Creating 'As Seen on TV' and Becoming the Original Shark on 'Shark Tank' with Kevin Harrington

What's going on guys? Jared Goetz here and welcome to the Modern Soul Podcast. On this episode, I'm talking to the original shark from Shark Tank. The person who invented As Seen on TV and basically created the infomercial from scratch. His name is Kevin Harrington. I'm sure you guys have heard of him. He's done billions of dollars in sales and he tells his story of how he quickly grew his first company from zero to $500 million by seeing an opportunity and jumping on it. We talk about the power of a mentor, how to find a mentor, and how he was mentored by Zig Ziglar and his whole journey. So you're not going to want to miss this one, guys. Stay tuned and enjoy.

All right, Mr. Kevin Harrington, welcome. How are you?

Hey Jared, great to be here. Thanks for having me today.

Good to see you again. What have you been up to today?

Oh, you know, uh, just— I, I, I'm on the Back end of my book launch, Mentor to Millions book launch. And so, still doing podcasts and media appearances. And what's interesting, because when we first started the launch of the book, I said to the publisher, we'll do as many podcasts as you can, you know, get us. And so, we hired a podcast PR firm and not just podcasts, but You know, they got me on CNN and CNBC and, you know, lots of regular media outlets, also tons of radio stations, etc. But we did 160 podcasts and media appearances over 4 weeks. And so, what happens is many of the people, the outlets we were talking to said, oh, well, we want to do something, but we can't do it during your timeframe, but how about later in November? So now we're doing all the follow-up. Right? And I said, you know, the book is already launched. I've already had my launch series, but now it's sort of post-launch. So, but it's always fun connecting with some great groups around the country. And like, for example, do you know the John Lee Dumas, JLD? He has a webinar called, a podcast called Entrepreneur on Fire. You ever heard of him?

Yeah, yeah, I've heard of it.

He's one of the most successful podcasters out in the marketplace. That podcast we actually recorded about a month ago, but he couldn't get it out until today. So you also have those kinds of things happening. We had another one with a gentleman out of, oh geez, I'll think of his name, but his dropped yesterday. And we had huge responses yesterday that came from a podcast that dropped yesterday. So we recorded 160, many of them, Dr. Drew Pinsky's just launched this week also, et cetera, et cetera. So there's always something going on out there regarding the book here, probably for the next 30 to 60 days.

Tell us a little bit about the book.

Yeah. So yeah, I've got a little copy of it right here, Mentor to Millions. It's about a journey that I take as a mentor with my mentee, Mark Timm. And Mark and I, it's very interesting how we met. Zig Ziglar was a mentor to me when I was young back in the '80s. And Zig Ziglar was a mentor to Mark. And when Zig passed away, the family put us together and said, you both were mentored by our father. I think you should meet. And Kevin, maybe you can continue some of these processes with Mark. So we ended up going through this journey. And so this is what Mentor to Millions is all about. It's about how Getting the right mentor in your life can be very exponential for your business. And that's what The Millions is all about, is mentor to help you grow your business into millions of dollars, tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions or billions. But the bottom line is, is during the journey that we take, there's a magical transformation. And there's a, we talk about how to get mentors, how to be a good mentee and actually how to be the best student of your mentor is another thing. And then sort of, there's a sort of a 3-step process we say is that number 1, people that need a mentor should get the book Mentor to Millions because we're going to teach you how to get a mentor. Then, so you need the book. You should also get the book for your mentor so he can understand what some of the processes are like dealing with mentees. And then we also say then that you as the mentee should pay it forward, get a book for someone that you can mentor also. So it's sort of this give back at the end. But there's also this transformation that occurs with Mark and I over this course of me mentoring him. So really a fun story and powerful and lots of tips and techniques along the way.

So how did you meet Zig Ziglar?

Just, you know, back in the day, I was out there doing, you know, attending a lot of events and doing so many, you know, like Jared, you and I met at Board of Advisors. Right? Well, think of Zig Ziglar was the Mike Calhoun back in the '80s. Okay? So, you know, oh, Zig's going to be speaking down at the Tampa Convention Center and there's going to be 30,000 people there. Okay? So in the beginning, I met him like, hey, he's on stage and I'm in the audience. Right? But you know, at the end of the day, you know, his teachings and all the things that he developed, I mean, he He's just an amazing guy. But Zig was, I started speaking then on some of those stages. So, you know, Zig Ziglar and then there was, I'm trying to think of some of these other guys. I mean, he'd bring in Colin Powell and Terry Bradshaw and, you know, these motivational kinds of events and things. But Zig was also not just motivational, but he was a sales trainer. And that was really what I keyed in on. One of his first books was called The Secrets of Closing the Sale. And he had over 125 closing techniques in that book. And so for example, people say to me, in 1984, that book came out, Secrets of Closing the Sale. I was just launching my infomercial business. And so one of the things that Zig taught, now get this, okay? Because people say to me, Hey, you know, that infomercial business I love. It's like, you know, Tony Little, Jack LaLanne, George Foreman, guys like Billy Mays. They say, but wait, there's more. We're going to have this and this and this and this. People say to me, where did that come from? So this is the story. So Zig, he had what he called, when you got into a sale, and you couldn't close the sale, oftentimes it got down to there wasn't enough value. So if the price was here and the value was here, it's not gonna work. What you have to do is raise the value stacks such that the value is now here and the price is here. So this was, okay, you're gonna get this for $19.95, 'But wait, there's more. If you order now, you'll also get this and this and this.' Raising the value stacks gives you a better chance to close. So that's where 'but wait, there's more' came from.

And would you consider yourself the originator of the 'but wait, there's more' with the infomercial?

You know, I don't remember exactly who came up with those words, but I consider myself to be the originator of the concept of getting more products if you buy right in the next 30 seconds or the next minute or whatever. Because we were doing that back in the early '80s, almost 40 years ago.

And how did you get into the TV sales and selling direct to consumer on commercials?

So I'm very, I'm a serial entrepreneur, one of 6 kids. My dad was a bartender and it was a struggle to raise 6 kids tending bar. One day, he came to me and said, hey, I've saved up enough money now. I'm going to open up my my own bar, Harrington's Irish Pub. And I was 11 years old. And he said, I want you to come in and work. And I said, I'd love to. So I would go after school. I would go on the weekends, literally working a 40-hour week when I was 11 at a dollar an hour. Okay? Because this was back in the '60s. Okay? So it was in the late '60s. I'm making a buck an hour, washing dishes, But it wasn't just washing dishes. He'd bring me in the back after work closed and he'd show me, okay, let's count up the money. This is where, this is how the bar did and this is the food and this is this. And then, well, we got to let this guy go. He was teaching me the inner workings of the business. A few years later, he said, it's time for you to start your own business. He mentored me. He was my first mentor. I started a driveway sealing business in high school. Then when I got to college, He said, look, you got to pay for your college, your tuition, your books, your room, your board, your car, your insurance, your this, your that, everything. And it's expensive. I mean, think about it. If you're 18 years old, no money really, and you got to pay for all that, what are you going to do? Well, I started a new business which was a heating and cooling business because that's year-round. Driveway sealing was just summertime. So now I was getting leads from the courthouse, new homeowners, new homeowner transactions, We'd call them up, give them a free furnace cleaning. We're getting 20 new customers a week. Well, I'm going to college my freshman year. And at the end of the first year, we did over $1 million in sales, the equivalent of what today would be $5 to $7 million. And I had 25 employees my sophomore year in college, 6 trucks going out every day. And I said, wait a minute, I can't do both. I dropped out of college, built the business, sold the business, and then I was sitting with a pile of money looking to get into something. And one day I'm watching television. I just ordered cable TV. I bought a house, I've got cable, and there's only 30 channels. I go through all 29 channels, get to the last channel, and there's nothing on. So I called the cable company and I said, hey, look, I love ESPN, 24 Hours of Sports, HBO movies, you know, every day new stuff. But there's nothing on Channel 30. They said, oh, you must have tuned in during the 6 hours of dead airtime. I said, what do you mean? They said, oh, it's Discovery Channel. It's a new channel. They're only an 18-hour-a-day channel because they can't afford a 24-hour production cycle. So I said, so what are you doing with the 6 hours of dead airtime? They said, nothing. I said, well, let me come down and talk. And I did and found— I said, what can I put on there? Products. So I started slugging products on Discovery Channel in Cincinnati, Ohio in the early '80s. And then all of a sudden, it took off. I said, what? This is a national channel. I went to Discovery National, cut a deal, signed a long-term contract for 6 hours a day on the national Discovery Channel. And that 6-hour block was generating close to $30 million a year in sales. So that was the beginning. We then went to Nashville. We went to Lifetime. We went to all the cable networks, over 1,000 broadcast stations. And boom, we built a $500 million business from scratch, from zero. And then we said, if it works in the U.S., hey, these products, will they work in England, Germany, Holland, France, Saudi Arabia, Latin America? I opened an office in London. I opened an office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I opened an office in São Paulo, Brazil. Opened an I had an office in Tokyo and I cut media deals with the biggest media companies in the world. Rupert Murdoch, Sky Channel, the Super Channel out of Italy, the Kinnevik Group out of Sweden, Arab Radio Television, Sheikh Saleh Kamel had 5 channels running every day, 24 hours. All 5, he had a sports channel, a movie channel, a kids channel. What happened with all the channels? They went dark at midnight. Came back on at 6:00 AM. I got 30 hours a day in 20 Arabic countries. Started from scratch there. We're doing tens of millions of dollars in Saudi Arabia. We're doing $100 million in England. We're doing $100 million down in Brazil. Tokyo took off. Japan was unbelievable. We're doing hundreds of millions of dollars over in Japan. And we had our U.S. business. And You know, boom, public company, et cetera. So—

And how did you know what to play during those 6 hours?

Like what would you start with? Well, we started with kitchen products.

Was it somebody displaying them or were they actually commercials?

Oh no, we were pitching products. So what I did, I went, I started going to these, like the Philadelphia Home Show, these houseware shows. And you ever go into one of these trade shows and you see a little booth with a guy selling some cleaner stuff or— okay. I'm the guy 40 years ago that went to all those guys. That's where I met Billy Mays. Billy was selling an automotive cleaning product, a wax. And Arnold Morris was selling Ginsu knives. And Wally Nash was selling the hand-hammered Chinese wok. And Sandy Mason was selling the hand blender, Daily Mixer. I cut deals with all of them. John Parkin was lighting Rolls-Royces on fire with the car wax and with the bow tie, that guy. So we had, we started just banging out show after show after show. I had 150 infomercials in the can just for the United States. Then all we had to do when we took them to Saudi Arabia or any other part of the world, all we had to do was dub them into the local language, right? And so we had instant success with all our products.

But since you owned— you own the airtime.

I own all the airtime.

So you were cutting deals with these people like, I already have the airtime, we just want to sell your product. And instead of selling it to 25 people standing in front of your booth, you're going to sell it to 25,000 people watching the channel, or 200.

I mean, when Tony Little— when I first met Tony Little, he's a fitness guy, he had a product called the Ab Isolator. And he was selling, you know, 10,000 a month type of thing, peddling them out to different places. We got— when I did the deal with Tony, we took him global. We were at 80,000 pieces a week in just the United States. I mean, it went global instantly. Then we did the Gazelle, then we did, you know, tons of other shows. So, so yes, we— what I did was I signed long-term contracts with the media companies, Discovery Channel, Lifetime, Nashville Network, Bravo in the US, then all the other ones I mentioned from Kinnevik Group in Sweden to the Marcucci family in Italy to the Sheikh Saleh Kamel to Rupert Murdoch in Australia. There was the Packard family in media there. I mean, in Japan, TV Tokyo, et cetera. So I went to these stations and I said, I have libraries of programs and I will pay you to run them on your downtime. And it's found money for them. It was a no-lose situation. And so, we got very heavy into, I mean, we launched over 700 products over that time. You know, over 20 of them did north of $100 million. A couple did north of $500 million. Two of them did over a billion. I mean, it was— this was the heyday of the business. And now, I, you know, I have all these people that still— I mean, I get— we get about 100 to 150 applications from people a week looking for us to help them with their business or their product.

So what was your biggest product? Which one was like the biggest success for you guys?

Well, Tony Little was the biggest because we, you know, like when we did the Jack LaLanne Juicer, that was a big hit, but that was one product.

Everyone probably knows about that. I'm sure anyone listening to this knows what that is.

Yeah. So now, that was very successful, but with Tony Little, we did the Ab Isolator, we did Target Training, we did the Gazelle, we did the next one. I mean, we did one called a Pure Protein. It was a protein bar. It's still on the shelves today. We did that 30 years ago and it's still on the shelves today. We sold the company in the meantime. But the point is, is that Tony was an evergreen because he is still on Home Shopping Network and just in some Cricket Wireless commercial or something. He's always getting spoofed on TV. You know? So we had a lot of fun with Tony. Plus Tony He lives right here in Tampa. I'm a Tampa guy, been here 26 years now. And Tony and I, as it turned out, we're one month, we're actually 3 weeks apart in age. So, we live in the same city, we're entrepreneurs, we're brothers kind of thing, brothers from different mothers, I think you could say. So, had a lot of fun with Tony and he's, I mean, Tony and I are still working on some new deals too. So, lots, I mean, And I know, Jared, your business, there's a ton of great stuff that guys like Tony Little could be bringing to the table for many of the kind of relationships that you and I've been talking about building.

Yeah. So, a lot of listeners on here are in the e-commerce space. What's your opinion? I mean, you've had tremendous success selling on TV. What do you think about selling online? You know, so e-commerce.

Great question because this is what happened. So here I was, I owned As Seen on TV Inc., asseentv.com. And by the way, asseentv.com, wow, how did I get it? Well, I bought it, okay? I acquired it in an acquisition. And we built that thing into tens of millions of dollars. I mean, with zero advertising cost, okay? But I saw the handwriting on the wall about 10 years ago that things were starting to drop. What was happening? Television viewership has dropped by 60% in the last 10 years. And so not only that, there's Amazon competing. So 8 years ago, I did something very smart. And I say, know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. I sold it all. All my As Seen on TV assets, As Seen on TV Inc. I seen the TV.com. And I mean, and these were profitable businesses cranking profits with no advertising. I got a nice multiple, made some money, did well. But the bottom line is I shifted to digital and all e-commerce. And so we've been doing everything now online for the last 8 years and building funnels, running traffic, Facebook, Instagram, et cetera. So we, you know, and we still do a little bit of that television stuff, but this is the problem. TV costs so much and you're paying to reach the masses. Whereas with e-commerce, you can pay to get to the people that want your product. So it's a much more efficient way to get to the people that are willing to get, you know, like if I'm launching a golf product, I can't afford to do that on TV. On digital and e-com, I can find golfers that are going to want my product and make it work.

I have so many questions for you, but we don't have that much more time. So you were one of the founding Sharks on Shark Tank. How did that come about?

So Mark Burnett saw all these things I was doing. And I'll never forget, he called me. I went out to meet him. And he wouldn't tell me over the phone. I said, what is Shark Tank, Mark? He said, look, I'll tell you all about it when you get here. I can't tell you over the phone. I told my wife, I said, I don't know what Mark won't tell me what Shark Tank is. He wants me to come out. She says, I know why he won't tell you. What does he do to those people in that Survivor show? What's he going to do to you on Shark Tank? Okay? I'm thinking, this isn't a business show, right? So no, but I went out to Mark's office. I'm sitting with him. And I said, Mark, so we've had a nice meeting here. And I said, so do you think I can be a Shark? And he said, Kevin, he said, this meeting doesn't prove anything to me. He said, you're a great guy. Love hanging out with you. Love talking to you. You need to get in front of the camera and show me that you can do it. I said, what do you mean? Do you want me to audition? He said, yeah. He said, I got cameras ready. ABC is here. Let's see if you can do it. We're going to pretend we're on Shark Tank. And so I went in the other room and they brought guys and girls out pitching me. And I was hammering them and I was asking them all the questions and what's the use of proceeds and what's this and what's that. And make a long story short, I walked out after about an hour session. I was so juiced up that these guys and they all, they said, Kevin, you've been doing this. Like, where did all that come from? I said, guys, I've been doing this for 30 years, taking pitches, the houseware show, the hardware show, the fitness show, the beauty show. I know what to ask. I know what to do. And so they said, wow, that was amazing. We have not seen anything like that in all the sharks that we've interviewed. And so we'll get back to you. They called me a few days later and said, you are the first shark that we're picking. We loved it and you, you made it.

So number one, you were the first—

I was the first one. That's what they told me and I'm sticking to it. So, um, you know, the bottom line is, is I had a great run. I did 100 75 segments on Shark Tank and a dozen, two dozen rather, investments. And it's given me a platform now because, by the way, all those, they just keep rerunning them all. All of the shows that I shot have run more than 40 times because they're running 2 hours a night on CNBC and weekends of long exposures, plus they run all around the world. So that's what's helped build my brand in the process.

So is that where you could— so you were doing a lot of big things before Shark Tank, but is that where you've gotten most of your exposure from?

Yeah. No one knew who I was before Shark Tank. And let me tell you the quick story how it happened. I'm sitting with Richard Branson down at Necker Island. And I said, Richard, I need some advice. I was asking him to give me some mentoring advice. And I said, and I showed him, he says, Kevin, I know who you are. I know your products. I've seen the George Foreman and Jack LaLanne and Billy Mays. I can't get rid of them on my As Seen on TV sometimes. He said, but guess what? You built amazing brands. You built Tony's brand and Billy's brand and all these brands. You never built your own brand. And it hit me square in the face. And I'm like, hey, but I'm making a lot of money. Who cares? He's like, yeah, but there's new changes in the marketplace. That As Seen on TV business ain't going to be around forever. And so I came out of there and said, I'm going to write a book. I wrote a book. It was called Act Now: How I Turn Ideas into Million Dollar Products. And it was during the promotion of that book that Mark Burnett actually saw me on radio talk shows and TV shows and all this press. So what happened is Mark, as he was going on the internet looking for sharks, he saw me promoting a book and like, wait, this is the guy that does all those As Seen on TV things? Called me. That's how I got to be the Shark is because I'd made a conscious effort to go build my brand. And these are some of the things that as an entrepreneur, I like to mentor other entrepreneurs, how to get products, how to build your brand, how to get the best-selling things coming your way, etc.

I love it. And again, I have tons of questions for you. Maybe we'll have to do this again.

We can do a second show.

Yeah. I'm sure people want I want to hear more.

I can do that.

It's so much interesting stuff. Just to be respectful of your time, want to end things off. What type of advice would you give to someone who's just getting started, who wants to start selling products? What do you have for us?

So when I first got started, I'll be honest with you, I was a little bit cocky as an entrepreneur because I was working at my dad's restaurants and sealing driveways and then air conditioning, building millions of dollars there. Then I'm doing products, doing very well. But there's one thing that I didn't realize, and this is part of the challenge, is that when you're, you said, what do you say to someone just starting out? Well, the chances for failure are huge when you're first starting out. 50% of the people are going to be out of business in a year. And I think it's 80% or 90% within a few years after that are going to be gone unless you team up with the right people. And so I say, this is why people need mentors. People need to partner with smart people. So for me, let me, I'll tell you a quick story. We've got a couple of minutes left. I told you all the good stuff in my business, how we went to $500 million. What I didn't tell you is I hit a roadblock that flatlined me at $50 million in sales. Why? Because I had no capital when I started. I was building the business with profits. So I would take my millions of profit, put it back into inventory, but I needed financing. So I went around and said, where do I get money? Oh, go to the banks. You need a line of credit. Well, guess what? I went to 5 banks. They turned me down, turned me down. No way. So then I finally got out of my cocky mode and said, I need help. And so I reached out to friends and this is all part, it's in the book how I did this. I found a retired bank president who I met with and he said, I'm going to mentor you. And he says, I'm not going to charge you a dime. I'm going to get you a $3 million line of credit. And he said, I'm not going to, he says, I'm going to probably get it from someone that's already turned you down. Because I told him the banks I'd already been to. And within 3 months, I had $3 million in my bank account and we shook hands. I ended up doing another deal with him down the road, but he got nothing for that transaction. And we used it to grow to $500 million. So I gotta just say that you have to be always on top of your game, bring the right people in, don't be afraid to work out some creative deals, and make it happen. So it's my closing thought. Jared, I appreciate you having me today. I'm looking forward to doing it again. I can see some excitement on your side.

I got so many more questions for you, but thanks for jumping on, Kevin, man. Have a great rest of your day. And I'm sure everyone loved everything you had to say.

You bet, buddy. We'll do it again. Take care. See ya. Okay, bye-bye.