- Speaker #0
Let's assume I've got a pair of glasses here, okay? And you're gonna pitch these glasses. Kevin, give me a 20-second pitch.
- Speaker #1
These beautiful reading glasses will make sure that you can see your computer and everything that you need to read. Not only that, they're gonna make you look stunning, and people are gonna not even know that these glasses are prescription.
- Speaker #0
You did great. You do what everybody normally does that I don't do. Okay. I said pitch the glasses, and you immediately went into describing the glasses. Now, here's the problem with that as a pitch. I don't know if the person... watching even wants glasses. Why am I talking about them? So you give me a product and I don't show it. And I'm going to say, guys, you know what? Do you ever notice after the age of 40, you have a little trouble seeing? You look down, you can't see anything. You look up, you can't see anything. And they're trying to sell you these crazy, like progressive things with a line. It's so uncomfortable, right? So you know what I'm talking about. Norm, I see you wearing glasses, right? What if I told you that these magically, wherever you look, will give you the distance that you want? It's fascinating, the technology in these lenses.
- Speaker #2
Where can I buy it?
- Speaker #0
Bingo. People never bought. Anything because they needed it. They buy it because they want it. And your job as an expert pitcher is get them to want whatever it is that you have.
- Speaker #1
Marketing Misfits with Norm Farrar and Kevin King. Mr. Farrar, how you doing?
- Speaker #2
You're a misfit. You don't have the background.
- Speaker #1
Where's your background? I had to be a misfit today because I had a technical issue. We just jumped off a webinar and had a technical issue with my camera and we have an amazing guest today so I'm not going to make her wait and if I had fixed this issue so I'm in the backup studio. I mean you've been to my house you know I have a studio in the house and then I have my my office so I'm in my technically my office right now.
- Speaker #2
Usually when I'm at your house I get the backup closet but
- Speaker #1
I find a little corner you know over by uh by by somewhere in the house but You know I was thinking the other day, I was thinking about, you know, how I got into this marketing world. And it's my background, as you know, is direct marketing. And you've done a bunch of direct marketing and stuff, too. And both of us still stuff and television and and producing videos and all that kind of stuff. But you remember the days of the infomercial? I think the young people listen to this like, what's an infomercial? I've never. What's that? I remember watching, you know, you remember we're old enough to remember when TV went off at the end of night. I like 11 o'clock or midnight. At least here in the States, I don't know about up in Canada, but in the States, the TV would go and the bars were playing the Star Spangled Banner or something, and that was it. And then the infomercial world popped up. People started buying that time, and companies were using it to sell stuff. And there's a lot of huge brands that came out of that. And that's evolved now today to where it's more TikTok shop and more live selling on Amazon or whatever it may be. You know, QVC came out of that whole thing. And our guest today is like the queen of that. I mean, she cut her teeth selling, I think, what's her, I think it's like two or three billion, two and a half billion dollars, I think is the number that she's sold of stuff on through direct marketing, basically on television primarily. And so this is going to be really, really cool. And she's got a ton of stuff going on. I mean, she's not just a queen of infomercials, but I'm excited for today's stuff. Just wait. We'll be able to talk old school stuff.
- Speaker #2
and teach these youngins that look ain't nothing new psycho marketing psychology is the same it's it's it still works it's just the medium is different uh so uh this is gonna be cool all right well why don't we get into it because i know this is an exciting day for our guest as well she has a movie release today so uh let's bring her on dr forbes riley at the queen of pitch so if i do my job right i hit the button the button on there you go there we go
- Speaker #1
How you doing? Nice to have you.
- Speaker #0
I'm doing wonderful. Thank you for that glorious intro. And yes, today is a pretty damn special day for me.
- Speaker #1
Awesome. So what is this movie about? Yeah.
- Speaker #0
I will. So let's start backwards. So you introduced me as the queen of infomercials. Definitely pitch. And when it comes to infomercials, yes, there's a lot of people who don't know what that medium is. But I got to tell you, it did start everything from your video sales letter to what's happening on TikTok shop right now. And along my career, I've always acted. I've been an actress. I think I debuted in my very first feature film that I think you probably have seen, maybe your fans have, called Splatter University.
- Speaker #1
Oh, yeah, I got the whole collection here.
- Speaker #0
Well, don't get yourself. There are a lot of people. I mean, I got my first fan letter from jail. A lot of people love this movie. It's a 1980s slasher film, and I star in it. It was my very first audition, and it changed my life. And I've continued to do feature films and lots of television shows. And then it led into infomercials and TV and home shopping for decades. And then I had my babies. They're 22 years old right now, my twins. And I stopped being on stage. I worked on Broadway. I've done one woman shows. I haven't been on a stage in 22 years. And that's kind of itching me right now. But movies and TV are something you can still dabble in. And about three years ago, a dear friend of mine, Cynthia Rothrock, who is the leading female martial arts action hero as a female, had this idea to do her film. Because like you said, most people don't know who she is either, even though she's done 80 feature films. The martial arts world knows her. And I'll go back real quick, but, you know, and I'll talk about this to everybody listening. What happens to you now is what's going to happen. and predict five years from now. What you did five years ago, those decisions that you made, people that you studied with, courses that you took. And so in the early 80s, I was in my 30s, I got mugged in Los Angeles. I was coming out of a theater and a group of kids popped out of a car and kind of grabbed my purse and beat me up a little bit. And I went to a dojo the next day to study self-defense and martial arts, and I never left. That's been 30 some odd years. And ironically, you know, that moment, which was terrible when it happened, is the impetus. behind me getting cast in a martial arts Western. So the film is a revenge piece. Cynthia's family gets killed in the movie and she goes on revenge. And I will just share with you, I'm the bad girl. And it's an 1890s Western with martial arts and some of the biggest martial artists, kind of like the expendables of martial arts, like Don the Dragon, Benny the Jet. There's a lot of amazing martial arts. And then me. And you're like, okay. And I was gonna... Well, I can't tell you anything about the film, but the ending will surprise you. That's all I can say.
- Speaker #1
So this is a summer release?
- Speaker #0
It's happening tonight, literally tonight.
- Speaker #1
I thought that was a premiere. It was tonight. The actual release is tonight.
- Speaker #0
The release is tonight, yeah. We saw the movie last year in Hollywood. Okay. It's on Amazon Prime. It's on Plex. It's on Apple TV. I just went through my TV going, oh my God, we are all over the place. So I'm just thrilled. I'm a very nice part in it, and it's really fun. It's really fun to be part of this project. And what's really kind of bittersweet, and I'm having a little bit of a tough time tonight, as we all get older and face certain realities, my co-star, this beautiful man named Richard Norton, who's been an action hero out of Australia his whole life. He was a stuntman here in the US. And I remember one night after we, one of my favorite nights, goes, Richard talks like this. He's got this Adam, this Cary Grant thing going on. And we did a read-through. I was in Park City. And we'd all gotten on a Zoom call, which is so cool. The cast read the script together and I was loving this. And Richard calls me after the reading and he's like, hello, Forbes. I'm like, hi. He's like, I just want to share with you the backstory. I really think my character is like really in love with your characters. I'm like, okay. I was such a little girl and it's just the moisture. Like, this is so awesome. I'm sad to report that Richard passed away about six weeks ago.
- Speaker #1
Oh, no. Sorry to hear that.
- Speaker #0
I know. I'm excited to see this, excited for us, excited for him. Would love to call him tonight and say, hey, we did it. And don't get to do that. So it's a little like, wow, what a harsh reality to sit in. And I don't mean to be maudlin, but I also just lost one of my other best friends four weeks ago. It's like, okay, here's the deal, guys. If you want to do something outrageous, just freaking do it because it doesn't matter the day after you're dead. And that's kind of where I am right now.
- Speaker #1
That's right. You got to live for the moment. Live now. Because you never know when that's your time.
- Speaker #0
I know. So I'm working on having as much fun as possible with the life that I've got.
- Speaker #1
That's awesome. Well, it sounds like you've had a lot of fun. I mean, but you got mugged and that changed the trajectory of your life and it's taking you where you're now. But you also had something else. Was it a bus thing? I think I read something about it.
- Speaker #0
I think I have to change the queen of pitch to the queen of resilience. And by the way, I love you guys. The title Misfit, I used to joke around that I'm the queen of the misfits. I'd sell this title of queen. I can make it work for anything. But I never fit in. And I don't know how you guys describe misfit. But I will tell you that if you can't fit in, perhaps you choose to stand out. And that's a lot of what's happened for me. And I don't know if I can share my screen here. Let me see if it will let me do that. Yep. Are you cool with me sharing a screen? Sure. Open the system. And I'm going to just... give you a quick little goofy thing about how my misfitness started. Oh, misfitness. That's a new one.
- Speaker #1
There you go. There you go. And that's even like perfect right there.
- Speaker #0
I got this. Sometimes you're misunderstood and sometimes I misjudge, but I'm definitely misfitness. My beautiful dad, that's my very first picture. I'm about a year old there. And my dad, we grew up in Long Island, New York. And my father was a bit of an inventor and a very goofy. And he was also a magician. So I go to... elementary school or kindergarten and they noticed my mouth was kind of odd. Like you see my teeth very separated. Yeah. Now, did you guys, were you in braces at all?
- Speaker #1
No, I had a bunch of teeth pulled, so I didn't have to have them.
- Speaker #2
My kids,
- Speaker #0
most people do a year, two years, three years, five years. I had braces for eight years. My entire life. Full, well, this is a mold of my mouth. And my mom, God bless her, was a bit of a hoarder. She was a Ukrainian immigrant. And that's from 1968. She kept everything. You can really see there's something wrong with this girl's face. And so they put me in a full set of braces, but then they did something evil. They screwed this thing to the top of my mouth. And so for two years, I've talked like this. And so now I cannot communicate with anybody.
- Speaker #1
It's like a retainer for those that are just listening on the audio.
- Speaker #0
No, no, no. It's actually a tongue crusher. You see those menstruates? Okay. If you don't have your tongue, you can't talk and it doesn't come out. It is literally attached to the roof of your mouth. Oh, wow. And so I had that. I am overweight because my mother loved to feed us. That was her expression of love. I had big, fat, frizzy hair, and I'd walked into a baseball bat, and I'd shattered my nose, which never got fixed. So now I'm this awkward, ugly, goofy girl, and very lonely, weirdly lonely. Like, I spent all my time watching movies and TV. That's all I ever wanted to do, because I didn't like being me, and I was made fun of, and whatever. So one day, as if life isn't weird enough, my father slips. He built this printing press in New York City and was leaning on it, and he slipped, and he cut the whole front of his hand off. Ooh. Oh, no. He would have 15 operations, spent three years in and out of hospitals. And my mother turns to me one day and she says, kiddo, I got some bad news for you. We have no money for college. Oh, wow. That was my big, that's the only dream I had. I was going to go be a lawyer. And she said, well, there's this Miss Teenage America pageant that's happening in town and they're giving a scholarship to college. She looked at my face and she had this moment of going, well, that's not going to work for us. That moment where mom let me know how unpretty I was. And so, but here's the crazy thing. So that's pretty much what I look like. The braces just came off and my father's doctor overheard this conversation. And he said to my mom, we're going to fix her nose. I don't even really know what that means. All I know, and this is all the misfits out there. I woke up a couple of days later and this very cute little girl looked back in the mirror and she said something to me like, you could enter a beauty pageant. To which I'm like, really? She's like, look at us. We can do this. And it was a very confusing time to think that I had this out-of-body experience. But I did. I applied. I remember walking into a room of 500 girls. And I was with my dad that day. He had a big bandage on one hand. And I remember saying, whether an out loud or in my head, one of these girls is going to be on TV with Bob Hope on NBC. And it's going to be me. That's ridiculous. Because one out of 500 is not really good odds. But I kept going back. We had like three different auditions. I didn't tell anybody. I was terrified, but I just kept doing what I do. And the crazy thing is with a hand-me-down, bridesmaids dress, we had no money. By the way, that's the vision of what I had, the doctor. I won. I won this team in New York. I know, right? I got the medal. I'm looking at my parents. And I remember like when I was talking to the judges that I wasn't there for me. There are a lot of other cuter girls there, but I just hadn't sensed it. It's like my very first pitch and it worked. And I ended up going to the nationals on TV. You guys remember him. Most people don't, but that's Bob Hope. And I didn't win the nationals, but I got a lot of life lessons from it. And I will tell you, it changed everything. I got the scholarship. There's my beautiful mom, who, by the way, is 15 years younger in that photo than I am right now. And I think I look pretty good for my age, given that I loved her, but I didn't want to look like her. And then I magically said, you know. Forbes Riley, you're going to be an actress and we're going to make this work. And my parents said, we don't know how to help you. And I said, that's okay. And so I ended up creating a world that just, you know, seems to work for me. It's kind of crazy, right?
- Speaker #1
That's awesome. That's incredible. That shows something though, that's kind of core to what you do in pitching though, is that it's not necessarily about how you look or what you say to a degree or a script. It's more about how relatable you are or how the personality comes across or how people identify are with you. And that that's pageants and stuff are a perfect example. It's not always the cutest girl that wins or the best one that can do play the piano or whatever. It's a it's a it's a more of a stage presence kind of thing that's sometimes hard to actually actually teach. It's more inherent. I mean, you can get better at it. But what do you think? Is that what you find when it comes to like. pitching live on TV or live on online, that's an important aspect of it.
- Speaker #0
I think the most important aspect of pitching, and I now teach this, I have over 47,000 students. Last night in one of my signature training on Zoom, I had 352 kids show up. Not kids, but people just like you and me. And pitching to me... And this is why anyone can do it, is it's got nothing to do with you. You know, when you look at Billy Mays, who's one of the best, he had a big personality. But when you look at them in real life, the two of them, and I knew them very well, were very shy. It was not about, but they were more interested in you getting this product that might change your life in you. So, and even Jack LaLanne, we grossed a billion dollars working with Jack LaLanne. And I look at the beginning of the infomercial, it's still on YouTube. And he literally comes out and was like, look. I had one thing in my mind, thinking about you, getting you to look better and feel better. And it's like, wait, it's not about who he is and how wonderful he is. And this is such an important thing when you go to pitch. What you're pitching outshines you if you can communicate it to another person, to get them to want what you have. And I have dedicated my entire life to this, primarily because I couldn't do it for my dad. So the story is that my father was this inventor. And he loved to be in his tinkering in his garage. He made things. He made me a go-kart. Get this. Can you imagine? With a half a garbage can, a lawnmower engine, and paper mache to look like a Batmobile. He made this crazy invention where we could climb inside of our medicine cabinet in the bathroom and disappear. He did all, I mean, I had the wackiest upbringing you could ever imagine, filled with kind of very Harry Potter-ish, only it was real. And I used to sit in his garage with him all the time. I'm the oldest of two. And he would tinker and he would make smoke things appear and make all kinds. It's like every movie you've ever seen, like Willy Wonka meets Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And one day he turns to me and he said, kiddo, how do I get my inventions out to the world? I said, dad, I got no idea I'm eight. I just remember, though, when he died, that the guard sale people came in and they bought all of his tools. And then the garbage men came out and they cleaned out this one car garage that was packed. And I was left with this very sinking feeling. And for 20 some odd years of my career, I would go to inventor conventions and find entrepreneurs and bring them to infomercials, bring them to live home shopping, make millionaires out of people that never stood a chance without my little catalyst for going, wait, I can put two and two together for you. And then I started teaching this. And if you've never heard of me before, for whatever reason, it's okay. I didn't make it about me. And so recently in the last five years, I decided to shift gears a little bit and I didn't do it because I'm a little shy when it comes to all this. I may seem outspoken to you now, but my daughter of all people, she was 17 at the time, I have twins. She came downstairs right as COVID's hitting. My beautiful fiance at the time had just been in a devastating motorcycle accident. He was sitting in a wheelchair for six months. And she said to me, mom, if you give me a year, I'll make you a millionaire. And I'm like, oh kiddo. you're so silly. You've got a D in English and you're 17. And she said to me, can I show you something? I was like, what? She's like, I've been on the internet since I was 12. You know, I dabble around selling lenses on this e-commerce and I didn't understand the internet back then. I don't know that many people did. We didn't even know what Zoom was, right? But 20 year olds and Gen Zers, they're like, they grew up with a cell phone in their hand. He said, mom, you know, all those friends you've got like Les Brown or Joe Theismann or some of the other celebrities. I've built their YouTube channel. I've built their websites. And they pay me really well. So Kevin, she takes out this bank account. There's over $100,000 in it. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. Where did you get that money? And she's like, Mom, you're the only one who doesn't believe in me. And I'm like, it's not like I don't believe in you, but you're a 17-year-old. You're my daughter. What am I supposed to believe in that you're this miracle businesswoman? So guess what, Kevin? We sit in a room for three weeks. We put together, she says, mom, you're great at pitching, but you have a formula. She sees life in systems. I see life as a visionary, which is what you need to make a business work, a visionary and an implementer. We structured this out. I created a thousand dollar online program that I was going to teach live during COVID how to pitch through Zoom. We launched on a Wednesday night and I'm charging just a little bit for people to come in, but a thousand dollars was my pitch. And it's through ClickFunnels in the morning. Like yesterday morning, I had $0 in my account. After this first webinar, I call her and I'm like, what does the K stand for? I said, what do you mean, mom? I said, well, it says we have 25K in the account. Mother, you grossed $25,000 because you're such a good pitcher. Everybody bought your program. You could have blown me over with a feather. I'm like, what? We just did that? I did it four times in a row. Now we have a six-figure business, like everyone says they want. And within nine months, we're crossing the stage to get what's called the Two Comma Club Award. You know what? And then we made a million dollars in one funnel. My 22-year-old daughter is currently the CEO of my company. She runs it all. She's freaking brilliant. And it's a story that you can only see in movies.
- Speaker #1
Hey, Norm, you'll love this, man. I talked to a seller the other day doing 50K a month. But when I asked them what their actual profit was, they just kind of stared at me.
- Speaker #2
Are you serious? That's kind of like driving blindfolded.
- Speaker #1
Exactly, man. I told them, you got to check out Sellerboard, this cool profit tool that's built just for Amazon sellers. It tracks everything like fees, PPC, refunds, promos, even changing COGS using FIFO.
- Speaker #2
Aha. But does it do FBM shipping costs too?
- Speaker #1
Sure does. That way you can keep your quarter four chaos totally under control and know your numbers. Because not only does it do that, but it makes your PPC bids, it forecasts inventory, it sends review requests, and even helps you get reimbursements from Amazon.
- Speaker #2
Now that's like having a CFO in your back pocket.
- Speaker #1
You know what? It's just $15 a month, but you got to go to sellerboard.com forward slash misfits, sellerboard.com forward slash misfits. If you do that, they'll even throw in a free two-month trial.
- Speaker #2
So you want me to say, go to sellerboard.com misfits and get your numbers straight before your accountant loses it?
- Speaker #1
Exactly.
- Speaker #0
All right.
- Speaker #1
No, that's awesome. And entrepreneurship is the way of the future now with all the social commerce and AI and what's happening. If you're not an entrepreneur, you're going to, I believe, going to have a hard time in this new world that's evolving. But that's freaking awesome that she was able to do that. And I probably actually saw you. I go to a lot of the Funnel Hacking Live. Was that Orlando or Vegas? It was Orlando. Yeah, I was there. I was in Orlando. Norm was doing his 400th episode of his other podcast. I remember that. And I probably saw you walk across that stage at that. So congratulations to you and especially to her. Thank you very much. That's very cool.
- Speaker #0
Well, and then to top it all off, because we kind of make this crazy team, I, seven years ago, wanted to do a TEDx talk. And I wrote them all that I was doing. And they called me back rather upset and said, we're not allowing this because we don't allow people to pitch. In our world. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm not pitching. I teach pitching. And they couldn't comprehend it. And they shut me down. And I felt very sad. And I've applied every once in a while. And I've got lots of rejections. Well, this year, I finally figured out what they wanted from me. And I got not one, but two TEDx talks. And beautiful daughter at 22 just booked hers, which she's doing on September 11th. Not a lot of me two year olds do that either.
- Speaker #1
Awesome. So is it just the one twin that's doing it or both twins?
- Speaker #0
I'm very, you know, I talk about my daughter and my son is just as extraordinary. So my son got bullied by his dad to go to college, ended up at Babson, which is a very entrepreneurial college. And so he's doing that. And then at some point about two years ago, he's like, wait a second, my sister's a million dollars in the black and I'm, you know, college tuition in the debt here. So he opened up a company. They actually opened a company together called GSD, which stands for Get Shit Done. Because they both concluded that people over 50 just don't get shit done. We talk a lot, but we're not really doing it. Oh, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to launch my book and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So together, what they did was they coordinated and had two companies at her age and they put people online. They'll do their website, their landing page. My son, he used to just build websites for me and he used to build presentations. He's got a very logical mind. So he's doing... You know, he's crushing it as well. I don't talk about him as much because it's, otherwise I'd be like this mother who's boasting about everybody. But yeah, knock on wood. And the other thing I do have to come out with at some point is a parenting book. Because I didn't have my kids till I was 42. Now, not only are they best friends, which is hard to believe. They had a lot of twin friends in school. They had five sets of twins in their grade school. And I think mine are the only two who not only are in business together, they live together, but. currently they're traveling Brazil together. And it's like, whatever it is that I did, and I worked very hard to make them a team because my mother worked very hard to make each one of me and my sister, her best friend. And we don't talk. Isn't that interesting?
- Speaker #1
Wow.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
That's, that's, that's, that's awesome.
- Speaker #2
One thing I want to know about is about the, what, what makes a pitch really memorable? Like just a
- Speaker #0
a short brief maybe you know in a minute or two well here's the thing you don't need to be memorable you need to be effective you need to get a yes i don't care if you remember my pitch i just can't want to do business with me And that is the big problem that people have. Oh, I want the perfect pitch. Let me tell you something. You don't want the perfect pitch. You want to become the perfect pitcher. Because Norm, if I'm talking to you, I'm going to pitch you one way. I'm talking to a 17-year-old kid. If I'm smart, I'm going to pitch him a completely different way. And so for me, a pitch is all about getting a yes, tell me more. Or yes, let's sign on the dotted line. So Norm, if I ask you the question, do you want to see something cool? What do you say to me?
- Speaker #2
Absolutely. What is it?
- Speaker #0
That's my first yes. Two more yeses, I get a credit card from you. And so I talk about this. It's such a misnomer. People always say, Forbes, you're so good, you could sell ice to Eskimos. And I'm saying, that's why I'm so good. I would never sell an Eskimo ice. Why would I? Sell them blankets and firewood. Don't give people things they don't want. And that is one of the problems, is that we're all after our perfect pitch. Doesn't work that way. Being fluid, being open. You know, I cut my teeth between infomercials. but more importantly, live home shopping. You go out there, you are talking to live up to 85 million people. And here's a crazy thing. They'll hand you, you'll be talking about this beautiful owl wallet. And the next thing you know, you're sold out. Okay. And they'll hand you this water glass. You don't get to stop. You weren't judged by, you need to sell two to $5,000 a minute, every minute you're on the air. Wow. So the perfect pitch is me understanding how to do features and benefits. And so one of the things that I talk about and Smart people are not good at this, just so you know. Kevin, what's a feature of this glass?
- Speaker #1
What's a feature of this? It's unbreakable.
- Speaker #0
It's unbreakable. What's the benefit of that?
- Speaker #1
That you can take it anywhere outside. You can take it on camping or you can do weather. You don't have to worry about it breaking and shattering.
- Speaker #0
Great. Norm, what's a feature of my glass?
- Speaker #2
That it is not unbreakable, but it's a hard acrylic. There we go.
- Speaker #0
Right. It might even be a hard acrylic that keeps your water cold for up to 24 hours. The benefit of that is you always have cool, refreshing water. Most people, when I ask them questions like this, cannot put together what a feature is. And here's what most people do, which is why what I do is brilliant. They'll do feature, feature, feature. Nobody buys that way. They'll do benefit, benefit, benefit. Nobody buys that way. The secret, feature plus benefit equals a yes. You get three yeses. We get somebody to go, all right, I want that. And that is one of the ways to talk about any product as long as you want to is to go down this list. The problem most people do, so let's assume I've got a pair of glasses here, okay? And you're going to pitch these glasses. Kevin, give me a 20-second pitch.
- Speaker #1
20-second pitch for those glasses? Yep. These beautiful reading glasses will make sure that you can see your computer and everything that you need to read. Not only that, they're going to make you look stunning. And people are going to not even know that these glasses are... prescription or something? I don't know.
- Speaker #0
No,
- Speaker #1
no,
- Speaker #0
no. You did great. You did great. You do what everybody normally does that I don't do.
- Speaker #1
Okay.
- Speaker #0
That was a trick question. I want to listen carefully to this. I said pitch the glasses and you immediately went into describing the glasses. Now here's the problem with that as a pitch. I don't know if the person watching even wants glasses. Why am I talking about them? So you give me a product and I don't show it. And I'm going to say guys you know what Do you ever notice after the age of 40, you have a little trouble seeing? You look down, you can't see anything. You look up, you can't see anything. And they're trying to sell you these crazy, like, progressive things with a line. It's so uncomfortable, right? So you know what I'm talking about. Norm, I see you wearing glasses, right? What if I told you that these magically, wherever you look, will give you the distance that you want? It's fascinating, the technology in these lenses.
- Speaker #2
And the other thing- Where can I buy it?
- Speaker #0
Bingo. That's it.
- Speaker #1
You didn't say yes three times.
- Speaker #0
No, he's ready to buy. We can buy the S line and go, I want this. one of the secrets to how I pitch and how I think excellent pitchers work is you get someone to want what you have. Kevin, what you are doing is what everyone falls into. You guys need this. You need a new pair of glasses. You need ones with spring. We don't need anything. People never bought anything because they needed it. They buy it because they want it. And your job as an expert pitcher is get them to want whatever it is that you have.
- Speaker #1
And that same statement that you're doing, aren't you also... You're finding the audience that wants it, and you're also alienating the audience that's not your audience. At the same time, by doing that kind of statement, you dial in on who you want that's saying yes, and the people that say no, they move on or they tune you out, and you're not wasting your time.
- Speaker #0
That's exactly right. And I have a huge argument. You've been in digital marketing, and I'll go toe-to-toe with anyone about this. I do not believe in the avatar. The only avatar I like is James Cameron's movie. There you go. In their blue. But here's the problem. Most marketers are taught, you need to find out if Susan likes coffee or tea. She has a poodle or a Gray Dane. And I don't know what's that.
- Speaker #1
The graphics and stuff, yeah.
- Speaker #0
Well, that's nice and all. If you're doing outbound targeted ads to that person, you want to know them. But I'm talking to anybody. And I got to tell you, here's the thing. I got glasses. Now, if you're 17 years old, I might say, you know what? You might not be reading glasses yet. But I'll tell you what. Your mom would love a pair that you can do this to them. They don't. break. You can sit on them and nothing happens. How many pair of glasses has your mom or your grandma gone through? Wait a second. He's not my avatar, but he's going to bring these home and talk to them all about them. So it doesn't matter who I'm talking to. I will make you into the avatar that I want. And right. I will alienate you if you're not correct. But man, I think everybody wants almost everything or they know somebody who does.
- Speaker #1
Well, that's the beauty of that creators on TikTok. Now, the ones that are making bank and the good affiliates. are the ones that understand this and the ones that are thinking it's a they're going to make killing are doing it completely wrong on the pitch i mean there's hooks and there's pitches but they're they're doing they're not doing exactly what you just showed or explain if they would do that and flip the script um because that's a general purpose audience that's just um you know yeah tiktok has a little avatar then algorithm that's behind it but it's not really it's general it's mass media. Yeah. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
There's a way. I love teaching this to people because they're always so shocked. Last night, I really had to pry people away from, I do this, and I am this, and I do. That's nice what you do. When someone asks you, what do you do? They don't really care what you do. They care what you can do for them.
- Speaker #1
It's the transformation that people want, or the results of what the product's going to do.
- Speaker #2
Now, I might have missed this, but I'm listening to just what you said a second ago, and I'm going, wow, this is great. Just listening to you. I mean, you just didn't. pick that up. Where did you learn how to pitch like that?
- Speaker #0
All right. So that's kind of an interesting conundrum. How does a kid at three years old learn how to play the piano and play Mozart? I have no idea. Or I watch a little girl sing opera at 11 in Italian and she was born in Ohio. So I'm going to share with you that pitching for me is a God-given gift. I don't know why. I have no idea. It makes no sense to me, but I will tell you. Part of it comes from not being able to communicate. when I was younger and watching other people waste words. I mean, I had to wipe things down. I had to get what I wanted without using words. And I watched other people just waste them. So here's how my whole life changed though. So I am an actress in Los Angeles. I'm very happy doing what I want to do. I want to be Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock. And I walk into an audition one day and it literally says, sell me this pen on the table. And I don't, you know, I looked at what everyone else, what I thought they were going to do. I said, I'm not going to do, I'm not going to talk about the pen having a certain kind of, or being $1.99. I picked up the pen. I looked at the camera and I'd never sold a single thing in my life. I said, you know, funny thing about pens. I was 15 and a half years old when I went to college, I skipped year of high school. And I was so out of place and insecure. My mother would write me these long hand notes every day in ink pen, just like this. I'd race to the mailbox so that I could feel comforted and not alone. You know, a pen like this can reach out and touch somebody's heart. Okay. Jake, a body by Jake walks out from behind the dark in the camera and says, you're going to make me a lot of money. I am what he is talking about, but he has just launched a 24 hour cable network. Okay. So get this. I, and he literally says, okay, you're the host. Mike, what does that mean? He said, you'll figure it out. And I did. And so I've done thousands of these. If I share my screen. I know you've seen this, but you don't remember seeing it. That's the crazy thing about it. Let's see if I can get you here. Check this out. Does this look familiar? Total fitness. Total convenience. $24 a day. Now get ready for the latest in sports, fashion, and exercise gear on Fitness Plus. Hi, I'm Forbes Riley, and today we've got a great product for you. Take a look at this. Hi, I'm Forbes Riley, and that, by popular demand, the best way to develop rock-hard abdominals. Hi, I'm Forbes Riley, and welcome to Fitness Plus. Now, if you want to burn calories and tune your whole body, all in the comfort and privacy of your own halls. I'm feeling my thighs work. I love that.
- Speaker #1
The pads close against the flywheel.
- Speaker #0
Hi, I'm Forbes Riley, and welcome to Fitness Plus.
- Speaker #1
This is like the 80s. Hi,
- Speaker #0
I'm Forbes Riley. It is the 80s.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I remember it. Yeah, me too.
- Speaker #0
This ran, actually, it's the early 90s, from 91 to 94.
- Speaker #1
Okay.
- Speaker #0
created a 24-hour network, and the last 15 minutes of every hour, every hour, was me selling or promoting. You can see down there is the slam man, the bread maker, the tooth whitener, the ad machine, the roll, didn't matter what it was. I did 1,500 products in the five years that he and I worked together. He then sold that network to Fox for $500 million. And I got to say, that's a 35-year-old video. I look at that, I'm like, that kind of looked the same. I don't know how I did that. I'm grateful. Being on words, you have no idea. I just turned 65. I'm incredibly grateful that I'm doing that. But I learned, and so I didn't learn how to pitch there, but I sharpened my pitching skills. And then infomercials came out. There were no girls doing this. Girls didn't pitch. Boys pitch. You know, Billy Mays pitched. Anthony Sullivan pitched. And so I became the girl standing next to the guy who pitched. And then I started writing shows and producing shows. The next thing you know, 197 of them. And then QVC and HSN came to life, and I was home. I was home for a very long time.
- Speaker #1
That's back in the day when infomercials, I mean, it was costly. It cost $100,000 to $500,000, sometimes a million dollars to shoot something, and then test it in like three or four marketplaces, you know, Des Moines, Iowa, or wherever, you know, certain little areas where they have the right demographics and see if it's going to work, and then you stair-step it out. and A lot of them fail. I used to get the green, what's it called, the green letter or something?
- Speaker #0
It's the green sheets.
- Speaker #1
The green sheets, yeah, that would show like here's the ones and how much they're doing and where they're tracking. And you could get a VHS tape. Somebody monitored them all over and you could get a VHS tape like here every week or whatever it was every month, something. I forget the period. But you subscribe to it and you get a VHS tape through the mail of like so you can study whatever people's doing. this is the old way that the kids today the young people your your your twins that They don't have to do they can get answers just like that almost online and testing. And they don't get to spend half a million bucks to do a test and all that crap. So if you can apply the principles of what worked back then, the old choo choo train days to the rocket ship days today, just imagine what you can do.
- Speaker #0
Well, that's what my twins figured out. They figured out their mom was the pioneer and they capitalized on that. They create two companies based on it. I get to teach my pitching. I still run around and do some movies and TV every once in a while. And they are just crushing it. They found in people. One of the things that's great about my kids is they appreciate older. So my daughter's mission statement is that she takes when and women 40 to 80 years old and puts them online so they can make the rest of their life the best of their life.
- Speaker #1
That's awesome. That's an awesome book and an awesome angle that's ignored.
- Speaker #0
Here's the funny thing. You know, retirees, baby boomers, hey, we have money. And we've been saving it up for something. And rather than just leave it as an inheritance, let's use it, spend it and enjoy it and get a little recognition. So she's taken what she's done for me out to the world and touched a whole lot of lives because of it.
- Speaker #1
Now, are you? Yeah. Go ahead, Norm.
- Speaker #2
I was just going to say that framework that you used just in that clip that we just saw. Does that framework work today for the influencers or creators? The exact same. the exact same format.
- Speaker #0
The exact same format. How do you hook somebody in a few minutes? Even on TV, you only had a few minutes. And the crazy thing about infomercials is that you didn't watch it from the beginning. You didn't tune in going three o'clock. I'm going to watch this infomercial. No, you were just kind of scrolling around and happened to find us. So we created a format that every, there was three, seven minute sections in a half hour infomercial. And no matter what, whenever you tuned in, I would, you're going to see a testimonial. You're going to get hooked. It was definitely And that's what you need to do today. The exact same human nature hasn't changed any. And if I'm going to get you to take a credit card out of your pocket, I've got to make sure that you want what I've got. It seems almost too good to be true. And there's amazing value. But wait, there's more. You know, that's where that all came from.
- Speaker #2
You know, but just taking a look at infomercials in general, there had to be a balance between entertainment and education. And how do you do that?
- Speaker #0
Well, that's a very interesting thing. You know, it's one reason I did it with my story. People still come up to you going, hey, how are the twins? Because I would always talk about my baby twins growing up and how as a busy working mom, I'm doing this. And for a lot of my big successes, it was because people related to me as a struggling mom, as a, you know, going through all of this from a cleaner, a spot remover to baby food to fitness products. How do you keep your body great after ballooning up to 218 pounds? And so I definitely know. that it's been really fun. And when I look at Instagram people and I look at people selling that I was the godmother of a lot of what you see today came about because nobody gave me a roadmap.
- Speaker #1
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- Speaker #2
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- Speaker #1
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- Speaker #2
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- Speaker #1
That's 8fig.co, 8fig.co. See you on the other side. You know McCall Jones? I think she spoke at actually the Orlando event where you got your two comic war. I don't know if you saw her speak, but she's speaking on something called attractive character. And she says there's like, I think it's like 28 or maybe it's 40. There's a certain number of actually archetype characters. And she says a lot of people when they're pitching or when they're trying to sell. They try to model after the wrong character type or they see, you know, I want to be the next Forbes Riley. So I'm going to study everything she does. I'm going to do all my intonations and everything just like she does. And she's her whole thing is like that actually may be wrong because based on your personality and based on who you are, that's going to come across wrong. You need to figure out. And she has a system where she figures that out and sales bloom. But it goes back to that authenticity. And I think a lot of people when they're trying to sell. They try to be someone they're really not. And they try to make it too perfect. Or like you said earlier, it doesn't have to be, you know, the goal is not the perfect pitch. It's the perfect sale or whatever you want to call it is to get that money. So what are your thoughts on that?
- Speaker #0
I love the word authentic, authenticity. You cannot be someone else. There is only one you. And what you want to do is spend some time figuring out who you are. One of the things that I teach, love, and preach is personal development. How do you hone the skills that you've been given? How do you harness the voice that you have? You know, I not only do it for just pitching, but speaking in general. I've been speaking on stages around the globe. I've been on 10X stage in front of 10,000 people, and I've been in front of 200 people, or on Zoom calls in front of 1,000 people. And what does it mean to speak? And so one of the things that I share is that the worst part of your story, the worst part of whatever's happened to you is the best part of your pitch and certainly the best part of your speech. And if you're willing to go there and let people see who you are and why you're doing it. So you don't need to copy anyone else. You need to become the best version of who you are.
- Speaker #1
What's the difference in speaking live on stage in front of 10,000 people versus doing it on Instagram in front of a million people? Because there's a different energy. There's a different vibe. There's a different something about being live versus recorded or live versus where you can feel the energy of it. And I know people like... Jason Flatland, I don't know if you know who Jason Flatland is. He's one of the top webinar guys. He and I do some stuff together. And he's like, if I tell him, hey, you come to my event in Nashville and speak in front of 700 live people, he gets super excited, like almost giddy. But if I say, hey, we're going to do a webinar, we're going to have 5,000 people, he's like, eh, okay, what we got. It's not the same excitement. He loves that in person. So what's, can you explain how that's different?
- Speaker #0
And you should enroll me because I freaking love. I love being on Zoom. You know why? Everyone's got a front row seat and I don't wear any pants. Let me tell you, there is, you know, I had 352 people on my call last night. On Sunday, I had 800. I love that everyone's got a front row seat. And I don't know if it's just that I can read energies and I've been in personal development for a very long time. But I love looking. I can see your eyes. I can see you're distracted. I can see if you're crying. I love it. It makes no difference to me. There's definitely an energy about walking on a stage in front of 10,000 people. But I got to tell you, it's the same kind of energy here. And if you're good at this, you can create money, okay? If you can close a room without having to leave your house, do it.
- Speaker #2
So I'd love to know the hardest thing you've ever had to sell and why.
- Speaker #0
Well, you know, that's an interesting thing. And I'm wondering if I have my fitness products here. One quick second. I've got to find. Well, don't go away. No, it's an interesting thing. So the hardest thing, and I'm a huge fan, and I will preach this always, that life happens for you, not to you. That when one door closes, it seems like it's devastating. And this is great for people who want to commit suicide or think that life is over. Let me tell you, that moment, if you don't leave the planet, will be the greatest. door opener of your life. Because hitting rock bottom is what AA is all about. You don't go to AA until you've hit rock bottom. And somebody, how do I know if you hit rock bottom? Trust me, you know it. You feel like you want to leave the planet and every cell of your being. And when you can rebound from that, the lessons that you learn, the life that you've got is extraordinary. So I made a decision, my kids were like two years old, so it must have been 20 years ago, that I was no longer going to sell anything that I didn't love. Because given my skill, I can sell anything. It didn't matter what you gave me, I could promote it. And that's a good skill and a bad skill because people say, well, I don't really like that product. I'll go, yeah, I don't really like it either. Then why did you sell it? Well, because somebody gave it to me and paid me a lot of money. So about 20 years ago, I said two things. One, I'm going to stop selling products I don't like. And number two, I'm going to stop doing nudity in feature films. You get to find the films. And that's a true story. I really did look at, I mean, Halle Berry took her top off and she got an Oscar. A couple of other women did that. And I'm going to say, you know what? I don't know why that is, but I don't know why I would need to show my naked body on screen. And so I did two or three leads and love story kind of things. And I said, I don't want to do that anymore. I just don't think that's how I'm going to put my foot down. As soon as I said that, I've been traveling to London to do QVC UK a lot. And I had a very successful elliptical glider that made hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a dream job to have. And then one day, there's a 24-hour sale. It's called a Today Special. I said, I'm not selling anything I don't love. And I'm going to stop going to London because my kids were little and it was just exhausting. So one day I get a phone call going, hey, come on over to London. We have a one-day sale for you. Now, in that one day, if I do it right, I can generate for myself between $50,000 and $100,000. You would show up for a day's work for that, right?
- Speaker #2
Absolutely.
- Speaker #0
Unless you just said, I'm not selling something I don't love. The universe has a very fickle, funny sense of humor. And so I said, yes, and I'm a girl of my word. And with that, they then sent me the product. And the product was a cheap, you didn't have to plug it in kind of treadmill. And it was garbage. And I looked at this thing after putting it together. And I'm like, I can't sell this. This is crap. And I talked to my producer and like, well, you promised to come and we need you. And I'm like, okay. So I go on at midnight and that's where you start at midnight. You go for 24 hours, literally. And for the first time in my career, I didn't do well. And then I go back on at 1am and I don't do well. And I'm sitting now, you have to remember, I've got two beautiful twins. And prior to that, I, for 12 years, raised a little boy from South Central California, the ghetto. And for 12 years, I taught him life lessons. I was a surrogate mom and just a beautiful relation. He was best man at my wedding. Six months after my babies were born, Dexter was walking from a haircut to church and a kid who wanted to get into a gang walked up behind him and shot him 10 times in the back and left him to die on the sidewalk alone. Oh, no. My photo, my wedding photo was on the cover of the LA Times. We spent three years tracking down the killer and it was very devastating at that time, especially having new babies. And my ex took it really, really hard. And it was just, it was challenging to be us. And then my parents passed away in 9-11 happened. It was, talk about having a dark cloud around you. But I'm kind of extraordinary when it comes to that. The first, one of the first things I did is my house was kind of little and we were trying to build a bigger house. And my architect said, well, we'll knock it down. We'll take your cinder block and make it into wood and for the same price. But it's going to be $25,000 to knock it down. I didn't have 25. So I said to him, can't we blow it up? He said, excuse me? I said, Mel Gibson blew up a lethal weapon house down the street. He said, well, I don't know how to do that. I said, neither do I. So I put out in the production companies, I said, house willing to be blown up. And they did. And if you go on, you have to find this on your own. If you go to YouTube, type in Forbes Riley and Die Hard Explodes My House. You will watch how I handled that and Die Hard Exploded My Own.
- Speaker #1
Okay. Pagey for it too, probably.
- Speaker #0
They more than paid me for it. I know, kind of an out-of-the-box thinker.
- Speaker #1
That's a misfit. That's a misfit.
- Speaker #0
There we go. There I am in London, and I'm now at the bottom. By the way, so I blew the house up, but I blew the house up on December 2008, exactly seven days before the entire housing market crashed, and I destroyed my equity and had to live in a guest house for two years. Oh, yeah. There was a good and there was a bad to that. and a lot of life lessons. I had two new little babies and a very tiny guest house for two years, but I learned a lot. So there I am in England and I'm suffering. I am at that low point where you're like, I'm selling something I hate. My life is not going well. Dexter's gone. The kids, I don't know what to do. And I found myself on my knees and I was like, I need some help here because if not, I don't know quite what to do right now. And as if it was a movie, the door opens. And a gentleman walks in carrying a little fitness product. It's 2.30 in the morning. I'm like, okay. And he's got something that looks kind of like this. And I said. What's that? He said, oh, it's a little office de-stressor that we have. And he shows it to me, and I'm like, that's just stupid. I go back to my cook. He never lets me forget that I said it was stupid. He goes on camera, and he sells a couple of hundred of them. And I'm like, I'm sorry, it's now 3 o'clock in the morning. It's just the two of us in dressing room. I'm like, what the heck is this? And I try it again, and I get it to spin. And I had a moment that you only see in films where my entire life looked like a vision on the floor. And I see myself doing all of these things. And I said to him, how do I get one of these? He said, well, you're Forbes Riley. I'll just give you this one. I said, no, no, no. How do I get the company? I'd never said those words never even entered my mind before. And he's like, well, it's funny you should say that. But I'm a corporate magician. Note, my dad was a magician. And I'm tired of doing this. I've only sold $100,000. five years. I want to stop this. If you could sell 25,000 of these in the first year, I'll give you the entire company. You give me a small percentage. And I looked at my vision and I said, done. And I'm going to tell you guys, the next couple of years, I lived out that vision. I created my very first fitness product called a spin gym, ended up selling a couple of million of these. I've had a very long, and I manufacture, and I do, I mean, all of a sudden I've got an empire of fitness products at the lowest point. I found my own redemption. And then I had to stick with it because nobody made this easy. For three years, people thought this was a joke. And I set out to prove them wrong because I had a vision on my side, a freaking full-on four-color vision. And I believed it. I believed it so much that I gambled my kid's education. I mortgaged my house. And I put everything I am on the line to make this thing happen. And after three years, it finally became a raging success.
- Speaker #2
What was that turning point? How did it go from, oh, this is going to be tough, three years into it, to making this a success?
- Speaker #0
Oh, Norm, we don't have enough time on this show. Let me tell you, this was the universe not testing me, but fucking with me. Okay? Now, I'm not kidding. I put this thing in my pocket. I didn't know what I was going to call it. I didn't know how to market it. I had no digital marketing experiences. And I put it in my pocket and I go to, and Kevin, you probably know this, the infomercial convention. I had won best infomercial host the year before. I was a bit of a queen of that environment. And somebody comes up to me with a camera and says, hey, we're doing a new reality show called Pitch Men with Anthony Sullivan and Billy Mays. You know them. You've worked with them. Tell us what you think. And so I'm chit-chatting about how wonderful I think they are. And then this guy says to me, the sentence, these sentences, it changes my life. He says, what are you working on? And I reach in my pocket as if by magic, I had it with me. And I'm like, well, I have this little spin gym in my pocket. He's like, what does it do? He tries. Sully needs to know about this. I said, Sully sells mops. He said, no, no, no. You need to come here and show it to him. And it's all on video. You can literally watch episode number seven and watch what I'm telling you because it got recorded live as my life was changing. And then we showed it to Billy. They loved it. We go to New York. We show it to AJ Kubani, the guy who created the scene on TV logo. And he said, great, you're going to be going to shoot an entire episode, five months. They followed me. They grilled me. I ever, my entire world was all about this show. And here's where I didn't know. I didn't know that this reality show had a different agenda than I did. See, in each of the 13 episodes, Billy Mays, the guy, hosted the little infomercial inside of the episode. This was the only episode that I was going to host the infomercial. And the producers were going to make a point that girls shouldn't win. These are the same guys who produced Deadliest Catch and Ice Truckers, and they really had a different perspective on women in this world. And I was a little pushy, and they really didn't like me. And they set out to hurt me, and I didn't know it. Man, I was so naive, and so my heart was on my sleeve. So much so that at one point, we're filming the infomercial, and I'm going to say, hey guys, for the chest, it's the best, $29.99. And then we said, oh, for the chest, it's the best, $19.99. Then they had a screen that had me sing. For the chest, it's the best, $9.99. And I said, well, guys, I can't say $9.99. I signed kind of a royalty deal with the guy in England, but I wouldn't say it any less. They stop. They're like, if you can't say this, we're going to scrap the entire thing. And they started yelling and screaming at me while the cameras are watching me. What? Then take out a little plastic version of this. And I said, I'm not putting my name on a piece of cheap plastic crap that you're going to sell for $9.99. Well, edit, edit. When this thing goes to air and it's months later, I'm with a whole bunch of friends watching this on a big screen. They edit it out. And you know what it says? Forbes Riley says, on discovery, I would never sell anything for $9.99. I didn't say that. The next morning, Google has spin gym is the number one searched item in the country. And Forbes Riley is number three, and it's not good. They called me and read it. They re-edited this to make me look terrible. And I'll tell you, the lowest point of my life about all of this was that night. I wake up the next morning and my ex-husband turns to me. He's like, so what are we going to do now? Like it was a disaster. And I'm like, we're going to sell spin gyms. He said, well, nobody wants them. And I said, but they're wrong. He said, they can't all be wrong. And I said, but they are. He said, how are we going to do this? I said, where can we get money? Mortgage the house. The kids educate. Literally, I pushed all my chips in on something that was a really bad bet from the outside. And then I took it to HSN. And you know what they said? My home base, my homies, they were like, no, we saw you bomb on TV. I left and thought, I have screwed myself and my family for good. But I'm walking out. And this British producer says, hey, Forbes, we're doing a little British kind of live feed downstairs. You want to come watch? And I'm like, yeah, okay. I said, can I buy like a commercial? Can I do a two-minute spot for my new product? They're like, we don't really do that, but, you know, you are Forbes Riley, and we do love you in the UK. All right. They give me two minutes, and they buy 50 units. I sell all of them. The next morning, I released a press release. It said, Forbes Riley sells out of our international debut of Spin Gym. They came back and they said, we're going to order 800 of these. I said, that's cool. And they gave me 20 minutes. And the CEO of that British company was in the studio. He pulled me aside and said, I've never seen anybody do what you do. I would like to buy 8,000 of these and bring you to the UK. And that is how this was born.
- Speaker #1
What's up, everybody? Your good old buddies, Norm and Kevin here. And I've got an Amazon creative team that I want to introduce you to.
- Speaker #2
That's right, Kevin. It's called the House of AMZ. And it's the leading provider in combining marketing and branding with laser focus on Amazon.
- Speaker #1
Enormous. They do a lot of really cool stuff, if you haven't seen what they do. Like full listing graphics, premium A-plus content, storefront design, branding, photography, renderings, packaging design, and a whole lot of other stuff that Amazon sellers need.
- Speaker #2
Yeah, and guess what? They have nine years active in this space. So you can skip the guesswork, trust the experts. There's no fees. There's no retainers. You pay per project.
- Speaker #1
So if you want to take your product to the next level, check out House of AMZ. That's houseofamz.com. House of AMZ. That's awesome. I think I remember seeing you on that. I used to watch that show. I found it fascinating. I think I might have remembered seeing some of that episode now that you say that. Oh, yeah. I'm dating myself. So what do you think now with QVC? I mean, they were the king of live selling for a long time. People tuned in. And now they've kind of taken a big hit with everybody with now more eyeballs going to streaming. So they're making a big. push to go to TikTok and they have like 24 seven on TikTok now. What's your take on how that's working or how that's going to turn out? Um, and why do you think on that second question, why do you think that live streaming is struggling? It's, it's picking up here, but it's not like what it is in China, for example, or some other places in the world. It's, um, what's your take on that?
- Speaker #0
Wow. That's a huge question. And all I can really tell you is that there were two big live companies in this country. at least for the last 30 years that I've been around, there was QVC and HSN. HSN was the first, QVC was the biggest. And they were kind of rivals. And I was at QVC for 15 years, did QVC London. And then I moved down to HSN because it was more family oriented. And I liked the diversity and I liked the people. I moved my whole family to Florida to be here. And I loved HSN for so many years. The CEO came in, a lot of CEOs came in. And the last one focused a lot on celebrities that couldn't sell. The stock tanked, and a couple of years ago, QVC swooped in and bought HSN. That was a little devastating to everybody here. Then COVID had its own take on all of this. And I think tomorrow or the next day, HSN is closing their doors after 50 years of being here, literally closing their doors. The last shows are being done right now live. I mean, there's so many, what is it, 700,000 square feet? And they lost all the real estate. I mean, it's, to me, beyond devastating. They've moved whatever's left of HSN up to Pennsylvania in the middle of nowhere where QVC is. Some of our folks have moved up there. I'm not going up. I did those days where you fly into an airport and have to drive for an hour in the middle of the cold snow. As far as their future, they're very smart. But I will tell you, you know, any big corporation, this is why there's a kid who who crushes it with an online fitness brand. My husband is a fitness professional who's launching a new line of clothing. And this kid came in many years ago and he said, you know what? I don't believe in the Nike Jordan, Air Jordan model, where they're paying 400,000 or $4 million to celebrities to be this brand. He was the first one to start using influencers. And so he created a brand called Gymshark, used influencers only. He's the youngest billionaire in the UK at 28 years old.
- Speaker #1
Another brand. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
If you're not willing to shift as a corporation because you're not moving fast enough and odds are you're not, what do they say a camel is? It's a horse made by committee. It's just true. When I was at HSN, I noticed something very unusual and there was no one to tell about this. But internet had just started and internet sales were happening. And HSN would say to us, you've got internet sales and TV sales. Okay, so let's say I have to sell 2,000 units. I would sell 2,000 but... 1,500 would be on television and 500 would be on the internet. And they said, well, the internet doesn't count. And I'm like, no, it counts. It's the same hour live. They're buying on a different medium. And for about a year, I struggled with this, which kind of ate away my soul because we'd make our numbers, but they were combined numbers. And I'm like, why aren't you guys seeing that the internet is here and happening and real? And I swear it took them maybe two or three years to catch up. So if they missed The streaming, the live streaming and the TikTok is just because they're a giant company. And I have a feeling they'll either catch up or die.
- Speaker #2
That's the way it works. That's the way it works. And you're 100% right when you're talking about these big corporations that just can't move on time. Where entrepreneurs, they can see an issue, they can pivot on a dime, and they can change.
- Speaker #0
I mean, you and I are watching right now movie theaters going away, which breaks my heart. You know, there was a moment I went to watch Mission Impossible and Tom Cruise and I started at the same time with the same manager in New York City. And he comes on screen before his movie and he literally thanks the audience for being in the theater, which I thought was a pretty beautiful move. He's like, guys, you're going to watch the movie the way I intended it on a big screen. Enjoy the popcorn, enjoy whatever you're going to do, but watch this. And I thought that was, you know, he's the last bastion of people trying to save movies. Otherwise, everything's go into your television.
- Speaker #1
Hey, Kevin King and Norm Farrar here. If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We've got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player, or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of the Marketing Misfits. Have you subscribed yet, Norm?
- Speaker #2
Well, this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time? It's just me on here. You're not going to know what I say.
- Speaker #2
I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair too. And we'll just, you can go back and forth with one another.
- Speaker #0
Yikes.
- Speaker #2
But that being said, don't forget to subscribe, share it. Oh, and if you really like this content, somewhere up there, there's a banner. Click on it and you'll go to another episode of the Marketing Misfits.
- Speaker #1
make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm. Oh,
- Speaker #2
yeah. In Florida, I remember when I used to have a business in Tampa and there was a movie theater that would take main A-list movies, but they set it up as a dinner theater. So you had tables, you could sit around and they just had different levels. And I thought, wow. That's completely different. That makes the evening enjoyable. It was just a completely different change. It never caught on, but it was different at the time.
- Speaker #1
What's caught on? We have it here. It's called Alamo Drafthouse, and they have about 50 of them, and no kids are allowed after a certain hour, and it's at your table, full menu. I mean, at your seat, full menu, you know, pizzas to salads to you name it, everything brought to you. Um, and. They have a sense of humor with all the previews. So they don't show, they'll show the standard previews they have to show, but they also, they'll go and find old stuff on the internet and show crazy comedy. It's got, it's got some a tonning cheek, but yeah, they've expanded big time. So yeah, that, that does. It does exist. But yeah, that's where you got to go, though. You got to think outside the box and add those little things. It's not just go to the movies and get an overpriced thing of popcorn and a big soda and sit there on a sticky floor.
- Speaker #2
So something that Riley does, as you could tell this whole hour, we've just heard her thinking outside of the box. It's incredible. And, oh, Riley, Forbes. Oh, my gosh. I should say Dr. Riley, then I could stop the redness in my face.
- Speaker #0
But if I don't get one guy red a day, I'm not doing it.
- Speaker #2
So we're at the end of the podcast. And there's one question that I like to ask all of our misfits. And if they know a misfit.
- Speaker #0
You know, I do. I raised it. I gave birth to a misfit. She's 22 years old. She's not going to college. She made her own million at 18 years old, and she wrote in her Google calendar that she would when she was 14 because she was around me preaching the idea of manifestation. And she opened her calendar screen running downstairs going, Mom, I wrote that I was going to be a millionaire by the time I was 18, and I am. I'm like, it doesn't surprise me. She is now, like I said, paying her own way and still managing a team of 16 who are global. They're all around the world. Last year, she took her laptop and she visited her teammates in Croatia and Ireland. Scotland, in Spain, Morocco, and I don't know anyone else like my daughter. There is the ultimate misfit who manages to fit in and make her own way and is working very hard to make her mom's dreams come true. Because when you get to be a certain age, and I know you guys both understand this, you become a little more invisible, especially to the younger generation. And so if we can continue to bridge that, and I can give her, you know, not an inheritance of money. but an inheritance of a life, of a legacy, of a business, of attitudes in the way that she thinks. I've done a pretty good job, but she is definitely, definitely a misfit.
- Speaker #2
Fantastic. And we will be in touch with you to get all her information.
- Speaker #1
So if people want to reach out and find out more about you or learn about your course, I think you have a book. So what's the best way for them to actually do that?
- Speaker #0
You know what? Can I give you another misfit that you're never going to hear about?
- Speaker #1
Sure.
- Speaker #0
Now, he's a misfit. because if you look at how everyone looks, he doesn't look like anyone else, okay? And so I'll share a picture of him. And I often say, if you don't say wow when you see this picture, I'll give you $100. Would that be fair?
- Speaker #1
Sure, okay.
- Speaker #0
So let's take a look at this picture, okay?
- Speaker #1
She's got the first yes, Norm.
- Speaker #0
All right, so there you go. What do you think of him?
- Speaker #2
What Kevin?
- Speaker #0
That's my husband. What? Yeah, and it's not an AI. That's truly my husband, Joshua.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, you said he's launching a fitness line of clothing. So, yeah.
- Speaker #2
Wow.
- Speaker #0
I never not had to say, wow. I'll tell you what's even more interesting. There I am to prove that I really am with him. That is my husband. But that's an after photo. He looks great for who he is, but he was in a really devastating car accident. I told you, that motorcycle. He shrunk down to this during COVID, spent six months in a wheelchair. And then built himself back to go on because he hadn't won titles that he wanted to, like the Olympia, like Mr. Universe. And that's him at the Arnold last year. The reason I bring him up, and by the way, we didn't even touch on my fitness journey, how at my age I ended up getting on stage and competing and getting a medal. So he is an unbelievable misfit in that he doesn't do any of the exercises that you both were taught in the gym. None of them. He does no sit-ups, no pull-ups, no overhead presses, no dips, no cardio. And he looks like that. And I would think as two men that are curious about life, you want to know what does he do that he looks like that? And it's a very unique principle. He's a 3D graphic artist. He's discovered how muscles really work, how you don't have to do overhead presses. You don't have to put barbells on your back and you can build muscle faster than you ever imagined. And all of us. should be building muscle. We don't have an obesity problem in this country. We have a lack of muscle problem. And so to prove that I went on a little journey. I'd never been super fit myself. That's me on the left last year, 99 days later, when I made a commitment, that is what I look like. And then I got on a page and I got a medal. That's me at 64.
- Speaker #2
Wow.
- Speaker #1
That's good. Very good. Good job.
- Speaker #0
In terms of being a misfit, I would love to nominate him. I would be so curious. He doesn't do a lot of interviews. He's very private, but he's brilliant.
- Speaker #2
Fantastic. Yeah, love to. I've already got a bunch of questions for him.
- Speaker #0
Underneath Norm's beard is a very fit costume.
- Speaker #2
That's right. Only known to me, but...
- Speaker #0
Guys, if you want to find me, just go to ForbesRiley.com. All my links are there. And I do answer my own Instagram and Facebook. I'm there all the time. I love meeting new people. I put new videos on YouTube all the time. And I just love being present because I remember when I was little, a little goofy kid, nobody would take the time of day to talk to me. And so I love inspiring as many people as I can to up-level their life, to lean in, to learn to pitch, to get fit and healthy, and just make this the very best life. Because I don't know if we get to live again, but I do know if you do it right the first time, once is enough.
- Speaker #2
Perfect. And just a reminder. Your movie is debuting tonight, Black Creek.
- Speaker #0
What? I am the bad girl. Don't blame me when you see it,
- Speaker #1
though.
- Speaker #2
Awesome. All right. So we are going to remove you, and we'll get you right back in a second.
- Speaker #1
Thanks, Forbes.
- Speaker #2
There. I did my job. I hit the button.
- Speaker #1
You did it. You got an excellent hit in that button, Norm. That was great. Very inspiring. Very, very cool stuff. Some great stuff there from Forbes.
- Speaker #2
You know, I literally, you know, sometimes you say, oh, this flew by, but it really did fly by. When I looked up and it was one hour, we could have, I had probably 10 other questions I wanted to ask, but we got to have her back.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, we'll have to have her back and I have to follow up and get, sounds like the rest of her family on there as well. Some amazing, amazing stuff. Yeah. If you like amazing stuff, you can always go back and I think we're at 60, 60 some odd, 60 some odd episodes now of the podcast since we launched it. Go back and check them out. You know, everything from Forbes here to Neil Patel to you name it. If it's if it's happening in the mark in marketing and it's misfit and thinking outside the box, that's what you're going to find here on Marketing Misfits. You can find us at Marketing Misfits. And then we have something on the, what's the YouTube?
- Speaker #2
You can always go to YouTube and find us at Marketing Misfits Podcast, where you'll find the long form videos. Or if you'd like to, if you don't have as much time, you can always go over to Marketing Misfits Clips. And all these clips are just three minutes and under. And believe me, we'll be having a ton of them just from this podcast.
- Speaker #1
So check them out. Yeah, there's going to be some great, great stuff. And coming soon is the Marketing Myths Newsletter later this summer. So be sure to check out.
- Speaker #2
That's next week, right, Kev?
- Speaker #1
No, that's tomorrow. Actually, Forbes debuts today. So the newsletter is tomorrow.
- Speaker #2
There we go.
- Speaker #1
But, hey, if you like this episode, be sure to share it with a friend or someone that you think would be inspired by Forbes' story to hear that or learn some of the pitching techniques that she taught. And make sure you subscribe to the channel or subscribe to. and leave us a comment on if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify or Apple. We like to see what you think. Other than that, I guess I have to see you again next week, Norm.
- Speaker #2
I guess you'll have to.
- Speaker #1
Every Tuesday, brand new episode. We'll see you next time.
- Speaker #2
See you later.
- Speaker #1
See ya. Bye-bye.
