype works, and so forth. Each time you can reach one of those milestones you have significantly eliminated or reduced a risk to the investor.

If you’re about to achieve one of those milestones, that’s a particularly good time to raise money, both before and after. Let’s say you’re very confident that you’ll achieve one those milestones in the next 60 to 90 days, schedule a time to visit the investor. Layout your value-add, the customer need that you satisfy, your solution, your team, your track record and so forth. Say to them that in the next 60 to 90 days, you will achieve this milestone. Then, ask if you can come back 60 to 90 days later after you’ve done so. Then go ahead, achieve that milestone, go back and talk to the investor again. That starts building your credibility with the investor even before they become an investor.

I love that. You said two things that I really want people to have as a big take away. One, don’t wait until you’re running out of money to seek money because you’re desperate. Just like in dating, nobody wants to date someone who’s “desperate.” What you just said here is just so important. Investors invest in who you are, your integrity and how you think. John just laid out for you step by step what to do, to prove that you have integrity, that you do what you say you’re going to do because you have thought through something. That your word means something because then they know if they invest in you going forward and you say you’re going to deliver a milestone, odds are you will because you’ve already proven it to them.

Beautiful, John. Thank you so much. They may or may not invest in that round but they’ll remember, “Those were the guys who said that they were going to do X and who did X.” You’ve made a positive impression, they could well be investors on the subsequent round. That’s one set of times when it is a good time to raise money, in my experience. A second set of times are the converse of reducing risk, which is right after you increase upside potential.

One of the things I talk about in the book, Unleash Your Inner Company, is the bowling pin model. Think of the growth of your business over the next three to five years as a series of bowling pins. You knock down the first bowling pin, that bowling pin helps you knock down the next bowling pin, the next, and next and so forth. Each of the bowling pins is a customer or market opportunity. It could be a city. It could be a vertical market.

Let’s say you’re located in San Francisco. Your first bowling pin might be the region of San Francisco, where you live. Your next bowling pin might be the city of San Francisco. Then the next bowling pin might be Oakland, which is a nearby city, then Sacramento, then San Jose, then Los Angeles. Establishing a market presence and awareness and customer base in each of those cities will help you further penetrate the next city. These bowling pins could be vertical markets instead. If you’re in IT, maybe it’s accounting as an application for your software. Maybe it’s supply chain management, maybe it’s customer relationship management and so forth. You could grow that way.

Unleash Your Inner Company: What builds confidence in the investor’s mind that your company has upside potential is when it’s really credible.

What builds confidence in the investor’s mind that your company has upside potential is when it’s really credible, that by knocking down one bowling pin, it will indeed help you knock down the next bowling pin, the next and so forth. One way that you can help build that credibility is by showing that you’ve knocked down one bowling pin and it is helping you already start to knock down the next bowling pin. I’ve got a set of customers in one vertical market, maybe the markets are like retail, maybe they’re B2B customers in retail financial services, telecom and so forth. Maybe your initial set of customers is in financial services and you are expanding from that base into retail or into telecom or vice versa. The first few customers that you get in the telecom space or whatever the next bowling pin is, that builds the credibility that it really is true that by knocking down one bowling pin you can knock down many bowling pins.

Again, another really good time to raise money right before and after, when you’re very confident that the first customer or cluster of customers in the adjacent vertical market or whatever the market is will be knocked down. Let your potential investors know that you’ll be achieving that within 60 to 90 days. Go out and do it, then come back to them 60 to 90 days later and show them that you’ve done it. This technique is like a two-edge sword. If you succeed in doing what you set out to do and said you’re going to do, it is a huge win. If you fall significantly short of doing what you said you were going to do, that’s a big negative. You want to be very confident that you are going to achieve whatever it is you’re going to achieve in the next 60 to 90 days. If you need to wait a little bit longer to make absolutely certain that you’re going to do it, that is something you might well consider. All of this raises the question, how would I fund my business in the interim until I’m at a point to raise money?

In the book, I laid out three different ways to fund your business in the interim until you’re at a point where you can attract outside investment. They are, number one, living frugally yourself. In the book, I offered the example of my friend, Nick Winter, a successful entrepreneur here in San Francisco, who has reduced his physical possessions to exactly 99 things. He has one laptop, one cellphone, two pairs of jeans, one wedding ring and so forth. My list on 99 things is in the book. This is an extreme case of minimalist living, which seems to me is an emerging trend.

I know that I have experienced downsizing from a big spacious three-story town house in Menlo Park to a compact town house in the town of San Francisco seven years ago. When I did, I had a whole new sense of freedom from having to take care of day to day maintenance on my house. When I clean out a closet or my kitchen and free up space in the closets, I have a new set of freedom and spaciousness. I haven’t gone to the extreme that Nick has but I can certainly empathize with how simplifying your life and minimalist living frees up mindshare and money to invest in your business. In the book, I talk about how skipping Starbucks can save you $1,250 a year, which is enough to buy a very nice coffee machine with gourmet coffee for several employees for the first few months that you’re in business. Living frugally is one technique, and freeing up mind share, resources and cash to invest in your business.

Two is providing services. If there is some skill that you are uniquely skilled at and expert at, then potentially you can offer those services as a way to generate revenue to fund your business. For my second company, which was in enterprise feedback management, which means automating the customer feedback and surveys for corporations, we had learned about that field from my first company, Decisive. The second company was called CustomerSat, the website is still CustomerSat.com. We had early experience in doing surveys. For my second company, we used the product of my first company to do large scale surveys for corporations and used the earnings that we made from those services to fund the development of our platform for the second company.

Unleash Your Inner Company: Use whatever skills you have to generate cash to fund the development of your new technology.

You can do the same. Use whatever skills you have to generate cash to fund the development of your new technology. If the skills that you’re providing or the services you’re providing relate to the new business, so much the better. In fact, that’s the ideal case because there you’re not only generating funds, but you’re building customer relationships, you’re learning about customer requirements and all of that. You can fold it into the new company that you’re starting.

The third way is friends and family. If your friends and family see that you’re living frugally, see that you’re serious enough about your venture to provide services to fund it, then that will show them how serious you are about that new venture and make them receptive to consider investing in your new venture or lending to you for your new venture. Those are three techniques that you could use before you reach the point where you’re ready to either get crowd funding, angel investing or approach a venture capital firm.

That’s so helpful. Live frugally so that investors feel like you’re going to be good stewards of their money. Provide a service as a way to generate additional revenue for yourself in the interim. Especially if, let’s say, you’re really great at tech and that’s what you’re bringing to your start up, then you could probably get hired as a tech consultant. Those people that are hiring you could even become customers. I always like to say, if you really hit the jackpot, you come up with a startup idea that a customer becomes an investor because they love what you’re doing so much. Have you ever seen that or experienced that yourself, John?

Absolutely. The company I co-founded two and a half years ago, Pyze.com, their largest investor came to them directly through one of their customers. Incidentally,if any of your listeners are developing mobile apps, they should check out Pyze.com because the applet gives their mobile app a ton of customer intelligence, free of charge in the basic version of the product.

That’s great. Unleash Your Inner Company has received over 85 five star reviews on Amazon, soon to be 86 when I get on there. How did you come up with the name of your book? I’m always interested in that story of origin.

The catalyst for writing the book was a TED Talk. After I sold my last company in 2009, I was invited to talk to young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. I started out with a 30-minute talk and then a 90-minute talk, then a half-day workshop, and a full-day workshop. Then I was invited to give a TEDx Talk, which meant cutting it back to eighteen minutes. I had a full day of material. I had to figure out what was the most important for the eighteen minutes. That process of deciding what was most important and distilling the most important parts to eighteen minutes was so clarifying. I realized for the first time after I’ve done that I could turn this into a book. That TED Talk is a TEDxUFM, University of San Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala.

That was 2011, I already had a great deal of material to work with. Originally, the name of the talk was Release Your Inner Company but then I changed it to Unleash Your Inner Company because that seemed more powerful. I spent about a day a week in 2011, two days a week 2012. It was a full time activity by 2014. I finally submitted the book to my publisher in 2015. It was five years in the making. A labor of love. Probably on average about a half time activity over that five years. The book came out in October 2015. It’s now been out for almost a year and a half.

What’s the best way for people to follow you? Obviously, we’re going to put the link to buy Unleash Your Inner Company on Amazon. You have a wonderful website called JohnChisholmVentures.com. Your Twitter handle is just your name?

It’s @johndchisholm. The website for the book is www.UnleashYourInnerCompany.com. The website for my consultancy in angel investing practice is www.JohnChisholmVentures.com.

John, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your wisdom, your insight, your passion and your expertise on how we can all learn to unleash our inner company and make it happen with the passion and perseverance that you’ve clearly shown and continue to show in the way that you live your life.

John, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

My pleasure.

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Get Interview Connections with Jessica Rhodes

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

01.03.17

Episode Summary

Today’s guest on The Successful Pitch is Jessica Rhodes who is the founder of Interview Connections. She’s an entrepreneur that found a niche of helping people get booked on podcasts as a guest. She also helps podcast hosts find the best guest. She talks about how she figured out that that was what she was really passionate about. When she had her why, she took off. People really know that they can trust Jessica to find them the right guest, very similar to how investors trust Judy Robinett and I to find them the right startups to put in front of them to hear a good pitch.

Jessica has great insights today on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, how to get someone to pitch you in the right way. Most importantly, the catalyst connector that she is, talks about the chemistry that is so important in matching up people. Whether it’s getting somebody on the right show or in the case of a startup, getting them in the right room with the right investor.

Listen To The Episode Here

Get Interview Connections with Jessica Rhodes

Hello. Welcome to The Successful Pitch. Today’s guest is Jessica Rhodes, who is the founder and CEO of Interview Connections, the premier guest booking agency for podcasters and guest experts. She literally is the person that gets me on this amazing podcast. She’s an entrepreneur herself. I wanted to have her on because she knows how to rock the podcast from both sides of the mic. I have found a lot of startups who can get themselves on a podcast, get tremendous social proof for investors that what they’re doing is newsworthy and interesting.

Jessica is also the host of Interview Connections TV where each week she helps her viewers rock that podcast, as I’ve mentioned. She host three podcasts herself, Rhodes to Success, The Podcast Producers and The Parenting Rhodes. She was selected by Apple as a How to Podcast show in iTunes, and has a whole syllabus for a course about podcasting from Western University in Ontario. Jessica, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, John. I’m so excited to be here.

You are the expert on podcasting and entrepreneurship in particular. You grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. I want to hear how you became you, from a standpoint of how did you decide what problem you were going to solve and decide that podcasting and getting people on shows was the answer.

My dad is an entrepreneur. It’s in my blood in a way. When my husband and I started a family and I was pregnant with our first child, I was very committed to leaving my job and being a stay-at-home mom. My husband, being a nonprofit, one nonprofit income was not enough to support a whole family. I was talking with my parents who are both really supportive of me being that home mom. My dad said, “Why don’t you start a virtual assistant business and you could work from a home office, create your own schedule.” I really had no idea what that entailed. I didn’t know anything about the online business world. I was working in nonprofit, running a door-to-door field campus. I barely knew what Twitter was. Getting into online marketing and podcasting, this was all a whole new world.

I started as my dad’s virtual assistant and I was doing a lot of different tasks.

My dad said, “Listen,” because he was so supportive of me wanting to be a stay-at-home mom, “I’ll help you.” He has written a lot of books about business. He has several businesses. He’s a business coach. He said, “Read my books. I’ll be your first client.” I started as his virtual assistant and I was doing a lot of different tasks. I was doing his Pinterest marketing, creating infographics, client support work, general VA work. Then, in about April 2013, he said, “Why don’t you start getting me on podcasts? When I get interviewed, it’s a great way for me to get exposure to new people, connect with new followers and fans.” I said, “Sure.” I started just researching for business podcasts and really just figured it out as I went. He started referring a couple of his friends to work with me as well. As I was pitching podcasters, as I was making these connections, I started having hosts ask me about what I did.

I wasn’t really thinking like an entrepreneur at that point because my dad was basically my only client. I had a couple other VA clients, but I really felt like I got an at-home job. I didn’t think about myself as this authority figure and this expert. I was just doing something and somebody was paying me to do it. I started to get this light bulb where I wanted to make more money in my business. I wanted to be more efficient with my time because my son was a little baby, and he was starting to nap less. I’m like, “If I’m going to make any money, I need to change something.”

I talked with my dad. I realized that out of all the VA tasks that I was doing, booking podcast interviews was something that people were really interested in. I was getting a lot of interest and it was something that I enjoyed a lot too. He helped me figure out how to niche down and start InterviewConnections.com and have my main service be podcast interviews, and booking podcast interviews, finding podcast guests, and eventually also getting people on shows.

What you said there about niching down is something I really want to dive into, because I work with clients all the time and I tell them, “When you’re going to pitch an investor for funding …” One investor said to me, “Don’t try to boil the ocean. Start with a cup of water.” People forget that Amazon just sold books. When you are a specialist and have one thing that you do really well better than anybody else, then you can expand into other things, that really separates you from everybody else and all the other, at that time, VAs. You’re the specialist in getting people on podcasts. Your network becomes really valuable because you know how to do it.

Let me do a little exercise with you because I’m fascinated to hear your answers on this, as it relates to you as an entrepreneur. One of the things that investors will often ask people pitching them for money is, what’s the why behind your why? In other words, why are you so passionate about helping people who need to get on podcasts do this? It’s going to be more than just making money for your family because there’s a passion there. Can you tell us a little bit about what’s your why behind the why?

The why behind the why. The main reason, the why behind the why, I started to figure out back when I was niching down from being a general VA into podcast interviews, when my dad asked me, “Okay, out of all these tasks that you’re doing, what do you enjoy the most? What’s the most profitable? What’s in highest demand?” The reason I said I enjoy the podcast booking the most is because I’m bringing people together, like I am a connector. Some people call me a matchmaker for podcasters and guests. I absolutely love seeing the relationships that come out of an introduction that me or my team made. It’s so, so fun to watch.

I think it was in Chicago for Podcast Movement, I brought clients out to dinner. Two of my clients, they didn’t know each other before then, but they both came out to the client dinner. They are now accountability partners. Every Monday, they’re talking and it was just so great. I just love that. They are now such good friends and helping each other. That’s just one example of relationships and friendships that start because of how I brought people together. That’s really my big why. I’m sure there’s ways that I could be making more money or other businesses that I’m more profitable or something or easier, maybe not as labor intensive. John, I love bringing people together. I’m an extrovert too. I like to talk a lot. I’m pretty social. I love this business.

It comes across in your voice and it comes across the way you treat your clients, since I’m one, I know firsthand. I can’t emphasize that enough to everybody listening to this, how important it is that your personal passion come through when you’re pitching. Let’s give an example of that. Before we jump into that, I want to talk about what you’ve done for me personally, which is you’ve gotten me on some amazing podcasts as a guest from EOFire to even introducing me to someone who hosts a podcast about 3D printing. While you said, “You’re not the right guest for that podcast, she also happens to write articles for Inc Magazine and is interested in interviewing you.” I almost fell off my chair. Talk about relationships.

Now, I have a quote from Inc Magazine calling me The Pitch Whisper, which I ended up putting on my cover of my book. I’ve become great friends with her. The relationships, the way I see you, Jessica, because I’m all about helping people craft a tagline, something that makes you memorable, like if I’m The Pitch Whisper, you’re the Catalyst for Connections. You bring your special sauce, your chemistry. You know whose personality is going to click with who. Who’s going to be a good guest? Who’s going to be a good host? I think that little alliteration, Catalyst for Connection, takes it to another level of, “Oh, you have the magic alchemy to make that magic chemistry that happens between people, whether they’re dating or just really liking each other as friends and business come to life.” That’s really your secret sauce from my observation and experience.

I would definitely agree with that because it’s hard to explain to people. Obviously I get asked by potential clients or new clients, “How do you find the shows? How do you know they’re a good fit? How big is the audience?” I’m like, “I don’t know how big the audience is. I don’t know these certain things, but I know. I’m the connection catalyst.” I can tell when I look through their website, when I listen to the show, when I read their About section, I learn about the host. I can tune in and know pretty easily if two people are going to be a good match for each other in an interview or as friends or what have you.

That’s really what it’s all about when you’re pitching an investor, is you have to have that chemistry with them because they’re not just giving you money. They’re becoming a part of your culture and either it’s a good fit or not. That is so key to be able to tell upfront. Let’s talk about your expertise in pitching people to get them on podcasts and why it’s so important to have somebody else pitch you as opposed to you pitching yourself?

When you have somebody pitch you, when you have a booking agent who is representing you, it shows that you are at a certain level of success.

Number one, having somebody else pitch you is just good positioning. A lot of entrepreneurs forget that. They say, “I know I could do this pitching myself.” Of course you could, this is not rocket science. I’ll be the first to admit. It does not require a super advanced degree to be doing this. You need some persistence, some tenacity and some sales skills. Of course, you can do it yourself but it’s not worth your time. When you have somebody pitch you, when you have a booking agent who is representing you, it shows that you are at a certain level of success. If you are running a business and you’re spending time researching for shows, writing pitches, doing follow ups, that shows me that you’re not very busy in your business, which means you’re not very successful. People want to interview and be associated with people that are successful. It’s good positioning. Also, it’s hard to say what’s so great about yourself. It’s good to have a booking agent.

When I have a conversation with a new client, I say, “Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your story. What are you an expert in?” I hear things, just like you can plot taglines in people, John. You can see what makes them unique. I do that with my clients too. They’ll say something about their story. I’m like, “Oh, that’s something that a podcaster is going to be super interested in.” I can hear and know what is going to make them unique, because we book 400 interviews a month at Interview Connections. I know what pitches and what kinds of stories and guests podcasters want and which kinds of guests podcasters are like, “Okay, I’ve had enough of that already.” We bring this level of expertise to what podcasters actually want. Also, the connections too. We are already connected with thousands of podcasters that know us and trust us. When you’re doing it yourself, you don’t have all those connections.

I love what you said right there about knowing and trusting because that is what people have in the back of their head when they’re hearing any kind of pitch, a pitch to get somebody on the podcast, a pitch to fund your startup. The first one is, do I trust you? That’s a gut thing. Then it goes to the heart, which is, do I like you? Then it’s, do I know you and trust you to bring me good people?

That’s what I do in Crack the Funding Code with Judy Robinett, is we bring good people to the investors and they trust us. In this case, you are the trusted person that vets the guests. You are not going to put somebody on the show that’s not ready for that level of expertise to make sure that they are a good guests and give the audience some great takeaways and all that good stuff that makes for a great guest.

Let’s talk about the importance of getting on a podcast, regardless of the size of who’s listening. You alluded to it at the beginning there about social proof. Just like you said, if you have a booker booking you, it shows you’re successful. Getting on a podcast, what does that do for your credibility? Do you think in the world as social proof? How is it tying with social media? All that good stuff.

There’s a lot of benefits to being on a podcast. Number one, what people don’t talk about a whole lot, I just did a video on this. There’s a huge benefit for your SEO, for your search engine optimization. When you’re on a podcast, most likely you’re having a backlink back to your website. When you’re on a podcast, they’re putting your website link on their show note’s page. If you’re getting interviewed consistently, you’re continuing to get more links back to your website. That’s what’s going to bring you higher up in the search results. Regardless of how big the audience is to that podcast, you’re getting higher up in the search results.

Corey Coates and I just talked about this on my podcast, the episode that just came out today, about show notes. A lot more people prefer to read and will find your blog post to your show notes than will listen to your podcast. It’s great to have your link in the show notes and be on a podcast because it’s kind of a double whammy. You’re getting interviewed. People listening to the podcast hear you. But then you’re also in this blog post on the show notes page. My most viewed post on my blog website has 1.7000 views but only 200 downloads on the episode, on the podcast. A lot of people went through and read the content, but a small fraction of them actually wanted to hear the episode. That was a little bit of a tension.

People consume content the way they want. Some people don’t have time to read and they’d rather listen to it in the car or at the gym, and some people say, “I’d just rather scan the article for what I need from it not take the whole twenty minutes to listen.”

My point is, it’s repurposing content. You’re hitting two birds with one stone. You’re being on a podcast, but you’re also getting this content about your expertise is being written up in a blog post as well. The other thing is, a lot of the success stories and the ROI that happens with podcast interviews, it’s not because 200 people joined your email list the day your show came out. It’s because one person, two people, three people reached out to you and came to your live event or purchased your book, and then became a client. You don’t really need a huge audience to see results. You just need to be in front of the right audience.

I have a great story, John, that I would love to share, if we have a minute. Yann Ilunga hosts the podcast 360 Entrepreneur. He has some very complementary topics. He did the Podcast Success Summit. I had him on my podcast for an interview back in May. He gave me chance to plug his Success Summit and he was selling tickets for like $97. I think the idea was the Summit, you see it all free for a day and then you can pay a $100 to get the whole thing downloaded. Within 48 hours after his interview on my show went live, he sold five tickets at a $100 each. He made $500 in less than, I think it was like between 50 and 75 downloads at the time. Five people out of an audience of say 60 people. He didn’t need be to have an audience of 10,000 downloads. Because he was in front of the right audience, he had five people take action, and he made $500 for that 30 minutes he was on my show. I would say that was worth his time.

I love it. That’s a good ROI. That’s for sure. Let’s shift gears a little bit. Because you have such an expertise in virtual assistance, a lot of startups are looking for a virtual assistant on a part time basis to help them grow their business, where they can’t afford somebody full-time. What advise do you have for someone who’s an entrepreneur of when should they get a virtual assistant? How much should they pay them? What should they give them to do?

Virtual assistants, otherwise I call them Vas, are very, very helpful because there’s a lot of tasks in your business that are not worth your time, but you don’t necessarily want to take on a full time W2 employee in your business. There’s this amazing movement in this country where people are very entrepreneurial, people are starting their own businesses. A lot of people are starting virtual assistant businesses. Where they’re either doing it full-time as a full-blown business or they’re taking on clients on the side, managing social media accounts, creating graphics while being a home-based stay-at-home mom. The first thing you want to do, when you think you need a virtual assistant, you probably do. It’s like if you’re thirsty, you probably should have been drinking already.

It’s too late. Yes, you’re already dehydrated.

If you’re feeling like, “I think I’m busy. I think I need a virtual assistant. I think I need some help,” you do.

If you’re feeling like, “I think I’m busy. I think I need a virtual assistant. I think I need some help,” you do. The next thing you need to do is, before you start putting out the word, “I need a VA,” you need to know what tasks you need done. I’ll give you a quick tip, something that I did. To write down a list of everything you do takes a lot of time. In addition, you’re doing your work, you’re also are writing it down. I use the voice memo app on my phone. For two days, I said everything that I did. Literally turned on the voice memo app, checked email, dealt with this billing issue. I just did that. Then I sent that audio recording to Rev.com and they transcribed it for a dollar a minute. I probably paid $3 to transcribe it. Then, I send that to Kate, who is now my executive assistant. When we are talking, I said, “Kate, this is everything I do. Can you help me with this?” She goes, “Yes, I can take all of that off your plate.”

Depending on what you need done, you probably want to work with somebody who has experience as a virtual assistant because while you may pay a virtual assistant with experience more per hour than you would somebody who is just getting started as a freelancer, the person who’s just getting started as a freelancer, you’re going to pay a lot more in your time telling them what do to, telling them how everything works.

There’s the gold right there. Jessica just gave it to you everybody. Pay somebody what their worth. If they can do something in half an hour for twice the price versus somebody for half the price that takes two hours. You come out ahead and you’re more productive, which is the whole point, yes.

I just definitely recommend people to find a virtual assistant by way of referral, somebody that can say, “Hey, I know this person is good. I’ve work with them.” Most of my business mistakes come from hiring virtual assistants or people that weren’t quite right, because you can definitely waste time and money by bringing somebody on your team who’s not a good fit. That’s also stressful, having to deal with that. Sticking with referrals is sure fire, it’s better.

That’s one of the key things startups have to do, is create a great team, and that’s one of the key factors that investors look at when they decide which startup to fund. Who’s on the team? How well do they get it long? All that stuff. If you’re going to use that same criteria for finding a tech person or somebody for your advisory board, referrals and warm introductions are everything. You need a warm introduction to get a virtual assistant. You need a warm introduction to get in front of the right investor. It just continues and continues.

Let’s go back to you being such a catalyst connection expert. What tips do you have for people who are trying to find someone to join their advisory board, trying to figure out if this investor is the right person for their startup, or if this VA, virtual assistant, is that right person. Do you have any tips on how to measure that chemistry besides just start from a referral, that helps a lot. Is there something else that you look for in people’s characteristics?

It’s such a good question and it’s so hard too when it’s a virtual working relationship because you can’t be in the same room with them. For me, the judgment of that chemistry starts from the moment you interact with them. Whether it’s them responding to a post about you looking for somebody or if it’s you reaching out to them via Upwork. The moment you guys first start connecting, how fast do they respond to your emails? How did they write their emails? Are they professional? How did they treat you as their client? How friendly are they? Some people are super buttoned up and they don’t want to chitchat or anything. I know for me, I need somebody that’s going to be friendly because I’m super talkative. If I have somebody that only wants to do business and nothing else, it will probably be too awkward. I need somebody who’s going to be responsive. You have to know your personality and what would work well within your team dynamic.

It is like the million-dollar question, John. You have to be listening to your gut the entire time. You know that old tip, hire slow, fire fast. It really, really is true. You don’t want to make a decision too fast. Having conversations, getting on Skype, Skype video, just getting to know them. As you’re having a conversation, again, listen to your gut. Do you think this is a good fit? For a virtual assistant and somebody that you’re thinking about working with you, don’t just say, “Great, we’re working together and indefinitely.” Start with the project. Say, “Okay, I’ll have you start by doing this.” Have there be an endpoint. Then if they do a couple of projects that’s going really well, then you can say, “Great. Now, let’s commit to working together for a while.” It’s like dating before you get married. Ask them out on a date. See if it goes well, ask them out on another one, and don’t commit too soon. Then, if it doesn’t go well, stop it fast. Get rid of them because red flags rarely go away.

[Tweet “Hire slow, fire fast.”]

In dating or in business. That’s great information. We’re going to tweet that out, “Hire slow, fire fast,” and all that good stuff. Next thing I wanted to ask you is, because you’re so good at this, when someone has a startup business, one of the things investors really take a deep dive into is, “Okay, you’ve gotten a little bit of traction. You have some clients. What do you do to keep those clients happy and renewing as opposed to having to constantly find new clients to keep the revenue coming in?

Client retention is so important. I put way more focus on client retention than I do client acquisition. First of all because referrals from your happy clients are way better than cold leads. Client retention is super important. We have a whole retention strategy at Interview Connections. I have somebody on my team, Sue, she’s our director of client happiness. A huge part of her work with me is implementing a gratitude program. This is what we do, when a client signs up, they get a welcome package in the mail, by priority mail. They’re going to get something two days after they sign up in the mail. It has a tip sheet, a handwritten note card, thanking them for joining. A couple little goodies just so they have something there. Then, every few months they’re getting something else in the mail, whether it’s a free book, a business book or a t-shirt, we have Rock the Podcast t-shirts. We send brownies out from SendOutCards every few months.

Yes, I just got some.

Just stuff to keep saying, “Hey, we’re really happy that you’re working with us. Thank you so much.” We started doing these awards. I don’t know if you got one yet, John. They’re just these certificates.

Yes, I did. I did get one.

It makes people smile. I think that a lot of business owners think they need to be sending out these expensive gifts. While you do want to accurately thank your clients, a handwritten note sometimes goes a much longer way than some expensive bottle of wine sent from your assistant. Just reminding people, “Hey, we’re thinking about you. We’re really happy that you’re a client.” All of that, we do that. Another part of my retention, John, is I am a content creating machine. I really focus on creating content for my clients.

For example, one episode of my podcast that I did recently was Your Roadmap To Podcast Interview Success. I tried to e-mail that link to that podcast personally to as many of my clients as I could, really encouraging them to listen to it. I’ve actually seen my client retention increase a lot since I have been focusing my podcast episodes on topics that are helping my clients be more successful with their podcast interviews. I know when they’re more successful with their podcast interviews, they’ll stay with me longer. That’s a huge part of it.

You’re giving them media training in addition to getting them booked. It’s what it looks like to me.

Exactly. That was a huge light bulb for me over the last six months or so. People pay Interview Connections to get booked, but the only reason they’re going to stay is if it actually works for them, and there’s so much more that they need. They need media training, they need to learn about marketing, they need to know about how to work with a virtual assistant because they can’t do it all on their own. I’m doing blogs, videos, podcasts, all about that. In my intake calls now, I say this directly, “I highly encourage you to become a student of me so I can teach you how to do better.” I have not had many clients canceling. The retention has gone up since I’ve really put a focus on all that.

[Tweet “How to have a gratitude program to keep clients happy and stay with you.”]

That’s fantastic. We’re going to tweet that out, “How to have a gratitude program to keep clients happy and stay with you.” It’s really great. Do you have one little last tip you can give? If someone is fortunate enough to get to work with you and you get them on a podcast that can help them with relationships and exposure and social proof, what’s one tip you would say that makes a great guest on a podcast?

Provide value. I know that sounds super general and we hear that all the time, provide value. What does that actually mean? You really have to get in a mindset of serving first and being a giver and just focus on making that podcast the best it could be. Be a giver, be someone that’s providing value to that show. I say that because a lot of people go into podcast interviews, especially when you’re viewing it as a marketing strategy for your business, and you’re thinking a lot about like, “How is this going to grow my business? How’s this going to grow my list?” You really need to flip that switch and think about, “How am I going to help the podcast grow their audience? How am I going to make this show as valuable as I can make it?” Really focus on quality, compelling content and you will attract people to you.

[Tweet “Provide value and compelling content when you’re a guest on any show.”]

That’s great. Quality, compelling content. That’s it, people. Right there. Figure out how you can give value whenever you’re asked to be a guest on anything. Jessica, how can people follow you? How can they find out more about getting you to get them on a podcast? Or if somebody wants to start a podcast and get guests, they can get you to help them make all that happen, what’s the best way to do all that?

If you go to JessicaRhodes.biz that is my main home base on the web. It has my blog, podcast, videos. If you click on the Work With Me tab, you can learn about Interview Connections and how we get people booked on podcast.

Fantastic. It’s been wonderful having you on. Sharing your own entrepreneurial journey, how to pitch to get people to really understand why they’re the right fit. That’s the secret to getting funded as well. Thanks, Jessica.

Thanks, John.

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Shark Tank Pitch Secrets with Kevin Harrington

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

22.02.17

Episode Summary

Today’s guest on The Successful Pitch is none other than Kevin Harrington, one of the original judges on Shark Tank. If anybody knows what it takes to have a good pitch, it’s Kevin Harrington. He’s literally heard over 50,000 pitches in the many years he’s been doing this, from listening to pitches for infomercials to listening to pitches on Shark Tank. He has a really great key here which is that, “Consistency is the ultimate motivational tool.” He said, “When you’re out there, you need to show the investors how they’re going to get their money back.” He gives an example of exactly the kind of pitch he would like to hear in order to get him to say yes. He said, “You need to test before you invest.” He gives us great insights into what a magical transformation is that he is looking for when he hears a pitch.

Listen To The Episode Here

Shark Tank Pitch Secrets with Kevin Harrington

Hi. Welcome to The Successful Pitch podcast. Today, I am thrilled to have Kevin Harrington. You probably know him as one of the original Shark Tank judges. He has been so successful in so many different areas. He has written multiple books, one called the Key Person of Influence, and he is definitely a person of influence. He is known not only for his expertise on Shark Tank, but he is the inventor of the infomercial, the As Seen on TV pioneer. Now, he’s involved with Quantum Media, which is a digital media agency. He hears so many pitches. He’s going to give us insights into what makes a great pitch. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Hey, John. You said a mouthful there, thank you for all that.

I’ve been a big fan of yours for multiple years. I’ve watched a lot of your clips on television and your areas of expertise. I always like to go back to someone’s story of origin. Did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I was lucky. I grew up one of six kids in Cincinnati, Ohio. My father was an entrepreneur and he always said, “Kevin, I want you to be an entrepreneur, own your own business, control your own destiny.” Now, my mother, her father was in banking, so she came out very conservative, “Oh no, I’d really like for you to be a doctor or a lawyer.” They struggled a little bit. The good news is I have two older sisters. One married a doctor, one married a lawyer. I got to be the entrepreneur.

[Tweet “Shark Tank Pitch: Consistency is the ultimate motivational tool.”]

Everybody filled the different dreams of your parents, so you got to do your own expertise there. One of the things that you’ve recently written about in Forbes is that, “Consistency is the ultimate motivation tool.” I’d love to have you talk about that.

I think that when I look at the infomercial business and I look at the infomercials space, that is an industry of consistency. We take Tony Little, who goes on in HSN and gives his pitch. Then, he hones it. Every time he comes on, he has to be consistently the same. He comes back week after week, month after month, year after year, and we’d take that infomercial and it continues that whole path, all around the world. When I get involved with products and companies and people like the Tony Littles of the world, I get involved once they have reached that level of knowing what the consistency of that pitch is and how powerful it is. Then we capture it on tape, put it up in front of millions of people and take it around the world.

Shark Tank Pitch: It’s a much more authentic world in the world of marketing and business today than it was even ten years ago.

Yes, consistency is important. That’s in a product but also running in the business. It’s the same thing. Why is McDonald’s so successful? It’s the special sauce. They give you the same thing. No matter where you go, you’re going to get that same quality little cheeseburger, whatever it is you’re getting. That’s why franchising works. Ultimately, successful businesses are good because they deliver on a promise of consistency. It’s important. People today, they don’t mind paying a little extra or the right price for something, whatever the deal might be. But they expect to get the same thing each and every time. I think, it certainly is as the millennials are coming out. They don’t want to be messed with. It’s a much more authentic world in the world of marketing and business today than it was even ten years ago.

I think we can use this as a through line for the whole episode because consistency is so important in what you’re doing with Quantum Media. When you’re talking about helping businesses increase their conversion rates and use social media and all these other digital tools to create a brand, it’s so important that brand would be consistent.

Absolutely. Let’s put it this way. In the world of marketing, when we first started, I didn’t even know what an infomercial was, we didn’t call it infomercial, we’re just putting them up. But it got down to where we were running our shows, looking for consistent dollar per phone call. We had an allowable with the station where we said, “Okay, we’re going to let you run this show and we need to get $10 for every time the phone rings.” That’s our allowable, that’s our consistency.

Shark Tank Pitch: If you’re not consistent in the world of digital, it’s even a bigger problem today.

In the world of digital marketing, it’s pretty much the same thing. If you’re going to go on Facebook and you’re going to use affiliates and you’re going to do different things, you have to be able to provide consistent everything. Because if you’re shipping your product within 48 hours and that’s consistent, and all of the sudden you have a delay on inventory and you’re shipping in three or four weeks. Your returns are going to go from 5% to maybe 20%. If you’re not consistent in the world of digital, it’s even a bigger problem today. In the old days, we could say at the end of an infomercial, “Hey, call the number, we’ll ship it within four to six weeks.” Can you do that in today’s world?

No. Not with the drones in Amazon and everything. That’s funny.

“Did you mean four to six hours or four to six days?” Don’t give me four days. I want this in 48 hours. The world expects authentic consistent performance. They just don’t allow for the alternative anymore.

It’s all about giving people an expectation that you can meet and then being consistent with meeting those expectations. Because the minute you lose credibility in an infomercial, on what you’re promising your clients from Quantum Media, or what the ad is promising people if they click on it that they don’t get, then everything goes out the window. Now, you have heard so many pitches. Let’s talk about of course your experience with Shark Tank, how did Mark Burnett pitch you to be a judge?

I’m going to tell you that in one second. I got to finish one point you just made. In today’s world, with the star system of rating people’s products and stuff, that is the other reason why consistency is so important. Because in the old days, you could ship something, if it wasn’t perfect, people didn’t have a way to complain other than call the number and say, “You know what? It’s not exactly what I wanted.” Now, you get one or two stars, you get yanked off the air, you get yanked off a website. You’ve got to be consistent. We’ll close that subject down.

I love that loop. Thank you. Even an Uber driver gets rated now, so everybody gets rated.

I was sitting there. I had done about 300 or 400 infomercials with Tony Little and George Foreman and Jack LaLanne and the juicer and all these different fancy shows and things. Taking them all around the world, built a public company with $500 million in sales and had done literally billions across the board. One day, Mark Burnett was on the line and he’s like, “Hey, Kevin. This is Mark Burnett. I’m a TV producer.” I said, “Mark, I know exactly who you are. I’m in your industry.” He said, “Look, I got a new reality show I’m doing. Would you come out to LA? I want you to meet my team and tell you what we’re up to. It’s something I want to see if you might be interested.”I said, “Mark, what an honor to get this phone call. I appreciate it. Thank you. But any kind of heads-up you could give me so I can be thinking about it? Is there any news on it yet?”He said, “No, it’s coming out but we haven’t shot it yet. It’s called Shark Tank. Don’t worry, just come on out here. I’ll tell you more about it when you get out here.”

I said, “Mark, wait a minute. I’m not sure that this is going to be for me. I do know you do some crazy things to people on that Survivor Island show. I don’t know about a show called Shark Tank. What are you going to do to me?” He thought about it and said, “Look, it’s not crazy like that. It’s a business show, Kevin.” That’s when I said, “If it’s a business show, I’m interested, if you’re involved Mark.” My wife said, “How is Shark Tank a business show?”

It was kind of funny. Think about this. When I was shooting Shark Tank, nobody knew what it was. I tell my wife, “I’m heading out to LA. I’m shooting Shark Tank.” She says, “What are you going to do?”I said, “I’m going to be investing money.” She said, “Wait a minute, they’re not paying you? You have to pay them?” “That’s how it works, yes.” She said, “How much are you going to invest?” I said, “I don’t know. It could be hundreds of thousands, it could be millions.” She said, “When would we get that money back?” I said, “I don’t know, maybe never.” She said, “Why do you want to be on this show?”

[Tweet “Shark Tank Pitch: I’ve heard over 50K pitches over the years.”]

When you think about it, I was investing one of the first deals I did, I’d put a half a million into a company. She closed the doors six months later. It was a very risky endeavor and I was one of the original sharks in putting money up and wheeling and dealing and all that. I think the bottom line is this, once we got distribution, once it was on the air, once it got the buzz, then everybody understood. “Okay, there’s the Shark Tank show. Yes, I understand. Kevin’s on that show called Shark Tank.” Then, it started paying off for me. Much like why are we doing a podcast today. I’ve taken now 50,000 pitches over the last 30 years. This is why Mark Burnett wanted me, because I had taken so many pitches before I’ve even got on Shark Tank that I was an experienced pitch taker, if that’s the right way to say. I go to tradeshows every week somewhere. I’ll do 30 tradeshows this year. I’ll invest in products in every show that I go to, whether it’s the pet show or the fitness show or the beauty show or the golf or the toy fair or the house wares or the hardware. That’s what I do for a living and that’s what I love to do.

The one thing I can tell you, John, is that I have learned what it takes to give a good pitch because I’ll sit there in a day, I took 96 pitches in one day. Just think about this, do five minutes times 96, it’s 500 minutes, and do it back to back to back, it’s an eight hour a day and beyond, and there was time in between. Sit there for eight to ten to twelve hours and take pitches, you’re going to learn a thing or two when you get to 47 and you think you’ve taken 500. You’re ready for a little break in the action and you’re ready for a good pitch. I learned a thing or two about good pitches. That’s what I love sharing with people right now. That’s part of my DNA.

I’ve been called The Pitch Whisperer^R because that’s equally something I’m passionate about as well. I love helping people become great story tellers, and you and I are on the same page. I’ve heard you talked about the need for a pitch to have a magical transformation. Can you describe what that is for you?

I’m in a very visual business, in the world of as seen on TV products. If it’s Tony Little in fitness, we want to see people losing weight. We want to see people getting stronger. If it’s acne, we want to see their bad skin get cleared up. Just think about it. If it’s a kitchen gadget, we would take a little gadget and turn an apple into a bird, “Wow, what was that? That was pretty amazing.” The bottom line is this magical transformation sells. It’s before and after, before and after. It’s visual, it’s demonstrable, and it works. We know that it does.

[Tweet “Shark Tank Pitch: Magical transformation sells.”]

People ask me a lot of times, and you’re the expert to ask this question to. How real is it on Shark Tank compared to when somebody pitches someone like yourself in front of an Angel group? Because I know you’re involved with the Angel Investor Network as well. The contrast obviously is quite different, but I’d love to hear your answer on TV versus reality.

Look, the one thing that I would always say, Shark Tank is a great show but Mark Burnett is a television producer and he looks for ratings. He’d come down halfway through a day and say, “Nobody has invested any money, what’s going on here? If we’re going to have good television, we’ve got to have some deals.” We’d say, “Mark, you want good television, but we want good deals.” There’s a mix there. We could make fun of people or whatever, which I never really particularly wanted to do that. I was more of a constructive guy. Mr. Wonderful, that’s his brand, to make fun of people. That’s okay. He built his brand on that. Me, I like to empower entrepreneurs.

I would say this, that Shark Tank was about making good TV and getting good ratings and getting lots of viewership. They’ve done a good job of that. Along the way, you’ve got to have a mix of some good deals, or the sharks aren’t going to be interested. I’d be sitting there and somebody would come out with something that you just knew. They were looking for ten grand, for 20% of their company, they haven’t even started and it’s this crazy idea, and you just knew this one that it was just made for television.

Do you think that Mark Cuban, who owns a multibillion dollar enterprise and the Dallas Mavericks, is interested in really investing ten grand in one of these teeny little deals? It’s made for TV that they had to do, whereas when we’re pitching equity deals like Angels network and some of these things, these are hardcore deals where we want to see research. We want to see competitive analysis. We want to see exit plans. We want to see the risk analysis where we can really get into the hardcore crunch of the deal.

I did dozens of deals on Shark Tank and I know Cuban’s done probably, I think I read an article that he had done about 35 or 40 deals. He said a third of them are making some money or in business, a third of them are out of business and don’t know it, and a third of them are never going to make it and are virtually done. Two-thirds were done almost and just selling and not really understanding that they really don’t have a business.

Shark Tank Pitch: People forget, when they come on Shark Tank, it’s not really about them. It’s about how do they get the shark to want to write the check.

I think that’s probably not too far off the investor rule in investing in Angel-kind of deals, is if you can get a third of your stuff to work, that’s probably pretty good. However, I wonder how many of the third that are still in business, as Mark says, are actually going to have any kind of an exit to where he might get his money back even. That’s really the ultimate thing. People forget, when they come on Shark Tank, it’s not really about them, it’s about how do they get the shark to want to write the check. That’s the perspective people pitching a lot of times forget. They’ve got to get the shark to write the check. It’s more about understanding really the motivation of the shark to want to be your partner.

Would you say, for someone like yourself who has heard as many as 96 pitches in one day, that having a really compelling story is a way to get people to standout out of all those pitches? You remember the story more than the product, typically?

I’ll say this. I think the story is important, absolutely. I want to hear the story, but at the end of the day, I focus on a couple of things. I want to know, is there an exit strategy, because one of the challenges is this. If it’s a private company, let’s say somebody wants to have half a million dollars for X percent of their private company. There is never a distributions in these small companies. They always need more money. Here’s my half a million, I’m not going to get it back for a long time unless you sell the company or go public. I want to know that there’s an exit strategy.

This is the other trick that I talk about, and Mr. Wonderful uses this one quite a bit. Is there a way to accelerate the pay back to the shark? When I say shark, to the investor. I’ll give you an example. If somebody says to me, “Look, I want your half a million. I’ll give you 20% of my company, but I’ll give you 100% of the profits until you get all your money back. Now you’re whole. Now you own 20% for the rest of your life. You don’t have to be worrying every day, “Where’s my money? Where’s my money?” You got your money back right away. Now, you can focus on building the business to the exit.

I tell people to always focus on getting that money back to the shark. If you’d notice, O’Leary, in many cases is talking about, “Okay, you’re a donut business. I want 50 cents for every donut you sell,” as a way to monetize his investment. That’s because he realizes that he’s going to be riding these people like crazy if he just has equity and he’s never seeing any distributions. But if he’s getting 50 cents back on every donut sold, he’s getting a distribution on a weekly basis and having the chance to have equity also.

I love it because not only does the investor get their money back sooner than the exit strategy, but also it takes the pressure off the founder not to have an exit strategy until they’re really ready because the investors already made their money.

Exactly. In all of the years of watching and doing Shark Tank and being there myself for 175 of my own segments, never did one person ever actually lay it out to me, the shark, “Hey, look. I’m so focused on you to get your money back fast. My goal as the entrepreneur here is to tell you that I’ve got a great business, here’s my plan, here’s my execution, here’s my team. But my goal is to get you your money back within one year, and this is how I’m going to do it.” If somebody came with that storyline, that’s going to be powerful pitch.

It’s really about showing empathy for the investor as opposed to what you need, isn’t it? I love that, Kevin.

I’ll give you an example. I had a company I got involved with. They needed $20 million. We went out and did a raise. They said, “Would you help us go on the road show?” I said, “Absolutely.” They said, “Look, give us a couple of weeks up in New York. We’re going to have people coming in one at a time, have a couple of group meetings. We’ll have you, if you could. There’s a couple of billionaires as part of this, if you could maybe go and sit in their big building that they own at the corner of 15th and Madison or something. We’ll make a couple of appearances here and there.” I made 90 something pitches over that two and a half week period of time.

Shark Tank Pitch: What is it that you like? What have been some of your most successful investments?

We made 90 something pitches to individual investors. The first thing that I did was sat, talked, got to know them for a few minutes. What is it that you like? What have been some of your most successful investments? They would instantly tell me what it was going to take for them to get the money. “This is what I’ve been doing. When I invested in this deal, I love it. I ride it out for years, and boom, boom, boom.” They would basically, within five minutes, tell me what it was I needed to do to convince them that we might have the right investment for them. Sometimes, you’ve just got to sit and listen.

It also sounds like you’re really smart in asking the investors before you even pitched what their criteria is of what makes them say yes. Also, you get them in the mindset of remembering a positive experience before you even pitch, which I think is also very clever.

Exactly. Because on Shark Tank, the advantage that people have today is they can watch all the Shark Tank segments, and they see what Barbara is looking for, what excites O’Leary, how to make those pitches. But when you’re one-on-one with an investor you just met for the first time, how are you going to pitch them? You’ve got to get in their head real fast. That’s what I like to do.

Kevin, one of the key things I know is so important to investors like yourself is, who’s on the team? Recently, I interviewed Laura Wagner of Digitzs. She put together such an impressive team of people from Apple and PayPal and Google, plus herself. Is that a key factor for you when you’re looking at a company that’s pre-revenue and maybe even pre-minimum viable product, is will they have a great team?

Yes. There are various things that I do look for. If someone says to me, “What is the one thing that an entrepreneur really needs to do to be successful?” I say, “They’ve got to have passion and vision and all that. But they need to surround themselves with experts and a dream team that supports their strengths and weaknesses, and more supports their weaknesses than strengths.” I think at the end of the day, Laura surrounded herself with some amazing people and was very, very successful in doing that. What was interesting is that when she first tried to raise some money via crowdfunding, she had some challenges. The bottom line is, it landed soft in the first part and then when we brought the shark stuff and brought more of this dream team aspect to the table, it has super charged what she was doing. The bottom line is we had some very powerful stuff happen as the dream team came together.

You’ve had your pulse on success for so long, from being on the cutting edge of what’s going on in infomercials, being one of the first Shark Tank judges when there was a lot of risk for you, it obviously paid off. Now, you continue to invest in a lot of startups. Let’s talk about where you see the future with what you’re doing with Quantum Media. What is it about that that you feel is so exciting and has so much growth, and how can people possibly use Quantum Media, and who are you targeting?

What’s happened is there’s been a disruption in a lot of industries. Uber has disrupted taxis and Airbnb is disrupting hotels. Not that they’re putting all these out of business, necessarily. They’re tightening up some of these industries. The TV industry has been disrupted itself. There is 50% fewer viewers on TV. By the way, there is big financial drain in the world of television right now. ESPN is losing millions of viewers every single year. ABC owns ESPN and Disney, they’re hurting because of this. What’s happening is, where do the eyeballs go? If they’re not watching TV, they’re watching digital. They’re on digital. They’re on Facebook. They’re on Pinterest. They’re on Instagram.

The bottom line is that there’s this mass exodus to other places. What do I do? I follow the eyeballs. Quantum Media, what we’ve done, five years ago, it was 80% TV, 20% internet digital. Now, I’m 80% digital, 20% TV. We’re doing campaigns for major corporations, for products across the board. We call it a test before you invest kind of a format and do a lot of stuff long before we go to TV, because TV is so expensive. Quantum Media is our new baby. We shoot very inexpensive videos, test them up on social media channels to see what the results are before we go to the next steps. It’s the new way for us. Digital is without a doubt the future in my mind for not only testing products but also rolling them out and, as you started off this conversation, getting the consistency you need as an entrepreneur.

[Tweet “Shark Tank Pitch: Test before you invest.”]

Nice. We’re going to tweet that out. I love that line, test before you invest. What a great sound bite that is. That’s fantastic. I know that people are probably going to want to follow you on social media. Your handle is @HarringtonKevin. You have thousands and thousands of people listening to your advice. I just want to personally thank you for being such an advocate and inspiration for so many people, myself included.

John, it’s been a pleasure to be here today. Thanks for having me. Keep the pitches coming for both of us. I love to take the next home run pitch. I love every single day when I wake up because I never know what I might be pitched that day. That’s what keeps my days exciting, is knowing that I’m going to be hearing some cool new things. I look forward to doing some more business with you. Good luck in your podcast ventures and taking new pitches.

Thanks a lot, Kevin. I appreciate you being on the show.

Thank you.

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