Inventor of infomercial and original star on Shark Tank
Over 500 products launched
Lives in St Petersburg Florida originally from Cincinnati Ohio
Started at age 11 with a mentor – his dad
Dad was fighter pilot in WWII and opened a restaurant when he got back
Worked for his dad’s restaurant and learned that he didn’t want to be in that business due to a lot of theft caused by employees
Opened a heating and air conditioning business as a sophomore in college with 25 employees
Would contact home buyers and give them a free safety check and cleaning
Would upsell them a new furnace because technology was improving
Sold his business and connected with a business broker then he got to see the books of all sorts of businesses
Started the small business center one stop center for small business
It connected small business owners with the resources they need – lawyer, accountant, insurance, graphic design etc
Got cable in the early 80s and saw that Discovery channel had bars across the screen so he called in to find out why they only had content for 18 hours a day.
Was at the Philadelphia homeshow and saw Arnold Morris (the #1 knife seller) selling ginsu knifes and he decided to put the ginsu knifes on TV. Filmed the first one for $2k budget at a supermarket over $500 million in sales
Arnold connected Kevin with other pitch people and took a percentage
Took the shows into other markets
Mark Burnett calls and pitches him on Shark Tank
What he learned from being on Shark Tank
Wrote a book “Act Now How I turn ideas into million dollar products”
5% of sharks get 95% of profits
4 easy skills to becoming a key person of influence
Develop a curiosity overload
Directory of mail order catalogs – he requested from all the companies
Noticed some products were in multiple catalogs – these are the winners
Half the people in catalogs have never done infomercials and live shopping. Contact the ones in multiple catalogs
Test before you invest
How can you use curiosity to define more opportunities?
Build your dream team- create powerful marketing and sales
8 people $5K a month after we start raising money to one main person + split 2% between the 8
Used the pedigrees of the 8 dream people to raise the funds
Competitive analysis and coaches and mentors
Are you ready for your future customers?
Things are getting so big so fast because of internet and cell phones
We are in search of an attention span
Average attention span is less than 8 seconds – less than a goldfish
TV viewership is down
Snapchat is the future merger of TV and mobile
People look for peer reviews and don’t trust ads near as much
5 kinds of testimonials
- User of a product
- Celebrity – musician
- Professional – bass master champion
- Editorial – newspaper, magazine etc
- Documentation – testing lab
Raise your profile to gain new customers and new agents
If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten
Book was Kevin’s first step to raise his profile – to get media interviews
2,000+ radio shows that need content in America
We are in an ideas economy being published shows you as an authority.
Social media, newspaper, magazine, trade journal, radio, podcasts, events, interviews, raise money for charity, digital magazine, produce educational blogs/videos
Sharkpreneur Kevin’s digital magazine
Go to events and you can publish as an editor and get all access
Also can use your digital magazine to get your foot in the door with people
60% of his sales come from on as seen on TV activity
Marketing via LinkedIN
Create educational blogs
Your title is most important
Short intro that teases audience what they will learn and a conclusion that wraps it up
Optimize is
Join targeted groups, get noticed, find top contributor, engage, make 2 post in the morning, 2 in the evening for 5 days. Schedule other posts. Comment on group discussion. Be relevant, meaningful, inquisitive, encouraging, be a resource a catalyst
Connect connect, connect, network, network, network
Turn traffic into leads à optin forms à give something away
Develop a perfect pitch
Tease, Please and Seize
Tease grab audience with an attention getting problem
Please show benefits, solutions to the problem, ease the pain, support with testimonials and documentation
Seize create an irresistible offer
People are attracted to passion – use make sure you are passionate
Fail fast and fail cheap
Prevention is a tough sell
Works with a lot of celebrities with $0 but a percentage
To be successful you have to be willing to let other people who can strengthen your weaknesses.
Better to have half of the pie than 100% of nothing