 It's funny we're talking pre-show you're from Cincinnati which I think people don't people say this is the most northern southern city Is that the reputation that it has or was that yeah, you know, it's I I would say so because you know people will sometimes That's I had sound like I'm from the south But you know and then made it you know then I and then and then the others will say you know like east You know got a little east coast in me, too. So yeah, but yeah, it's eastern time zone and it's It's it's kind of far up, you know north-wise, but but then it's right next to Kentucky and Louisville and all that You know so you know, yeah, a lot of good whiskey and tobacco farms. Yeah across the river Yeah, it's kind of funny when you when you drive through Ohio, you just go this state is enormous You know I'm from Michigan, but I'm from north of Detroit. So okay, Michigan in 20 minutes Maybe 45. Yeah, depending on traffic Cincinnati if you want to go up through to up through to Toledo or something I mean pack of lunch. There's not much Not much pretty scenery now When you were a kid you worked in your dad's restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So I was 11 years old and he had my father was a restaurant tour. He had bars restaurants Irish pubs you name it. It was it was fun. I've washed dishes I I joke, you know, how do you become an assistant chef at the age of 11? Well, my father owned the restaurant when the chef didn't show I was assisting my father in flipping the steaks You know, so so, you know, I learned that very early age being an entrepreneur in the restaurant business You know had a set of challenges So that was just one of them people not showing up Then there was people stealing from me all the time and all that kind of stuff, too But I had a lot of fun working with my dad for many years. Yeah, I can imagine I mean you learned early on that you have to wear every hat in the business as a business owner My wife's aunt she owns a Chinese restaurant and we said, oh, what are the challenges in your business getting customers? She's like, no the challenges are I'll hire someone new They won't show up and then I'll or I'll hire someone new or somebody who's been around for a long time And I'll go where are the 30 pounds of prime rib that I ordered for the restaurant And right they'll look at the security cameras and four days ago Somebody came into work stayed 20 minutes later and hauled off with it through it in their car and brought it home for their You know barbecue. So when this is when I worked there was before the security camera days and My dad my dad one times like why is the chef taking the garbage out, right? So he followed him out that you know with the garbage can and he lifted up the top bag in there And there was a pile of steaks in the in the garbage can because you know the chef just never took the garbage out Little things like that that you got to pay attention to as an entrepreneur, right? Did you take those instincts with you then into business? I mean, how could you not take them? Absolutely, yeah I mean it you know, my father was it, you know, we all you know I grew up a Catholic boy from Cincinnati and you know alter boy and all that good stuff So I was sort of trusting until I got into Working in my father's businesses because you know the chef was stealing steaks The bus boys were stealing knives that the bartenders were you know Stealing, you know cases of liquor and you know, it was just like you know, you had to be there, you know 24-7 So Eventually, I just had to take the attitude that you know You almost got to just not trust anybody until they prove themselves Trustworthy that's good that you say that because I think most people in general and you can correct me if you have a different perception Most people you hire are gonna be maybe not all star employees But are probably gonna be more or less trustworthy not everybody steals But that small percentage can cost you so much money that it makes you a little bit jaded. Yeah I mean when I when I finally got into the the ad seen on TV business one day my auditors came in and they said Hey, what are you selling for a thousand dollars? And I'm like Nothing we sell twenty nine dollar night sets ab crunchers right ab crunchers, right? So they said well last month you issued eight one thousand dollar credits And I'm like really I said who did they get issued to oh well, you know, this looks like the same person Okay, so one of my girls in accounting Started at twenty nine dollar it credits But you know when people return their product somebody had to authorize the the credit of their Merchandise of their credit card processing, right? Sure. So this girl we found out this was it was over $200,000 over a six month period. Wow, but she got more aggressive as she got to month six You know with thousand dollar credits It was thirty dollar credits and then hundred dollar credits and five hundred dollar credits and thousand dollar credits And you know so she's trying to push the yeah, and and it was to herself and friends and relatives and anyway It was just a terrible thing But somebody that was sweet every time I saw her and you know, you never think that you know They were stealing you blind behind your back It sounds like this is well, obviously you remembered a lot of these lessons over the years Do you find it hard to change your perception and trust anybody because it sounds like You can't not do business because people aren't trustworthy But you also don't want to treat everybody like they're a criminal because you would be a terrible horrible boss to work for If you just assumed everybody was out to rob you. Yeah, I think Anymore today what I try to rely on are better systems Better controls Smarter people at the top. Yeah that I can trust and those people I generally you know I have my son working with me and top-notch I call it a SWAT team of of help at the top level. These are people that I know Well, I can trust them and then they rely on their instincts to handle the the people underneath them So at the end of the day, I think today, you know, it's you know, even though I you know, I still say I like to give people the benefit of the doubt You know, we recently we had somebody that had access to a debit card and was taken a thousand dollars out every day Cash right until we found out, right? So I mean, it's you just you know, you know And this so this person reported to somebody in finance and that person in finance Just wasn't on top of things the way they should so getting the right controls is I think one of the key lessons here It's like trust but verify I suppose exactly. Yeah, but when you first started you were knocking on doors Meeting a lot of people. What was your first business? I mean, I know you were basically still a kid Yeah, so um, so I'm 11 years old worked in my dad's restaurants for a number of years and when I turned 15 I said I want to start my own business. I started a driveway ceiling business and I lived in Ohio So it would get cold in the winter So if you had a crack in your driveway which you by the way if you're not from a cold place You get cracks in your driveway a new driveway every year. There's a new crack a new crack So I would go knock on the doors at 15 I drove around neighborhoods on my bicycle and I take them out as I see that crack when the water gets in there And it gets cold and it freezes. It's gonna be triple the size, right? They're like, I know how ice works. How much money is this gonna cost me, right? So so, you know that I was driveways selling driveway ceiling and I take a picture before and after of a neighbor's driveway and We also beautified the driveway too. So we sealed it beautified it. It was a magical transformation I had a picture. I had a neighborhood referral and we were doing 10 of a week at the age of 15 So I actually had to buy a truck. I couldn't drive the truck because I wasn't 16 years old Yeah, but I hired a guy that was 16 to be able to drive. So You know that was my first business, but I mean there there was weeks, you know We were grossing a thousand bucks a week and you know netting probably $700 give or take so pretty nice because this is now back in the 70s So in today's terms multiplied by three or four or five and you know, it's a pretty lucrative little part-time business You know, right? And so that was that was 15 then I and I was in high school But that was part-time because it was only seasonal summertime and then I said, wow What can I do year-round and I thought well everybody has heating and air conditioning So I started a air conditioning heating and air conditioning company So that was in my year of going graduating from high school into college. Yeah So that was that that business became a pretty nice little company then I definitely want to ask you about that I do want to point out. It sounds like a very familiar formula though to ride by see a problem Change the fix the problem with something simple and quick and then have the magical transformation Sounds a lot like what you ended up getting into later Look at the look at the before picture and the after picture Exactly before picture in black and white with a little line through it after picture and color Look how much better this looks but looking at the HVAC Business, this is kind of specialized, right? It's not something that most 16 year olds are thinking. Oh, I can install ducts air conditioning units, how did you Slide from because driveway resealing you can yeah if you're ambitious now it is you can learn that on YouTube and you can do it yourself So so what happened is I was sealing the driveways in the summer And I started working for an air conditioning company in sales That was getting the hold of the new homeowner lists in Cincinnati and they would outbound telemarket all the new homeowners and Tell them that they had some kind of a special deal and send somebody out to the the home to give them a quote on either new furnace or whatever and so Right around that time. There was something new called spark ignition furnaces and up until then all homes had furnaces with pilot lights Oh, yeah They burn 24 hours a day right very inefficient and today you won't see pilot lights in very many homes because they the spark ignition Came about in the in the mid 70s when I decided to start my own company So I was part-time selling for a company I became their top salesman and I'm saying, you know, I'm getting you know, 8% of Commission and I'm seeing all the money that they're making and I'm thinking hey I can get that same new homeowner list call those people and go out and do it myself so after you know working for somebody else I started the heating and air business and and it was a Pretty fast growth because the key thing was having access to those new homeowners If you just bought a new home, you were credit worthy you had one of these old furnaces that was inefficient So what we did is we offered them a free furnace cleaning and a safety check So we pretty much got into about 80% of the the people that we got a hold of and then we tell them about this amazing new Spark ignition energy efficient furnace and of course Almost very few homes in the 70s in Cincinnati had air conditioning central air So we would then oh you just bought a hundred thousand dollar house Right, you got to have some central air, right? You're lighting your money on fire already. Why not add some? So, I mean here again, we built this this business went from zero to a million dollars in sales I had 25 employees six trucks going out every day and we were just you know really taken off and again a million in Sales back in the 70s, you know, it was three or four million today So, you know, we had a pretty substantial little company I say I joke though that you know in in my day as a young entrepreneur started driveway sealing and heating and air conditioning today Young entrepreneurs start snapchat. Yeah, and Facebook Instagram influencer selling ebook gets completely different process It's very humbling to you know to see what's happening in today's world Although to be honest what you're doing is is harder in so many different ways and requires a lot of different skills Not that Instagram or snapchat doesn't but the platform's already there You didn't have a way to sign up for somebody to teach you everything you needed to know about sales Everything you needed to know about HVAC installs There's there's no YouTube channel to learn how to stay motivated when you feel like crap You're right. I think it was harder back then than it is now, you know, let's put it this way I was 19 years old running this heating and air conditioning business and never forget the day I got a phone call from one of my customers We're installing a furnace and she's got to come out here right now And I'm like what's the problem? Yeah, I'm not even gonna tell you get here quickly and I get there and my installer was asleep passed out drunk with a Bottle of whiskey sitting right next to him on the in the basement, right? And so like okay, I'm glad I got here before he woke up, right? Right, you know, but these you know There was a whole set of other problems that I was dealing with in that world because I was going to college so I was a freshman at the University of Cincinnati and so by the time I got to the office it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon and My trucks and crews have been going out all morning So I had to have somebody in operations running the shop until I got there I did the sales at night and you know at the end of the day This is why after a couple years trying to do both I had to decide Do I want to be a graduate of college or do I want to be an entrepreneur and I you know, unfortunately to my mother's You know She grant I guess she I did she wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer Yeah, and I ended up quitting school and running the business so I can kind of see that you're coming home for Thanksgiving and She's asking you when you're gonna go back to school and you're like well You know I could be a lawyer and make 2% of the income that I just made in this other business But what would you tell your friends? What do you tell your friends are so? Disappointed I had two older sisters one married a doctor one married a lawyer So we got that covered in the family now. So I could be the entrepreneur Yeah, let me know which lawyer to call when your heater doesn't work in the middle of winter Tell me tell me what the lawyer is gonna do about that How did you know that being an entrepreneur was for you originally because sure having money at 15 is great But do you have a story about? When you finally realize like look, this is what I'm gonna do sure I'll go to college because my parents want me to but this is I know I want to do this When did you finally know that that was for you well? I think if I was a When I went to college, I would you know University of Cincinnati I'll never forget a class that I went to there was 800 students in the class. It was orientation 800 orientation to business right and it was like the big class that everybody had to take that was you know starting in in college and The it was the first or second day that I went to this class I'm trying to remember for sure but the teacher didn't show up and there was a video playing and he's like sorry I couldn't be here today, but take some great notes and I'll see you know next time and I'm like, you know I I'm running a business. I got 25 employees. I'm doing a million dollars in business I'm here at school. The teacher can't even be here. Why am I here? Okay? So, you know, I quickly realized that I wasn't really getting anything out of school That was going to teach me anything in in my life mode kind of thing, right? I went to a the business courses I went to sales courses and that the sales the guy that's teaching the sales course was really a teacher It really had never been a salesman. So, you know, and I was doing sales I was in the home knocking on doors doing telemarketing and you know having great success Along the way, so it was sort of during those that that first couple years of college and and and I'll say this University of Cincinnati not to put it down too much, but it wasn't a great great college for me I mean, I had graduated in a kind of an advanced program in high school with about ten kids in Our senior year we had a class of 200 But we had this advanced class of 10 that we got college credit for a lot of our of our courses And so I went from that Ten kids to 800. Yeah, I'm like, you know what I'm not learning anything here I was very challenged during high school, but I wasn't being challenged and I loved the challenge. So Now my son He went to Penn State. He was very challenged. He had a great education. He loved it and he graduated and and and came out With you know with a great college degree, and I'm glad he did have his college education But for me, you know, I grew up in a family My father wanted me to be an entrepreneur. So I had kind of his he did He yeah, he pushed me to be an entrepreneur while my mother was pushing me the other way So there was a little bit of that in fighting in the in you know at the kitchen table at times, you know But I just knew that I was destined because I loved I loved first of all I loved the thrill and the excitement of seeing the business grow Geometrically, I mean we were selling one a week and five a week and ten a week And I mean I was like one of the top dealers in the city in in my second year of business And this is in an industry that had people that have been doing this for 40 years Right. I was going to say everybody else is 55 and you're like 17 or 19 years old They wouldn't actually give me a a license to sell the furnaces and I went to Carrier And Carrier said look, you're a kid. You don't have experience. You know, you've never operated your own business These things are heavy. You're gonna hurt yourself. Yeah, you have to you have to buy through another company So I actually had to buy all my inventory from one of my competitors And he put a 10 markup on and that was okay because I learned a few things from him along the way too But you know after I exceeded his total sales Which happened in the first year Because this guy was a good guy, but a small, you know guy had been in the business He was he was the worker kind of guy that just you know, like he wasn't selling air conditioning systems in the winter I was because we were out in homes doing Furnace deals and slapping, you know discounted air conditioning systems on those on the on the air conditioning on the furnaces when we installed them So they they they were like, how do you sell five air conditioning systems a week in the middle of the winter? Right else in Ohio You don't realize one day had a visit from some of the top executives of carrier coming over to you know Is this guy laundering money or what's he doing? Right, is this guy a drug dealer and he's got a basement full of air conditioning So it was uh, I knew we were on to something and and I loved it and I just it You know school wasn't I wasn't getting anything out of my college education because I really had a much better education in high school and so You know actually the the year that I dropped out As a as a junior, but I had a 3.85 out of 4 A grade point average and So it wasn't lack of getting good grades or whatever. It was just time to move on Yeah, because you don't hear that a lot. You don't hear well I did well in school and I decided to run business you often hear Well, I was terrible in school. It turns out. I wasn't cut out for that I was cut out to be my own boss and stuff like that and I think that's lost on a lot of Young entrepreneurs they think well, I hate school or I hate my job So I should do my own business and I I don't really agree with that I think if you can excel in one area you can carry that over But if you're failing in another area, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's because you're not cut out to do that It might be the cold truth might be you're not actually applying yourself exactly. Yeah, totally agree Knocking on doors is a lot of hustle Did that come to you naturally because I think a lot of people are afraid to knock on doors be rejected all the time by different people And continue at it, you know, it it I'll say I I had a I've worked in my father's restaurant. I also I did a little newspaper Sales down on the street corner You know for a couple of years too where I was selling 10 cent newspapers and getting 3 cents out of the 10 cents commission, right And so I learned early on my father was one of those kind of Restaurant tours that knew he knew his customers, right? People came because they liked my father charlie, right? He was their friend. He would hang out with them. He would talk to them You know building a business in the bar business in the restaurant business It's a neighborhood kind of thing people like to Go where they're wanted and they're liked and they they know they're going to get good service good food and a You know a free drink every now and then so my father would teach me some of those tricks and of course introduced me to the friends and and so I I think I was able at a young age To get rid of the fear factor because you know, I will say this when I first started knocking on doors I got pretty much a lot of smiles and thank yous but Kind of like the door slam pretty quickly and I'll never forget one neighborhood. I went into It was a beautiful neighborhood because it was just it was a new neighborhood that had been built about five years Previous all the driveways needed my service But not one of the people said yes So I literally got 20 plus turn downs of thank you, but no thanks That'd be the end for most people Yeah, and and and I just kept going and going and going and finally I thought you know what? I just got to get one done in this neighborhood So I I finally talked somebody I said look I'm going to do your your driveway from just the cost of the materials I charge 100 bucks, but I'm going to do yours for $15. You know, I just got to get a job done Right and so so I got one done put a big beautiful sign across it with string on the posts And took a before and after picture went back to the same 20 some people that's told me no Thanks, and I got about 18 of them then so So that was the turning point for me as a salesperson is this is you mentioned. Oh you learned how to You know the before and after magical transformation, right? Well, that was what I was doing when I was 15 years old Knocking on door. So I think the the concept here is once you learn how to sell You know and and I it was sort of self-taught and then I started I actually did start buying books and and you know the Dale Carnegie's and You know think and grow rich Napoleon Hill and then I started buying zig zigglers materials and you know zigg was you know He had motivational stuff and then closing techniques and you know, so then I really started tuning into Well, okay, I figured out a few of these techniques, but you know, maybe there's some people that can teach me more So there was someone named j douglas edwards. There was tom hopkins That's who I learned from Tommy hop Tommy hop and I'm listening to this cassette tape and he's going My my friend surely she's in the typewriter business and I'm thinking I'm learning how to sell typewriters right now I've never I the last time I even saw one of those things was in 83. Yeah, it's crazy but that so I then became a sponge for Self-improvement and I started going to programs and and you know, I bought a lot of it back in the day Nightingale Conan. I remember yeah had a lot of the you know success tapes and and and all of that kind of stuff and And so I I just really enjoyed Getting wisdom from other people that were a lot smarter than me in all these ways and so when I when I really learned the art of closing the sale Then I could take a 50% close to an 80% close and that was when I was honing my art And then I could also teach that to other people. So, you know, I when I my The last year that I owned the heating and air company and I decided to sell it because it was very labor-intensive And you know that that story about the guy with the bottle of whiskey by his side That that was a daily situation. I had to deal with some element of you know of that type of market putting out fires constantly, you know what I mean? Yeah, and and shoddy work and things like that And so, um, you know, I did sell the company, but um the last year that I was in business I had three full-time sales people that made a fantastic living Selling and I was giving them the leads and so I now was running the business I was more of a you know of a real entrepreneur instead of a salesman just making some money Did you ever miss the day-to-day of that business or were you just glad to be rid of it in some way? I I honestly never missed that business at all because You know, this was the problem. I was great at selling and so was our team And we'd sell it we'd install it, but then we had to service it for the rest of our lives And so that oh, you know, I'm not getting enough cooling in this back bedroom Well, they never had enough air in that back bedroom. We only put a system in there You know, so now we had to fix all their problems, right? And then the thermostat wasn't working right in the humidifier this and that So, I mean the service side they these customers owned me and believe me when it got cold and they didn't have enough heat You know, we would get hundreds of phone calls sometimes, you know from people that needed service right now And they all had a screaming baby, you know, that was six months old Sure, sure, you know, so, you know at the end of the day a service business like that You got to be cut out for it and um, I was an entrepreneur and you know I had my success with the business made the money that I thought was great But I wasn't enjoying coming into the office every day anymore. And I said it's time to move on find something else What did you bring from school? Because I know you were a multi sport athlete You did really well. You were in that honors program or whatever that was. Yeah, what did you bring from? From school into your businesses because I'll never forget wrestlers, especially I don't know what it is about wrestlers. They are just they love to be to punish themselves all the time I'll never forget Ralph Franco mediocre student friend of mine Jumping rope in the shower with a sweatsuit and garbage bags on while the steams because he wanted to make weight If that kid took an ounce of that and brought it into his career. He's a millionaire right now Well, so I don't know if you know that I wrestled but yeah, I was I wrestled for four years My freshman year 98 pounds varsity. Yeah, I made the varsity team Which which was was unbelievable and and I wrestled, you know, 98 105 112 119 over the years and That was that gave me such a dedication and a camaraderie with the other wrestlers as well as a you know A mindset that I think I applied in my entrepreneurial endeavors because you know being an entrepreneur the one thing you have to Totally understand is you know You will get you will get shut down you will get And pushed off the ledge you you you know you there will be many times when you're going to think you're going out of business And you can't take it. You don't know what to do And you you need that perseverance and you need to be able to get up dust yourself off and go back at it And and so in the world of wrestling when you know three hours are working out every day You know was was a feat that uh that over the over time gave me the you know, I think the mindset to become A pretty powerful entrepreneur. Yeah, I can see that I can see especially from wrestling just there's something about Wrestling that is just brutal and it's it's so personal too And you can't you kind of can't BS yourself because it is a team sport But you're the one on the mat at that time So in football you can say well, you know, I didn't get enough blockage or the the pass wasn't what it was supposed to be But if you're the one who got their butt thrown down and pinned It's like you can't look at the coach and go that guy over there on the bench, man He gave me the stink guy and it ruined the match Exactly it's a it's a one-on-one and those three two-minute matches seem to last a lifetime. Sure Yeah So what led to the birth of the infomercial then after that because you've got the before and after that's germinating in the Back of your head somewhere. How did we get from HVAC to the ab crunchers with tony littles in his pony tail hats? Well, thank you. So so I sold the business the heating and air business had some cash and Actually started I said, okay now my business is to go find the business I want to be in and I was looking all over the country and reading all these ads going to franchise shows business opportunity classifieds and literally I six months later I had this tremendous education on all the business opportunities that were out there But I didn't want to own a you know A subway Sandwich franchise right, you know and be behind the counter all day long I wanted to be freddy diluca the owner of subway, right? So um, so what I ended up doing was I said, you know until I find what I want I'm going to broker businesses because I had looked at literally hundreds of business opportunities And and so I said I I've kind of educated myself quite a bit here Much more than some of these average people that decide to go buy a business I mean as a business broker and I I got a real estate license And I was selling the real estate along with the business So we'd sell restaurants, delicatessons car washes launder mats flower shops And I got and I called it my curiosity overload days because I got a chance to see the inner workings And hundreds of companies their cash flows the rents the employee costs the food costs I became very educated and so I was selling businesses and then providing services to people by because I actually Called my company the small business center Because we said I put an accountant and an insurance guy and an advertising guy in the same floor And we said, okay, we'll sell you the business We'll do your books and records will do your your logos and and of course there were no websites back then Because this was back in 1980 flyers your flyers, okay your your jingles for the radio, right? And so the small business center was this transition for me that kind of put me in in as an entrepreneur's entrepreneur and so one day I I'm sitting there I was successful I had you know 15 employees and I'm selling businesses and right downtown Cincinnati having a lot of fun And I bought a house and I ordered cable TV and cable TV came along and I ordered the 30 Cable the 30 channel package which was you know, there's 28 more channels that you normally got exactly I mean back then I had abc cbs mbc, you know and one, you know Kind of pbs thing, you know, but now I'm watching 24 hours of cnn which I mean of of News and hbo 24 hours of movies and 24 hours of sports on espn Now you gotta remember 19 This is early 80s when when you're hitting 24 hours of sports. This is amazing I mean today you take it all for granted But you know, I went from seeing no sports to be able to watch everything right and I got to the discovery channel And there was there was bars on the screen and so I called the cable company the color bars the color bars Yeah, and yeah color bars and I so I called the cable company and I said, hey, I just got this cable package I'm excited about the 30 channels, but you know, something's not working on channel 30. There's nothing there And they said what do you mean? I said, well, there's bars cable these color bars, right? So, um, they said, oh, well that's discovery channel. It's only an 18 hour a day network and six hours a day They they don't have enough programming. It's a startup channel We put those color bars up so you know, there's not supposed to be anything, right? So, um, I said, well, why don't you put we'll resume programming at a certain time, you know, but you know, they didn't So then the light bulb went off for wait a minute. If you know, what can I put on that? Yeah Downtown for next to nothing. This is 1984 And so I went out to the cable company. It was it was Warner cable And I said, you know, I want to put something up and so Ultimately, I said, let me start putting products on that time So we started putting kitchen products and then we put fitness products and then I met Tony little and I met Jack Lilane and George Foreman and all of a sudden we're we're I then went to discovery We started just locally in Cincinnati on discovery channel in just Cincinnati We were in 150,000 homes then I went to discovery nationwide cut a deal to buy the six hour block Permanently for a two-year contract. So so I now own six hours a day 365 days a year for two years. Do you remember at all how much that cost per hour? Yes, it was a thousand dollars a day for the for the contract for six hours for six Yeah, a thousand dollars a day for six hours nationwide nationwide Unbelievable deal because they had no idea right what it was worth They were like get his money up front because this moron is going to go out of business We gave him, I think a month up front, you know, and and so I mean and by the way a month up front Here's 30,000 dollars. Yeah, that's hey that's found money. Yeah. Well the third year We were generating tens of millions of dollars off of a 300 thousand dollars investment and it was and because When the when that two-year contract came up Somebody came along and paid 28 million bucks for what I was paying 365 thousand for because they they knew what I must be making money They knew they knew what It kind of grew what sales were because we would deal with vendors That they would see how many pieces we were selling in a month and they were tracking how many times we were running So they knew what we were selling. They knew what it was worth and At the end of the day, this is when it started getting competitive now This is now towards the later 80s When competitors came into the into the market, but for the first number of years We did the food saver and kitchen products and and and we had amazing success. There was really very few people doing this Um, there was some real estate guys doing how to make money in real estate, you know With no money down kind of like you still see today, you know, but um, there was like a tommy vu or whatever There was tommy vu. There was ed beckley. There was tony hoffman There was dave del dotto if you remember dave the the waves crashing behind him in hawaii and um, yeah, so So that was the birth of the industry and then Really where it took off? So I had a you know, I had about an 85 million dollar a year business in the us And I said What, you know, I had this library of shows and I said, you know, what industry Mears mind to give me some education on where I can go with this I said well the movie industry and what do they do with movies? They take him international They go to the can film festival and they sell the movies into foreign distribution So a lot of companies say they made all their money in foreign distribution So I took a little booth out at the at the can film festival and all of a sudden I got all these tv stations from all over the world coming to me wanting to run my tony little Ab isolator and cruncher and all that kind of stuff and because all I had to do was if it was england We ran it in the same language if it was in the philippines, they ran it in english But if it's in japan, they dubbed it in japanese germany. They dubbed it in german. I've seen them in germany We took the same asset and just dubbed it for a thousand bucks in the local market and and boom all of a sudden We launched in japan. We did 80 million our first year in japan So we built that company to 500 million a year in sales And it was an amazing growth and this was back now all through the 90s And um, and and and then we ended up buying at scenantv.com and got into the internet side and um So we had we owned at scenantv ink at scenantv.com And we were you know at the time probably At one point the biggest player in the business then gutty rinker came along and those guys were brilliant marketers Greg rinker and bill gutty. Of course, they do all of the beauty stuff. So skincare and proactive and stephanie seymour and Cindy crawford and the difference between what they do and what i was doing When you sell an ab cruncher and people don't necessarily use it. They're not going to buy a second one All right, so you know what I mean now well or or they might but maybe not the same item But not the same item but with proactive they put you on auto ship So greg rinker was brilliant because he had the continuity angle I was the gadget guy and in hindsight if I could do it all over again, you know, which I I never argue about the path that I took because i'm happy where I ended up but um Continuity has built a fabulous business for the gutty rinker team because they're you know, they built billion dollar brands out of Like a product like proactive. So, you know, it's but it we had a fabulous run Until you know the most recent days Here if you look at the last five years now There's been a shift in the marketplace ESPN has lost 12 million subscribers. Yeah, you know There's 50 plus million cord cutters out in the market that have cut the cord from pay tv And so there's fewer people watching tv and the millennials are you know barely watching tv and then go to the younger I have a 20 year old that doesn't even watch any television. So it's netflix. It's his ipad. It's his You know his phone and snapchat and all that target people on those. I mean you can pay to target those people So now what's happened is we've we've shifted here in the last five years to you know, more of a digital company So so, you know, yes We still do look at the ascena tv industry as as As a place to To go after we do the digital though So we used to test on tv We now test on facebook or instagram or google or youtube or something like that So a test that used to cost you a couple hundred grand might cost you a few thousand or maybe 30 grand couple thousand 10 thousand Maybe 20,000 tops, you know where before you're right We'd spend 200 000 to do a beautiful infomercial Get the media test and find out it didn't work And you know now you can find out that there's crickets out there meaning nobody's ordering For five grand. Okay, so, you know and by the way, if you spend 5000 on facebook and you don't get any orders Don't go spend another five and think it's going to change. Right. It's dead. It's done You know, there's something wrong. You got to change your offer or something, right? So It's kind of the same way on tv But on tv you had to go spend 200 grand to shoot the show Is there anything that you look back on now and you laugh at like, how did I Green like this like i'm thinking pet rock, which was actually successful because that's why we know Right, right So I say there was a turning point in my life on one particular project because We started getting caught up in the celebrity buzz. Yes, you know, oh, okay, tony little george form and you know all these You know and and of course got the rinker cindy crawford and all any celebrity deal is going to be a hit So one day the chubby checker walked in my office. Oh, yeah, he had this product called the twistisizer He's like, you know, the problem with fitness is people They don't like to work out But if they could listen to music and have fun while they're working out, you know, I've I've created the solution It's the twistisizer. So so we put 500 thousand dollars because it was an idea We had to engineer it. We had to mold it manufacture it tool it the whole thing then produced this 285 thousand dollar infomercial by the media and when I tell you it bombed I mean I I now joke and I say if a guy named chubby walks in your office with a fitness product You should definitely walk and run the other way So, you know, but we we spent 500 on that one and that was the turning point that I said no more I can't do this anymore because 500 grand is a lot of money to be thrown around on a project and and especially When you look at today's world where you know, we talked thousands five thousand ten thousand How many projects at five thousand dollars a piece could I have done on 500 grand's worth of loss? Oh, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, so it's a much smarter market today Just looking back and on that type of product. Yeah, it must be kind of like how did I miss that? But yeah, it shows that even people who really know what they're doing who are really intelligent Who've been doing it for a long time of a lot of experience can still get caught up in that buzz You see it now with things like certain types of investments You see really sophisticated parties getting caught up in hype and buzz and it's uh, absolutely It can it can get anybody When you first set foot on the the the shark tank set, right? You're walking into the the set with mark brunette and all those folks You've got I don't know how much production of that cost probably like a million plus dollars And you've got 150 or something people 10 times what you've got working on commercial Were you intimidated at all because you're used to filming in like a converted garage or something? Yeah, we're used to you know, I'd shoot Literally $2,000 shows back in the day, right? So I mean but we would shoot a $20,000 infomercial still And yeah, I never forget I walked into the set It was at the at the sony movie lot where they had shot all the big old-time movies, you know You know Greta Garbo and and all the you know the big fact they were shooting The iron man right next to us with robertowney jr. Sure and the the ceilings were 50 plus foot high The set was a million dollar set the production was a million dollar production the pilot So they put two million dollars into the pilot 16 cameras shoot and i'm like 16 cameras why well there's five sharks they each had a camera on them front and back And then you had the people coming out walking down the big you know walkway and you had the side angles the overhead angles It's easy to see how all of a sudden you got 16 cameras By the way, you didn't see all you know you look around there's like four or five that you saw so it was An unbelievable experience But so mark brunette i'll never forget when he came over to To talk to me before and he talked to each shark now A lot of people don't realize two of the sharks were dragons on dragons den Up in canada actually canada. Yeah, you see oliri and herchovic Were on dragons den in canada there was an english version also, but they lived in toronto And so they had years of experience of doing the show which was mark's brilliant move Starting with two Dragons already right that knew the format sure so now mark came over and he said said kevin. How you doing? I said i said hey mark. I'm ready. I'm excited before we filmed second one right And he said kevin. He said look he said you've shot hundreds of infomercials You're a pro you get you you do this in your sleep now He says so what are you thinking right now? I said well mark. I said 16 cameras It's it is a little bit intimidating. He says this is what you got to do when that person comes walking down And they're going to pitch you imagine they're in your office And they're pitching you and just give them the exact attention and just the same set of questions that are coming And come to your mind you do this in your sleep. So don't worry about the cameras. We're getting the angles We're handling the dv side You're here to evaluate and ask the questions right because you're used to directing the thing probably and and it just right He put me totally at ease with that and this is one of mark brunette's brilliant I think um one of his brilliant aspects is the ability to deal with talent so to speak right um, and so Um, you know at the end of the day, I think you know, I was very focused on these pitches and what you know I actually took it very serious because You know, I was investing my own money right and so it's you know, what I found out Very shortly thereafter was mark's interest was creating good television. Sure not necessarily good investments Yeah, he doesn't really care about profit He really I mean because he would come down after we'd shoot five No deals were done and we're all looking at each other like We just saw a bunch of garbage. Yeah, and he would say sharks Look, nobody invested anything in the last three hours five hours. What's going on? We're not you know, we gotta if we want to get this and this is before we had distribution Right, it's like I got to be able to tell the networks that we've got some action and some deals Millions of dollars are going through the shark tank. We're like well mark, which one of those five would you have invested in? Let's let's be honest. Okay. So, you know, but there was all you know, right after that We all wanted the next deal because mark gave us the little pep talk, right? But we definitely all invested in deals that we would never have wanted to invest in I'll say that Absolutely. And so I mean The the the unfortunate side of of a of a you know of a shark tank I mean I would tell my wife. Hey, I'm going to shoot shark tank and she's like what in this before and air No one knew what it was. They're like, is that a is that on discovery channels? I'm kind of a fishing show or what is that? You know said no, it's a business show and I'm a business shark She's like, well, how does it work? I said, well, you know, I may invest a million bucks Half a million, you know, whatever. Well, when will we get that back? Well, maybe never. She's like, well, wait a minute Let me understand this, okay Why are you on the show? Right, you know, now when vandal whites on, you know, the wheel of fortune She gets paid to turn the letters, right? We're paying to be on the show, right? So it was a little bit different scenario and it also I consider myself as one of, you know, the original sharks the, you know, to have paved the way to Get the show to distribution and and doing some of those early deals that got excitement and You know, I invested in a cat toilet training system Yeah, I remember that that did millions of dollars in sales. But but guess what? You know, that would not have been something if they had walked into my office and said, would you invest in this that I would have even considered But I'm a shark and shark tank. I'm going to invest in it. But now I'm going to make it successful So I now had to spend the time to go You know, punch it up get to publicity and do the road show and take her to the Chicago Houseware show and go to Walgreens and get it on end caps and you know And yeah, we built a multi-million dollar business out of that and it was a great success for everybody But it's you know, I was putting a lot of time and effort into deals that ultimately weren't kind of my sweet spot Sure. Yeah, and I can see that a lot of people who come in there They even cast certain people where it's just a terrible idea. They've got the formula down now Once every show there's a are you kidding me? You got one real like crazy Situation that you know that nobody would go, right? Yeah, you've got yeah These are light up badges that get sewn on your jeans that look like they were straight out of 1989 Even the people pitching them are like, I would never wear this, you know, crazy stuff Do you have advice for people who might be pitching to any investor? I mean, you've seen a lot of good and you've seen a lot of terrible terrible pitches Where do you what do you see that works and what doesn't well, okay? A couple a couple things and I love giving Sharon some some some good details with the listeners here today because I've taken over 50,000 pitches over the last 30 years and it's only 1500 or 2000 a year type of thing So it's in and you know, and it's it's been more in the last, you know, 10 years than it was in the first 20 so You know, I have a system I say you should you have to it's in a three-step fashion you tease You got to have some kind of a little tease and that's to get the attention with some kind of a problem now So if you're coming on whether it's shark tank or any investor You you need to get their attention because you got to stand out from all the clutter Understanding that investors are looking at dozens of deals. So what you know, get their attention with a problem Then please them with the solution to the problem in a unique fashion and this is important What is you know, mr. Wonderful will always, you know, Kevin O'Leary, right? What is what does he say? He'll say well Does anything else exist in the marketplace that's similar to what you've got and I would ask the same thing too And so if there's something already identical that's already in wal-mart, you know I mean might not be interested in the deal But if you're unique enough such that nothing else solves the problem in a similar fashion Then I might be very very interested and is there any ip or intellectual property around it So so you tease them you please them then you seize and that's the third step Seizing is you have to create an irresistible offer So that's much like if you're selling a product on tv You know, but wait, there's more if you buy now you're going to get these two or three. I'm still not done, right? Yeah, and you'll see 15 things up there for 10 bucks or something, right? So Is an irresistible offer with an investor has to be You know an irresistible payback or maybe it's an accelerated payback or it's For those that get in early you're going to get double the equity or something that is gives them a buy now incentive And the biggest mistake that people make that are pitching investors So they don't put themselves in the shoe of the investor And they're only focused on themselves that they need money But they they have to understand the investor has to write the check So I I'm on both sides because I pitch product to qvc and to wall mart and all kinds of distribution Partners that hey, I've got a great product. I got to pitch it, right? So I've got to tease them please them and seize them But um at the same time I'm an investor and I'm taking pitches So I want to know that the person pitching is thinking about me and what's you know What what's going to get me to write the check and just one tip that I like to give on this note is A lot of times one of the big risks of a shark tank style deal is Think about owning 10 of a private company You just put a hundred grand up or a million dollars and it's private. When do you get your money back? What's the exit strategy? Right? So I like to when I pitch investors I try to give them an accelerated payback on their Investment so that if they put up the money and they're owning 10 of the company Maybe they get a hundred percent of the profits until they get all their money back and then they have a carried interest So I'm taking care of your problem. Mr. Investor that you know, maybe you're thinking well It's risky and how do I know I'll get my money back right? It's going to take me 20 years What's the exit strategy right? Yeah, so I try to paint a great Get get your money back quick kind of a storyline. So so you mitigate the risk Handle the security problem that they have exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people like you said They don't look at what's in it for the investor as much as you'll make a lot of money Well, yeah over 30 years, but they don't think about opportunity cost I could take the money I'm investing in the cat toilet training product make an infomercial with it and For sure make money. Yeah, I mean someone will come in. Hey, I I need a hundred grand I'll pay you five percent on your money. Yeah, you know, and it's like look if I'm taking this risk I need five times my investment not five percent Five percent is five grand on a hundred grand. I need 500 grand Okay, because I'm you know because three other deals I did didn't work And you know, so I need you know investors in these kinds of situations are looking You know, I mean I hate to say they're sharks and you know, they they they cut You know the terrible deals or whatever But they have other places to put their money and look at some of the returns Some of these deals are brought back and if you look at the uber's and the facebook's of the world There's been some pretty nice returns on investment across the the transform a lot of those shark tank deals Though not so good if you pitch elsewhere, those are some bad deals those people take sometimes sometimes absolutely Yeah, over the years you've launched 500 products something well well over that now. Yeah, sure You mentioned that the most powerful habit or system that you've had has been your network And that's one thing we're really big on on the art of charm at our live programs in la is networking creating relationships How do you go about that? How do you recommend that your Team members the people that you invest with network and create relationships because it's hard for some people to put themselves out Sure, great question. So first of all, I've always believed I've formed a couple of organizations over the over the years And when I was a young entrepreneur back in the mid 80s and I was doing all these beautiful infomercials I was hanging out with some cool people michael dell and ted leoncis who ended up becoming number two at aol and and stewart johnson and verne harness and we all started the young entrepreneurs organization We put a thousand dollars each into an account and we and Why eo has now as we got older we changed it to eo and now it's the entrepreneurs organization It's the largest organization in the world of its kind And we're in 40 plus countries 150 cities with thousands of members all over the world So that was a fabulous networking Opportunity for me because today no matter what city I go to if I go to shanghai I can put out the word Hey, I'm in town 20 people who show up for lunch and now hey, I need a phone center. I need this. I need that Boom, that's networking at its finest. So I also with greg rancor and a few others started the electronic retailing association in 1990 so eo started as why eo 1987 we just had our 30th anniversary and ERA started in 1990 and that's the electronic retailing association again networking in 100 countries of people Fulfillment centers phone centers distribution partners all around the world for my products So so I believe sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horn and do it yourself Create your own groups and your own organizations But today I love the linked ins and the facebook's and the facebook lives and creating content and all the kind of digital strategies that are available To entrepreneurs today. So I think that it's important that Entrepreneurs that you can't just sit. I mean here. I am I've been an entrepreneur for more than 40 years And you know my son who's 29 years old is always pushing me dad. You got to be creating more content You know, it's like what do you mean shooting videos? That's how this happened, right? Yeah You've got to shoot more videos do more podcasts get out there, right? So so certainly there's you know guys like gary v and the like that or you know I think he's got a guy following around all day long. He's amazing, right? You know and so I haven't gone to that extent and it's you know, I don't think you should at some point It's it would drive me crazy probably but um, you know, god bless and he's built an amazing business and And his success is second to none. But um, you know, I I just I do a lot of trade shows I you know, I go to dozens of trade shows a year the consumer electronic show the hardware show Houseware fitness shows the beauty the toy fair the golf show Sometimes I like to have a little fun meet some, you know, pga golfers and hang out because I like to hack it out On the weekend sometimes there too, but but I think an entrepreneur can never stop networking and You know, it's just it's it's so important to be able to get out there press the flesh And I have a system that I use and it you know, I go to trade shows I I hit the media rooms and talk to the media. I go to the new product showcases Um, you know, I network with people that I've been doing business with for years and and I find you know Any show I go to I'm going to come out of there with some new business. That makes sense I think a lot of people who run and start businesses think I got to keep my head down I've only been doing this for a few years. I've got to focus on my prototype my sales guys my products My whatever networking is one of those I'll do that as soon as I and then fill in the blank And a lot of times it's an excuse right to while I'm an introvert So I got a medical excuse to not network and it just doesn't work. It'll hurt you long term Exactly. No, you got to have a system. It's got to be part of your business and marketing plan Yeah, and if you're an introvert and you think you can't do it. What do you recommend for those people? Well, I mean look, I'll be honest with you. I think, you know, I've used coaches in my life across various spectrums. I've had You know operational coaches, speaking coaches, marketing coaches I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years and paying experts to give me good advice And so if you're an introvert Get somebody to coach you on on on how to, you know, can, you know, get out of that shell a little bit and get out there And continue to network because I mean, I'll give you a good example You know, somebody said, you know, you got to go start speaking and and and so it was kind of easy after coming off shark tank You know, all people didn't mind hearing from me, but you can speak smart So I go to the chamber of commerce and I'd speak and then the chamber commerce said, you know, Kevin We do an annual conference here in Tampa, Florida We're 27 chambers from the whole state come. Would you like to speak at that event? And so now I'm speaking to 27 chambers and at the end Hey, if you'd like for me to come to your local chamber, of course, there's a fee involved, right? You know, just leave some notes at the end here and I'll get back to you Well, I picked up five speaking gigs out of that one speech So, you know, there's smart ways to network and and you know, I think if an introvert knew that they could go And speak to 27 chambers at one shot, um, you know, would you be interested? You know, these are the things that coaches might be able to help you with to Make it smart so that you don't have to go spend a week in Las Vegas at the CES show Maybe get there for a day or two and hit the highlights, right? So you end up saving more time, which of course I need entrepreneur knows time is money Especially when you're talking about your business and it can be fun It can be effective instead of standing in the corner at a CES show for a week You can like you said press the flesh in an effective way for two days And then it's over quicker if that makes you feel better Work smarter. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you so much I know you got to run you got to cut the LA traffic great to be here LA crazy week this week But fantastic sharing some time with you great interviews and thank you so much. Thank you