The School of Greatness - 490 Kevin Harrington on Shark Tank, Inventing the Infomercial, and Billions in Sales

Episode Date: May 29, 2017

"Greatness is contributing more to the universe than you took back" - Kevin Harrington If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/490

This is episode number 490 with the original shark, Kevin Harrington. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back, everyone, to the Greatness Studio.

Excited about our guest today because we're talking about how to take any idea and turn it into a product. Not just a product, but a successful product that makes millions or billions of dollars. And we talk about how to test your ideas and a lot of other things we're about to dive into in just a second. But for those who don't know who Kevin Harrington is, he has been a successful entrepreneur over the last 40 years. And he's an original shark on Shark Tank. He's also the inventor of the infomercial, which has transformed people's businesses and products for years, and an as-seen-on-TV pioneer.

And he's a co-founder of the Entrepreneurs Association, EO. Kevin has also launched over 20 businesses that has generated more than $5 billion in sales worldwide with iconic brands and celebrities like Hulk Hogan and George Foreman. And he's been quoted and featured in everywhere like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, CNBC, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, Fortune, Today Show, Good Morning America. You name it, he's pretty much been there. And some of the main things we cover today are how Shark Tank actually changed his business and his life. Also, how to test your idea before you put a lot of money into it, before you invest in it, how to test it to make sure you've got a mega hit. Also, Kevin's winning formula for a great infomercial and all the elements you need if you want to have an infomercial or really that kind of online infomercial on Kickstarter as well.

The three-step formula to selling anything. Whatever it is you want to sell, this is the formula and why digital marketing is working so well today. Guys, I am pumped for this one. But before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to our iTunes review of the week. This is by Liz86. She said, I've listened to this podcast for a few years now, but I got so busy and burnt out with school that I stopped. Now that I'm in my last quarter of my master's program and I'm extremely burnt out and in a rut, this podcast has re-sparked my motivation and given me the excitement to follow through with my goals and ideas after graduation.

Thank you. I recommend this podcast and book to all my friends. Liz86, thank you so much for being the iTunes review of the week. And if you guys want to leave a review, if you haven't yet, make sure to head over to itunes.com slash greatness for your chance to be the review of the week soon. All right, guys, let's dive into this one. If you have an idea, if you're looking to grow something, build something, sell something, then this is the one for you. And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Kevin Harrington. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got a legend, Kevin Harrington, in the house.

Good to see you, man. How are you doing? I'm great, man. Feeling good. I'm very excited about this. We connected through some mutual friends. Grant Cardone, we were supposed to be speaking at his event recently, and some of your teammates, team members said that I should get you on my podcast

because you haven't been on here. And we've had some other people on Shark Tank on the show, and so I thought we'd bring you on. You were one of the some other people on Shark Tank on the show. And so I thought we'd bring you on. You were one of the original cast members of Shark Tank. You're one of the founding fathers of the infomercial and as seen on TV kind of credentials. And you've taken how many products to market? Over 500. 500 products to market. Yes. Over the last 30 years. Either being in retail or online, I'm assuming. Yeah, correct. Or on home shopping network type shows. Right.

We start usually on an as seen on TV kind of spot, commercial. Infomercial. Infomercial, right. And then that, as they get traction, then you're building the brand. So then every other outlet wants them. Now you'll see them then on the shopping channels hsn qvc catalogs uh retail shelves walmart target etc and um now and then international because that's we sell as many outside the u.s or more than we did inside the u.s really so that's the other part of the whole puzzle uh was

um back in 1990 i started traveling all around the world setting up international distribution with local partners in every country. So that took me about five or six years to actually go country to country and set up all those relationships. Now, do you create the products yourself from idea to launch? Are you more licensing it to the manufacturer or to the brands? You know, what I say, and this is because people say, well, you know, do you have, are you an inventor or, you know, what's your, the model? I don't invent anything. In fact, I've only had one, I have one patent, one patent that I made, right? I give a lot of creativity to

a product when I see it, but I prefer to deal with the greatest product owners because there's many, many more people that are out there with great products that I can invent myself. And plus these people that have invented the products, then a lot of times they've made a prototype or they made the tooling and it's kind of, they may have spent three or four or five years taking it to a point and then i can come in and then take it to the market wow so it's you take a great idea and then

you take it to market exactly if you like it and you try to enhance it and you do you then take it to uh if they've got the tooling or they got all that already then will you take it to the manufacturer and help them with the whole process oh yeah yeah we we basically want to license it probably you know pretty much exclusively for worldwide distribution and today that's very important because sometimes people would say well look i'm already selling it you know on amazon or somewhere and i just want to give you the tv rights but i put it on tv and then their amazon blows up and then they'll drop the price but we had a product recently they had 20 different resellers on amazon and and and we said we can't

touch this until it's all cleaned up because we need a consistent message consistent price and and and and that they ended up pulling off but it's important to control because the other part of that is, let's say you're running on TV and now all of a sudden it goes into Walmart and Walmart sells it at $30 less or something. That can destroy all your other distribution, catalog, QVC, et cetera. So you have to have a unified pricing model. You're taking me back because 2008, 2009, I got injured playing arena football in 2007. And then I met, I came up with an invention.

Okay. I came up with an idea. I had this big cast on. Actually, is it in here? Is this the first one? I've kept these. I'll just show you. This is like-

The Tampa Storm was a great team. Did you ever meet the- I did, yes. Previous- Yes. The guy that ran that just passed away a few years ago. But he was a great team. Did you ever meet the previous? I did, yes. The guy that ran that just passed away a few years ago, but he was a real kind of legend and a controversial character. He was sort of a buddy I saw occasionally.

So this is, I didn't even plan to bring this out, but this is from essentially 10 years ago, nine years ago. I had a cast on from breaking my wrist. Right. And it was a full arm cast from here to here. And I couldn't do anything except for either leave it up here or kind of like have it here

or just be out to the side. But it was always like scratching my body when I had it like against me. So I said, there's got to be a way to have something that goes over the cast.

It's soft, but also different colors. So I created this. You can slide it through your arm. It's got a thumb hole, so it went through there. Yeah, great. And then I made it longer and I found an inventor. I was like, I don't know what to do with this. I'm slide it through your arm. It's got a thumb hole, so it went through there. Yeah, great. And then I made it longer.

And I found an inventor. I was like, I don't know what to do with this. I'm like this 23-year-old punk. Huh. You know. Yeah. And it just slid right over the cast. Beautiful.

All these different things. Called it the Cast Comfy. And I found an inventor who became a great mentor of mine. And so I went to all these trade shows. I went to CES and the Houseware Show and all these other shows that you were talking about earlier off camera that you go to 30 trade shows a year, as you said. So I was going to all these and just learning about how to take an idea to the market, licensing, manufacturing, all tooling, all the processes of these things. So for me to kind of connect with you now, it takes me back to when I

was first getting into business. That's the stuff I learned about early on. And so there's so many facets to taking a product, first getting an idea and making it come to life. Well, and it's also, I think a lot of inventors don't understand that at the end of the day, if you're going to be real successful, it's going to take millions of dollars because you have to, you have to do the tooling you've got to do the manufacturing you now you know we were shipping product in the old days we said we'll ship it to you in four to six weeks well imagine doing that today you know do you think amazon would would has ever said four to six weeks you know i mean like six days max

it's hitting you sometimes the same day right so but we had to go we'd get the orders and then we couldn't cash the credit cards but we would then based on the success of the show or the product then go make the goods and bring them into the country and so with the infomercial yeah with in the early days of infomercials because i sell it then you create it yeah well we already knew we had a factory, we had the tooling, but we had to then, we'd sell it. You didn't make a big order yet until you got it.

We'd sell it, and then we'd go pay the manufacturer, okay, we need 10,000. In the next week. And then they would make it real quick, put it on a boat, it'd take three weeks to get over here, and that's why it was four to six weeks, because we had to we didn't want to the one thing that i'd never wanted to do was end up with tons of inventory

that i didn't need right and so brilliant so even to this day we still the beauty of the infomercial business it's like turning a faucet on where you can buy media to sell the orders, but we plan the media based on when the product is going to be hitting the country. You're like the original crowdfunding campaign. You're like the original Indiegogo. Pretty much so, yeah. I also call us the original viral videos. Right.

Okay? Because when I first ran into this guy at a trade show, the home show, his name was Arnold Morris. He was cutting through a Coca-Cola can and through hammerheads and, and then mufflers with a knife. And I watched him selling this. It was called the Ginsu knife set. And so huge knife set.

Yeah. I watched him sell it. And then I thought that, you know, he does this in front of 10 people. What if we filmed it and put it in front of millions? And then all I did was took the video and sent it viral to TV stations all around the world. And it did hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. So you took that product. Yeah.

That was the first infomercial. So it actually was one of my first product infomercials. Because I had done – previous to that, I had been doing some franchise-type stuff. Infomercials. Yeah, infomercials. This is the product where you could see the transformation or whatever. Where you demonstrate.

Yes. And it wasn't lead generation. It was pick up the phone, order now, buy today, credit card. And so we were all of a sudden but the the the the tough part of that was that we had to now finance all of those orders and and now multiply we had we had the ginsu show we had the tony little show we had the jack laurine juicer show we had and so we're ordering 10 000 of these 10 000 of these 10 000. We had at one time, you know, five, eight, $10 million tied up in inventory coming into the US and that's big business.

So you were, but you were already pre-sold that, right? Or was that inventory coming in? Well, in the beginning we would pre-sell it, then go order. But then we had to be more sophisticated. We had to then, because this was the beauty. We could project our sales. So the test, we would run in 25 stations and we'd get 10,000 orders. Then we would say, okay.

Let's do 300 stations. Let's take it times 10. We go to 250, 300 stations. We're going to get 10 times the orders, 100,000. And it held. The beauty is if it worked on 25, it was going to get 10 times the orders 100 000 so and it held the beauty is if it worked on 25 it was going to work on 250 yeah because the the industry had modeled itself then ultimately at sort of numbers that worked so so so we so so that now we had to start doing high finance and

and so we started getting lines of credit from banks and all of that. So we had a $10 million line of credit from Chemical Bank at one point. And we used every dime of that because we needed it to pay for the inventory. And the main thing was hoping that we didn't get a bad batch of something, which happened. That's the worst, right? You got 10,000 orders of they're all defects. The very first time I ordered, we were selling this Chinese wok. It was hand hammered and the first 10,000 that came in, they opened them up, they were all rusted.

And we said, how did this happen? Well, hey, you asked for the cheapest shipping method possible. Well, they were on top of the boat and the ocean spray that was coming on top, know rusted out all the chinese walks so we had pre-sold these so now we have 10 000 at 40 bucks a piece i've it was in the process of having to refund 400 000 to the consumer and so that's when you get very creative and we got a bunch of steel wool out and shut up and shined them all up real good and they yeah so you spent 20 grand on shining it out i spent 20 grand on shining those 400 grand instead of 400 in refunds and and because i was like we're devastated i mean this was this was back in the

mid 80s okay when i didn't have a lot of capital so mean, we were literally living week to week to week with our cashflow. And so it was brutal, some of the learning curves. And, you know, we learned quite a bit about a lot of stuff. In fact, one day my auditor came in and said, hey, what are you selling for $100 on TV? Because you're selling $29 knife sets and stuff. He said, because I said, nothing for $100. Well, you're issuing a lot of $100 credits. And so I found out that one of our girls in accounting, she had issued tens of thousands of dollars of $100 credits to herself and her friends and her relatives.

Because somebody had to, when someone returned a product, somebody had to issue a refund. It was one of my girls in accounting. And so she was issuing credits to everybody she knew. Like she started issuing $29 credits and nobody picked up. Then $50 credits, then $100 credits. And actually there were some $1,000 credits along the way too. Yeah.

So, I mean, obviously criminal activity. But, you know, know so but we these are the things we learned this was that this is 1986 or 87 or something 30 years ago we're learning the hard way because nobody no one done before nobody knew this stuff right so anyway it was it was it was a great entrepreneurial experience going through these early days and and then of course the back end of the tv business was selling to the shopping channels and selling to catalogs and then selling to the international distributors and that's that's where it all paid off start with the idea where you'll see something on a trade show it's typically how yeah i'm guessing it goes

down you see a guy or a girl who's got a product and you're demonstrating it. You're like, that could be great for TV. Let me create a short commercial around it. Yep. Which there's a format to doing an infomercial, which I want to ask you about next. The key to that. Take that, do a media buy to 25 markets. Right.

If it sells well, go to 250. Right. And then if that sells well, you keep ramping it up and then you'll take it to the home shopping networks. Yes. Then to retail. Yep. Then to international. international yeah that's the model 2002 i was at the chicago houseware show these two korean engineers had a 10 by 10 booth and they had an oven that had infrared technology that cooked inside the food out so an oven cooks outside outside in. But if you have a frozen chicken,

outside in will burn the outside before it gets the unfrozen inside. Whereas this infrared technology cooked inside out. So it took the frozen inside, cooked it as it was cooking out to the outside while you also cooked outside in this became the new wave oven which is now sold over five million units at 140 and so that's a you know about a 700 million dollar product that i that i did you took you saw you said all those guys licensed it created the infomercial and brought it to market and and and that's what we do that's why i go to trade shows okay so you see that stuff early on yeah right they're trying to get the word out they're trying to find people like you yeah and so when you when you license it you say how does that deal usually

work what's kind of like a standard license agreement they keep you give them a royalty fee yes i put up all the money i license it exclusively for the world like the brand yeah and then i five three to five percent royalty. Three to 5%. Yeah. That's typically- Today, maybe two to four. Okay, so- Five is like really good. Five is like Tony Little is five. Oh, he made Bankton.

Right. Five percent of what? 300 million or something? Yeah. I mean, the first show I did with Tony, we did the first infomercial, did 350 million. He got 5%.

He made $17 million. And he didn't have to do any of the work. No. He didn't have to put up any of the money. He didn't have to put up any of the money. He didn't have to deal with any of the stress, the media buying, the marketing. He just showed up and presented. He did like a two-day shoot and collected a check for the rest of his life.

I mean, not his life. That was about a four-year run. Wow. In fact, one day Tony said, you know, I think you're making a lot more money than I am and I'm really the brand. Let's do a 50-50 partnership. And I said, now, that means you're making a lot more money than I am. And I'm really the brand. Let's do a 50-50 partnership. And I said, now, that means you're going to come up with half the cash, right?

Sure. I've made a lot of money. Instead of a license, I want to do 50-50. So we did, we shook hands, signed a deal. So the next product we launched was 50-50. So we're running 200,000 a week in media. And we're doing a multi-pay on the product so we don't get all the cash it's over three four months so this thing isn't going to

cash flow positive for six months six to nine months so he's putting out all his money he's putting he's writing a check every week for half of the hundreds of dollars he's got all of a sudden he's got seven eight hundred grand invested and he's like wait a minute when am i gonna see my money he says by now you'd be sending me big checks and i said so tony let me show you the cash flow he's like wow i don't like how this works can we go back and redo this deal with five percent you're like yeah now i'm doing three percent yeah yeah i said no let's make it four tony exactly so um yeah so, so there's a big responsibility in licensing the deals. And again, what happens if you get some bad product that comes in? You know, that happens.

That's on you. It's not on the talent or the inventor. Yeah. Yeah. So we can get, you know, hurt pretty bad on some bad product. What's been the most, Ginsu. Ginsu. Ginsu.

Ginsu. How, what did that do well so this is the thing because people i i again i didn't invent it or create it i partnered with the people yes and actually you know who owns ginsu warren buffett owns the factory that created the ginsu manufacturing and then what what happened the original people that own own Ginsu through various things went bankrupt. I ended up taking it over, licensing it from Warren Buffett, his company. And this was, it's a little factory in Arkansas that makes it. Okay. I just shot a new version of Ginsu just here recently.

So now, so for a while I had the rights and I lost the rights. And because that's one of the challenges you run into when you partner with people that have a brand already they own the brand yeah you're building it now the two korean guys we created the name so we actually now wasn't ginsu before you started well ginsu was ginsu but the new wave oven wasn't okay so so now tony little owns his brand but when we did the Ab Isolator, for example, an Ab product, we want to own that. That brand together. We want to own that brand together. Yeah, yeah.

Right. He owns his name. He owns his name. So it's Tony Little's Ab Isolator. So we want to be partners in the brand. So you're licensing his name, your brand. Yeah, yeah. Correct.

Got it. So, for example, Billy Mays was the creator. Wow, one of the greatest. Yeah, yeah. Correct. Got it. Because, so for example, Billy Mays was the creator. Wow, one of the greatest. Yeah. And so I met Billy in 1986 in Philadelphia. I met him on a trade show myself too. He's a amazing guy. Nice guy.

God bless. He's passed away now. But Billy had, he created OxiClean. Such a big product. Now, he didn't own that though. He was the face of it. Somebody else owned it. And so this is a true story billy

called me and he said kevin he said these these guys that own oxyclean they called me and they're like rush rush rush they want to do a deal to license give me a five-year deal and pay me x amount of dollars i forget what the number was a year for five years and he said does that deal make sense? And I said, well, we sat down and we talked and make a long story short. I said, something's up, okay? He ended up doing the deal, but two weeks after it, they sold the company to Church and Dwight for $365 million. So what happened-

With his name attached to it. With his name attached to it on a five-year deal. So what happened was Church and Dwight was buying the company and told these guys, look, we're going to buy the company, but the face of this is Billy Mays. You don't have him under any kind of contract. Get a five-year deal, and then you get your money. And Billy felt like he got cheated because they didn't really disclose that they were selling the company. At the end of the day, he thought he should have gotten

maybe a little million dollar bonus or something. And I don't know what he ended up doing. That wasn't my deal, but I was buddies with Billy and his wife, Debra, since when he passed, it was a terrible time for the industry because he's such a legend.

He had 60-some commercials on television when he passed away. He was still making good money. Oh, yeah. He was making good legend. He had 60-some commercials on television when he passed away. He was still making good money. Oh, yeah. He was making good money. He had two Phantom Rolls Royces and a 20-some thousand square foot house. Yeah, he was doing all right. He was making millions of dollars a year.

Yeah, yeah. He lived large, but that's, you know. Of course. You know, look. When your face is on TV every day. You know, it's a different form of like, you know, I was at Mike Tyson's house in Las Vegas recently. I'm talking to him about a project. And, you know, Mike, he lived large.

He made 300 and some million dollars. How much did he lose? Went through most of it, I think, you know, it's crazy. You know, the Billy Mays and the Tony Littles, they make a lot of money. Hopefully they save a little bit along the way, right? Yeah, exactly. But it's been a good run for a lot of those guys. So what's the formula? You've done how many infomercials? Hundreds? 500 plus. 500 plus. Yeah, yeah. What's been the top three best-selling for you? Yeah, right. And then what's the proven model that everyone needs, whether it's going to be a mega hit or

maybe it's not going to work but it needs it either way right the formula so i mean look the top three is kind of i can look at different uh metrics reasons why but tony little i always say is kind of my number one guy because we we did more than one we did the the ab isolator we did the target training we ended up shooting the original gazelle which is and so we did the the ab isolator we did the target training we ended up shooting the original gazelle which is and so we did over a billion dollars with tony little a billion dollars in sales from infomercials from infomercials just infomercials or home shopping networks oh that that was everything combined everything sales that was sales international retail dollars in sales like 1.5 billion yeah in two or three products in three products yeah that's amazing so

so now now tony's done he got a five percent royalty on that or is that on the and some of it was was retail uh so there's wholesale at retail so he gets it on on the wholesale side so i didn't quite get that on the gross but but um the so tony is near and dear to me he and i are one month apart in age so um so we're we both live in tampa florida we've you know and we're both mentors to each other which is interesting he calls me i call him we always we have sort of an you know whether we need it or not an annual like get together and talk about sure the industry right um and he i just had my birthday party and he he came and hung out so i you know that's that

was a big one now i i you know we've mentioned the new wave oven that's probably somewhere near the top because it's done 700 million plus dollars but i also um i did the original jack lulane juicer which is which is now it's it's had evolution so some of these products they and talent they take it and go onward so um and the second iteration of that has done over a billion dollars believe it or not jack lenane but then do you ever hear of a product called the food saver it's a vacuum food sealer yes okay so i had the rights to that in the very beginning and that we did hundreds of millions of dollars and that company ended up selling for a lot of money to um the company that now owns it so so i love kitchen products as you can tell i love you know a lot of kind of gadgets and stuff but um

you know it's you know going beyond that you you know, there's, you know, many, you know, modern day products that I'm involved with. There's one right now called iGrow Laser. It's a hair growing helmet that has laser, low level laser and infrared technology that grows hair. And it's clinically proven. This is doing tens of millions of dollars right now. And it's on QVC. It's for women and men it's fda cleared clinically proven etc but but now also lewis my my business model coming off shark tank

is people would see me on shark tank and they're like i wonder you know what do they what do people really want when they go on shark tank they want money but then they people would come to me off of the show and email me and say, look, I do want money and I need money. But if I could just do a deal with you, you open up your Rolodex, maybe we can go raise money together. So that is sort of my new model over the last about four or five years. of my new model over the last um about four or five years is i i what i do is i take strategic um uh kind of um advisory positions board positions public companies as well as startups yeah and um and so that really has been really fun because i get i've i've got equity you know i've got equity and and a little company that started at $0.10 a share. It's now $3.60. And what could be so bad to get a lot of shares in those kind of deals, right?

So I have tens of millions of shares of public companies. I think Tim Ferriss is kind of doing this kind of stuff. Get in on the ground floor and take a little equity and open up the Rolodex and all that. and take a little equity and and open up the rolodex and all that so i i i really love and and i'm and i'll bring some capital to the table if it's needed but if somebody's like hey i need a million dollars i can't just fund every deal that needs a million dollars because eventually you run out of money right you know and um plus i'm i have a i'm i'm married now twice and my new wife and you know we've been together 14 years so that's new because i have a i'm i'm married now twice and my new wife and you know we've been together 14 years so that's new because i have a 28 year old son from my first marriage and 19 year old

boy also but she's like you know you can't be everything to everybody so you have to kind of pick and choose what you want to do and focus on the winners and then the winning people with a winning business that's it yeah so that's really you know because the asina tv business is it's it's being there's they're in the middle of disruption because it's no secret there's a lot less people watching tv today than there was five years ago right in fact it's 50 less than it was 10 years ago no way yeah because everyone's online yeah they're online they're on i, I'll give you a great example. My 19-year-old started college, went over, got his apartment for him,

and the furniture's being delivered. The cable guy shows up, and I said, great, what cable package did you get, Nick? And he said, oh, sorry to tell you, Dad, but he's just putting in internet. Just to watch Apple TV or Netflix or whatever. I don't watch TV. I'm like, how do you think we're paying for your college education? And you know,

you're getting at least a basic channel. I need to be able to watch some shows when I'm over here, hanging out at your place. So we, you know, so he got cable, but I mean, I'm like,

I was almost, I mean, he knew he was going to offend me by not getting something, but he wasn't telling me until I got there. But so kids don't watch TV. It's crazy. I mean, I used to, you know, in the very beginning, I had five channels. Then I had the 30-channel package. And that's how I created this whole infomercial space is one day i'm watching tv and the screen went dark and then

it put bars up and that was discovery channel it was dark for six hours and no yeah with bars on the screen and you're like i should buy that i said yeah i said discovery for the first five years of its existence was an 18 hour a day network shut up and i bought the six hours nationwide from discovery yeah back in the back in the mid 80s wow by the way we paid them a thousand dollars a day for six hours and that's 365 000 a year and that was generating tens of millions of dollars in sales that was a great media buy so that was an extremely good media buy and that was the early early day so before everyone got in and it got it and then and then when that contract expired that time block went from 365 it was a multi-year contract for 28 million dollars that's how

beautiful 28 three years for a thousand bucks a day thousand bucks a day yes you got and it went for 28 million because it was generating tens of millions of dollars in sales so i mean but and so that's when i said i gotta go to europe i gotta go to asia i gotta go to latin america and start picking up these all this downtime wow so that's talking to 80s this is in the 80s so we went to europe and latin america etc just bought it all up every every place we could we'd sign long-term contracts how much is the media right now to buy on tv it's outrageous i mean discovery what what we were buying for a thousand a day they'll they have slots to go for twenty thousand dollars for 30 minutes now you know discovery is

it worth it to buy this media it's becoming so difficult to make money off of. But so our strategies change. It's like a billboard, right? It's like a billboard. But what we've had to do is tie it into Amazon and social media. And so anymore today, if you just go on TV, you're not going to make money. Just like call the phone. Yeah. You've got to go on TV and then have all the other elements around it ready to go.

And then also pricing protected. Because what do most people do now? They see it on TV. They actually go online to see if they can find it cheaper. And then there's knockoff guys that actually take out, hey, you've seen the new wave? Click here. Well, they've seen the new wave? Click here. Well, they've got something similar for half the price or whatever, right?

So it's a cutthroat business. And we drive other people's sales with TV, for sure. In fact, like I said, when there was 20 resellers of that hair-growing helmet on Amazon, we had to clean them up. Because why am I going to go on TV and drive their sales? No. No, you can't afford it. So it's a more sophisticated business today. But you're still active and aggressively buying media on TV? Yes. Oh, yeah. Even today, 30 years later? Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

How competitive it is, how much more expensive? It still works. Yeah. But we start on social media, actually. Wow. We start on Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram or one of the social media channels, test it. So you get a few sales. Okay. We call it test before we invest. That's it. Yeah.

It's a focus group. Proof of concept. Yeah. I mean, to do a spot, do an infomercial, do a TV spot, you got to produce the show, you got to write the script, you got to buy the media. It's 75 grand to 100 to $200,000. Before you buy media. Yeah. Before you even get produce the show. You've got to write the script. You've got to buy the media. It's $75,000 to $100,000 to $200,000. Before you buy media. Yeah, before you even get in the game.

And it takes three to six months. I can take a little low-budget video off of an iPhone, pop it up on Facebook, put it out to certain places, and see how well it's being received. And then I can decide whether I want to greenlight it or not. And so amazing things happen. That's why so many people are successful with the indiegogo kickstarter right because they're able to create a video quickly and put something up there for two to five grand you know a nice little video and a campaign and see if people buy it exactly you

know i had a i was a part of a kickstarter that we did about almost 500 000 in sales for products it was a a carbon fiber like it sales for a product. It was a carbon fiber, it was like a paper airplane made out of carbon fiber that you can remote control with your iPhone. Nice. And it had an HD camera on it so you can film the whole flight. That's pretty cool.

Just throw it and it starts to fly. And you're just like, it's amazing. Yeah. But then we went and took the money and used that to do the tooling and all the engineering. It was just like challenge after challenge with the manufacturer. It came back with just defects on a lot of them. So it's like constantly refining the process.

Yeah. And this has been two and a half years now. You know Chris Stoikos, the dollar beard club guy? Yes, crushed it. Yeah, right? Now, he did a product called cool box which he went on kickstarter raised 400 000 it was a cooler that was like a toolbox cooler this wasn't the coolest cool not the coolest cooler yeah yeah my friend worked on that design okay yeah yeah the coolest cooler had

some nightmare situations too but the cool box was it had the speakers and plug in for charging this and that run your iphone and it was an entertainment but it was a it was also a toolbox so it was a toolbox and a cooler and they spent they spent hundreds of thousands on the tooling they spent you know and so the 400 went boom like that so we had to come in and then he actually went on shark tank and then did a deal with laurie grenier to sell the cool box looking for partners and so how did it do that well laurie on the show did the deal but then that fell apart backed out yep backed out and then now i'm involved and we've put the first quarter million into taking it to the next step which because it the 400 disappeared. So now we're finishing off the development

and we're going to be ready to ship real soon. So it's just coming out of the factory. How many of the deals that actually happen on Shark Tank actually happen? You know, I would say under some way, at least half happen under some formula, but not always the exact same that you see on the show. Because I'll say this.

You can look at it from both sides, the people that are coming on and the Sharks' viewpoint. But so many times that when I would do a deal, all the things weren't totally, well, that patent you said you had, it's a provisional, which isn't really protecting anything from, it's just a one-year kind of notification that you've filed something. It doesn't give you any protection after the end of the year. So, you know, it's, and some people, because you'll ask,

is that a provisional patent or a utility? Oh, it's, I think it's a utility patent. Okay, well, we'll do the deal, but it's got to be utility right so things don't always check out and the numbers don't always work they also forget to tell you about little things like lawsuits and you know problems that might exist yeah yeah so but how many of the deals that you did uh or were there any big successes for you i had a i had a number of of cool projects yes i had so this is uh this is a jewelry product that's it yeah this is this was aldo orta jewelry and he was a designer for uh like prince albert of monaco one-off pieces and so like something

like that he would create with real diamonds and this would sell for maybe $40,000, the original piece. And then he said, I'm going to replicate this for the masses for $299. So, and this is a replica piece because I say, you know, hey, I like that, you know, that one Prince Albert's wearing. So we got him on QVC and we did millions of dollars so it's been very very successful somebody's paid off yeah so and and i did the craziest one people said what's the craziest project you ever got involved this was a cat toilet training product called city kitty and the cat you ever see meet the fockers yes okay where the cat jumps on the toilet robert de niro's in there they use City Kitty to train the cat to jump on top of the toilet.

They did not. Yeah. So you throw the litter box away and then City Kitty starts out as a litter box on top of the toilet. And you start taking it off. A ring comes out week after week until there's nothing. They just go in the bathroom. And then the cat still jumps on top of the toilet.

I mean, that's done like $10 million in sales. Still? Yeah. You license that? I did a partnership with the girl that created it, Rebecca. And so she is amazing. City kitty. City kitty.

So do you have nowhere to go? It's like for the city, where is a cat going to go to the bathroom? In the toilet. Okay? So that's the beauty of shark tank because so what what i did was i got her on good morning america the today show i went on the view with it whoopi goldberg and barbara walters and yeah and then we got her on actually the wall street journal because they like to do crazy story oh there's

this cat toilet training thing but i also started taking her to the trade show so we got her at the houseware show along came walgreens so i got in caps at walgreens and so then so we did everything along the process of taking that product we did a tv spot we did social media and a lot of things because it went kind of viral. So it paid off. It paid off, yeah. Wow. So those are some fun ones. I did quite a few other projects. And, you know, probably the biggest winner on Shark Tank is one that Lori did called the Scrub Daddy. I saw that one. This thing is done. You crushed it, right?

Tens of millions of dollars. It's just a little $1 sponge. Yes, it's a little sponge with some soap in it already. Tens of millions, right? And it's tens of millions of dollars in sales, maybe even more. She did really well off that one, yeah. So Lori Sharp, she's got that good QVC connection. Of course, I've been doing business at QVC since the mid-'80s and HSN.

So I do business with both of them. They allow you to do that? Yeah, well, I don't go on the air. See, Lori is the on-air talent, so she can only be on one. So she goes to QVC. So she goes to QVC. You just tend to send your talent to people. I'm the guy behind the scenes.

Nobody even knows which products are mine. So I've got dozens of products on the shopping channels. Yeah, QVC, HSN. And by the way, also, QVC is in the UK. which products are mine. So I've got dozens of products on the shopping channels. Yeah. QVC, HSN. And by the way, also QVC is in the UK. They're in France. They're in Italy. They're in Germany.

They're in Japan. They're in China. So we have products we're selling all over the world on the shopping channels as well as through infomercial too. This is fascinating to me. Okay. Let's go back to my question of what is the formula for having, if you want to be successful on an infomercial, what are the elements you need to have? Yeah.

Great question. So there's, there's really, there's 10 things that I look for and we could probably spend a half hour talking about all 10 of those, but I'll give you the top four or five because it's, I look for something that has um some kind of unique positioning such that i say is it unique enough such that there's nothing else that solves is is it a problem solver in a unique way such that there's nothing else that solves that problem in a similar fashion so it's kind of a mouthful there, but solve a problem uniquely such that nothing else solves that problem the same way. So that is very powerful.

Like the oven that I talked about, it's unique. It's infrared technology. It cooks inside out, outside in. It's unique. Solves the problem of it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon. What are you going to have for dinner? Well, you can take a frozen chicken out of the freezer and cook it because it can it can cook a frozen chicken a regular oven can't yeah so solve a problem solve it uniquely now i want to get into some of the other cool things is there

a magical transformation that's key right that's one of the key things so think about proactive you know uh skin care that's acne yeah it's magically transformational and by the way i just had a meeting they've been amazing the you know richard simmons was one of the greatest at weight loss yes you know the deal a meal and all the products he had he created magical transformation for people that not only did they lose weight and you could see that before and after, but he got into their heads as well as like they never rode bicycles before. Now they're out in the neighborhood, high five and everybody and riding and having fun and enjoying. So he had an emotional and mental transformation also as part of his program. But so solve a problem, do it uniquely, have a magical transformation in some fashion. Also, look for things that are like multifunctional that have more than just one function.

So solve more than one problem if you can. Right. And so you can just keep going down the line of additional benefits of other benefits right so in it's not just a dab machine you can do shoulders too and you can do this exactly this with it and so i i have three steps that that i i can give you that summarize all 10 it's called tease with some kind of attention getting problem then you please showing the benefits and solutions to the problem using magical transformations, maybe some testimonials.

And then you seize. You need an irresistible offer. So that's the close. It's not $1,000. It's $19.99. Right. Or you, as Billy Mays would do, you're going to get this, but wait. Plus five more.

There's more. Or the Ginsu, you're going to get a second knife for free and six free steak knives. So in today's world, people expect something extra, right? So create an irresistible offer. You've got to have something. Irresistible offer with more and less price. Right, yeah. more and less price right yeah add more items and drop the price and then make it affordable in a multi-pay if possible right i mean if you look at how do you make money at the end of the day i mean well that's the whole other thing look for continuity then okay so see if you follow gut

the rankers model yeah they're going to give you this and oh you get phase two you're going to get also the cleanser and the toner and this and that and it's all normally this is 200 that's 19.95 and by the way sign up today and we'll ship it to you every six weeks so they get eight turns out of that so people think they spend 20 They actually are going to probably end up spending $220 when they're done. So look for continuity. And that's on the sales cycle, obviously. Yeah. But those the things that I look for, I think we kind of hit the highlights of those. I could dive a little deeper, but I think that's good for today. That's amazing. What do most people get wrong in advertising? Oh, well, so there's a saying I say is that advertising works 50% of the time.

If I only knew which 50%. Okay. I'll tell you. So today people go out and they spend big money on TV, but you're paying to hit the masses. The masses aren't interested in your product you you know even certain segment is the kitchen business is the masses so you might be able to get by with it there but this is why digital is working so well today because you can target right into people that want your product so so like for example this hair growing helmet it's you know you've got to be able to take it to the audience that is going to want that so and in the case of that product most

people thought well is this going to work because it's only bald men but no we had we also had to open it up to thinning hair for women and once we did that it started becoming successful because before if you're just going after the men they're not even the ones sitting at home watching tv so you've got to be able to open it to those so this is not going to work on tv if you can't get the women involved sure bottom line wow you know and then also that makes it more easier to target also on your websites and your digital platforms. Sure, sure. Wow. So you've been doing it for 30 years now.

You also have a couple of organizations that you really give back a lot of your time to. EO, you started, right? Entrepreneurs Organization. I was a founding board member of what started as YEO and then it changed to EO. So we're on a global basis um we're in 150 cities 45 countries how many people members are there worldwide uh over 10 000 members and and it's it's a because i thought 10 000 sounds like a low number on a global side but it costs you four or five thousand dollars to belong EO. It's a kind of a high level networking group.

Yeah. So you pay local dues, your local chapter and then national dues to the national group. But they have a lot of educational forums and annual conferences, monthly, quarterly resources, a lot of resources. Yeah.

So you can actually get help. There's a lot of mentoring that goes on there. And I get involved in a lot of that too. That's cool. Yeah. And then you started now a college entrepreneur association, correct? So yeah, I didn't found that, but I am on the advisory board of, it's called CEO. And CEO is the collegiate entrepreneurs organization. And so I'm on the board of University of Tampa's entrepreneurship program, and I live in Tampa.

And so just recently, CEO was taken over by the University of Tampa. It's housed there. It's partially funded by them. So they asked me if I would come in and help mentor the management of CEO, which is, you know, it's a nonprofit, part of the University of Tampa is, you know, it's a nonprofit, part of the University of Tampa and, you know, its own entity. But I really love dealing at the college level because, you know, let's put it this way.

When, you know, how old is Evan Spiegel who started Snapchat? 25, 26 years old. And he's worth, you know, tens of billions or something i mean so like some of these college kids never know are smarter than old entrepreneurs like me okay so you know like i like it hanging out because they understand you know like when i started entrepreneurially i started a driveway sealing company and a heating and air conditioning company. Okay. Kind of low tech, right? But that's when I was in high school and in college. So, hey, it was fun.

I made money. But today, these kids are starting these digital companies that are worth billions. And it's pretty amazing to see this. So, I think tuning in at that college level when giving them a little bit of advice and maybe some connections can be just the difference between making it and not. So I really enjoy hanging out with these collegiate entrepreneurs. I've been involved now with CEO for about three or four years and it's really, they're on about 200, over 250 campuses now. Sure, sure. That's cool.

Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Now, what else keeps you going? You know, 30 years, you've been so successful financially, you've done, you know, however many products and just been blowing up all over the world with everything you do. What's the vision moving forward? What do you want to create? You know, so I probably have some of the answer. And at the end of the day, I actually at one point tried to retire. A few years ago. You didn't do what? I had a non-compete, right?

And I was playing golf like three times a week. And after literally five or six months, I was so bored. I'm like, what am I doing? Yeah. I mean, so I immediately said, as soon as the non--competes up i'm getting back in and doing it all over again so um so i just there's a something about the thrill of of deal making and and seeing businesses grow and and and all of that so so anymore today i have a 28 year old son that when i do deals i bring him in for a piece of the deals.

And he helps. So I'm kind of the rainmaker. I can turn it over to an execution team. And so I really enjoy advising, taking a little advisory position, taking a small piece of equity. I don't want to be the CEO. I won't be the CEO of any company because that means I'm responsible to do that. And so the last company that I did that for, you get into conflicts of interest of, well, wait a minute, Kevin's the CEO here, but this deal that he just announced that

went into some social media platform, that's not part of our company well what's the conflict of interest on that so i just decided it's real easy just to help other people sit back and give advice and take a little little equity so i'm kind of i'm not retired yet um but i did hit 60 in october so thank you i appreciate that so um i want to stay healthy. My father lived till he was 93 years old. And when he hit 90, he said to me, he was still driving at the age of 90. And so he said, Kevin, he said, if I'd have known I was going to live this long, I would have taken a lot better care of myself a lot sooner. Okay. He was trying to go into the gym at 90 years old right so i said you know i'm i'm 60 let me do i'm the same weight today that i was when i graduated high school amazing and i used to

wrestle and i played a lot of sports so you know i'm an athlete you know so i love to golf and hang out and out and do things to keep active and um and i just you know right now i'm mentoring keep active and um and i just you know right now i'm mentoring coaching taking a little equity and um and and being um kind of a good uh a good advisor to a lot of younger younger entrepreneurs now so staying healthy yeah it's a good thing um i feel like i could talk to you for for a long time and hopefully we'll get to connect many more times after this at trade shows or something that's great uh final few questions for you this is a question called the three truths. So imagine that it is your last day and it's many years from now,

you're a hundred and something years old, however you want to be. You've created everything, done everything you want to do. Every dream you've ever had has happened. And it's the last day. And you get to write down on a piece of paper, uh, your three truths, the three lessons you've learned about everything you've done that you would share with

the world. Right. What would you say are your three truths? So number one, I would say, um, when I do a deal, um, at people, sometimes my wife will call me sometimes too easy on people or you give too much away, but I like to do a deal that both sides can look at and say, that was a fair deal. Because you can get over on people, take advantage of them. And you know what usually happens on those deals? They blow up. So the first thing I always say is, let's do a deal that works for both sides. And if somehow it doesn't look like it's a fair deal,

somewhere down the line, I modify the deal if I'm getting more than I should or whatever. So I think that's important to, you know, to make sure that the deal works for both sides. Yes. Okay. That's number one. That's number one. So number two, I would say that I also like, um, and I do, I, I, I do a lot of deals. I do a lot of licensing, a lot, a lot of partnerships, right? So, um, I like to be able when, when the deal is done and you can look at it down the road, I like to be able to, to, to be able to say that I gave more than I was obligated to in that relationship. And this is one of the, another reason why sometimes I get my, I always go back to my wife yelling and screaming at me because, you know, what, why do you have to take that call? We're in the middle of dinner and it's like well this person needs me right now so um you know so i find that it

sometimes gets a little disruptive there are times when she just grabs my phone and takes it from me and says i don't care who needs you we're you know we're gonna do a one day you know no phone policy today but um i i pride myself on on on being there for people when they need me. And, you know, this is the thing. You can't plan problems as an entrepreneur, right? Can't schedule time to like, yeah. Yeah. So that is, you know, probably number two.

Number three, this is tough. Number three, this is tough. You know, I would say that I'm a very loyal person. And so, you know, I would say, you know, my wife, I tended to go towards my wife on almost everything. But I have, as I'm out running around, my wife would say, you know, you're on Shark Tank, you're going to meet all these people. I'll never forget the time when Dancing with the Stars folks were over to Shark Tank because they're like, hey, we want to do some cross-promoting. And maybe one of the sharks want to be on Dancing with the Stars, right? And my wife said, I don't want you to go on Dancing with the Stars. And I said, why?

She said, they get so close when they dance and I'd be jealous. And by the way, do you know who Robert married? One of the Stars. One of the Dancing with the Stars girls that he was dancing with, right? So I always say to my wife, you don't have to worry. I am so true to my wife. This is number three that I can, when I am on my deathbed, I'll say I married my wife and I've never have been with any other woman in the history of my life other than my wife.

And I think that's pretty special because we run in a kind of a fast world. I know a lot of people, they take pride in going out and hanging out different places and things that they do. I don't even want to know about. I go home, I go to bed early

and I want to be able to know that I'm true to my wife and my family. So I think those are three. I'll probably come up with a few more after I leave here, but I think we got three good ones for now. I love that. So thank you, Lewis. It's been fun hanging out with you today. I've got a couple more questions.

Okay. Imagine there's every human on the planet has headphones on right now, and it's a direct line to your mic. Right. And you've got less than 60 seconds to say a message. Right. It can be whatever you'd want to say. And again, you've got 60 seconds where every human would listen

and be translated in their language. Right. So you don't have to speak a million languages. You just would listen and be translated in their language right so you have to speak a million languages you just speak and they understand you right what do you think you'd say so i would i i would speak to the they're listening right now i would i would speak right to the entrepreneurs that are out there because that's my niche and yes i i'm this isn't going to be for every single human because not every single human is an entrepreneur. But I would say to them that if you want to be the most successful entrepreneur possible in your business, in your life, start out by tying in and partnering and using mentors and coaches and experts in your world to help you grow your

business the most successful way that you can by listening to people that have been there and done that before. Because so many people, I was a headstrong entrepreneur that went down these paths and failed miserably at times because I didn't listen to others out there. I thought I don't need anybody else. I was too afraid to pay other people money. But once I realized that the world is much more, your business is much more successful and the world can be more successful if you surround yourself with other people

that have the expertise in the areas that you need. And in the world of entrepreneurship, it's operations, it's finance, it's legal. It's all the things that I'm not good at, but I do what I do best and then surround myself with those experts. So maybe in life, that means to also pick the right people that you do business with, that you hang out with, that you marry in your life that are going to compliment you the best because you don't want a bunch of me too's running around telling you how how great you are you need people that are going to going to challenge you and help you take it to the next level absolutely yeah i love it i love it kevin i want to before i ask the final question i acknowledge you for a moment for your gift of

seeing great ideas and bringing them to life i think it's a challenge for people to do that. And for you to help so many people along the way, show them how to do it themselves, how to take their ideas and bring it to life, whether it be a product or business or whatever, it's an amazing thing. So I want to acknowledge you for your gift and doing that. And also your humility and your willingness to continue to do it.

30 years later, you're giving back in so many ways. And I think it's a great example of what an entrepreneur should be doing. Thank you. It's great to be here. I appreciate it. I know you got one more for me. One more question. Thank you for that.

That was very nice. Of course. Where do we connect? Before I ask the final question, where do we connect with you online? Where do you like to hang out? Or what's the best place to find out more information about you you know my um i have um my website is kevinherrington.tv so that really is kind of a the hub for places you from there you can connect you can leave messages that'll get to me and and um and that's really the best place

you're not tweeting all day your team. Yeah. I'm not. Yeah. I, I I'm cause I'm an old entrepreneur. And when, when we first went on shark tank tweeting, wasn't even sure that I, I got the,

you know, I got on a shark tank in, in 2008 when I got the call, we filmed in 2009. This is almost 10 years ago. Right. So, you know,

like Damon and I were looking at each other. Do you tweet like, well, not really, you know? And then, you know, season three, you were looking at each other. Do you tweet like, well, not really, you know? And then, you know,

season three, you know, Mark Cuban came on and he's like, Hey, we got to start tweeting, you know? And so I do tweet, I've got followers. I do have my Facebook and my LinkedIn and all that,

but you know, so you can check me out on all those places, but really to connect with me, you can connect also right in your website, right on my website. You leave messages there. And I get those and I respond very quickly too. So within 48 hours.

Love it. Love it. Okay. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? Wow. Okay. You didn't give me any heads up on any of these, Lewis.

You're throwing me off here because sometimes I get to prepare. But I would say- you know, so I think greatness, I would say when I always believe that it's not what you call yourself. I mean, a lot of people can write their own copy for how great they are and how great all the things have been that they've done. It's what other people say about you. So I think greatness is when you have industries, and I'm in various industries now, but I think when people in the core industry you're in can say that you've been you've given a lot to that industry and and um and and a great amount of of uh effort and i think it's it's it's looking at uh at what all the people that surround you and also even some of the people that don't even know you sometimes

because you know every now and then i'll i'll i'll hear somebody that said something about me and i'll say well you know what they don't even know me so let's you know let's give them a chance if they know me and they don't like me that's okay okay but don't say that you you don't know me and something but i feel greatness is when all the people that surround you can can say that you you have contributed more to the universe and more to the world than you took back, that I think is greatness, is being able to give back in a way that the equilibrium is giving more than you take. Kevin Harrington, thank you so much. All right, buddy. Lewis, it's great to be here.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. There you so much. All right, buddy. Louis, it's great to be here. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. There you have it. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it out with your friends. Tag me on social media, lewishouse.com slash 490. Tag me on your Insta stories. I reply to everyone over there. Tag me on Twitter, Facebook, all those good places.

And make sure to connect with Kevin and let him know what you thought of this as well all of the show notes all the resources all the links that we talked about are at that show notes at lewishouse.com slash 490 so make sure to go there right now check out all the resources share with your friends and let me know what you thought about this episode I hope you guys enjoyed this one and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.