A true story reveals three secrets on why Kevin O'Leary is so successful...
It was a hot summer day at Mission Belt HQ. We were wrapping up a team meeting and just about to head home for the day when Zac got an unexpected call...from Kevin O'Leary's assistant.
At least, that's who she said she was.
Was it a prank call? It wasn't. Kevin was in town shooting a follow up segment for one of the Shark Tank companies he had invested in and apparently he wanted to stop by and say hello.
Of course we said yes!
It wasn't long before a black luxury car pulled up outside our door and Mr Wonderful himself popped out of the back seat.
We weren't quite sure what to expect. After all, his TV persona is pretty formidable. He seems pretty prickly on TV.
But the man was pure class. Warm, personable, funny, genuine.
Did he really just swing by to say hi to some Shark Tank survivors?!?!
After some chit-chat, he told us he was hoping he could buy some belts while he was in town.
You see, when we had our appearance on the show 3 years earlier, Nate had gifted each shark one of our no-holes belts -- the Vader, to be exact.
Mr Wonderful absolutely loved that belt he had been given. In fact, he loved it so much, he told us it was the only belt he had worn since that day of the pitch on Shark Tank....3 years earlier....
Secret #1
And here's one of the secrets to his success: successful people stick with things that work, products and people.
Kevin found a quality product he loved and then he used it until it was just about worn out.
We should have snapped a picture of the belt because it had held up well, but you could tell he had literally worn it every day for 3 years.
We were beyond flattered he would take time out of his trip to get more of our product. We loaded him up with belts, of course, and told him his money was no good at HQ. So you know what he did?
Secret #2
And here's the second secret of his success...
He immediately used his influence to lift our brand by posting that pic above to his 287k Instagram followers. As in, 90 seconds after he left our office, that picture was posted on IG.
Not only did he spend about 20 minutes talking to us and letting us take pics, but he immediately repaid our kindness by leveraging his network for our benefit.
Secret #3
Now this last secret is sort of a guess but it came about because we were confused about one thing. Kevin is obviously very successful and very wealthy. He has at least one assistant who coordinates his schedule for him.
So why hadn't he simply told his assistant to order some new belts for him when he decided he wanted some new ones?
Why take time out of a busy trip to do something his assistant could have easily done with money he never would have missed?
Our guess: he knew he could execute a classic win-win with a small investment of time.
How? Well for one, he walked out with his arms full of killer belts. But for another he was able to use the experience not only to extend our brand influence, but also his own by posting about a past Shark Tank company still having tremendous success.
Win for him, win for us, all for a 30-min detour.
We learned some cool things from Mr Wonderful that day. We learned that a highly successful man likes our product, a lot. And that quality products are worth buying. And that when you send out positivity, it comes back to you in spades.
Here's to you, Mr Wonderful!