490 Kevin Harrington on Shark Tank, Inventing the Infomercial, and Billions in Sales

"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 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 490 with the original shark Kevin Harrington.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  Kevin has also launched over 20 businesses that has grown to over a hundred million dollars in sales each. And he's been involved in more than a dozen public companies and he's launched over 500 products that have generated more than five 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,

• 1:55Lewis Howes?

  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. Starter 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, want to give a shout out to our iTunes review of the week. This is by Liz eight six. 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.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  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 resparked 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. Liz eight six, 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 and 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.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  We've got a legend, Kevin Harrington in the house. Good to see you, man.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Thanks, Lewis. I'm great, man. Feeling good.

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:37Lewis Howes?

  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 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?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Uh, over 500.

• 3:58Lewis Howes?

  500 products to market.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Yes, over the last 30 years.

• 4:01Lewis Howes?

  Either being in retail or online, I'm assuming.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, correct.

• 4:04Lewis Howes?

  Or on home shopping network type shows or?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Right, we start usually on, on an as seen on TV kind of spot, commercial and then

• 4:11Lewis Howes?

  Infomercial.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Infomercial, right? And then that if, 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, uh now, and then international, because that's, we sell as many outside the US or more than we did inside the US.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  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.

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  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, all those relationships.

• 4:57Lewis Howes?

  Now, do you create the products yourself from idea to launch? Are you more licensing it to the manufacturer or to the brands?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  What I, you know, what I say, and, and this is, uh, because people say, well, you know, do you have, are, 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.

• 5:16Lewis Howes?

  Idea.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  One patent that I made, right? Um, I am, 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, uh, than I can invent myself. And plus, um, 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, three or four or five years taking it to a point, and then I can come in and then take it to the market.

• 5:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  So it's.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  So you take a great idea, and then you take it to market?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 5:52Lewis Howes?

  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, uh, all that already, then will you take it to the manufacturer and help them with the whole process?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  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.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  But I put it on TV, and then, then their Amazon blows up, and then they'll drop the price. Well, 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, a 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 you're running on TV and now all of a sudden it goes into Walmart and Walmart sells it at, you know, thirty dollars less or something that can destroy all your other distribution catalog, QVC, etc. So you have to have a unified pricing model.

• 7:01Lewis Howes?

  You're taking me back because um, two thousand eight, two thousand nine, I got I got injured playing arena football in two thousand seven. And then I met, I came up with an invention.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:12Lewis Howes?

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

• 7:20Speaker 01

  The Tampa Storm was a was a great team. Did you ever meet the?

• 7:23Lewis Howes?

  I did, yes, yes.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  The guy that ran that just passed away a few years ago, but he was he was a real kind of legend and a controversial character. Uh, I he was sort of a buddy I saw occasionally.

• 7:36Lewis Howes?

  So this is a, I didn't even plan to bring this out, but it's, this is a from essentially ten years ago, nine years ago, I had a cast on from breaking my wrist.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  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 and soft, but also different colors. So I created this. You can slide it through your arms. It's got a thumb hole, so it went through there.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Great.

• 8:04Lewis Howes?

  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 twenty-three-year-old punk.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  You know?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:12Lewis Howes?

  And it just slid right over the cast and you know, all these different things. Call it the cast comfy. And I um, found an inventor who became a great mentor of mine. And so I went to all these trade shows.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:23Lewis Howes?

  I went to CES and the Home Housewear Show and all those other shows that you were talking about earlier off camera.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:30Lewis Howes?

  That you go to 30 trade shows a year, is that what you said?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  So I was going to all these and just learning about, you know, 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, like takes me back to when I was first getting into business. That's the stuff I learned about early on.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:48Lewis Howes?

  There's so many facets to taking a product, first getting an idea.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  And making it come to life.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  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. Cause you have to, you have to do the tooling. You've got to do the manufacturing.

• 9:07Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:16Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  You know, do you think Amazon would, would, as ever said, four to six weeks?

• 9:20Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  You know, I mean like.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  Four to six days, max.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  It's, 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.

• 9:38Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  And so.

• 9:38Lewis Howes?

  With the infomercial.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, with the, in the early days of infomercials.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  You sell it, then you create it.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we already knew, we had a factory, we had the tooling, but we had to then, we'd sell it.

• 9:50Lewis Howes?

  Make a big order yet until you got it.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  We'd sell it and then we'd go pay the manufacturer, okay, we need 10,000.

• 9:55Lewis Howes?

  In the next week.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  And then, and then they would make it real quick, put it on a boat, three, it'd take three weeks to get over here. And that's why it was four to six weeks. Because we had to, we, 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?

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  That's brilliant.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  And so, 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, you're like the original crowdfunding campaign. You're like the original. Pretty much so, yeah. Indiegogo. I actually, I also, I also call us the original viral videos. Right. Okay, because when I first, I first ran into this, 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. Oh, that was a huge knife set.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, 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. So, and it did hundreds of millions of dollars. So you took that product? Yeah. That was the first infomercial? So, so that, that, that, it actually was one of my first product infomercials, because I had done, it, it, previous to that, I had been doing some, um, franchise type stuff, so. Infomercials, yeah, yeah. Yeah, infomercials, yeah. This is the product where you could like see the transformation or whatever? Right, where you, you know, where you demonstrate, and it wasn't lead generation, it was pick up the phone, order now, buy today, credit card.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  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 Jacqueline Juicer Show, we had, and so, we're ordering 10,000 of these, 10,000 of these, 10,000, we, we had, at one time, you know, five, eight, 10 million dollars tied up in inventory. Really? Coming into the US, and that's big business. So you were, but you already pre-sold that, right? Or was that inventory coming in, you gotta sell? Well, in the beginning, we would pre-sell it, then go order, but then we had to be more sophisticated. You did it in quicker. We, we had, yeah, we had to, then, because this was the beauty.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  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, now, there's, let's take it, times 10, go to 250, 300 stations. We're gonna get 10 times the orders, 100,000. So, and it held. The beauty is, if it worked on 25, it was gonna 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, and all of that. So I had a, we had a $10 million line of credit from Chemical Bank at one point.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  And we used every dime of that to, you know, because we needed it to pay for the inventory. And, uh, the, the, you know, 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. I had, the, the very first time I ordered, we were selling this Chinese walk. 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, ocean spray that was coming on top. You know, uh, rusted out all the Chinese walks. So we had pre-sold these.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  So now we have 10,000 at 40 bucks a piece. I, 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, and shined them all up real good. And they, they, yeah, so. You spent 20 grand on shining it up. I spent 20 grand on shining them up. Those 400 grand on. Instead of 400 in refunds. And, and, cause 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 the, I mean, we were literally living week to week to week with our cash flow. And so it was brutal, some of the learning curves. And, um, you know, we, we, we, we learned quite a bit about a lot of stuff.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  In fact, one day my auditor came in and said, hey, what are you selling for a hundred dollars? Um, on TV, cause you're selling $29 knife sets and stuff. He said, cause I said, uh, nothing for a hundred. Well, you're issuing a lot of hundred dollar credits. And, and so I found out that one of our girls in accounting was, she had issued tens of thousands of dollars of hundred dollar credits to herself and her friends and her relatives and, cause 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 twenty-nine dollar credits and nobody picked up, then fifty dollar credits, then hundred

• 15:17Speaker 01

  dollar credits. And actually, there were some thousand dollar credits along the way, too. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously criminal activity, but, um, you know, so, but we, th- these are the things we learned. This was that, this is nineteen eighty-six or eighty-seven or something, thirty years ago. We're learning the hard way, because nobody, you know, nobody knew this stuff, right?

• 15:38Lewis Howes?

  Holy cow.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  So, anyway, it was, it was, it was a great entrepreneurial experience going through these early days. And, 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.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  So you start with the idea, where you'll see something at a trade show, is typically how, I'm guessing it goes down. You see a guy or a girl who's got a product and they're demonstrating, you're like, that could be great for TV. Let me create a short commercial around it.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:09Lewis Howes?

  Which, there's a format to doing an infomercial, which I want to ask you about, and that's the key to that. Take that, do a media buy at twenty-five markets. If it sells well, go to two-hundred-and-fifty. And then, if that sells well, you keep ramping it up, and then you'll take it to the home shopping networks.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:24Lewis Howes?

  Then to retail.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:26Lewis Howes?

  Then to international.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  That's the model.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Two thousand and two, I was at the Chicago Houseware Show. There's two Korean, um, engineers had a ten-by-ten booth, and they had an oven that had infrared technology that cooked inside the food out. So, an oven cooks outside in.

• 16:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  So, but if you have a frozen chicken, outside in will burn the outside before it gets the frozen, 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 a hundred and forty dollars. And so, that's That's a, you know, about a $700 million product that I, that I did.

• 17:14Lewis Howes?

  You told, you saw, you said, hey.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Saw those guys licensed it, created the infomercial and brought it to market and,

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  And, and that's what we do. That's why I go to trade shows. Okay.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  You see that stuff early on. Yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:27Lewis Howes?

  They're trying to get the word out. They're trying to find people like you.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yes. I put up all the money. I licensed it exclusively for the world.

• 17:40Lewis Howes?

  So you're like the brand.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I.

• 17:42Lewis Howes?

  They get a five, three to five percent royalty.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Three to five percent. Yeah.

• 17:45Lewis Howes?

  That's typically.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Today, maybe two to four. Okay. So.

• 17:48Lewis Howes?

  Five is like really good.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Five is like Tony Little is five, you know?

• 17:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh, he made bank then.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Right. So.

• 17:54Lewis Howes?

  Five percent of what, 300 million or something?

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, the first show I did with Tony, we did the first infomercial, did 350 million. He got five percent. He didn't, he made 17 million dollars.

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  And he didn't have to do any of the work. He didn't have to put up any of the money. Didn't have to deal with any of the stress.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

  Media buying, the marketing. He just showed up and presented and.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  He did like a two day shoot and collected a check.

• 18:13Lewis Howes?

  17 million.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  For the rest of his life. I mean, not his life. That was about a four year run.

• 18:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  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, no, that means you're going to come up with half the cash, right? Sure. I've made a lot of money. I, 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.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Six months.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Six to nine months. So.

• 18:55Lewis Howes?

  He's putting out all his money.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  And he's putting, he's writing a check every week for half of the hundreds of thou. He's got, all of a sudden, he's got seven, 800 grand invested. And he's like, wait a minute. When am I going to 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?

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  You're like, yeah, now I'm doing three percent.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I said, no. Let's make it four, Tony. Yeah, exactly. So, um, yeah, so it's, there's a big responsibility. Big responsibility. In licensing the deals and, 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, um, Ginsu, Ginsu? Ginsu. Ginsu. Ginsu was. How, how 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 owned Ginsu through various things went bankrupt.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  I ended up taking it over, licensing it from Warren Buffett, his company. And it, 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, I, 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. Ah. Okay, so, so now, Tony Little owns his brand.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  But when we did the, um, the ab isolator, for example, an ab product, we then, we want to own that. That brand together. Yeah, we want to own that brand together. Yeah, yeah. He owns his name. He owns his name. So it's Tony Little's ab isolator. So we want to be partners. So you're licensing then his name, your brand. Yeah, yeah. Correct. Because, so for example, Billy Mays was the creator. One of the greatest. Yeah. And so I met Billy in 1986 in, in, in Philadelphia. I met him at a trade show myself, too. He's an amazing guy. Nice guy. God bless. He's passed away now. But, but Billy, um, had, he created OxiClean. Now. Such a big product. He didn't own that, though. He was the face of it. Somebody else owned it. And so.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  This is a true story. Billy called me and he said, Kevin, he said, these, these guys that own OxiClean, 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. He, 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 dollars. So what happened-

• 21:59Lewis Howes?

  With his name attached to it.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  With his name attached to it on a five-year deal. So what, 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 them 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.

• 22:27Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure, right?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  And I don't know what he ended up doing. That wasn't my deal, but I was buddies with Billy and, um, and his wife, Deborah, since, um, you know, when he passed, you know, it was a terrible time for the industry because he's such a legend to, you know, he had 60-some commercials on television when, when he passed away.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  He was still making good money.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he's making money.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  He had two Phantom Rolls Royces and, uh-

• 22:49Lewis Howes?

  He was doing alright.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  And a, and a 20-some thousand square foot house. So, you know-

• 22:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he was doing alright.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  He was making millions of dollars a year.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Um, he lived large, you know, but that's, you know, it's-

• 22:59Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  You know, look, it-

• 23:01Lewis Howes?

  When you're facing on TV every day, you're, you know-

• 23:03Speaker 01

  You know, it's a different form of like, you know, you know, I, I was at Mike Tyson's house in Las Vegas recently. I'm talking to him about a project and, you know, Mike, he, he lived large. He made 300 and some million dollars and-

• 23:15Lewis Howes?

  How much did he lose of it?

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Went through most of it, I think, you know?

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Um, you know, the Billy Mays and the Tony Littles, they make a lot of money. Um, they, hopefully they save a little bit along the way, right?

• 23:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  So, you know, but it's, um, it's been a, it's been a good run for a lot of those guys.

• 23:30Lewis Howes?

  So what's the formula? You've done how many commercials? Hundreds?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  500 plus.

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  500 plus.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  What's been the, the, the top three best selling for you?

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:40Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  The formula.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  So, I mean, look, the, uh, the top three is kind of, I can look at di- different, uh,

• 23:54Lewis Howes?

  Metrics, I guess.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Reasons why, but Tony Little, I always say is kind of my number one guy.

• 23:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 23:58Speaker 01

  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 over a billion dollars with Tony Little.

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  A billion dollars in sales.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  In sales.

• 24:11Lewis Howes?

  From infomercials.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  From infomercials.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Just infomercials or Home Shopping Networks?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Oh, that, that was everything combined.

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  Everything, sales in general.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  That was sales, international, retail.

• 24:19Lewis Howes?

  Billion dollars in sales.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, like 1.5 billion, yeah.

• 24:22Lewis Howes?

  In two or three products?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  In three products, yeah.

• 24:25Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  So, so now, now Tony's done.

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  He got a 5% royalty on that or is that on the?

• 24:29Speaker 01

  And, and some of it was, was retail, uh, so there's wholesale at retail, so he gets it on, on the wholesale side. So, didn't quite get that on the gross, but, but, um, the, so Tony is near and dear to me. He, 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

• 24:58Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  The industry, right? Um, and he, I just had my birthday party and he, he came and hung out.

• 25:04Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  So, I, you know, that, 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 LaLanne 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 LaLanne. Uh, but then, you ever hear of a product called the Food Saver? It's a vacuum food sealer?

• 25:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Okay, so I, 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, 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 to grow hair. And it's clinically proven. This is doing tens of millions of dollars right now on, and it's on QVC.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  It's for women and men. It's FDA cleared, clinically proven, et cetera. But, but now also Louis, 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 like email me and say, look, Yeah. 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, so that is sort of my new model over the last um, about four or five years is I, I, what I do is I take strategic

• 27:06Speaker 01

  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 10 cents a share. It's now $3.60. And you know, what could be so bad to get a lot of shares in those kind of deals, right? So I have, you know, tens of millions of, of shares of public companies. You know, I think Tim Ferriss is kind of doing this kind of stuff. Get in on the ground floor 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.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  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, I'm married now twice and my new wife and it, 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 ass scene of TV businesses, it's, it's being, they're, 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.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  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 mean, 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, you know, what cable package did you get, Nick? And he said, oh, um, sorry to tell you, Dad, but he's just putting in internet. I'm not yet, yeah. 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. So you can see an infomercial. I need to be able to watch some shows when I'm over here hanging out at your place. So we, you know, so we got cable.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  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 till I got there. But so kids don't watch TV like, like. It's crazy. I mean, I, I, I used to, you know, in the very beginning, I had five channels. Then we got, 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. Uh, yeah, with bars on the screen. And you're like, I should buy that every time. Yeah, I said. Discovery for the first five years of its existence was an 18 hour a day network. Shut up.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  And I bought the six hours nationwide from Discovery. Yeah, back in the, back in the mid eighties. And by the way, we paid them a thousand dollars a day for six hours. And that's 365,000 dollars a year. And that was generating tens of millions of dollars in sales. That was a great media buy. So that was extremely good media buy and that was the early, early days. Before everyone got in and it got competitive. 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. Twenty eight. Three years for a thousand bucks a day? Thousand bucks a day, yes. You got it.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  And it went for 28 million because it was generating tens of millions of dollars in sales. So, I mean, 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, it's back in the eighties. This was in the eighties, 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 a 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 20,000 dollars for 30 minutes now, you know, Discovery. Is it worth it to buy this media still? It's becoming so difficult to make money off of, but so our strategy's changed. Billboard, right?

• 31:27Speaker 01

  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 and yeah. Yeah, you gotta go on TV and then have all the other elements around it. Ready. Ready to go. And, and then also pricing protected because what do most people do now? They, they see it on TV, they actually. Go online. 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 got something similar for half the price or whatever, right?

• 32:10Speaker 01

  So it's a, it's a cutthroat business and, and we drive other people's sales with TV for sure. Yeah. In fact, we, you know, like I said, when there was 20 resellers of that hair growing helmet. On Amazon, we had to clean them up because what am, why am I going to go on TV? And drive their sales?

• 32:26Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  No, you can't afford it. So it's a, it's a more sophisticated business today.

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  But you're still active and aggressively buying media on TV?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, yeah.

• 32:36Lewis Howes?

  Even today, thirty years later?

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:37Lewis Howes?

  Even how competitive it is, how much more expensive, it still works.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we start on social media, actually. We start on Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram, one of the social media channels, test it and.

• 32:49Lewis Howes?

  See if you get a few sales and then, okay.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  We call it test before we invest.

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a focus group.

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  Proof of concept, yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  I mean, to do a spot, do an infomercial, do a TV spot, you gotta produce the show, you gotta write the script, you gotta buy the media. It's seventy-five grand to a hundred to two hundred thousand dollars.

• 33:06Lewis Howes?

  Before you buy media?

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Before you, 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 green light it or not. And, and so amazing things happen.

• 33:26Lewis Howes?

  I mean, that's why so many people are successful with Indiegogo Kickstarter 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.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  You know, I had a, I was a part of a Kickstarter that we did about almost five hundred thousand in sales for products. It was a, a carbon fiber, like it was like a paper airplane made out of carbon fiber.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 33:50Lewis Howes?

  That you can remote control with your iPhone.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  And it had an HD camera on it so you can like film the whole flight.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  That's pretty cool. Wow.

• 33:57Lewis Howes?

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

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:15Lewis Howes?

  And this has been, you know, two and a half years now.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Have, have you heard, you know Chris Stoichkov, the Dollar Beard Club guy, okay? Yeah, right? Now he did a product called Coolbox, which he went on Kickstarter, raised four hundred thousand. It was a cooler that was like a toolbox. Cooler.

• 34:31Lewis Howes?

  This wasn't the coolest cooler.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Not the coolest cooler.

• 34:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, my friend worked on that design.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Okay, 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 Lori Grenier.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  To sell the cool box.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Did looking for partners and so.

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  How did it do?

• 35:09Speaker 01

  That well, Lori on the show did the deal, but then that fell apart.

• 35:13Lewis Howes?

  Backed out.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  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 so now we're 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. Yeah.

• 35:33Lewis Howes?

  How many of the deals that actually happened on Shark Tank actually happen?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  You know, they I would say

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  Half.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Under some way, at least half happen under some formula. But

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  May not be the same.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Not always the exact same that you see on the show.

• 35:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Um, because it I'll say this, it, you know, 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.

• 35:59Lewis Howes?

  Not the accurate numbers.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  All the things weren't like totally well, that patent you said you had.

• 36:04Lewis Howes?

  You don't have.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  It's, you know, 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 util? Oh, it's I think it's a utility patent. Okay, well, we'll do the deal, but it's got to be a utility.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  They have or whatever.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so.

• 36:39Lewis Howes?

  But how many of the deals that you did?

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Were there any big successes for you? I had a, I had a number of, of, of cool projects. Yes, I had, so this is, this is a jewelry product. Yeah, this is, this was Aldo Orta Jewelry and he was a designer for 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 forty thousand dollars, the original piece. And then he said, I'm gonna replicate this for the masses for two hundred ninety-nine dollars. So, um, and this is a replica piece, cause I say, you know, uh, you know, he sends, yeah, hey, I like that, you know?

• 37:20Speaker 01

  That, that one Prince Albert's wearing, okay? So, we got him on QVC and we did millions of dollars. So it's, it's been very, very successful. So something that's paid off, yeah. 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, 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. And, yeah, so you put the, throw the litter box away and then City Kitty starts out as a litter box on top of the toilet, but then a, a ring comes out week after week until there's nothing. And just go in the bathroom.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  The cat still jumps on top of the toilet. And, I mean, that's done like ten million dollars in sales. I mean, Still? I, I, yeah. You license that or you, uh? We, I did a partnership with the, with the, the, the girl that, that created it, Rebecca. And so she is amazing. City Kitty? City Kitty. If you have nowhere to go or? It's like for the city, if cat get, you know, where is a cat gonna go to the bathroom? In the toilet, okay? So, um, that's the beauty of Shark Tank because, uh, 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, cause they like to do crazy stories. Oh, there's this cat toy of the training thing.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  But I also started taking her to the trade show. So, we got her at the Houseware Show, along came Walgreens. So I got end 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.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  So it paid off?

• 39:03Speaker 01

  It paid off. Yeah. So those are, those are some fun ones. I did, and I did quite a few other projects and, and you know, some of the, you know, the big, probably the biggest winner on Shark Tank is one that Lori did called the, um, um, Scrub Daddy.

• 39:18Lewis Howes?

  I saw that one.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  This thing is done tens of millions of dollars.

• 39:21Lewis Howes?

  Just a little one dollar sponge.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  It's a little, yes, it's a little sponge with some soap in it already.

• 39:26Lewis Howes?

  Tens of millions, right?

• 39:26Speaker 01

  And it's tens of millions of dollars in sales, maybe even more. I, I, I lost count of it. She did really well off that one. Yeah. So Lori's, Lori Sharp, she's got that good QVC connection. Of course, I, I've been doing business at QVC since the mid eighties and HSN. So I like to, I do, I do business with both.

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  They allow you to do that?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I don't go on the air. See Lori is the on air talent. So she can only be on one.

• 39:53Lewis Howes?

  So she goes to QVC?

• 39:53Speaker 01

  So she goes to QVC.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  You just send your talent to people.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  I'm just, 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. 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, um, on the shopping channel as well as through infomercial too.

• 40:19Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  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, um, 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's solved? 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 you know, solve a problem uniquely such that nothing else solves that problem the same way. So that is very powerful.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Like the oven that I talked about, it's, it's unique. It's infrared technology, cooks inside out, outside in. It's unique, solves the problem of it's four o'clock in the afternoon. What are you gonna have for dinner? Well, you could take a frozen chicken out of the freezer and cook it because it can cook a frozen chicken. A regular oven can't.

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  So, solve a problem, solve it uniquely. Now, I want to get into some of the other cool things. Is there a magical transformation?

• 41:39Lewis Howes?

  That's key, right?

• 41:40Speaker 01

  That's one of the key things. So, think about proactive, you know, skincare.

• 41:45Lewis Howes?

  Acne, face, no acne.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's magically transformational. And by the way, I just had a meeting.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  They've done amazing.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  The, you know, Richard Simmons was one of the greatest at weight loss.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  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-fiving everybody and riding and having fun and enjoying. So, he had an emotional and mental transformation also as part of his program. But, um, 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?

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Um, and, and so, you can just, you know, keep going down the line of,

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  Additional benefits.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Of, of other benefits, right? So, in,

• 42:50Lewis Howes?

  It's not just to that machine, you can do shoulders too, and you can do this with it, this with it.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  And so, I, 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.

• 43:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Maybe some testimonials. And then you seize, you need an irresistible offer. So, that's the close.

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  It's not a thousand dollars, it's 19.99.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Right. Or you, as Billy Mays would do, you're gonna get this, but what weight,

• 43:22Lewis Howes?

  Plus five more.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  You know, if you're gonna, you know, or the Ginsu, you're gonna get a second steak knife for free. A second knife for free and six free steak knives. So you've in today's world, people expect something out extra, right? So create an irresistible offer. It's gotta, you gotta have something. Irresistible offer with 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 a whole other thing. Look for continuity then. Okay? So see, if you follow Guthie Ranker's model, they're gonna give you this and oh, you get phase two, you're gonna get also

• 44:06Speaker 01

  the cleanser and the toner and the this and a that. And it's all normally this is $200. It'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 gonna probably end up spending $220 when they're done. So look for continuity and that's on the sales cycle, obviously. Yeah. But 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. No, it's amazing. What do most people get wrong in advertising?

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Oh, well, so there's, 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 it's you're paying to hit the masses. The masses aren't interested in your product. 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

• 45:29Speaker 01

  that is gonna want that. So in the case of that product, most people thought, well, is this gonna work? Cause it's only bald men, but no, we also had to open it up to thinning hair for women. And once we did that. It started becoming successful.

• 45:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  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.

• 45:58Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Bottom line.

• 45:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  You know, and then also that makes it more easier to target also on your websites, you know, and your digital platforms.

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So you've been doing this 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.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  I was, I was a founding board member of the, uh, what was started as YEO and then it changed to EO. So, uh, we're on a global basis. Um, we're in 150 cities, 45 countries.

• 46:29Lewis Howes?

  How many people, members are there? Well, what?

• 46:31Speaker 01

  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, it costs you four or $5,000 to belong to 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, uh, annual conferences, monthly, quarterly.

• 46:56Lewis Howes?

  Resources, everything.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  A lot of resources. Yeah. So you can actually get help. There's a lot of mentoring that goes on there and I, I get involved in a lot of that too.

• 47:03Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:04Lewis Howes?

  And then you started now, uh, a college entrepreneur association, correct?

• 47:08Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I didn't found that, but I'm, I am on the, on the, 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.

• 47:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  It's housed there. It's, it's partially funded by them. So they asked me if I would come in and help mentor the management of CEO, which is, uh, you know, it's a, it's a nonprofit part of the University of Tampa and, uh, you know, its own entity. But, um, I really love dealing at the college level because.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  You know, let's put it this way, when, you know, how old is Evan Spiegel who started Snapchat?

• 48:01Lewis Howes?

  Twenty five, six, seven.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Twenty six years old and he's worth, you know, tens of billions or something. I mean, so like some of these college kids

• 48:09Lewis Howes?

  Never know.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  are smarter than old entrepreneurs like me. Okay. So, you know, like I, I like it hanging out because they understand, you know, like when I started entrepreneurially, I started a driveway ceiling company and a heating and air conditioning company. Okay. Kind of low tech, right? Um, but that's when I was in high school and in college. So, hey, it was fun. I made money. But today, these, these kids are starting these digital companies that are worth billions and, um, and it's pretty amazing to see this. So, um, I, I think tuning in at that college level, when giving them a little bit of advice and, and maybe some connections can be,

• 48:49Speaker 01

  uh, just the difference between making it and not. So I, I really enjoy hanging out with these collegiate entrepreneurs. I've, I've been involved now with CEO for about three or four years and, um, it's really, they're on about 200, over 250 campuses now.

• 49:05Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. That's cool.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  It's a lot of fun.

• 49:07Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 49:19Speaker 01

  You know, so, um, I, it, I probably have some of the answer and at the end of the day, I, you know, I actually at one point tried to retire. Um, a few years.

• 49:29Lewis Howes?

  You'd do what?

• 49:30Speaker 01

  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, I, I, I, what am I doing? Yeah. I mean, so I immediately said, as soon as the non-compete's 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's, he helps. So I'm kind of the rainmaker. I can turn it over to an execution team. And so I, I, I, I really enjoy advising.

• 50:15Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  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

• 50:26Lewis Howes?

  Tied down to one thing.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Responsible to do that. And so the last company that I did that for, you get into conflicts of interest of, oh, well, wait a minute. He comes to 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.

• 50:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow, you look great, man.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  So thank you. I appreciate that. So, um, I want to stay healthy. Um, my father lived till he was 93 years old and he, when he hit 90, he said to me, he was still driving the age of 90.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  And so he said, 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, I'm the same weight today that I was when I graduated high school.

• 51:30Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. You're super fit.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  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, coaching, taking a little equity and, um, and, and being, um, staying healthy. Kind of a good, uh, a good advisor to a lot of younger, younger entrepreneurs now. So staying healthy. Yeah.

• 51:55Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  It's a good thing.

• 51:56Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 52:02Lewis Howes?

  Uh, final few questions for you. This is a question called the three truths. So, uh, imagine that it is your last day and it's many years from now, a hundred, you're a hundred and something years old, however you want to be. You've created everything, done everything you want to do. Uh, 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.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:31Lewis Howes?

  What would you say are your three truths?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  So number one, I would say, um, when I do a deal, um, people sometime, 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. Cause you, you can get over on people, take advantage of them. And, and you know, it usually happens on those deals, they blow up. So, um, 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.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  So, um, I, I think that's important to, um, you know, to, to make sure that the deal works for both sides.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Okay. That's number one.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  That's number one. So, um, 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 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. Cause you know, why, 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.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  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 going to do a one day, you know, no phone policy today. But, um, I, 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?

• 54:31Lewis Howes?

  Can't schedule time to like, yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um, and, and so, so that is, you know, probably number two. Um, number three, this is, this is tough. Um, you know, I, you know, I, I would say that I'm, I'm very, um, I'm a very loyal person. Um, and so, you know, um, I would say, you know, my, my, my, my wife, I, I, I tended to go towards my wife here and on almost everything, but, um, I have, as I'm out running around, I was on, my wife would say, you know, you're on Shark Tank, you're gonna meet all these people. When, I'll never forget the, the time when, um, Dancing with the Stars folks were over to Shark Tank.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Cause they're like, hey, we wanna do some cross promoting and, um, maybe one of the Sharks wanna be on,

• 55:18Lewis Howes?

  Robert was on, right?

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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, they get so close when they dance and I'd be jealous. And by the way, do you know who Robert married?

• 55:30Lewis Howes?

  One of the Stars.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  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, my wife, this is number three, that I can, when I am on my deathbed, I'll say, I married my wife and I would never have been with any other woman in the history of my life, other than my wife. And I think that's pretty special, cause you know, we run in a kind of a fast world.

• 55:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  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 wanna know about. I go home, I go to bed early and I wanna be able to know that I'm true to my wife and my family. So, um, I think those are three to, I'll probably come up with a few more after I leave here.

• 56:13Lewis Howes?

  I like this.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  But I, but I, but I think we got three good ones for now.

• 56:16Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  So, thank you, Louis. It's, it's been fun hanging out with you.

• 56:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. I've got a couple more questions.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  Um, imagine there's, every human on the planet has headphones on right now.

• 56:28Lewis Howes?

  And it's a direct line to your mic.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:32Lewis Howes?

  And you've got less than 60 seconds to say a message.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:37Lewis Howes?

  Can be whatever you'd want to say. And again, you've got a 60 seconds where every human would listen and be translated in their language.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:44Lewis Howes?

  So you don't have to speak a million languages. You just speak and they understand you.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:49Lewis Howes?

  What do you think you'd say?

• 56:51Speaker 01

  So I would, I would speak to the.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  And they're listening right now.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  I would, I would speak right to the entrepreneurs that are out there because that's my niche. And I guess I, 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 you, 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.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  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 I, you know, once I realized that the world is much more, your, 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.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  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 complement you the best. Cause you don't want a bunch of me twos 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.

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. 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 mean, 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 in doing that and also your humility and your willingness to continue to do it.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:03Lewis Howes?

  Thirty years later, you're, you're, you're giving back in so many ways. And I think it's a great example of what an entrepreneur should be doing.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Thank you. That's, it's great to be here. I appreciate it. I know you got one more for me. But thank you for that. That was very nice.

• 59:17Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 59:19Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 59:27Speaker 01

  You know, my, I have, my website is Kevin Harrington dot 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, and that's really the best place.

• 59:43Lewis Howes?

  You're not tweeting all day, your team is?

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not. Yeah. I, I'm, cause I'm an old entrepreneur and when, when we first went on Shark Tank tweeting wasn't even, cause I, I got the, you know, I got on Shark Tank in, in two thousand and eight when I got the call. We filmed in two thousand nine. 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 know, Mark Cuban came on and he's like, hey, we gotta 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.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  But really, to connect with me, you can connect also right in, right on my website. You leave messages there and I get those and I respond very, very quickly too. So within 48 hours.

• 1:00:30Lewis Howes?

  Love it. Love it. Okay. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  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, when you have industries and, and I'm in various industries now, but, you know, I, I think when, when people in, in the core industry you're in can say that you've been, you've given a lot to that industry and, and, and a great amount of, of effort.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  And I think it's, it's, it's looking at, at what all the people that surround you and also even some of the people that don't even know you sometimes. Cause 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.

• 1:01:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Okay? But don't say that you, you, you don't know me and something. But I feel greatness is when all the people that's around you can, can say that you have contributed more to the universe and more to the world than you took back. That, that I think is greatness is, is being able to, to give back in a, in a way that, that the equilibrium is giving more than you take.

• 1:02:19Lewis Howes?

  Kevin Herring.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:02:21Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  All right, buddy. Lewis, it's great to be here. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

• 1:02:26Lewis Howes?

  There you have it. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it out with your friends. Tag me on social media, LewisHowes.com/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 LewisHowes.com/490. So make sure to go there right now. Check out all our 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.

• 1:03:31Lewis Howes?

  You