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Restoring The Soul Of Business With Rishad Tobaccowala

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

01.06.22

The business world is changing, with AI and data-driven systems becoming more common. With these changes happening all around us, how do we keep the soul of business alive? John Livesay teams up with Rishad Tobaccowala, the author of Restoring the Soul of Business, to gain insight on how businesses can survive and thrive on these changes. Rishad discusses how to use storytelling to sell your services or products and why your vision can’t be captured using just numbers. Tune in for more on using your tools to capture the soul of your business.

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Listen to the podcast here

Restoring The Soul Of Business With Rishad Tobaccowala

This episode’s guest is Rishad Tobaccowala, the author of Restoring the Soul of Business. He talks about when you combine the spreadsheet with the story, you have success and how your vision cannot be captured in a number. Enjoy the episode.

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This episode’s guest is Rishad Tobaccowala, who is an author, speaker, teacher and advisor with decades of experience specializing in helping people, organizations and teams reinvent themselves to remain relevant in changing times. He specializes in unleashing talent and turbocharging productivity by delivering perspectives, points of view, provocations and plans of action, but no PowerPoints.

His bestselling book, Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data was published globally by HarperCollins and focuses on helping people think, feel and see differently about how to grow their companies, their teams and themselves in these transformative times. The Economist Magazine calls it perhaps the best book on stakeholder capitalism and Strategy Magazine named it among the five best business books and Marketing Book of the Year. His weekly Thought Letter, The Future Does Not Fit into the Container of the Past, is read by over 25,000 leaders every week. I’m one of them. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. It’s great to be here.

You have such an impressive scope and understanding of data and generosity. I call it the toggling back and forth of soft and hard skills. I find it very rare that one person is an expert in both. That’s one of the reasons I was so excited to have you share these abilities to connect dots in a way that I haven’t heard anybody else do it before. Before we get into all the wisdom that you have and your wonderful book, let’s go back in time a little bit to your own story of origin. You can go back to childhood, school or wherever you want. How did you get into this concept that someday, you’re going to be a thought leader on the soul of business?

The good news or the bad news is I had no clue when I started this journey and where it would end up. If I had started saying, “I’m going to be a thought leader on the soul of business,” my sense is people would have put me in a crate and shipped me in an inhabited continent saying, “What a mad person.” I grew up in Bombay, India, which is now known as Mumbai, India. I got an undergraduate degree in Advanced Mathematics. I came to the University of Chicago to get an MBA in Finance and Marketing, which is a quad school. I joined Leo Burnett, which was an advertising agency.

I love that agency. I knew them well in Chicago. They would have apples in the lobby.

I joined them in 1982 and worked there under the Leo Burnett name until 1994, and then, for the first time in their history, I convinced them to take the name off the door to launch a new type of company which they own 75% of. I remained a Leo Burnett employee until it was called Giant Step. It was one of the first interactive agencies and then, based on that, I also helped spin-off their media company into a company called StarCom. We merged with a couple of other companies and then in 2002, we got bought by a publicist group.

For the next 15 or 17 years, I did a lot of different things inside various companies. We purchased big companies like Digitalis, Sapient and Razorfish. We merged different companies and ended up having at the end of this journey about 80,000 employees, the United States’ largest media buying and planning company.

Some of the most forward-looking digital assets include Epsilon, big creative brand names and in the last few years, I ran strategy globally or some combination of those two. I then started a second career where I had always wanted to be a writer when I was young, but my parents suggested that I needed to have something to say. They were not exactly sure a writer could make any money, so they said, “Go do something else.”

[bctt tweet=”Your vision can’t be captured in a number.” via=”no”]

I started a second career, which led to my book and I started this writing, speaking, educating and advising career. I’m fortunate that one of the companies I advise is my whole place of work, where I’m still very close to which is the Publicis Groupe. I work with a lot of other companies, a lot of startups, a lot of private equity, a lot of young entrepreneurs and now, a company of one. I’ve gone from a company of 80,000 to a company of one.

It’s exciting and interesting in its own way, but in many ways, what I’ve done is I’ve combined the two things. I’ve combined what I call the spreadsheet and the story. The spreadsheet is the digital, the data and the left brain. The story is, which you understand only too well, which is the sale is in the tale, is that you win people’s hearts and minds with stories and then you use the numbers to justify what they did.

Most people want to lead with the numbers and I think that’s a mistake. People buy emotionally and then back it up with logic.

It’s the only way to share your vision because your vision can never be captured in a number. If you think your vision is captured in the size of an addressable market, that’s not a vision. That’s numeric.

You’ve given us two great soundbite tweets already. Combine the spreadsheet and the story and your vision can’t be captured in a number. Every once in a while, I still have to convince people of the power of opening with a story. I would love your take on this. I was consulting with a group of architects who were pitching against three other firms to win this big renovation. They were only given 45 minutes and eight of them had to speak.

I recommended and worked with them on a 30 to 45-second story of origin like, “I was eleven years old. I played with Legos. That’s what got me into this.” One of the engineers who wasn’t even presenting in the room said, “We’re wasting time. We’re talking about ourselves.” I thought, “In order for us to get picked and to explain our vision, they have to know, trust and like us that we can all do the work or we wouldn’t be in the final four. Now, it’s about giving a little flavor of who we are. It’s not a waste of time at all.” The people who brought me in agreed. I stayed in, but I thought, “Wow.” I was so shocked that I still have to justify that sometimes.

The issue is this. Many of us are very proud of all the work we’ve done to create an answer and we often believe that the way we work is what is the differentiator. I believe it is not the way we work. It is who we are and what we do, but we are confused by thinking it is the way we work and what we have. It is the way we work and what we have.

TSP Rishad Tobaccowala | Soul Of Business

Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data

Many companies talk about their history, not the individual’s history. They talk about the history of the company. They talk about their tools, methodologies and techniques. I remind people that it’s like trying to explain how your colon works. When people want to see cool stuff, don’t talk to them about how your colon works. Show them the cool stuff.

They always say, “You’ve got a few minutes to make a first impression.” I think it was Jerry Maguire in You Had Me at Hello. The reality of it is, in many cases, a pitch is won or lost in the first ten minutes. The first ten minutes have to set up an intrigue. Intrigue is also not something that mathematics can set up. You have to set up two things. You want to intrigue and you want a sense of inquiry. It’s a sense of like, “What is this?”

“Tell me more.” We have a Q&A session after that. I was doing the very same thing. I was using the concept of an open loop in a story. Plant the seed like, “Be sure to ask us about this in the Q&A for more details because you don’t have enough time to get into it all,” and they said that worked well. In the actual presentation and Q&A.

What you want to do is in the beginning, you want to set up with intrigue where they say, “Who are these people? What are they saying? Why are they saying what this is?” That’s intrigue about you and then inquiry from them. Those are what I call the two first Is. It’s intrigue and inquiry in the first ten minutes. They say, “That’s interesting.”

Then, you very quickly follow with three other Is, which are ideas, insights, and imagination. You provide them with insights about either their market or themselves. You provide them with the imagination of what is possible, and you provide them with specific ideas. That eventually ends you with the last two Is, which is they get inspired and you ask for an invitation.

Those are my seven I processes. You start with the two Is. The whole stuff is like, “These people are intriguing. Therefore, I would like to inquire more.” That’s getting you at hello. Very quickly, you’re starting to show your cool stuff, which is ideas, insights and imagination. You end with inspiring them so that you can get invited back.

Many times, especially when you’re pitching for funding, it’s about the second date or getting back. In this particular situation, they had already made all the final cuts, so this was the last chance. The invitation’s going to be, “We picked you.”

What happens is you simply say, “What exactly do we want to be invited to?” Sometimes it’s, “I want to be invited to the next meeting.” Sometimes it’s, “To win the pitch.” Once you do that, you notice this is all about storytelling, but along the way, you’re bringing in the math and the numbers to support the facts that you are stating. To me, the math is like the spinal cord of what you’re doing and nobody gets attracted to spinal cords unless you’re a dinosaur where a spinal cord is all that’s left of you.

How did you come up with the title of your book? I know as an author myself, that’s a lot of ideas and also what the image is going to be, especially from you coming from a media buying agency and working with so many big clients, Staying Human in the Age of Data is so strong.

What happened is I did not come up with the combination of a title. When I wrote my book, I wrote my book under the working title of The Story and the Spreadsheet, but when I wrote my book proposal and everything else, I was fortunate that I got myself an agent. My agent got HarperCollins as well as Penguin Random House interested. I talked to them. HarperCollins said, “We think this is a great idea. We are going to give you an advance, but we would like to tell you that we do not buy the title at the current time, so we are going to work with you to brainstorm titles.”

[bctt tweet=”Too much math creates too little meaning.” via=”no”]

What we did were brainstorm titles. They ended up with a title, which had Restoring the Soul of Business. I had something about human and data somewhere. They combined it and a few other titles, which included my own, which was The Story and the Spreadsheet. Because they’re a big company, they did research. They put out the titles with different people. What came back strong was this combination of Restoring the Soul of Business and Staying Human in the Age of Data.

There’s an unspoken fear for most people, and some people have spoken about the fear of AI taking over.

At that time, there was all that AI taking over, etc. For me, it was like, “It’s not anti-data. It’s not that the world isn’t becoming data-driven, but how do we include the human into looking at an extracted meaning from the math.”

A lot of people may have a great title, and then sometimes, the chapters are not intriguing. I can see why your book has gotten such rave reviews because, as someone who loves this topic of integrating soft skills and hard skills, Too Much Math, Too Little Meaning is one of the best sound bites I’ve ever heard. I have to give you so much kudos.

Thank you. In fact, there were two other things that we did which were very unusual. When someone reads my book and they start with the opening, they say, “It’s very interesting,” where I say why should you read this book. It’s because you are going to be spending the most amazingly valuable asset you have, which is time. I make the case, but then I say, “I’m going to make this easier for you. The book is not a book of essays because there’s a connecting spine as such, which is the story and the spreadsheet, the math and the meaning, but you can read any chapter in any order you want because they’re all freestanding.”

People love that.

You can go to what you want to read, and then, each chapter stands out with titles. Like Too Much Math, Too Little Meaning, there’s a chapter called Have More Meetings.

I was going to ask you about that because it’s so counterintuitive. The last thing people want is another meeting.

There’s also a chapter called How to Upgrade Your Mental Operating System or another chapter that is everyone’s favorite is The Turn on the Table.

It goes back to what you were saying about don’t talk about your colon. Let’s talk about the schedule more meetings. I’m so intrigued because again, this is such a great takeaway for everyone reading this. When you say something, write something and present something, your brain goes, “Wait a minute. I thought the opposite was true.” For example, as a sales keynote speaker, I often find myself saying, “Whoever tells the best story gets the sale and not who has the best product or the best price.” Most people go, “What are you talking about? That can’t be right.”

Soul Of Business: You win people’s hearts and minds with stories, and then you use the numbers to justify what they just did.

It’s the reverse. This book was written before COVID. My belief is I say the reason we don’t like meetings is that most of the meetings are not meetings. They’re stereothons. What we do is we go to a room and we look at a big screen with a PDF or an Excel spreadsheet while also then looking at a laptop or a tablet on our desk while we are surreptitiously looking at the other one, which is our phone on our knees. We have that as a meeting, which is I’m in a room staring at screens. My basic belief is a meeting is when you look at somebody and you have no technology involved. You have a sheet of paper if you need numbers and you talk to each other and interact. That’s a meeting.

You have four wonderful workshops. There’s more than that, but the four that grabbed me, I’m guessing those are also the subject of a keynote if someone wants to hire you just to talk and not a workshop.

You hear something about words and selling, which I think your audience will find particularly intriguing and why you’re right that the sale is in the tale. I first created four things where I could help people learn. My original four were simply called, The Future Doesn’t Fit in the Containers of the Past, which is how to think about the future, How to Manage Change, so it Sucks Less, How to Upgrade Your Mental Operating System and How to Lead with Soul. Those are things that came from my book. I call that learning and that was the tab on my website.

One fine day, I changed it. Instead of calling it learning, I call it workshops. I then ran counter to all these masterclasses and I said, “This is live, interactive, customized and not taped one way and completely non-customized.” This is much better than any masterclass, especially now when people do not want to watch. They need something live and interactive when they’re sitting at home or spread out wherever they are.

It took off like a rocket by changing that, the workshop and reframing it. The next four became much more about doing versus even thinking. One was simply called and as we’re talking about selling, it’s How to Sell Better. That’s about writing presentations in different ways. I also had one, which is how do you manage talent and how do you motivate talent in this particular area that we live in? Those became very popular.

I want to double click on the selling one and the other one about managing change, so it sucks less. Coming back from the talking workshop I gave, it was the first time these people have been in a room since COVID. Nobody has been in the office. There were people in a conference room, which used to be the norm, but now, everyone’s like, “My behavior of sitting this long in a conference room, brainstorming and practicing something is out of whack.”

Even the simplest things like, “Where’s the whiteboard and the easel? The markers have run out of ink. They’ve dried up over years.” There is also all this dusting stuff off. Regardless of where you are on the whole concept of vaccines, there’s still a lot of anxiety about coming back to the office. I would think that this managing change workshop would be so huge because it’s a big change to come back.

I’ll give you an idea and it’s very odd. I’m starting to travel again, which I was doing in October, November, December 2021. There were less of it and it’s back again, but I’m doing two presentations and they’re more or less on the same topic. I have 1,000 to 2,000 people in an organization on How To Manage Change So It Sucks Less and then across the continent of Africa to 3,000 people on How To Look Ahead and Not Look Behind.

I know you have four questions about how things change. Is there a little snippet you can give us or a little hint of one of the takeaways from this workshop for people who are reading and don’t have the privilege of hearing you talk about it in detail?

Absolutely. Here’s a very simple thing. The big thing coming out of How To Manage Change So It Sucks Less is to recognize that there are six things that everybody has to do in order for their company to succeed in changing, but most of us only do three of them and because we don’t do the other three, we have a problem. The three we do is put together a strategy for change. We then either go buy a company or hire additional talent to fill in things we don’t have. The third is we reorganize around either that company or the talent we purchased or got. That’s what I call the strategy reorganization in M&A/acqui-hire parts.

[bctt tweet=”Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” via=”no”]

At that particular stage, we put out a press release, “Make balloons and have a party.” It doesn’t work because I remind people like Michael Tyson supposed to have said, “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face,” I believe that every leader and every board has a plan until people get in the way. I have 4, 5 and 6 are these questions. Number four is why it is good for the people. Don’t say, “Why it’s good for the company?” Number five is how will you change their incentive plan so they will change their behavior. The last one is how will you provide them with training so they can learn how to do the new things you’re claiming they need to do.

We forget. We don’t invest in training, changing incentive plans or communicating why it’s good for them and then we’re surprised when these things don’t happen. That’s fundamentally there. I then go deeper down into including solutions on how people can solve what is called the biggest disease of all, which is IDD. IDD is Inner Dinosaur Disease. Each of us has this inner dinosaur disease inside us and how to approach it. That is what that presentation is about.

You got so much good stuff here, but let me jump to the other one because this is my wheelhouse. I happen to be an amateur photographer and collect it as art. When I saw that you’re helping salespeople solve problems by leveraging photography, I thought, “I have hit the lottery,” because I’ve never seen anybody do that.

I love the concept of lenses, how you’re zooming out or jumping in and all that good stuff. What are we focusing on? The world that you’ve taken us into this concept of filtering things with quality control. I remember when I took Photo Journalism in college many years ago, the professor said, “Photography is painting with light.” “I can’t paint, but if I can paint with light with pictures, I’m in.” Give us a little snapshot of how the photography analogy can help salespeople.

The reason I use the photography analogy is that now, every one of us is a photographer because of our smartphones. Therefore, I’m using terminology that every one of us does. The reality of it is regardless of what equipment you use, I’m an amateur photographer but I’ve done a lot of it. Over time, what happens is there are three key things that matter and everything else doesn’t or matters very little.

The three things that matter is how do you frame and what do you look at. That’s the B to C in framing a picture. The way you frame makes a very big difference. The second, as your professor said, it’s about light, which is how do you illuminate and expose. You framed and you’ve taken the picture with the right light. The third one is about how you edit the solution, which is cropping, filtering and all of those kinds of things. In effect, I remind people that if you’re going to sell, what you’re selling is a solution. People don’t buy products and services. They buy solutions. If you are selling a solution, wouldn’t it be great if you could help someone frame the problem?

Framing is important. You frame the problem and that’s by focusing on what the problem is and making sure that the problem is discreet enough that your product or service can solve it. That becomes framing. The second is how do you illuminate and expose and that is everything from how do you bring in data because data is a form of light.

That becomes the second part of it. The final thing is how do you edit the solution. How do you make sure you don’t say too much in a meeting and say what’s necessary? You customize it. How do you filter it? How do you display it? One of the displays is how you do the seven Is to display what you did.

I remember one of the things when taking photography class was changing the angle whether you’re shooting down on something and standing on a table or you’re crouching down if you’re shooting animals like a dog running and you get down to their level.

In each of these, I mentioned three things that everybody can understand. You have to focus on the right problem. What you mentioned is my second one, which is points of view are incorporated. Points of view mean looking at things from a different point of view like you did from up and below as well as getting different people to look at the problem.

Soul Of Business: We often believe that the way we work is the differentiator. It is not. It is who we are and what we do.

My whole premise is, “Whoever describes the problem the best and shows empathy and can describe that, then people think, ‘You get us. You expressed our problems in a way that’s even clearer than we do internally, so you must have our solution if you understand our problems that well.’”

Most of the people who are reading this being successful as they are will recognize they have done this one particular thing, but they may not know that they did it, so I will tell them what they did. Often, all I do is reveal to people their own brilliance, and as a result, they think I’m smart, because, in effect, they say, “That’s what I did. You must be smart,” which is what they’re saying is, “I’m smarter. You figured it out, but because you told me, I think you’re smart too.”

It goes full circle to your expertise in advertising and marketing. When a marketer can put a headline or a commercial that says what people are thinking and they feel like, “You’re in my head, so this must be the right fit for me.”

Why that happens is even now, when I do some advisory work, a lot of people will call me and say, “Do you think you can help me with this problem?” I remind people, one, I’m limited in time and I’m not going to try to solve problems that I have no clue on how to solve. In some particular cases, they say, “Can you learn how to solve it? We would rather have you learn how to solve it and share how you’re learning how to solve it than get somebody who claims they have the answer.”

I’m not putting it as a pause on the future of the internet, so I know how to describe what’s going on with Web 3.0, metaverse and crypto better than most people because big companies asked me to study it for them and explain it to them how I was studying so they could understand what was going on versus me coming like a huckster and saying, “Buy an NFT. Do this. Do that.” As a result, they said, “Show us what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.” I was paid to learn to teach.

It’s like, “I can give you a fish, or I can teach you how to fish.” They were like, “We’re going to pay you to teach us how to fish.”

They’re also like, “We like the fact that you’re learning how to be a fisherman.” I told them, “I’m not even a fisherman and you’re asking me to teach you how to fish.” They’re like, “Go learn how to be a fisherman because nobody knows, and then teach us what you’re learning, including who else we should go and learn from.”

You’re curating everything for them. They trust you.

They trust me, so it allows me to say, “I don’t know.” It allows me to go to lots of world-class people and bring them in. I’m not competing with anybody, so I’m saying, “I’m trying to work on this project.” In effect, what many of your audience will find is often a client may ask and say, “Can you help me solve this problem?”

I sometimes say, “I’m going to turn your question around like this,” and often, I’ve been hired because I changed the question. I said, “I don’t think you’re asking the right question. I think this is what you’re really asking.” I have a piece that turned the opposite part, which is the problem of asking the wrong questions. I wrote a piece called The Problems of Asking the Wrong Question.

[bctt tweet=”People don’t buy products and services; they buy solutions.” via=”no”]

There’s so much good content. Thank you for sharing this incredible framework of the Is, the concept of photography and framing things from a sales perspective and combining the spreadsheet with the story is the way to get through all the noise that’s out there or, as I say, get out of drowning in a sea of sameness. If someone wants to find out more about you and hire you as a consultant, workshop or keynote speaker, the best place to send them is to your website, which is your name.

It’s RishadTobaccowala.com and there, you will find pretty much everything, including what my workshops are. If you click on where it says Thought Letter, you’ll find a lot of the stuff that I’ve talked about. As any good salesperson does, I give away the crack for free, so hopefully, people will buy the cocaine.

My Sunday Thought Letter, which is what you read and which is now read by 25,000 people, including entrepreneurs and CEOs, is completely free. That’s Rishad.SubStack.com. A lot of that content is on my website under Thought Letter, but instead of you having to go there every Sunday, it can come to you and it’s completely free. Not only is it free of no charge and no upcharge, but it’s also free of advertising, affiliate marketing and data harvesting. It’s a gift because, as I wrote, you build goodwill through generosity.

There are visuals that go with it, so you’re not just reading the text.

Also, each Sunday, I introduce a new artist, new sculptor or new photographer. There’s a new artist, sculptor, and photographer every Sunday. It’s a read that shouldn’t take more than five minutes of your time and the idea is that at the end of that five minutes, you will see, think and feel differently about the topic.

Especially generosity, that’s one of my favorites. The book again is called Restoring the Soul of Business. We certainly need that now more than ever. Thank you so much for writing the book and for putting out all of your knowledge and for inspiring all of us to be a little more human in our interactions with each other in the business world. Thanks again.

Thank you very much and thanks to everybody who read this.

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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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