Kevin Harrington on Building Brands and Finding Business Opportunities

0:11 All right, great. So, in the past Kevin's given some uh standalone presentations, showed a video, some of his portfolio, etc. Um what would what would you add to your bio or description of um you know, what you focus on? Well, so by the way, is this mic working or do I I guess we're all good. Yeah. Okay. All righty, thank you. Great to be here. So, um I um I started back in in the early '80s um as a as a serial entrepreneur, okay? And um when cable television was launching in the early '80s, various of the networks that Discovery Channel, Bravo, etc. They didn't have a 24-hour channel. So, Discovery was 18 hours a day. So, I started acquiring all the downtime of all the cable networks back in the early '80s putting programming in putting products into those those time slots.

1:02 So, that's and then I owned As Seen on TV.com, As Seen on TV Inc. And and so I was a product guy. But um we do one product and it was a bell-shaped curve because it would go out and sort of like a movie. It's has success and then it's out of the movie theaters and it dies. Well, what I what I focused on was creating enough of these winners at the same time so that we didn't have a business that went like this. We had a business that continued to grow like this with more consistent products. And we actually took that company public. So, I started in the early '80s, by the early '90s we were ready to go public and we went on the New York Stock Exchange and we we we were a dollar a share, went to over $20 a share in the process. So, we had we had a That was the early days of television infomercials and As Seen on TV. So, that's That was prior to Shark Tank and how I got that phone call to be on Shark Tank. Would you say that those were the two big moments that opportunity of that dead cable time and Shark Tank are the two things that just, you know, shot you up into the limelight and got you a lot of opportunity? Yep, there was one in between. So, so like I said, I we had a hundred plus infomercials that had gone like this and then we Tony Little Fitness, Jack LaLanne and the Juicer, George Foreman, Billy Mays, all these

2:21 products. But they were only in English in the United States. So, in 1990 I said to myself and that's when I had this library of 150 plus infomercials, I said, "These are all in English, but we've invested in the tooling and the manufacturing and all the cost to get these products to market. We had inventory. Why not take it like movies, they go to Europe, they go to Germany, they go into a global distribution path." So, that's what I started doing in 1990 is I went around the world, we cut a deal with Rupert Murdoch for 24 hours a day on Sky Channel with Sheikh Saleh Kamel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He was in 20 Arabic countries with five channels. We had all that they went dark at midnight, came on at 6:00 a.m. We had five channels 6 hours a day. Did the same thing in in Latin America, Asia.

3:11 So, really our US business was doing hundreds of millions, but our international business was doing many more hundreds of millions of dollars because we took all the risk in the US, created the winners, but we only distributed the winners on a global basis. Right, that makes a ton of sense. Awesome. So, you know, I said you did 200 plus transactions when I introduced you. What what's like the real most accurate number and then I'll get on to my second part of that question. Okay. So, um we were doing 50 projects a year for for 20 plus years. And so it's over a thousand projects that we financed. Um Tony Little's Gazelle, that that that one item did over a billion dollars in sales. So, it that could support a few losers here and there, okay? But um yeah, so we did over a thousand, but um eventually what happened is the I saw 10 years ago I I I I saw the handwriting on the wall in the TV industry because television viewership was starting to go like this. And I saw the sales of As Seen on TV.com starting to drop also and it's like fewer people watching TV. Kids weren't coming home turning TV on to watch Nickelodeon, they were going to TikTok and Instagram and and and parents were watching Netflix.

4:26 So, I said I I got to get out. I'm going to sell this and I I sold As Seen on TV.com, As Seen on TV Inc. for a nice return for our shareholders. We were public and we sold to a public company. So, um so that was a transition and then I said to myself, I really I'm I've been involved with a thousand transactions, we built public companies, we have a different view of of how to do things and I and so I started into becoming an investor and and I also got on Shark Tank for a few seasons. And and so I started investing in in companies and saying, "I don't want to be the CEO, but I can help these companies get up and running and and and and take off." So, so the actually the the very first company I invested in with after selling As Seen on TV was this company called Celsius. Now, how many of ever heard of this energy drink product, right? Okay, good. More people say they have today than in a year ago because it has been taking off. 10 years ago I I got a phone call, I met with the chairman and the stock was 10 cents. He invited me to be on the board, I invested, joined the board, I had a 10-year run and the stock is now the equivalent of $250 from 10 cents. It's a $20 company and and this was because they had a very

5:43 unique product, but we also we didn't spend a dime on television. And here I was the As Seen on TV guy. We we created some new ways to market and and this was when we started doing influencers, influencer marketing and and I think one of the biggest things that has changed in in my world, I was the As Seen on TV guy for 40 plus years and and that was a very successful business, but it was time to change and go towards digital. So, we we as we sold the assets of As Seen on TV, then we focused on TikTok, Instagram, all the digital marketing space and influencer marketing and that is what we did at Celsius as opposed not one dime to build a $20 company, we never spent a dime on TV. It was all done creatively in these these new technology ways to get to the customer.

6:35 Wow. Just yeah, super effective. We use the same technologies here and I've had people sit in my office tell me that you can't reach ultra-wealthy families via social media and they're only in my office because I can reach wealthy families here. So, I think yeah. So, but a thousand deals later, what do you wish you knew when you were starting out so that you could have created the same amount of wealth and success with 200 deals instead of a thousand. Like if you had to start all over, what would you suggest to people here in the room? Well, is so I definitely made a ton of mistakes over the years. We One of the things we had done, we built Ginsu, we built Tony Little, we built Jack LaLanne and the Juicer, all these different brands, but in the early days we weren't selling those brands, okay? So, I mean we we we built a business to 200 million and that was it. We made money and we just go on to the next. But why didn't we sell that asset? And that's what's happening today. Like Guthy-Renker, they own they own the company called Proactiv skincare. They sold that to Nestle for $2 billion. So, um it was a very successful As Seen on TV product, but it became successful. So, what we do now is we look at companies that are starting up much like a Celsius that is a startup, how do we get involved in the early stages and and then bring our dream team to the table cuz that's what

7:54 we've really assembled now is a dream team of experts to help startups. I like the the Rock becoming a billionaire because of his tequila brand or George Clooney and like those types of examples or just make it up and then capitalize it in the markets or Exactly. I mean, which with Celsius we had Flo Rida, we had Khloe Kardashian doing tweets and putting out videos and doing all kinds of things. And by the way, Flo Rida 25 million followers and people that were following wanted to also become influencers because there was a successful product that they could affiliate their brand with. So, these influencers built their brand as an influencer around promoting a successful product in the market. Awesome. Okay, so, you know, I mentioned David Rubenstein earlier being like a very high velocity person. You've mentioned on stage before you look for high velocity entrepreneurs. You obviously are one.

8:45 Have you Were you just born high velocity? Do you do something every morning that gets you pumped up to be high velocity like Celsius shots or what? I have not had one yet today cuz I needed to show this. So, this is I have one of these every day, but only one. It's a pretty powerful drink by the way, but I I I I survive on about 5 hours of sleep. So, I get up every morning 6:00-ish or so. I'm I have a gym in the home. If I'm on the road, I'll hit the gyms typically around the world, but I'm not I I don't do tons of I'm not a a gym rat, but I just get the blood flowing, you know, it's it's good to do that. I eat right. Um I stopped drinking 17 years ago. So, um you know, it it was too easy. I was at I had a venture with Home Shopping Network in St. Pete and every day there was all these new vendors coming in. Hey, where are we going to go tonight, you know, it was like, "Hey, I'm out, okay?" It's you know, I'm not entertaining uh anymore.

9:37 But the bottom line is is yes, um we look for and we have a little incubator that we do Spend a Day with the Shark and and we we do one a month. We bring 10 to 12 entrepreneurs in and we look to incubate their business. We bring we have our whole dream team there, the digital marketing people, the experts to be able to say, this is what each company needs. We customize programs for these folks and and then we take equity in the process. Right, got it. So, I had the experience of one of the deals we got done here is with Canapreneur and Michael Scott had never raised capital before. He came here to the club, figured out what family offices were. He had raised 4 million a bit slowly. Uh he then raised the next 8 million faster based on what he learned here and sold the company for over a hundred million dollars. Kevin got involved on the board of Canapreneur and we went to Kevin's world-class studios and the level of energy and just succinct wording and just the energy you injected into the message and seeing how you ran that studio, you can tell after a thousand deals you'd mastered that process. That was that was really great to see in person.

10:40 Thank you. Thank you. Um so, one thing we're asking a lot of pro athletes that are also high-velocity people and top performers is about visualization, affirmation, mindset. What can you say about being high-velocity or really successful or top point one percent when it comes to you? Do you do daily visualization, affirmation, etc.? Good good question. So, one of the things that I learned along the way, I had a chance to go down to Necker Island and hang out with Richard Branson for for for two days and Richard he was there I was getting mentored by Richard Branson and one of the things that I say, I'm not afraid to go to various mentors. I've got four or five in my life right now and I pay them money and typically Richard was was a freebie. I donated some money to his charity, but Richard said to me, Kevin, you've done an awesome job selling all these products on TV, but you you've kind of screwed up in the process. And I said, well, what did I do wrong? He said, because you built all these other brands, Billy Mays brand and and and Tony Little and all these other guys, but you never built your own brand. And so, I said, well, I didn't realize that I was supposed to do that and what's the opportunity there? He said, well, you know, think about it this way. When you go to the trade show with Tony Little and he's all over TV, you go walking down the aisle, what happens?

11:57 Everybody is approaching Tony Little. Why? Because he's built his brand. I built his brand. And they're like, so he's getting all the new deals, right? Exactly. So, you need to be the guy that when you walk down the aisle, they're saying, Kevin, I've got a new deal. So, what I started doing, I started creating brand building and I've wrote books. I've written now nine books. One of them was number two on the the Wall Street Journal best-seller list. It's tens of thousands of books selling a week in the early days and so, I wrote books, created content, surrounded myself with what I call my dream team because I'm a marketing guy, but I don't have all the answers. I don't have all the finance answers and and and the the operational side. So, bottom line is is that I I I set this up where I built my brand, assembled a dream team and then and enabled many of the entrepreneurs that we work with to be able to do this also. But for for each and every folks the the folks that are here today, building your brand doesn't have to take a tremendous amount of time and effort.

13:02 I mean, yes, the the if you want to become very powerful like Richard has done, I mean, in your industry, you create events, masterminds like you're like we're doing right here. This is brand building for Richard's business. We do this ourselves, but we do this with financial advisors that hold events with 150 financial advisors. They're building their brand and teaching financial advisors how to build their business. We do it in the insurance world. So, the different verticals that we work with entrepreneurs to help them build their brand, develop their dream team and utilize social media and digital marketing in today's world. This is the the new way to become Um what was the word you used? Electric entrepreneur?

13:48 Velocity. High-velocity, right. I like that from you actually. Thank you. Thank you. But so, one thing I wanted to point out is that for every single person in this room, one of the most powerful things I've learned last 17 years is that if you can source deals first exclusively and at a better valuation, whether you're a self-storage manager or a stem cell therapy center manager or if you're an investor here in the room, if people know to send Kevin consumer product deal or some sort of deal that needs an influencer or something where he could be a powerful board member, he's going to get a better valuation. He might swallow the whole deal up with a couple of his friends and he could help with accelerating that company and no one else would even get to know that deal exists. And so, can you comment on that just a little bit because it's so connected to what you just said that if you get lots and lots of deal flow, you pick the very very best deals, you add so much strategic value that you come in at a lower basis than anyone else could even if they saw it. Yes, I mean, we we'd like to get in on the ground floor.

14:41 Obviously, I mean, we just did an event at the PGA Golf Show in Orlando two weeks ago, three weeks ago and it was called Golf Pitch Challenge and we took pitches from the golf industry and David Leadbetter was one of the judges and myself and we invested in two deals and and so, you know, the opportunities are out there and and from my side, we're here in Beverly Hills today, we're in Orlando a couple of weeks ago, we'll be at a we'll go to Louisville and do another event. These these kind of outreach to the the entrepreneurial community through relationships like you have here with family offices around the world and other industries have been very powerful for us. Got it. What if someone sitting here in the room and they say like, well, it's Kevin Harrington if you're in Shark Tank, you create assets on TV, like who am I to create my own brand? I don't feel like I have any momentum on that. Would you encourage them to focus on a very very small but valuable niche in a little sandbox that long-term they could own or how do you encourage them to get momentum? What I would say is this, I I call it becoming a key person of influence, become a KPI. And it when you become a key person of influence, you're the go-to person in your industry and you can do this by doing podcasts.

15:55 But you should be on podcast, but you know, I went on to promote my book 185 podcasts. People said to me, how'd you get to number two on the best-seller list? Was it it was just luck? No, 185 podcasts. I mean, this was spending a tremendous amount of time, but the bottom line is we got thousands and thousands of of inquiries and deal flow people. So, becoming a KPI, podcasting, writing books, creating content, shooting videos. And by the way, I wrote the book how to become a key person of influence. I can I have a digital copy I can give to everybody here, kevinharrington.info. If you'd like to download that absolutely free, it's my gift to anyone here. I've read the book and it's excellent and it relates to Robert Cialdini's principle of authority and reciprocation, adding value first and then people want to do deals with you.

16:48 In the word authority is another word, author. And you author a book, you become an authority and that's that's really starting process. And by the way, just one last thought on the book. You can spend two years writing a book like this about your life, your business, everything or you can put a 45-page little booklet together in probably two to three weeks, use artificial intelligence to help you write it. Now you've got something that's that is as you're doing things, you got a lead magnet that you can give people that as as you're running ads, hey, call for the free report on the status of home buying in America or whatever it might be, but this this is important stuff. It's creating these digital these digital magnets that will get leads and at the end of the day, many people in this business are in the business of generating leads to just to sell more of their services.

17:41 This is the way to do it. Right, for sure. Whether they know it or not, they need to. So, okay, so can you explain a little bit about how you invest personally, but also how that's different than Cypress Ascendant, the consumer products related fund that you invest in and like what you're looking for on both sides? So, I invest personally in products and in companies like Celsius. Celsius, the reason I invested is because they had the clinical studies that said for every can that you drink, it will burn 140 calories in your body whether you move or not. You can sit in the chair and you're burning calories. So, people in the fitness business, in fact, the founder of Gold's Gym, I he was here last night. Yeah. We started in Gold's in a big way because the people were going to the gym to work out and they got their first 140 calories burned right off this and then they get on the treadmill. So, this was a unique product. That's one of the things I say, is the product unique enough such that there's no other product in the market that does something similar burning those calories, right? Red Bull doesn't do that and Monster doesn't do that. So, anyway, the um I hope I answered your question. Okay.

18:51 You did. Yeah, I know that's great. And yeah, I think it relates to what Michael is talking about from Treasure, right? They're trying to do something very unique, number one, something that's defendable, something that has IP behind it and it's not lost in the crowd of what everyone else is doing. Anything else you want to comment on that either you or the fund are looking to source from the crowd in terms of consumer product in terms of the size of the company. You said you want to get in at the ground floor. Someone might not approach you if they feel like, oh, I don't have a nice pretty pitch deck yet. Maybe they have a prototype, maybe they don't, maybe they have revenue, maybe they don't. Good question, Richard. We by the way, we get a thousand pitches a month still just you know, cuz even though Shark Tank was a few years ago for me, it I'm still out there and my reruns run every month still on CNBC. So, we get a lot of pitches and we help we we'll tell somebody, look, if you really want to raise money, this pitch isn't isn't working. You need a better pitch deck, you need this, you need that. So, we will help entrepreneurs do that, but you know, I think the bottom line, you you mentioned Cypress Ascendant. This is a boutique investment firm that I invested in because they have thought they have a consumer fund where they've invested in five direct to the consumer companies and they have they've had some great exits the management of Cyprus ascended and so we have a a really cool relationship with them we invested in

20:09 the company and what they have a they have an equity stake in various companies one of them is events.com and that's a really cool company that's growing very rapidly so so we invest in individual products but we also do invest in funds like the Cyprus ascended fund and that is a boutique investment firm. Okay awesome. So when I spent time with you at your studio it was obvious that you're very disciplined you're very aware of the time you cut out a few things that were like just going to be a waste of time and said no we're not doing that say we're doing it this way. If someone wants to be top point one percent in their field and be more disciplined outcompete everyone around them you know how do they be that way how do they how do they want anything? Well I think number one you've got to you've got to have it mentally right and I have a saying whatever you vividly imagine ardently desire sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass and that's Paul J Meyer's that came up with that quote but the bottom line there is is people many people imagine things they want things but and they may even believe that they can get them but you know where they fail is enthusiastically acting upon it okay because it's it's not just hitting

21:27 the nail one time you've got to hit it over and over and over and over hundreds of times and squarely as as as many times as you can to complete that that's if that's building a business that's what you need to do so I I like to see people that have that attitude. Awesome yeah I saw a video on LinkedIn recently from Jesse Itzler who's married to Sara Blakely both people would would love to interview one day and he said that his goal is always be the most passionate person in the room which is very much related to the enthusiasm you just talked about last question here since we're already over by a minute is you've been interviewed hundreds of times you've been on many hundreds of stages so what's the question that nobody ever asked you but they should ask you because it's at the heart of all of your success and all of your massive you know products Oh boy well I was going to say what's my golf handicap it's not that good well start taking up golf about 10 years ago and so it was a 25 handicap to a 21 to an 18 to a 16 so I do I I did I have a relationship with David Leadbetter who's one of the greatest golf trainers in the world so David lives about an hour away from my house and so I've established a relationship with him both business professional and personal and he's been giving me lessons

22:45 and when I'm here next year I'm going to talk about my single digit handicap in the golf world so but I think bottom line is is it's it's a you really need to have your head in the game you know and this is where I was talking about imagining and desiring and believing but executing and that's the key thing is mentally you have to believe you can do it and then put a plan together and then execute it and and and that's we've been doing execution hundreds and hundreds of times over the years and now you you asked me how many products we had launched over a thousand back in the As Seen on TV days we're launching now more than more than a hundred a year products because we're involved with with dozens of different companies so so it's it's more involved and the good news is I brought my I have a 35 year old son who is very smart in this world of digital and he's been with me now in the business for 14 years and he has a team of of young very aggressive digital marketers that understand how to make things happen in this new world because we don't use television anymore. Awesome as it sounds like like we're talking about yesterday in in Arnold's book he talks about how

24:01 you have to be willing to work hard and put in the reps and it sounds like you're not afraid of hard work yourself and seeing things through obviously from all your comments so Absolutely. Awesome well I think everyone got a ton of value from that I really appreciate you spending your time here let's give him a big round of applause thank you thank you Richard