0 (2s):
Boom. Shake the room. Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like My First Million. Today we're pulling a timeless EOFire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active. And we'll be breaking down inside live TV shopping, A secret source of piles of cash to drop these value bombs. I brought Tom Wise into EOFire Studios. Tom is a 30-year-old veteran of live TV shopping. He is a TV host, director of on-air talent vendor at QVC, USA/Germany and HSN, and he teaches how to make money in your sleep. And today Fire Nation will talk about how you need to start by having a product that works, how it's a good idea to get outta your cover zone, look for products that may not be in the HSN world just yet, and so much more.

0 (51s):
And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Tom and our sponsors Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, The Monthly app with Jason Ethan, where they share hacks, tips and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Tom, say What's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

1 (1m 27s):
Hey, John, I've went really, really looking forward to doing this show. Can I say something before I get started? Sure. I, I enjoy your enthusiasm and your curiosity. I think that really drives you and I think that's what everybody enjoys

0 (1m 39s):
About. I appreciate that, Tom. Thank you. And

1 (1m 41s):
Lemme just tell you, here's all something that most people don't know that I worked with Kevin Harrington. He was an original shark on the Shark Tank. I worked as his vice president of production for infomercials for about three years.

0 (1m 54s):
No kidding. Well, we've had him on the show a couple times. He's been trying to get me on the links as well. Although I keep telling him he would just embarrass me to the level where he would never wanna play with me again. So I I've, I've been able to hold him back on that. But that's very cool. In Fire Nation, as you know, we're talking all about live TV shopping today, because guess what? We all wanna uncover secret sources of piles of cash. So I love this topic. I love the fact we're gonna be able to dive really deep into this with Tom Wise. I mean, he's a 30 year veteran of this stuff, Fire Nation. So let's just dive in, Tom, because I'm excited to chat.

0 (2m 34s):
What exactly is TV shopping and why TV shopping?

1 (2m 39s):
You know, it's kind of an interesting thing. When I was growing up, there was no such thing as TV shopping. It became an industry in the, in the eighties. Right now it's about a $9 billion business just to the United States between HSN and qvc. You also have some shopping up in Canada, but it's also global. It's worldwide. Germany, Italy, England, everybody sells on tv. A lot of things, a lot, lot of times people think about, you know, TV shopping as for old ladies buying perfume and purses. But we sell, sell a lot of electronics and home goods, you know, pressure washers and my gosh, HSN used to do a, a huge business in sports memorabilia. Years back, they don't do much anymore. But, you know, you never know when you get into some hot topic, I, I've made a nice living selling housewares items or things for the garage or things for your car just over the years, just little knickknacks and I, and I'm coming on, I think to, to tell people that if they've got a business, that they're selling things on eBay or Amazon, or if you're selling something on a website to really should think about live TV shopping because literally you can make money while someone else is doing all the work.

0 (3m 42s):
Well, let's start at the beginning. Like, I love building foundations. I love starting with the building blocks. How could somebody even find a product that would sell on tv? Like, what is that process you would have them go through to identify that first step?

1 (3m 56s):
Well, for TV shopping, my, my first initial thought is to solve a problem, which isn't uncommon, solve a problem for a 50 year old woman. Now, it doesn't have to be a person or perfume. She drives, she does things around the house, you know, she needs a, she needs a cart or a wagon, or she needs, you know, a pressure washer hose, something like that. So, so it's not all about a female product, it has to be a product for the house. So somehow she can improve the house. I can tell you how I found one of my first products. I got, I've got two ways if you like to go, John. I, I was a host of home shopping for about 10 years in the eighties and the nineties, and I remember blue blocker sold those blue blocker sunglasses. I don't know if you're

0 (4m 35s):
Familiar with those. Yeah, I have, I have like four around my house, actually. I want 'em downstairs in my TV room up, you know, by my bedside, so I can have 'em at night in my computer room as well. So I've got like four of those things.

1 (4m 46s):
Okay, but did you know that they, they also sold a visor, like a, like the tack advisor, if you're familiar, familiar

0 (4m 52s):
With that piece that I did not know.

1 (4m 53s):
They introduced that piece in the late eighties as a supplement or as an adjunct to their sunglass business. And I remember when I was a host, 19 87, 19 88, we didn't have any B roll, we didn't have any guests. They would hand you a product and a box and then you would sell the item with those, with that little bit of information. And I always remembered how well that item sold without any supplemental, you know, video or, or anything. I just sat there talking about it and, and I had that in the back of my brain. And then about 15 years later, when I decided to go off on my own and become a vendor for hsn, I said, I need to find that item and bring it back. So I'm all about what we call in the business old gold, something that was hot 15, 20, 10 years ago.

1 (5m 37s):
It goes through a rotation, goes through a cycle, it's, you know, it sells a lot for, you know, nine months, 15 months, and then it gets tired and then it's done. But you, you go back and you find something that sold well in the past. Well, I sourced it in China and it was the first item that I sold on HSN back in 2003 as a vendor. And we ended up up selling a hundred thousand of those things over the course of about wow. A year and a half. Another item, I, I was at the Chicago Houseware Show, and it's back when, you know, like temporary lighting was always very popular. And I was just walking out of the show. I'd been there for three days and I really hadn't seen anything. And I saw this one guy had a rack of products, 50 products up on a wall.

1 (6m 20s):
You could walk up to him and he'd put your name on a catalog and all of a sudden you'd be in business, he'd, he'd fulfill for you and everything else, you know, with the products, you know, you had at your catalog, you just come up with a company name. But I saw one item in particular. It was a fluorescent tube, about two feet long. And it was just sitting there in a case. I go, what is that? He goes, well, it's battery powered, fluorescent light. And I'd never heard of anything like that. Most, most lighting products around the home, supplemental lighting were, you know, run by a couple of little batteries and they wouldn't be very bright. But he shows me this. Long story short, I source it in China because we couldn't agree on a price, but I like the item. And I sold what we call the what? A light. W h a t a l i g h t I sold what A light started out fluorescent, evolved into the, that's an l e D bar light, had 60 LEDs on it.

1 (7m 9s):
And again, hundreds of thousands of those things just because I was curious and I saw this thing up on the wall and wanna know what to do. And another thing is you come up with additional applications for the products when you find them and that, you know, starts the lens to your pitch. The guy said, yeah, when you pull the plug out, the light goes on automatically because it's battery powered. I said, wait a minute. So if I have this thing plugged in my house and there's a storm and I lose power, the light's gonna go on automatically. That's a plus. That's not a minus. So we turned a, you know, something was a minus. That doesn't, doesn't go on when you, when you plug it in into a plus now people use it as an emergency light

0 (7m 42s):
Fire Nation. There's so much I love about what Tom just shared. You know, one thing is cycles. I mean, everything in this world is cyclical and that's something you need to keep in mind. Tom, have you ever read or heard of the book Ready Player One? You

1 (7m 57s):
Know what, I can say that I heard of it. I don't know that it, well, I know that I haven't

0 (8m 1s):
Read it. So it's a pretty fascinating book. They actually made a movie out of this as well. The movie was good, but the book was fantastic and it's futuristic, but it's basically about, you know, how this one individual who owns this huge gaming universe passes away and then he has this like Easter egg hunt for people to follow and the winners of the Easter egg hunt will actually get his empire. But the thing is, is that he was so passionate about the eighties, that was his thing, was the 1980s. And this was like, you know, like 2031 or 2051, that was when it was set. And guess what, everything about the eighties came back. Like the music, the movies, the styles, the haircuts, everything.

0 (8m 40s):
And that's just one example of how, I mean, listen, everything is cyclical and sometimes you don't even know what's gonna kind of tip off that cycle, but it just happens, right? And you can always be ready. And another thing I wanted to ask before we did move on is have you seen the movie Joy with Jennifer Lawrence?

1 (8m 56s):
Yes, I have.

0 (8m 58s):
And so that's all about, you know, like she came up with a mop and then she went on QVC to sell it and all that stuff. Is that like realistic, like is that kind of how the world was at least back when she was doing it? Or is that just kind of like Hollywoodish?

1 (9m 11s):
I think Hollywood did it up a little bit because the one fact of that movie that, I don't know the real honest to goodness story, I never talked to Joy about it, but that, that the process is not, is not dissimilar. But they did have a scene that I took a little bit of, you know, that they, I took Umbridge with,

0 (9m 28s):
I was gonna say Umbridge. Yeah.

1 (9m 29s):
Yeah. I I would, I would never Qv. C R H has said, would never put a person on TV by himself.

0 (9m 36s):
Got it. Now, one thing that they made a huge point on was like how important the actual person selling the product was, which did kind of resonate with me. You know, they had that guy who didn't even know what he was doing and of course like he was fumbling around and it just flocked. But then she came on and she was like actually a house mother. And so she was Yes. Able to make it happen. Like, is that something that people should definitely be thinking about when they're promoting stuff online?

1 (10m 0s):
Absolutely. You've got, you've got that, that's an entrepreneur from the bottom up, right? You, you've invented, you've, you've identified a problem and now you go off to try to solve it. I mean that's, that's my tick my cap to, to joy for that. Cuz that's how she started it. She determined that the, the way that that yarn was, was woven on the mop was key. And that's how she went out and built it. Now I'm more of like, let's take something that's won in the past and let's bring it back and I'll rebrand it or trademark it or I'll improve it. I've never, I've never invented anything from the bottom up, although I do have a patent.

0 (10m 31s):
Very interesting. Now it is 2020. So Amazon is a behemoth and especially in this Covid 19 world, I mean, Amazon's even playing a bigger role in our lives because yes, it's just what it is. So how does Amazon come into play with this?

1 (10m 46s):
If you've got a product that's successful on Amazon, I suggest that you approach HSN or qvc now you can do that individually, you can, it's hard to get in. I would, I would recommend going through a representative to, you know, to get in the door. But if you've got a successful item that solves a problem for the, you know, person I described, 50 year old woman, you definitely should be going on hsn cuz you can sell thousands of items in minutes. I was on, I was on HSN yesterday, I was broadcasting from my home. I'm a guest right now along with other, other hats that I wear. But we sold 1200 of the bullet pocket hose in 14 minutes.

1 (11m 26s):
Wow. At $32 a pop. We were selling

0 (11m 29s):
Two hoses

1 (11m 29s):
For wow. 32 bucks.

0 (11m 31s):
Oh. I mean, this is fascinating stuff. Fire Nation, I mean, we are living in a different world, but that doesn't mean that things have changed when it comes to selling, when it comes to marketing, when it comes to processes, when it comes to cycles, when it comes to systems and automations and all these opportunities. And we're gonna be talking about some really cool things. We’re gonna be talking about the biggest mistake that you could make if you don't stay tuned, you know, when it comes to live TV shopping, we will be talking more about patents and trademarks like you did hear Tom mentioned that. And we got a lot more stuff that we're gonna be talking about as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. Content is a major driver of trafficking leads in most businesses, but creating great content takes a lot of time and people, that's why AI is making major headlines these days.

0 (12m 16s):
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0 (12m 56s):
HubSpot just released some incredible tools that are going to level up your productivity and grow your business. Get early access to HubSpot AI today at hubspot.com/artificial-intelligence. So, Tom, we're back and I think a question a lot of people in my audience is gonna be asking is, man, like wouldn't it just take so much time to even get into this world? I mean, we're talking decades and decades and decades, so talk to us about how much time it could take to actually make an indent in this world. And, you know, give us some ideas about who could help navigate the live TV shopping world

1 (13m 32s):
As far as time is concerned. It's all about product. Once you get the product that works, it go, it can go very, very quickly. I mean, I personally, if I was trying to get into the HS center, the QVC world, and I had a product, I probably would contact a rep because they've got the relationships. You could imagine those buyers at those spots are being inundated from every direction. And so, but they trust the, the reps that they've been working with for the last 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 years. So that's the one thing I would do. But the actual, once you, once you get the product trademarked or you've got something that's selling on Amazon and you wanna move into the HSA world, it's, it's almost hands off. You can have the rep bring it in, you can have the rep through the samples, you can, you can have local on-air talent, do the presentation for you, you know, kinda like I did with the hose.

1 (14m 21s):
And you know, there's somebody up in, there's somebody up in, you know, up in Boston just looking at the numbers. They're just, they're, they've, they've shipped the, you know, HSN very often will even ship in, you know, bring it in from China and bring it into their warehouses for you. So if you've got the right item and you get just a little bit of help and it doesn't really cost a lot of money, the reps are working on 2, 3, 4 percentage points and you know, the on-air guests make a couple hundred bucks per show, but you don't have to get involved. So while somebody's working at two, two o'clock in the morning, you know, you're snoozing and you're making money.

0 (14m 54s):
We can learn so much from failures, we can learn so much from other people's mistakes. What is one of the biggest mistakes that you've seen people do and that you wanna make sure Fire Nation avoids?

1 (15m 8s):
I made this mistake myself, and I'll caution everybody to not do the same thing when I invented my, I'm gonna talk about the carry card, I

0 (15m 16s):
Guess. Sure, let's break it down.

1 (15m 17s):
But, but when I, when I invented the carry card, got the patent for that, I was very excited about it. And when I, when I brought it to H S N, they were very excited about it. And when it started selling, everybody was really excited about it.

0 (15m 29s):
Okay, before you go any further though, what is the carry cart? I, I gotta be able to picture this.

1 (15m 33s):
Carry cart is a utility cart that virtually anybody could own. Whether you live in an apartment or a, you know, 500 acre spread, it's a four and one utility cart. It's a, it's a oversized heavy duty dolly takes up to 500 pounds. So if you're moving something big, then it, it also flips up a handle and turns into kinda like a, a hand cart. So if you're unloading a mulch or cinder blocks or you've taken stuff from the big box store like, you know, bottles of water or just unloading the old truck store.

0 (16m 2s):
Oh yeah. So I mean, you take this to Costco for sure,

1 (16m 5s):
Absolutely. And then, then it flips again, and I'm, and John, I'm doing this all without tools. It flips again and turns into a hand truck. So you can go up and down stairs, in and out of tight places, you know, move filing cabinets and things like this. And if you're not done with that, if that hasn't oppressed you up to this point, one more flip and it turns into a three step safe certified ladder. Come on. I'm not kidding you. It, and then you can roll it around from room room so you're not lugging it anymore. And then when you store it, it folds up flat and it takes about the space of a, of a push broom,

0 (16m 38s):
Man. I mean that is an invention. Yeah,

1 (16m 40s):
It's crazy. You, you replacing wheelbarrow, a dolly, a hand truck and a ladder, something that everybody needs. Occasionally, most folks will move 11 times in a lifetime and you're renting something. But, you know, a lot of times you, you know, just moving, you know, you get a big box, you're trying to move, you know, a desk or a dresser, a couch, perfect.

0 (16m 57s):
I mean, let's be honest, if you're the one person in New York City that has a carry cart, everybody becomes your best friends immediately.

1 (17m 4s):
And then plus you're right John, when you're moving, people wanna know what kind of equipment you have.

0 (17m 8s):
You know, you got,

1 (17m 9s):
You gotta, you got, you got a hand truck and you go, yeah, I do.

0 (17m 12s):
Let's keep moving forward on this biggest mistake. What was that

1 (17m 15s):
Biggest mistake? And I even told myself not to do this before it happened, John, which was, you know, aggravating. He says, I said, don't take the big order, keep it small, keep your orders, you know, 1500, 1200 pieces. Don't take a huge order. But they, they, they dangled a 15,000 piece order. Ugh. And I, I took it even though the, it was the first time I was working with this factory, I hadn't been over there and long story short delays, you know, production problems and it was a, it turns out to be a little bit of a nightmare, which, which, you know, we recover from. But it was, you know, it it, it slowed me down for about 18 months trying to fix it all.

0 (17m 59s):
So to get a little more specific, I mean, what do you think is kind of a good limitation to put on yourself if you're kind of more of a first or second timer? I mean this has even happened to you with tons of experience. So what do you think? Yes, if Foundation is kinda getting into this the first time, like what should they be kind of focused on? Limitation wise?

1 (18m 18s):
HS and a qbc, you're gonna get a purchase order that's gonna look something like about 25 to $30,000 in cost. So cuz they want to test it, but you, they don't want you to just try, you know, 10 pieces. They're gonna want you to have 1200 pieces, 5,000 pieces, whatever, depending upon the price of course of the product, they're gonna want those pieces in their warehouse before they make the presentation. But, so think about 25 to $30,000 with a retailer. And that's not an insignificant number, but it's a number you can recover from and you can move those items somewhere else if they don't sell for whatever reason. But that's where I would be an entry for and that's why I would try to stay for a year, year and a half.

1 (18m 59s):
Small little orders while you're building your foundation. Don't go for the big order.

0 (19m 2s):
I love it. I love it because Fire Nation, you only have one time to make that first impression. So do it right? Cuz you want to build those evangelists, people that have amazing experiences they're gonna share Yes. And brag about your product. So let's talk about patenting and trademarking. You mentioned it briefly earlier, but let's kind of dive in and talk about should Fire Nation be focusing on either or?

1 (19m 24s):
I think it depends upon the product. I had items that were already manufactured in China. Like the, my visor that I had was called the Total Visor. So I could never patent that, but I did trademark, so nobody could use my, no, nobody could use that name. By the way. Also, if you come up with a unique name for something, it's probably going to be available online. So I could have total visor.com, I could have, you know, micro skillet.com or flavor wave.com. These are all items I've been associated with. So you come up with a unique name and then you can grab that website. But I would trademark. The trademark is not complicated. It takes a little bit, it takes about three months. I did it all myself online. So you don't have to hire a lawyer, you could just do it yourself.

1 (20m 6s):
I think it was a couple hundred dollars, but it's a little bit, it's a little tedious. You've gotta show that you're selling the item and you've gotta have a, you know, a unique mark. But the trademark is easy. And then Amazon, I'm sure a lot of guys know this already, but if you want to have that protection on Amazon, they require you to have a trademark. Otherwise people can use your name while they, you know, sell, advertise their products. And then, and then the patent. I think if what I've done, I, I patented the carry cart because I made some unique improvements on it. And in my industry, in this, in this not TV world, if you come out with a new product that it's selling, you know that the wolves are gonna start copying you. So the, the patent at least slows 'em down a little bit.

1 (20m 46s):
And then, I mean, I'm, I'm negotiating in a couple of the, the, the latter worlds and they only wanna do business with you if you've got a patent, right? 'em and I did have an attorney do that probably cost me about $8,000 over the course of a couple years.

0 (21m 0s):
Man, so many value bombs, Fire Nation, I mean, this is just an exciting new area and this is exactly why I bring Tom on Entrepreneurs on Fires because it's so important to continue to put different opportunities, unique opportunities, blue ocean opportunities in front of you because you just never know what's gonna click with you, with your ideas, with your personality, with your business. So, Tom, give us the one key takeaway that you really wanna make sure that Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about today. Share with us the best way that we can connect with you in any gift or call to action you have for Fire Nation.

1 (21m 36s):
Taking a chance, getting outta your comfort zone is always a good idea. In, in a safe, you know, thoughtful way. We don't wanna be crazy, but to, to, to look for products, look through magazines, even see other things that are on Amazon that might tickle you fancy, that may not be in that, you know, HSN world, you know, then if you're successful here, you can also be successful overseas. The best way to get ahold of me is Tom Wise, w i s e Tom Wise Kart, I'm gonna spell it. K e r r y k a r t. So, I'm using K's k a r r y k e r t k a Oh for Gush goodness sakes.

1 (22m 17s):
K e r r y k a r T. I was going out with a girl named Kerry and I named the card after her.

0 (22m 24s):
That's

1 (22m 25s):
A whole another story. It didn't work out well for me, but I ended up liking the, the name and that's why we went with it.

0 (22m 30s):
Hey, I love alliteration, Kerry Kart. It just works.

1 (22m 33s):
Did you know that that in Star Trek there, people with authority often have a K sounding

0 (22m 39s):
In their name? No, that's interesting. Spock,

1 (22m 42s):
Spock,

0 (22m 43s):
Kirk, captain Kirk, I love that. Yes. Cool. Any other thing you wanna share with the Fire Nation?

1 (22m 49s):
Yes, and I sell it for, I sell it on Amazon for $149 and I sell it on carry cart.com for $149. But everybody listening today, save yourself $50. If you want to get the carry cart, use the fire. F i r e is the coupon code. Woo woo. Free shipping

0 (23m 8s):
Handyman. My handyman, his name's Neil, if you're listening to this, I'm gonna have a Carrie cart waiting for you at my house for all those times. I'm making you lug around the sandbags and climb the trees all around my property. Carrie Cart will be here for you, Neil. So, get excited. So, Fire Nation, you know this, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with T Dubs and JL Dubs today. Yeah, so keep up the heat and head over to eofire.com if you type Tom in the search bar, the show notes page will pop up with everything we've talked about today, links to everything. It's an amazing show notes page. And of course, check out tomWise@kerrykart.com.

0 (23m 51s):
That's K E R R Y K A R t.com. So tomWise@kerrykart.com. And of course, check out the amazing Kerry Kart, use promo code Fire for 50 bucks off of that amazing, amazing product. So, get on over that and then hey, send me a picture by the way of Fire Nation because if you do, I might just send you a picture back of me using it as well. And Tom, you've been a rockstar brother. Thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. My pleasure. Thanks John. Hey Fire Nation, today's value bomb content was brought to you by Tom.

0 (24m 32s):
And if you're ready to rock your own podcast, you need to check out our completely free podcasting course. This is where I teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free. Visit free podcast course.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flippity flip side. Outbound Squad hosted by Jason Bay is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, The Monthly app with Jason Ethan, where they share hacks, tips and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts.