Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher show on the Stansbury radio network. Kevin Harrington, I know I probably don't need to introduce you, but I'm just gonna kind of lay out some of the highlights and why I'm so excited you're on the show. You've been on Shark Tank a 140 times. You're the king of the infomercials. You've done I don't how many infomercials have you produced or directed in your life? Well, it's over 500. It's probably closer to 700 nowadays. Been been a lot. We had a lot of fun doing that many. I mean, you've done, Tony Little. Everybody in the country has seen at least one of your infomercials, and I don't even watch I don't even stay up late. And somehow, I I've watched a thousand Tony Little infomercials. And Ginsu Knives, what are some of the more well known ones? Well, we've Jack Lalaine, Juicer, Tony Little. We we we there there's one running right now called the New Wave Oven. It's been huge. It's done over 500,000,000. Of course, we did George Foreman. We did the the a a fishing lure called the flying lure, the Medicus golf club. So I think what I'm excited about in my career is I really covered every spectrum. I I did the the first Acme infomercial with, with with Pat Boone way back. That was back in the eighties. Then I did the Food Savers. I've done kitchen. I've done beauty. I've done fitness with Tony Little. The Jenners, Kim Kardashian, Bruce Jenner, Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian. I did Kathy Hilton, Paris Hilton, the whole, beauty line with the Hiltons. So I've done beauty hardware, Billy Mays. I discovered Billy Mays in the early eighties. We did the dual saw, which is still running to this day. Fishing lures, the flying lure. So golf, fitness, fishing, beauty, housewares, hardware, crafts, you name it. I love it. It's been a great 30 years and still still running. And I and I I have so many questions that I think the listeners will really benefit from. But the quest first question I have is for you personally. Like, you must have seen many people rise up from nothing to creating a product and then making 1,000,000 of dollars. Like, you've seen their lives change. Like, what was some Yes. What what what are some examples, like, where you've just seen just incredible changes in in people's lives? Well, I had a young kid that I hired. He was in his twenties, back in, you know, this was in the early nineties, and I'm I'm running my Tony Little infomercials, and they're they're booming. And Tony was getting a check for $1,000,000 a month, by the way. So he was the first, you know, one that it had I mean, I I not the first one whose life I changed, but he was the first fitness infomercial, and Tony made tens of 1,000,000 of dollars. He was buying homes and real estate and and, you know, unbelievable things and, you know, antiques and art and all that kind of stuff, fancy cars. He's got a car collection. So so one of the guys that was running my media was a young kid. His name was Carl Dichler. Carl's like, hey, Tony Little's great, but I got a better idea. I wanna create something more along the lines of having a Beachbody. And so he started a company called Beachbody. Beachbody does over $400,000,000 a year now. And so that was Carl Dichler. So what's the difference between a Beachbody and what and the body Tony Little was sort of, you know, promoting? Tony was was more of a body builder and not so much a beach body, but more of a body builder body. So he wanted to go more mass market more, you know, like Tony was a body builder and he personally trained body builders. Now, it wasn't a bodybuilder program, but it was it was it was more geared towards, you know, a a a hardcore market, whereas Beachbody was more like the female market, you know. So now after that, Beachbody did p 90x, you know. So p 90x was more of the hardcore market. So he covered all the spectrums then afterwards also. But it's it's amazing to see, you know, guys like Carl Dichler that have gone on now to make tens of 1,000,000 of dollars, maybe even 100 of 1,000,000. I don't know, because I haven't seen his books and records. But Carl is an amazing success, and, I I think it's fantastic, you know, what what he's done with his company. So, you know, at the end of the day, it's, you know, from the the Alex Langer, who walked in my office, he had a 3¢ piece of plastic that he called the flying lure that that became a number one fishing lure in the world. We sold 500,000,000 pieces of the flying lure. Carl bought radio stations and boats and cars and homes and, you know, he made tens of 1,000,000 of dollars. It was an amazing and amazing success for the for the for the gentleman. So so So this fishing lure, like, obviously, it was a a cheap item. Like, what caught your eye? Like, what what what did you like about it? What did you like about the guy? Like, how did you how did you see what vision did you see as soon as he walked in the door? He walks in my door. He slaps this thing on my desk. He said, here's a fishing lure. So what's it cost to make that little piece of plastic? He said, 3¢. I said, why is this different than any other lure in the market? He said, every other lure in the market hits the water, drops straight down its gravity. He said I have reverse engineered mine to hit the water and swim away like a wounded fish. And so other lures, the fish hide where the sun is not. It's a hot sunny day. Where are the fish hiding? Under the dock where the shade is. You cast the lure out in front of the dock, it drops straight down where it's sunny. The flying lure, you cast it where it's sunny and it swims under the dock into the shade, catches all the fish. It's an amazing story and it works like you wouldn't believe. So so here's a 3¢ item, it works, and you're thinking to yourself, okay, I can I can make I can produce the infomercial for, like, a $100,000 or less? Right. What what what goes through your mind then? So we we put $75 into the show, but I said, I need testimonials. Do you have testimonials? He said, yeah. I do. I said, no. I don't need 5. I don't need 10. I want a 100. So what do you mean a 100? I said, I want consumer testimonials. I want editorial testimonials from the Fishing Magazine. I want Fast Master Champions. I want those are professional testimonials. There's 5 kind of testimonials, consumer testimonials, professional testimonials, like professional fishermen. There's editorial testimonials from the magazines and the and the fishing TV shows. Then there's celebrity testimonials, then there's documentation testimonials. What's a documentation testimonial? Documentation or, like, product testing labs that can show how it swims and at what angles and that, yes, it hits water. It swims an average of 10, 12 feet, you know, forward. So so that's a documented, like, product testing lab. He we ended up shooting a 100 testimonials, 65 of them that made the cut in the 30 minute show. Mind blowing success because of the testimonials. The lure is 3¢. It's the story of the people that used it and how it changed their lives as fishermen that sold the product. Okay. So I I have 2 questions about this. 1 is well, the first question is, when you're asking him for these testimonials, it's almost like a filter. Like, is he willing to go out and do the additional work required to prove to you that this is a sellable product? Do you use that as, like, a filter? Yes. You know, it you you you you need you you you need to make sure I mean, look, I get I've I've taken over 50,000 pitches over the last, you know, 30 years. And and and and and a bunch of those, out of the 50,000, probably, more than half of that is in the last 5 years. Okay? Because it's, you know you know, I went on Shark Tank. I was getting literally 100 of thousands of Google searches a week. And so these people come through, they email, they call, they show up in my office. So I go to a conference. I, you know, I I it's like I I I would take a 100 pitches in a day sometimes sitting at a at a trade show. So, you know, bottom line is is that it's I have learned how to decipher what really works in in a pitch. And and I've actually created, you know, the 10 steps to creating a perfect pitch so you can get the shark to invest in your idea and your product. This is a very, critical part of of my success is teaching other people how to leverage themselves. Okay. So how should people pitch you? What do you look for? I I look for, you know, I it I could spend an hour on it, but they number 1, you have to get the attention of the person right upfront. So I want some something I call it a tease. Something attention getting right at the very front that that that grabs and and it and it's so let's not talk about just me because I know what to look for, but other people that you're pitching, they're not as professional. I do this as my job. Okay? Other people don't know this, so you gotta grab them. You gotta, like, smack them upside the head. So if if you watch any of my T. V. Commercials, I have 6 seconds to grab your attention and you're off watching a movie or something else making a sandwich. I'm on TV. Right? So in 6 seconds, if I'm selling a cleaning product, you're gonna see a guy eating a meatball sandwich with a big drop of sauce all over his beautiful $100 tie. Has this ever happened to you? And that's and yes, it has. And by the way, I'm gonna watch to see how they solve that problem. So show me a problem, hit me upside the head, tease me. Now, the next couple steps, I call it a tease, please, and seize. Then you please from there by showing me the benefits, showing me magical transformations, showing me some testimonials, give me some proof that it works, the documentation I talked about. So, you know, this pleasing is very important. It's gotta be real. It's gotta be, sincere and and give me as many magical transformations as possible. Right? So What's a what's a magical transformation? In in in in acne, it's pizza face to clear skin. In weight loss, it's £280 to a £120. It's, you know, show me somebody that was poor, now they're rich. Okay? Magical transformation. If you watch The Biggest Loser, you see a magical transformation from week 1 to week 13 in that show. So I wanna know that this product will change my life in a significant fashion. Interesting. So okay. So they come in the door. They're pitching you. They have they they they they're willing to do the work. Now you put in $75,000 to to make a show. Yeah. And then what do you do? Do you go buy media? Yeah. Then we so then the show's done. We, we we set up all the phone centers to take the calls. We set up a website. Then we hire a media agency. We we send the tapes out to the the TV stations, and we do a media test. And based on the test, we test all different time periods. The fishing show, by the way, on its 1st week didn't work. And and the reason being is we first of all, it was a geographical kind of a product. This fishing lure, we were buying in all across the country. And, and and we found out that when we started targeting cities and then we started targeting time periods, it became a grand slam. So initially, buying LA, New York, living on the coast, this wasn't an ocean fishing product. It was lakes. And so we had to come inside. We had to come into in there's a lot of states, by the way, with a lot of lakes. And, you know, Alabama and Georgia and and and Minnesota and Ohio and Florida and, you know, many you know, probably 45 states out of the 50 that it'll work, but don't heavy up. Many times when we test, we test New York, LA, Chicago. Boom. Okay? No. This test, we we also we we we test all different time periods, but it's more of a mail oriented product. So it's not gonna work on on Wednesday at noon. It works late night. It works weekends. It works weekends, mornings, but not 10 o'clock in the morning like a kitchen show will. It works real early because the fishermen are fishing at 10 o'clock in the morning. So you need to do a scientific analysis of who is your customer and and how do you make this thing work. So some companies would have dropped it and said this is a bomb. We said no, let's take it because as we analyze the data on our national buys, we found out there was pockets that it was streaming, but it wasn't working in LA and New York. So once we did the analysis, then we went in, refocused it, and then it became a grand slam. By the way, we did $500,000,000 in sales of a fishing lure. Okay? So How much how much did you sell the fishing lure for? A 3 set fishing lure? We we sold a 20 piece pack for $20, a buck a lure. So it's pretty good markup from 3¢ to a dollar. But And what's the economics on that? So the guy the inventor, what does he get? The inventor, he got a buck an order, a dollar on every one we sold. And so, you gotta understand, a 20 piece lure set isn't just you send them 20 lures in an envelope. They get a little tackle box, which is a piece of plastic box that cost about 60¢. They get about 20 hooks. They get a a a fishing book. They're gonna get, you know, the whole pack cost me about $4. Okay? And then I sell it for 20. There's 20 lures in there. So we sold 500,000,000 lures, 25,000,000 kits. The inventor makes $25,000,000, and and the rest is history. It's it's it's a grand slam all the way across the board. And how much did the the, TV time cost? Like, let's say it's a half hour show. What what on average would you pay for a half hour? It it it's across the board, but TV time runs anywhere from 30 to 50% of the cost of goods. So so what does that mean? Like, like, let's say I'm let's say I'm buying Comedy Central at 4 in the morning. What what would that cost me? If if if you buy Comedy Central at 4 in the morning, that might cost you $2. If you buy Discovery Channel at 8 in the morning, that might cost you $30. Okay? So it all depends on the network. Fox, you can buy Fox Business for for 3,000, but Fox National, where you're in all Fox affiliates, is a $150. So, I mean, there's time periods all across the board. But let's just say that if you're spending $5 for MediaBuy, you're gonna generate between $1015,000 in credit card orders instantly. So Including your Internet sales. So, obviously, you're looking for things that are, totally scalable and easy to make. So this fishing lure was no problem to make them, ship them, and so on. You're looking for a guy who's gonna go out there and get all the testimonials and put in put in a lot of the hard work. You're looking for things where, obviously, it's incredibly useful. There's a sort of stigma associated with infomercials that a lot of these products, you know, are somehow not high quality enough to be real big brand products. Although, now you're seeing the big brands get into the infomercial business. Is that kind of crowding you out a little bit? You know, it's it's let's put it this way. It you know, when when, Arm and Hammer bought OxiClean for $365,000,000, they realized this was a huge industry and an industry, that that builds brands. So, you know, Arm and Hammer, they they they have been utilizing this industry for for a number of years now. You know, some of the, I mean, look, you you've got even, you know, the Trojan companies, you know, prophylactic companies using, you know, spots and media in in direct response, you know, effectively. So across the board, you've got, you know, Procter and Gamble uses infomercials. General Motors is used infomercials. Branded companies are now utilizing infomercials because it is a direct the the marketplace has moved more towards seeing direct benefit from the advertising. This is one of the reasons why Facebook, they're having issues with some of their advertising because, hey, look, people don't wanna just spend money on Facebook. They wanna know that they're directly getting benefits. And so show me that it's that I'm getting a direct benefit, and I'll buy some time. I'll buy you. Right? So so this is where the Internet is making, you know, more of these advertisers focused on showing benefit from the dollar spent. And do you feel composition from the Internet? Like, so now are people watching late night, you know, infomercials as much because, in as opposed to the Internet? What's happening is this. It there's a a huge drop off in t television viewership, and this is affecting the business in many ways. But, there's 2 ways to look at it. So when I found out over the last 5 years that television viewing levels was dropping by, you know, 20 plus percent, but the rates are staying the same, this was a major problem. Okay? So what's happening? They're going to their iPads, they're going to the Internet, they're going to their mobile phones. You know, Groupon does 72% of its sales on a mobile phone. Alright? QVC does 30% of its sales on a mobile phone. Okay? So what, you know, what what is this doing? You you can say, wow, you know, as a marketer, I'm screwed. Okay. Well, you know, what I said was as a marketer, I'm gonna go partner with Sprint and form a joint venture to launch the 1st mobile shopping channel, which is what I'm doing. And it's called StarShop. It's a celebrity based mobile app that you're gonna in Q1 of next year, you're gonna be able to download, and now it'll be the 1st live shopping channel on a mobile phone with Sprint as my partner. So I don't say it, you know, hey, TV is is is is terrible. I'm out of business. I say they've moved from TV to mobile. So how do I partner with mobile to gain the the the the edge on the rest of my competitors? And by the way, I'm the only one launching a mobile shopping channel right now. There probably will be others after we launch, but it, you know, this is how entrepreneurs need to think. You you always do what you've always done. You'll always get what you've always gotten. Okay? So you gotta be thinking ahead of the game, and that's what I do as an entrepreneur in my industry. So so okay. So let's say, in a, an inventor, but I'm sitting in my cubicle at my job where I'm unhappy, but I've invented some great new thing. Like, let's say, the new magical, toilet warmer or something like that. What's what's my next step if I don't have you behind my back? Okay. So if, you know, there there's 2 ways to launch a product if if you're an inventor. You can launch it yourself, or you can you can launch it either with mentors or partners or other people to help you do it and and and partner with. Okay? If you launch it yourself, you gotta go hire a lawyer to protect yourself across the board because you don't wanna tell anybody what you're up to. So protect you know, get trademarks, get, you know, get URLs, get patents wherever wherever necessary. Okay? Then you need if you're gonna if you're gonna launch the product into the marketplace, you you need to get manufacturing assistance, you gotta get engineers, you gotta get molds made, you gotta get manufacturing, you gotta, you know, and so now that's checking. So the first phase is the legal preparation phase. The second phase is is is manufacturing phase, then the 3rd third phase is distribution phase. Where are you gonna sell this? You're gonna sell it to retail? You're gonna sell it to the shopping channels? You're gonna sell it to catalogs? Or you're gonna sell it direct on TV yourself with an infomercial? So, you know, be prepared to put up 1,000,000 of dollars to do all that because now you need inventory. And if you're gonna sell to Walmart, they order a 100,000 pieces. If it costs you $10 to make, you gotta make a 100,000 to $10, that's $1,000,000, ship it in, and then wait 60 to 90 days to get paid. So, you know, be prepared to invest 1,000,000 if you wanna do it yourself. The other way is partner with somebody, whether it's me or somebody who's been in the business a while, we put up the money, we put up, we we do the legal, we do the molding, we do the engineering, we do the manufacturing, we do all the connecting, and we send we sell it to the catalog companies, we sell it to the shopping channels, we sell it to retail stores, and we put it on TV, sell it direct to the public. And we partner, we pay a big royalty. In many cases, like I said, the fishing lure guy, he made $25,000,000. What's so bad about that? Okay? So, you know, it you you gotta be careful. Sometimes people think, oh, I need to own it all. I wanna control it all. And they end up over the next 5 years selling a 100,000 pieces and losing money. How about selling 25,000,000 pieces and making a buck a piece? So there's a big difference. Don't be afraid to partner with people that know what they're doing. Would would you say that's a big source of failure for people is that they're kind of afraid to have, you know, a small piece of 25,000,000 as opposed to a 100% of nothing? Yes. Absolutely. Too many people myself that that everybody is sort of greedy for the pie as opposed to making the pie bigger. Yes. Absolutely. The, it you know, too many people I mean, I've sat with people. I've I've I've sat with inventors, and I said, look, I'll pull up all the money, which is gonna be 1,000,000, 2 to $5,000,000, and I'll go 50.50 with you. And they're like, oh, you you want half the profits? I'm like, okay. I'm done. Goodbye. Okay? Because listen, you know, go get $5,000,000, you know, and and you're not gonna end up with 50% if you try to raise money on your own. Because anybody that's gonna you know, you go to venture capitalists and vulture capitalists and all of that. Yeah. They'll put up 5,000,000. You're gonna own 5% of the stuff. So, you know, it's you gotta be careful how you do it. Don't be too greedy. Know when to hold them. Know when to fold them. And when I mean fold, I mean fold for a a good deal with somebody that that gives you an opportunity to make a lot of money. So so let's talk about folding them. So when has there been a case where you've put up, like, you've done the whole route, it looked like a great product to you, and then you you you had to fail quickly or else lose millions more? Yeah. So Chubby Checker walked in my office one day that, you know, come on, baby. Let's do the twist. And he said, Kevin, I've got a fitness product that's gonna revolutionize America. You've done Bruce Jenner fitness, Tony Little fitness. You know, I've got the fun way to exercise. It's called the twist decisor. You're gonna play music to your fitness and have fun while you're working out. And I put a half a $1,000,000 up, and it was one of the biggest failures that I ever had. We failed fast and and and not cheap, unfortunately, but we had to just move on and we the good news is we didn't get so close to it that we kept putting more and more money into the deal. So, what if he changed what if he had changed his name just for the product, like twist twisty checker or something? Yeah. I said with a name like Chubby, we should have known that a fitness product was gonna be a tough sell. Yeah. That that that seems hard. You gotta it's like that was one that we we, in hindsight, could have done a little more testing on before we launched. How important is the celebrity? Like, take a look at, like, the George Foreman Grill. Clearly, it was George Foreman and not the grill that sold that. Actually, I'll say this. It was a combination because he had a very good pitch. George loved cheeseburgers, but he got a little, you know, paunchy after boxing and, you know, his little belly, you know, little belly there and and he's like, you know what? I gotta get, you know, I gotta I want cheeseburgers, but I I don't want all the fat in cheeseburgers. So there was some very clever IP on the form on the form of grill, intellectual property. It was a slanted grill. The grease dripped off, and it was called the lean mean grilling machine. So so, yes, it was George Foreman, but it was a there was some good IP and a good story to the grill. So, it was a combination, but I'll say this. Sometimes a celebrity can sell a product that is not a great product and it's all the celebrity. Other times, the product can be great and if the celebrity isn't good, it it, you know, it it can bomb or if the celebrity isn't vested and and sincere in his interest in the product. So there are, you know, a lot of different ways to look at at at different projects and and trying to decipher whether it's the product or the celebrity. But I believe having a good celebrity can be very powerful. So, like, take someone like a Kim Kardashian. She's sort of known for being being a celebrity, but not much else. So how much how much social proof is there in having her say I love this product? Well, look. She's got she's transcended into becoming a superstar. So And that's true. And I I apologize for saying she's just a a celebrity because she has taken that and built a business out of it. Yeah. I mean, look, I I I did Kim's first infomercial, and it actually was reasonably successful. Nothing to do with Kim. But, it was a it was a it was a, a steam iron, believe it or not. And this is before she got hugely successful. But, Kim today, because of the power of her social media, she has an influence factor. You know, she's got products like nail products and beauty products and things like that that have been okay in distribution because she has the ability with her muscle social media wise to to to drive some significant, action. Okay? So, but at the end of the day, she also, in some cases, isn't taken totally, you know, sincere on a lot of stuff because she has promoted a bunch of stuff. She had a diet product called quick trim. And if you look at Kim, she didn't doesn't necessarily look like, you know, she's like very slim. Okay? So I don't think that product ended up doing real real well. So you gotta be careful, you know, what you're picking and and how you're selling it for sure. You know, so I mean, I did a project with Joan Collins way back as a skin care product, and it was a disaster because she didn't do she said, I'm not gonna endorse this product. I'm like, what do you mean? We paid you $50. She said, well, I'm just here to host the show. I'm not endorsing the product. And it it was a terrible disaster for us. I see. So you really need the so the the testimonial aspect is really key on the celebrity side. Absolutely. Yes. So so, you know, again, if I'm, so I'm I'm the individual investor. I have some idea. I decide, okay. Kevin says I should partner with somebody. Are there a lot of people I can go out to partner with? Like, how do I, how do I find, you know, the Kevin's of the world, the Kevin Harrington's of the world? I just came from an from a conference in Vegas. It's called e r a, Electronic Retailing Association. And e r a is, it's there's 5,000 people there from a 100 countries, and this is the one place that you can get all the information, all the players, you know, you know, literally, you know, like I said, thousands of people, distribution around the world. And I'm one of I'm one of the founders of e r a in 1990 with Craig Ranker. And, it's without a doubt the place to go to find, you know, how to you know, who to partner with, how to partner, and all that kind of stuff. So, highly recommend, you know, tuning into that date. If if you join ERA or you call ERA for information, they could kinda tie you into who are all the players and all the the movers and the shakers. And and how does kind of the infomercial approach compare to, let's say, the multilevel marketing approach? Well, multilevel marketing, if you take a product, you you know, it's you you can sell a lot of product in multilevel marketing. It it it's it's not as as TV branded. What's beautiful about the infomercial approach is that I mean, Snuggy was a blanket with arms. Okay? If you sold that in MLM, I don't see why or how you could have sold 25,000,000 of them the way Snuggie did. The power of TV created a a juggernaut marketing campaign that took that global, and they were creating pub crawls and social media and and, I mean, it was just unbelievable at the power of that product. So, you know, I believe that you that that that there's nothing more powerful than an infomercial. I mean, I've had campaigns of spending $1,500,000 a week in media to to to sell those products on T. V, but then building huge brands for the back end and retail, and all other forms of distribution. So it's it's a it's a very powerful way to create the brand. So so, when you're on Shark Tank, would you be thinking to yourself, oh, before I invest in a product, this is something I can do an infomercial and really, blow out. Would that be sort of the structure of your deals on Shark Tank? Yeah. What I look for, there's there's a couple things. Number 1, the beauty of Shark Tank is you're on ABC network, so you're instantly getting the the the the power of ABC. Secondly, let's say, how do I leverage that and and take the product to the, you know, you know, utilizing the first a b c connection to now leverage that to other media and and other, you know, TV shows, on newspapers, magazines, etcetera. So I and then I would take a product from Shark Tank. I'd take it to a a trade show. I say, as seen on Shark Tank, then we would get the interest level from all of the, all of the, the the the retail store. So, you know, I I took a product called Citi Kitty. We took it from Shark Tank into in to Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Wall Street Journal, took it to the Houseware Show, got it into every Walgreens in America and NCAPs, and, you know, you leverage it. You you you take the Shark Tank chisel to the power of all the other, possibilities, at the at the parent in terms of press and median exposure. And and you're you you would be different than, let's say, other Shark Tank investors. Like, you could basically it's not like you're just writing a check and then they go off. You're writing a check and then you're calling Walgreens and say, hey. Can I have some shelf space? Absolutely. I mean, it's, you know, just getting on Shark Tank doesn't guarantee you anything but a few initial orders. The the power of Shark Tank is is leveraging that initial exposure to create a, you know, a a multitasking of of opportunities. You know, to, you know, and it's Shark Tank is just one kind of flip, you know. Bang. Okay. Great. I've got on this show and I got, you know, my 5 minutes of fame. Alright? If you don't leverage that, you're done. You know, I mean, yeah, you might get a few months out of it, but you need to get a couple of years out of it. And and, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6 years. I mean, I I've got products that, have have have lasted that long from from the leverage. Now so so after all these product launches and and, obviously, you've made a a ton of money and you enjoy doing it, but, why do you keep doing it? Well, that's what that's first of all, I I I tried to retire a few years back, and, I sold a company, made a lot of money, and then said, you know what, let me try something else. There's nothing like the the juice of of taking up somebody that walks in your office with an idea or a product, slaps down a 3¢ lure and then going down $500,000,000 worth of it over the next, you know, 3 to 4 years. Okay? I mean, that's there's there's there's a thrill and an excitement out of that. And it's not just, you know, even my own thrill and excitement. It's seeing these entrepreneurs, you know, get excited and watching them and helping them. And so I am I I'm I'm all about empowering entrepreneurs and building, you know, big opportunities for other people now. I have a 26 year old son that's now in the business. I got a 16 year old coming up that, you know, they all are tuning in to the power of T. V. And the power of what I've been doing. So, I love seeing I mean, I I I probably speak somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 to a 100 times a year now, around the world, Australia. I'm heading to London. I just got back from Australia. I was in New York and and L. A. And San Francisco. I did 12 events in the last 16 days, and it's it's it's it's unbelievable to see that the opportunities that are out there, and I enjoy, seeing the gleam in the eye and then the satisfaction when we take something and make a big hit out of it. So, at this stage, it's it's just, you know, I can go out and play golf, which I enjoy doing also, but you gotta have something that that charges, the battery every every so often also. And that's why I love the business I've been in for 30 years. Well, okay. So in 12 events in the past 16 days, that's that requires, like, an enormous amount of energy. Like, I don't even like going. That means 12 airports in 16 days, basically. Like, how do you, I I to be honest, I personally don't think I would have the energy to do that. And I'm a pretty energetic guy. I do lots of things. I don't think I would wanna travel to, like, 16 different events. Like, how do you, or 12 different events. How do you You know, each one of them has a different kind of a style. Some of them are corporate. You know, like, I go into corporations, and I do I do, I create Shark Tank style events. You know, I went into a major corporation like AT and T broke had 300 senior executives, break them into teams of 30 teams of 10, and we can and we take 30 pitches over the day, and we come up with new ideas for AT and T. That's one style of event. So that's cool. I'm planting a seed, building building a whole new business enterprise corporately. Then I do the Chamber of Commerce, kind of events, and I and I and I do entrepreneurial organizations, and I then I do, you know, or inventor type of events. So so across the board, and I'm also one of the founders of the Entrepreneurs Organization, so so that's another style of event. So it's not I'm not doing the same thing over and over and over. Each one has kind of a different kind of a they're not 16 different events, but probably 5 or 6 different style of events. So and by the way, I don't do that every month. This happened to be a a very aggressive schedule and it was like, you know, I just got on this roll and I'm like, you know, one to the next to the next. So I've got 2 weeks off now and, you know, that's you know, now I can rest and and and take it easy. So, you know, it's it's it's it's sort of motivating and and empowering in the process. You know, just as an aside, like, in thinking of George Foreman, it always strikes me as interesting. You know, 80% of people know George Foreman from boxing, say, and 20%, say, know him from the grill. But I would bet you most of his net worth, like 90% of his net worth, comes from the grill. And it's always interesting to me, at a certain point, nobody ever really knows where somebody really people know what they did professionally, but nobody really knows where people made their money. Like, people know William Shatner from Star Trek, but they don't know he made his money on Priceline as an example. And I I wonder if that's true, or do you think that's true for, like, most sort of celebrity people out there? Yeah. You know, I mean, look. George Foreman made a $137,000,000 on the grill. So, he he made money in boxing, but he made more money by far on the grill than he did for his entire career in boxing. So, you know, it with without a doubt, it's, you know, I mean, Priceline has has has made Shatner fortune. So, yeah, I mean, it but this is the thing. People's career, it isn't, you know, it it isn't just about, you know, even myself, like, I'm an infomercial guy, but I, you know, I I'm on the I'm on, I'm involved in 20 plus companies. I sit on board of directors, and I get stock options and stock and monthly fees. And, you know, there's there's a guy named have you ever heard of Gary Vinerchuk? Viner Media? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Gary Vinerchuk. He's been on my podcast. Yes. So Gary sits he sits he gets involved with the Ubers of the world at the very beginning, and he gets a little bit of stock. I think he made tens of 1,000,000 of dollars on that. So people build their brand. They make money. You gotta leverage yourself, and that's what entrepreneurship is all about. So, I I've got, I've gotta run-in a minute here, but I, you know, I just I'm I'm really excited about having a chance to talk to you all your folks here today. You know, it's there there's some just tremendous opportunities out there. I'm happy to have a chance to say hello to everybody. Well, I'm I'm very excited you came on. I do wanna recommend people get your book, Act Now, How I Turn Ideas Into the Next $1,000,000 Product. And is there any particular product that you're that's your favorite right now? Right now, that's a good question. I would say, sure. The, the new wave oven has been it's an infrared technology. It's been around for a while, but it's getting it's been so successful that it's kinda one of those, you know, one of those items. It's been been been, just, you know, a 2 Korean, engineers that came up with this idea of putting an infrared technology into a cooking system, and, you know, this is 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars. Then that's that's one of the big ones. There's also now a new vertical grill with the Ronco company that I'm involved with as a as an investor. So, you know, I I you know, it's it's always hard to just say one, but let's let's pick those 2 for now. The new wave oven and the Ronco vertical grill. How about that? I I love it. And I love how these are just good traditional products as opposed to the latest Silicon Valley, like, high flying valuations and so on. Just good American entrepreneurialism. You got it. Alright. Thanks a lot, Kevin. I really appreciate you coming on the show. You bet, buddy. Take care. Bye bye. For more from James, check out the James Altucher show on the Stansbury Radio Network at stansburyradio dotcom and get yourself on the free insider's list today.
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