by Cheryl Lambert
Last week Rutgers Business School called me to help dozens of their graduates get on Shark Tank.
The show is a strangely compelling mix of an investor pitch and American Idol. It attempts to simulate what a meeting in front of potential investors feels like, only jazzed up with some suspenseful music, a panel of colorful venture capitalists, (aka Sharks), and a studio audience. Before you can get on TV, you first have to get through the Shark Tank Scouts and prove that you’re camera ready. Running that gauntlet is even more nerve-wracking: you have a mere 60 seconds to impress the scouts. That’s it — just one minute.
My work was cut out for me.
I had 30+ contestants to coach and their ideas were all over the map. There was Ted with his all-season shovel apparatus, Leslie and her artisanal jams, Jason armed with an antidote for stomach aches, Rose cradling pots of rejuvenating face cream, and dozens more. I’m going to focus on Marc, a pharmacist, and a product that will replace cocktail mixers: Color Fizzies.
Marc introduced himself and thanked the audience for their attention — an utter waste of 8 precious seconds in every presentation. It’s rare an audience doesn’t know who you are. He then explained that he was tired of the huge number of tools one needed to be a party mixologist so he invented a tablet in an eye-catching packet that could be added to water and replace the shaker, strainer, mixer, stirrer, and half dozen bar essentials. By this time, 30 seconds had passed. He needed to get to Color Fizzies in a dramatic manner, capture our imagination, and do it all sooner!
Luckily, Marc had brought with him two dozen bar tools and had lined them up on the table. This gave me an idea. What if Marc, before saying a word, raised his hand and wiped the stainless steel paraphernalia to the floor? He could then hold up Color Fizzies and tell us about his new invention that lets hosts entertain without hassles. This dramatic intro took less than 5 seconds. It did the trick.
Marc practiced several times, making sure he kept looking at the audience and projecting his voice over the person seated in the back row. We also worked on a brief anecdote about Color Fizzies making their debut at New York’s Spring Fashion Week — I wanted him to tell us that Fizzies had already been sampled by early adopters. Marc wrapped this 60-second lap with the dollar investment he was seeking. Everyone applauded.
Marc opened the door for others to try things they had never dreamed of doing. At the end of our four-hour session, all of the pitches improved. Each person had a genuine and authentic script, energizing stories, and concise language. With tens of thousands of Shark Tank aspirants competing for the season’s 100 spots, it’s a long shot. Nonetheless, these entrepreneurs learned about presenting in a memorable minute.