April 26, 2016

 

For years, my entrepreneurial dreams have been fueled by the hit show Shark Tank.  I watched Lori and Mark diligently each week thinking of what type of business to start in order to make my millions.

 

I contemplated opening up “Podiatry quick-clinics” that performed nail care for seniors, I imagined franchising a medical pedicure salon, I even thought of starting my own catalogue of medical supplies for podiatrists.  But my gut always seemed to direct me towards coming up with a product.  The problem I found with any service related startup seemed to be just that, service.  You are limited by the amount of time you can give towards your service and the level of service you can give to the customer.  There are only so many patients I can see in a day and to me, the scalability of a service related industry was always a concern.  

 

So by default, it had to be a product driven business, something that had unlimited growth potential and wasn’t dependent on how many hours I had in my day.  Any product can be sold 24 hours a day 7 days a week to anyone anywhere in the world.  

 

Okay, so what type of product should I sell?  Think Dana think!  5 years of Shark Tank episodes later, a lightbulb finally went off one day while I was at work.  After some fine tuning and planning, I formulated my patent pending skincare line for feet.  I won’t bore you with the details, but if you must know the nitty gritty of my company’s start up days, you can read about it on my website.  

 

Fast forward to last week.  9 months after selling my first bottle of Foot Repair Serum to my grandmother, Dr. Canuso Skincare products can be found in 27 high end Spas/Salons nationwide.  The company is also boasting rather impressive internet sales, with last month’s gross sales outshining all of last years sales combined.  

 

With growth however comes growing pains, and now I am at that beautiful point in my business…I need money.  If I want to start playing with the big girls, I need to start acting like one and 1) increase my marketing 2) order more inventory to lower my margins and 3) produce a kick-butt infomercial that explains why my products work so well and show some amazing before and afters.   

 

Enter Shark Tank.  In the beginning of April, I see the most beautiful line on the official Shark Tank website:  NYC open call for auditions April 21, 2016.  Yes!  Based in South Jersey, it will only take me 2 hours to get to the audition.

 

I continued reading.  The site goes on to state: “you will be given the opportunity to do a 1-minute pitch of your business/product/idea to a member of the Casting Team — just like you would as if you were on the show. Come prepared to wow and dazzle us.”  Lol, easier said than done!  Let me wow and dazzle you with my amazing patent pending antifungal foot serum…ugh!

 

I enlisted the help of my creative husband to amp up the excitement factor of my business and was able to condense the product benefits as well as some minimal humor into an 80 second speech.  Close enough.  

 

The website also mentioned that you must print out a rather comprehensive 16 page application packet, fill it out in significant detail, and bring it with you to the audition.  Check.  It really only took about an hour to fill out.  

 

Tuesday afternoon, two days before the audition, I began to stress about what time I needed to arrive and what the weather would be like to camp out in line.  As I was reading through the reviews of other entrepreneurs that went through the audition process, I happened upon a newswire that was released only an hour before:  “Shark tank announces women/minority open call Wednesday morning”.  Tomorrow!  I quickly called the contact number on the release and spoke with someone that validated that this was in fact a legitimate Shark Tank open call and was only open to a limited number of entrepreneurs.  He said you must register online and await an email.  I registered before hanging up and about an hour later, I received an email stating that the spots to pitch on Wednesday were already full, but I could go to NYC at 10:30 tomorrow morning and pick up a wristband so I was guaranteed to be heard on Thursday!  Yes!  No more worries about sleeping on the ground at 2 am.  

 

I traveled up to the city Wednesday morning and was quickly given a wristband.  No line at all, they asked the name of my company and handed me an orange band.  They didn’t even check my identification.  As I was ready to leave, they very nonchalantly  told me that I didn’t need to arrive on Thursday until 11!  

 

 

Elated, I proceeded to enjoy my free time in NY.  I took my son to the Central Park Zoo, split a chicken Gyro, and called it a day.  And yes, I must have rehearsed my pitch over 100 times while driving the 2 hours home.  

 

 

 

 

On Thursday morning, my husband and I arrived at the open call.  There was a table set up with a clearly marked Shark Tank employee handing out purple wristbands.  It was around 10:40 am and he was telling the entrepreneurs that were given the wristbands to return to present their product at 4:00pm and to expect a 2 hour delay.  

I was in shock.  Reader, this clearly underlines two important take-aways:  1) There is no need to wait in line at 2am because they obviously have hundreds of wristbands and 2) don’t wait too long to get the wristband because the poor producers are going to be exhausted and bored by the time they listen to you give your pitch.

 

At precisely 11:00, another Shark Tank employee who looked a little more official than the first one told all of us with the orange wristbands to follow him through the crowd.  We walked all the way to the back of the building and were seated amongst 50 white folding chairs.  He then asked for everyone to present their application packet that they had printed and filled out.  As I reached for my packet, I realized that I was the only one with a completed application.  What?!  I was shocked!  I was truly convinced while prepping for this moment that those who were ill prepared would be burned at the cross.  Nope.  The kind employee handed out freshly printed blank applications to the other entrepreneurs.  SMH.  

 

 

There was a benefit though to arriving early and completely prepared.  I was allowed to present first.  

 

There were four different producers each at their own table divided by black curtains.  I cannot recall the smells or even the faces of the producers at that moment, but I can remember the noise.  It was loud.  So not only was I nervous about giving my speech, I had to make sure that I yelled it so that the producer could hear me over the roar.  

 

Also contrary to what you would expect, the producer that I was told to pitch to was extremely smiley, looked super nice and seemed truly excited to hear about my product.  

 

It was go time.

 

I gave my pitch as practiced, just noticeably louder.  And she said, I quote, “That sounds amazing.  I am totally on board.”  Yes!!!!  She then asked the following questions:

 

Where are you selling this?

How much have you sold so far?

What do you need the money for?

Do you need the money within the next year?

 

I answered truthfully and with a smile.  Then, another crazy thing happened…she smiled back….but didn’t say a word.  Not one word.  No, “Okay, we’ll let you know” or “ Great job, check out with the man over there”.  Just a blank smile.  I was truthfully in such shock that I think I may have even walked away from her backwards and then skipped towards my husband who was patiently waiting for me in one of the white chairs.  I did it!  I pitched to a Shark Tank producer.

 

So reader, the moral of the story is: It is not as scary as you think.  Just do it.  Even if you are not sure if the tank is right for your business, It doesn’t hurt to practice your pitch and get your business plan all spruced up.  Remember, we didn’t begin this journey waiting for the good things to happen to us.  We pulled on our big girl pants and decided to make the great things happen.  And for me, auditioning for shark tank was one of those great things.