Ep 89 Why Shark Tank is a Great Public Speaking Show - March 29

What makes Shark Tank a successful television show?

Speaking. The show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in Life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

If 10 years ago you and I had gone to a TV network and said, hey, got a great idea. We're going to do a TV show that's a series of business meetings. We're going to have business people sit in a bunch of chairs and another business person is going to come in and give a little speech. I think you and I would be escorted out of that TV network pretty quickly. It sounds like a horrible concept, people sitting in an office listening to business presentations. I mean, that sounds at the face of it, like torture to a lot of people. And yet Shark Tank is an extraordinarily successful show on broadcast tv and it's played on CNBC as well. Why is that? Well, to me, it just shows the old axiom. There's no such thing as all speeches are boring. Public speaking is boring. Well, bad public speeches are boring. Good speeches are interesting. And ultimately, Shark Tank is about public speaking. You have the entrepreneur come in, give a pitch for his or her business and ask for money. Now, it's more than just a speech because they get to ask questions. The speech, the investors, the Mark Cubans of the world, the Damon Dash's of the world, they get to ask questions. There's back and forth, there's dialogue. But guess what, folks, all good presentations have that and should have that. If you sell copiers and you're talking to 20 salespeople in your organization, you should have a lot of dialogue too. You should be just as persuasive. Now, I have to confess, I'm not a regular viewer of Shark Tank anymore. But for many years I was because I do find it fascinating. Also because selfishly, I have tried pilots for similar shows and I've done websites under a similar premise that unfortunately went nowhere. But I do have tremendous respect for the producers who put together that show. I want to spend a moment or two really isolating what makes the successful pitches on Shark Tank work there. It's not just tv. It's not just being gimmicky. There are certain things that are not always but are often consistent in the presentations that end up getting backed by the angel investors and the venture capitalists. I'll go over that in just a moment.

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So I've never been on Shark Tank. Let me put that out there. I don't know if any of my clients have. I do have a couple of friends who have appeared on Shark Tank. One of them, successful entrepreneur, was offered investment, decided wasn't the right fit. Another friend, and not only was he not offered an investment, but he was laughed and ridiculed as having had one of the worst ideas ever presented on Shark Tank. And as much as I like this person, I happen to agree with the sharks on this. My friend's idea was, and I'm not going to go into what the idea was, but it was just horrific. Let me go over what I think are the central things that you consistently see with winning presentations on Shark Tank. For starters, the person is genuinely enthusiastic about their product. You can just see they live this, breathe this dream, this, they're excited about it. That's for starters. But that alone will not get these investors giving you money. It certainly takes more than that. You have to be able to answer a fundamental question, which is why does the world actually need this new product or this new service? Now, I don't care who you are, whether you're running for local office, whether you are trying to motivate your salespeople at a paper company, you do have to answer the question, why should I care about this? You might not be trying to raise money for a new entrepreneurial venture, but you've got to really answer the question of why does anyone need it? Is there something somebody needs? Why should I care about this? When I see the losing pitches on Shark Tank, it's quite often for a product, you look at it and you say, not only do I not want this product or service, but I can't even imagine anyone else in the world wanting this product or it's so niche. I really can't imagine this being more than a lifestyle business where someone makes another $50,000 a year. And nothing wrong with lifestyle businesses. I have a lifestyle business in the sense that I'm not trying to grow something that I can sell for tens of millions of dollars. I'm not bringing in venture capital or investors. So there's nothing wrong with a lifestyle business. But if you're trying to give a pitch, raising money, there's something hugely wrong with a lifestyle business because nobody wants to invest money in your lifestyle unless it's a family member who just wants to give it as a present. So that's one of the big stumbling blocks I see in most of the failed presentations. They don't really answer the question of so what? Why does anyone want this or need this the next thing that is true of the successful pitches and also missing in the unsuccessful pitches is the ability to answer questions successfully. Again, I don't care what sort of presentation you're giving, that's just the starting point. If during the presentation or after your presentation, people ask you questions and you can answer them successfully and you satisfy the person, that boosts your credibility. Whether you're raising angel funds or whether you're asking to improve the or increase the budget for your own department at a mid level government agency, being able to answer questions helps the overall theme of your presentation, builds your credibility and increases the odds that your audience will do what you want when you're speaking. If you're in a government agency, you may want approval of a policy. If you're raising angel funds, you want people to give you money, but there's always something you want the audience to do. What I see happens with so many of the people on Shark Tank who do not get funding is it all breaks down when the question time comes. So when one of the investors says, okay, how much does your product cost and what are you selling it for? I've seen people say, well, you know, my product costs $30 and I'm selling it for $32, well, at some point, it doesn't really matter how good a product it is, how passionate you are. An investor is going to look at that and say, your margins are just too thin. There's simply no way you're going to make money on that in the long run. Other basic questions, such as, how did you come up with that valuation? You've sold $10,000 worth in the last two years. It's just you, and you're saying you want $500,000 for a 10% stake in your company. So you're saying the company is worth $5 million. How did you come up with that? Now, admittedly, things are a little bit murky. There is an art and a science to valuing startup companies. But when it's just so far off, when it seems crazy and you do not have a good answer, that's when there are a lot of trouble. There are a lot of troubles for the presenter, in this case, the entrepreneur looking for investments. Other questions that often cause problems. If you say, yeah, I'm so passionate about this, I quit my job three years ago and I'm doing this full time and I got my spouse to quit her job or his job, we're doing this full time. And then you say, oh, and it's the greatest product ever. Everybody loves it first question the would be investor says sounds fantastic. Tell me your sales numbers and what are your projections for the next year. And if you say you know, $40,000 and you've been working on it for three years and your projections are a million dollars and you're trying to raise 100,000, it just doesn't add up. And savvy investors can spot it. They can smell it a mile away. Of course they know that your projections are not necessarily written in stone. Very few companies meet their projections. But what is important is that you can make a logical case that you can show a progression. What investors are looking for is someone they can believe in who they think. This person is definitely going to succeed with me or without me. I want to get on board. This person is driven, they are competent, they are making things happen. And you need to convey this with your presentation. Fundamentally, I happen to believe there is no difference between a successful pitch presentation on Shark Tank and any other presentation in life. More on that in a moment.

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Do you watch Shark Tank? Do you like I know a lot of you since you're listening and watching to this podcast. You certainly are familiar with Shark Tank because it is a show that really involves a lot of public speaking. I'd like to hear from you. Is there a particular episode that you enjoy the most? Is there a particular entrepreneur you thought did the best job ever? Is there one that stands out as the worst? And I do have one in my mind that stands out as the worst presentation. As far as just having an awful business. I'd like to hear from you though, so please share that with me. If you have any any specific recollections of the worst presentations or the best presentations from Shark Tank, go ahead and send them to me. Posted on Twitter TJ Walker. You can also email it to me infoediatrainingworldwide.com you can also post your comments or thoughts any place where you are seeing or hearing this program. Try to be accessible and get do what's convenient to you rather than to me. It's convenient to me if you come to my website@mediatrainingworldwide.com and post on the blog. But as I learned a long time ago, life isn't just about what's easy or convenient for me. So that's why I want to make it easy for you. If you're watching this on YouTube, post your comments there. If you're watching this on our Facebook page. Post comments there any way you want to communicate with us. It'll eventually trickle back to me and I'll read it and share it with the others. Now, a few other things about Shark Tank that I think you need to think about. The next time you're planning a speech, a presentation, panel discussion. One of the things they do, and you could say it's overly theatrical and contrived, is they specifically encourage disagreement among the panelists. If you're putting together your own conference, convention, seminar, workshop, and you're having people within your industry as a panel, it's good to have people who aren't afraid to occasionally disagree. Now, you may want to be more genteel than some of the panelists on Shark Tank, but you don't want everyone sort of sitting around and agreeing with everyone. Well, that's A good point, T.J. as T.J. said, that was a brilliant point. It's boring to have people all sitting around agreeing with each other. And that's why it's really nice to have differences, opinions, questioning back and forth, not just between the main speaker, but but between the other panelists. So that's an excellent technique, and it provides a little more drama and it provides variety. You're simply hearing more voices. So if you are planning your own forum, your own town hall meeting, you may want to think about not just having one sole speaker, one at a time, maybe have one, but have that person subjected to questioning and discussion from others. And something you can do if it's your own corporation, your own town hall meeting, your own civic group is you can have essentially three layers. You can have the speaker, you can have four expert panelists asking questions, but you can also take questions from the audience. Generally, the more engagement, the better. The more questions and answers, the better. And for a speaker who is prepared, they will do better than ever. If you have a speaker who just has a few pretty slides and a couple of nice phrases but can't answer questions, they will be exposed every single time. And it's not just that you won't get the venture capital or angel investment, you also won't get the promotion, you won't get your budget approved, or you won't get voted into office. So if you've got spare time on, I think the show's on almost every night on cnbc and Friday nights on the network, watch the show because it's a great reminder of what works well. There are a lot of great lessons there on good public speaking, and there's great lessons there on what not to do all on Shark Tank. Thanks for joining me today. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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