[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Introduction ” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Business, marketing, investing, and more. Becoming a successful entrepreneur means having a vision, having confidence in your vision, and having a plan of attack.<\/p>\n
Kevin O\u2019Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, became an icon in the business world after investing in 40 companies during his time on ABC\u2019s show, Shark Tank<\/em>. While he was building his empire of businesses, his vision and mantra always remained the same: The best thing you can do for entrepreneurs is to create opportunity for them by creating jobs for them. O\u2019Leary believes greatly in the power of great entrepreneurs, and believes that great entrepreneurs are the ones in pursuit of freedom, versus greed.<\/p>\n During the Conquer Local Conference in June of 2019, O\u2019Leary gave a remarkable presentation highlighting his biggest rules for investing, marketing, and creating a successful business. Keep reading to discover a few lessons from the shark himself.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Marketing a Commodity 1\/2″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Is there a want or need for your product or service?<\/strong><\/p>\n O\u2019Leary\u2019s advice is to invest primarily in companies that are selling a commodity \u2014 in other words, a product that a great majority of people will use. Your top priority needs to be getting it in front of as many eyes as possible.<\/p>\n As an example<\/span>, he mentions one of his top investments on Shark Tank, Wicked Good Cupcakes<\/a>. Flour, sugar, water..etc.\u2014cupcakes are just that, a commodity. They used the Shark Tank platform to get their product in front of the eyes of as many people as possible. Once they got on TV, their sales blew up.<\/p>\n Your efforts cannot stop there. You need to be constantly working to put yourself in front of your audience. This company knew what worked for them, and continuously looked for opportunities to be on TV.<\/p>\n \u00a0Take a look at their TV clips here<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n One of their marketing initiatives came when they were getting close to selling their one millionth cupcake jar, and O\u2019Leary flew to their store to live stream the event. Once that footage hit TV networks, they gained thousands of more customers. Their customer acquisition cost? $0<\/strong>. It\u2019s really as simple as that.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Marketing a Commodity 2\/2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Once Wicked Good Cupcakes saw the ROI from their efforts, they realized they had found their most profitable marketing channel and never looked back. Get your product to reach as many people as possible, with the lowest cost to your company.<\/span><\/p>\n Recommended Reading:<\/strong> How to Slash Your Customer Acquisition Cost<\/a><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Telling a Story ” _builder_version=”4.16″ hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Storytelling is a powerful strategy to facilitate audience engagement. Your audience will be able to smell dishonesty from miles away, so don\u2019t even think about being fake.<\/p>\n Telling your story is a great way to get noticed and show the authenticity of your brand. Your audience is intrigued to see behind the scenes of creating a product that they love and seeing the faces behind the success. As mentioned above, TV is a great channel to start showcasing your brand story, but how do you keep it going?<\/p>\n Social media has a way of keeping your audience up to date with your products, promotions, and continuing your brand\u2019s story. Telling your company’s story is not about creating a boring and lengthy blog post, or fake PR initiatives, but a real representation about what building your business was like\u2014 both the good, and the not-so-good.<\/p>\n Back to our original example, Wicked Good Cupcakes<\/span>. What did they do that set them apart from other cupcake companies? They told their story. The smartest thing they could do was to utilize the content they captured on TV and re-purpose it. With this in mind, they were able to produce tons of micro-content<\/strong><\/a> for their social media accounts.<\/p>\n Use the value that you\u2019ve already created and break it into 5 second clips, 10 second clips, 20 second clips, etc. The specifics don\u2019t matter as much, but use it to your advantage. Strive to be open and honest about how you are building your business, and focus on connecting to customers in unique ways.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Pitching to Investors” _builder_version=”4.16″ hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Don\u2019t buy into the myth that there is a specific \u201csales gene\u201d, where only certain types of people can become entrepreneurs or deliver great pitches. Pitching is a trait that can be learned.<\/p>\n O\u2019Leary has seen endless pitches and his advice can be broken up into three consistent rules for pitching, adding that, \u201cThey will be the same today, and the same in 100 years\u201d.<\/p>\n O\u2019Leary states that as a good entrepreneur you should be pitching in 90 seconds or less (60 seconds if you\u2019re really excelling). Look your investors in the eye and explain what it is you do<\/strong>, why your idea works,<\/strong> and why it\u2019s a big opportunity for investors.<\/strong><\/p>\n Even though you are pitching in hopes to sell your big idea, you need to also sell them on yourself. Your entrepreneurial passion and your ability to sell will give investors confidence that you will be able to sell your product to the masses and get their money back as soon as possible.<\/p>\n You can have a great idea, but your execution plan is equally as important.<\/p>\n Now this is the part where a lot of entrepreneurs get caught slipping. If you are starting a business you should know your numbers inside and out. Your investors need to know:<\/p>\n Being clear and honest about your business model will entice investors to trust you.<\/p>\n Recommended Reading:<\/strong> Crafting Elevator Pitches That Sell<\/a><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Effective Management” _builder_version=”4.16″ hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n O\u2019Leary speaks on an interesting fact that over 90% of his returns<\/strong> come from his companies run by women<\/strong>. This peaked his interest greatly, and he wanted to learn what these companies were doing differently to mitigate risk. He decided to study this phenomenon so that he could apply these strategies to all of his companies.<\/p>\n What the CEO of a company does with their time and how they allocate their employees time is the #1 asset they have. It\u2019s important to be setting goals, allocating time to those goals, and then watching if that time was allocated successfully.<\/p>\n After he analyzed each company’s quarterly estimates of sales, he started looking at sales actually achieved. He found that in companies run by men<\/strong>, they hit their targets 65%<\/strong> of the time with an average growth target of 30%<\/strong>, where as women<\/strong> hit their targets over\u00a090%<\/strong> of the time, with a 17%<\/strong> average growth rate.<\/p>\n You might be thinking \u201cWell they are likely just undershooting their growth targets\u201d, and at first O\u2019Leary thought the same thing. But, he soon realized that what they were doing was actually incredibly strategic. When you set goals that are consistently being met, the culture of the company changes. This brings us to the third point.<\/p>\n Maintaining a healthy company culture has a positive impact on employee turnover rates. Some cultures will be discouraging and unstable if you are constantly failing to meet your growth targets, and that can have a negative impact on employee retention.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The results proved that companies that were hitting achievable targets, had wildly better turnover rates. After discovering this, O\u2019Leary told all of his companies to set targets that they could meet over 90% of the time. The result? Just as he thought, <\/span>30% decrease in employee turnover and an increase of 11% free cash flow.<\/strong><\/p>\n Two Words: <\/span>Online<\/span> Reputation<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n Back in the day if a customer had a problem with a product or service, they would simply call a 1-800 customer service line, and have their problem mitigated. Fast-forward to today, the customer service landscape has changed greatly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Per O\u2019Leary\u2019s<\/span> example<\/span><\/span>, United Airlines had <\/span>over-booked a flight<\/span><\/a>, and decided to choose a customer at random to leave the plane. They decided to use excessive force to tear the person fro<\/span>m their paid seat, as multiple other passengers took out their cell phones to videotape the event.<\/p>\n The video went <\/span>viral on social media in 23 minutes<\/strong>\u2014costing the company <\/span>billions<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n Social Media has the power to cause reputational damage to your brand. Customers may choose to\u00a0<\/span>unleash their negative feelings onto social media, and it\u2019s your responsibility to mitigate the issue as quickly and flawlessly as possible. O\u2019Leary states that around 80% of the time<\/strong> you can\u2019t get angry customers back, so stop spending a fortune <\/span>trying<\/span><\/i> to get them back.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That person leaving horrible comments on your Facebook post, is <\/span>not <\/b>your customer. They are likely a competitor trying to pollute your search metrics or someone who will likely not buy from you. <\/span>So, what are you supposed to do?<\/strong> You write your response for the other thousands or millions or people that will be reading your responses<\/span><\/span>. Others will see the effort of you trying to fix the problem, and your audience will value that you are genuine about your mistake and took the responsibility to correct the issue at hand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Who\u2019s managing your reputation<\/a> in your company? We can help. <\/strong><\/p>\nKevin O’Leary’s Lessons from a Shark<\/h2>\n
Marketing a Commodity<\/h3>\n
Telling a Story<\/h2>\n
Pitching to Investors<\/h2>\n
1. Pitch in 90 seconds or less<\/h3>\n
2. Sell yourself first<\/h3>\n
3. Know your numbers<\/h3>\n
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Effective Management<\/h2>\n
1. Better Time Management<\/h3>\n
2. Set Achievable Goals<\/h3>\n
3. Maintain Culture<\/h3>\n
4. Assimilate Feedback to Enhance Customer Service<\/h3>\n