Archive for the ‘Pitching’ Category
We hate Being Told We’re FAT!
One of the most talked about issues this summer has been the Stop the Spread Campaign from Safe Food, the State’s public health promotion and monitoring unit. Safe Food has boldly stated that two out of three of us are unhealthily overweight. In previous summers when they spent tax payers’ money politely and meekly telling us to make sure we cooked the food thoroughly on the barbeque, they were great folks.
But this year they have had the audacity to tell us to measure ourselves around the middle and for women, if you are over 32 inches, or men over 37 inches, this indicates you are probably harming your health through being chronically overweight.
Some journalists have questioned the one measurement fits all approach sanctioned by the WHO, the World Health Organisation. But is this further proof of our denial. Do we simply hate to be told we are FAT?
When the WHO recently pronounced that mobile phone use is injurious to our health not one journalist questioned it. But because we are in denial about our weight some of the journalists have even questioned the independence of the WHO.
So let’s be clear what the WHO says, and in turn, what safe Food is promoting. They are asking us all to measure around our middle. That is not what we commonly call our waistline. So, measure around your middle at your navel or bellybutton. If a woman measures more than 32inches or a man measures more than 37 inches, that means there is an indication that your belly is protruding because so much fat has already built up around your heart, lungs and intestine that on top of that it is now forcing your tummy to protrude.
Now we can continue to deny it all day and all night long but they are the facts according to the WHO. With that much excess fat around your internal organs you are more likely to suffer coronary disease, diabetes or cancer. One third of all cancers are weight related.
But because of our state of denial we start claiming, “I have heavy bones” or “I retain a lot of water”. When the WHO stated brain tumours can result from excessive use of a mobile phone no one was daft enough to say “but I have heavy bones, my skull has an above average thickness so the electro-magnetic field won’t get through my thick head as much”. However these are the very arguments many of us use to resist accepting the fact that we are overweight.
Unbeknownst to ourselves our nation and our children are getting fatter and fatter. Safe Food has stuck to its guns and told us to measure ourselves as instructed. It is merely an indicator and if you are over the 32 or 37 inches but you believe you are not overweight, the best thing to do is to go to your Doctor and get that verified. If your doctor, who will also take into consideration your age, fitness, height etc, tells you you’re not overweight isn’t that fantastic! Keep up the good work but don’t attack a public health agency when it is merely trying to draw our attention to a serious and costly health issue for our population.
Dragons’ Den returns tonight, 9:30pm on RTE 1.
20th February 2011
Dragons’ Den returns tonight, 9:30pm on RTE 1. Be warned – in the first few minutes there is a blood bath between three of us. I cross swords with Niall O’Farrell and our new feisty female Dragon, Norah Casey. Norah settled into being a Dragon instantly. First and foremost she is lady but she can be a bitch disguised with a disarming smile. But I love her and, better still, she has brought her cheque book.
First into the Den tonight is John Joyce, an impressive IT specialist who has created an on-line computer game called savvybear.com. Could this be the next big thing? Certainly John did the most fantastic pitch, so the three of us joined battle to invest in his fledgling business. But will John Joyce accept our offer? You will have to wait and see.
There is a new trend in this series which is that promoters not always accepting the offers made to them. That’s because a better calibre of entrepreneur is coming into the Den. Some have invested their redundancy money in their dream while others have left a good job to pursue it. Either way they are not as likely to give away as much equity as in previous years.
I wouldn’t want to be sensitive – I was turned down three or four times! And while I might think at the time they are making a mistake not wanting me on board, sometimes it is a sign of the single mindedness and vision that gets results. This year Dragons’ Den is followed directly by a second series called Dragons’ Den on Tour. Viewers will see, as we revisit people from series 1 & 2, that many of those who failed to get backing from the Dragons have done very nicely, thank you, notwithstanding the recession.
The Dragons have invested more in this series than they have done previously. All business people are under pressure these days and certainly the Dragons are no exception. I can only talk about myself and say that parting with cash is not something done on a whim in these times. But if my fellow Dragons have spent a record amount of money in the Den this year it is because of the high standard of ideas coming on the show.
Interestingly, in the first show tonight you will see that all five dragons make offers for different ideas that will appear. There are a number of offers and deals made in each show this year which has never happened before and it is again reflective of the standard of ideas being presented.
Sean Gallagher has gone a bit soft though. He is madly in love, having recently married. He keeps asking asking boring questions like, “Would that suit my new home?” On the other hand Bobby Kerr is even more abrasive than in previous years when he doesn’t like someone. Niall is as funny as ever. “I love the logo, I love you, and I love the idea, but I am out.” However Niall makes quite a few investments this series with his heart and not his head. And Norah is a formidable, no nonsense business woman, with a great bit of craic about her behind the scenes.
Personally, I always get nervous when the programme returns to air. With its new Sunday night slot after the news, it is going to be bigger than ever, and RTE has been lobbied by educationalists to repeat it, so it also airs each Thursday at 8pm so students can see it and discuss it in business classes on Fridays. No pressure!
A consequence of doing Dragons’ Den is that we five are invariably described as being successful business persons. The truth is I have had many past failures but I have been lucky enough to survive and learn from them. All we are doing, all five of us, in this awful recession, is trying to send out a message that Ireland is still open for business. For without business and the jobs they generate we won’t overcome our nation’s challenges.
If you were watching Friday’s Late Late Show you will have heard about the success of TanOrganic and Dee’s Burgers as a result of Dragons’ Den. I hope their stories are an uplifting antidote for viewers to all the negativity out there.
To RTE and the sponsor, Bank of Ireland, well done on acknowledging small businesses and the part they have to play in our recovery.
The Entrepreneur Show
What a weekend, last Friday and Saturday and the Entrepreneur show. As a first time event it was a real success and congratulations to entrepreneur, Darren O’Toole who created and executed the show.
The exhibitors I spoke to were all quite pleased with the show but I thought there were far too many talks going on. It has to decide for the future is it a conference or an exhibition?
Too Many Talks
For those of you who didn’t get to the show it was in the main Hall 8 of Simmonscourt, so it was a very large exhibition space, larger than the Ideal Homes the previous weekend. On top of that you had four very large arenas for speakers like myself and my fellow Dragons and some Dragons from the BBC.
Why four arenas? It meant the crowd was being divided by five all the time, i.e. the four arenas and the exhibition hall. It would have been so much better to have just one arena or theatre with half hour talks. But as in business you have got to start somewhere and this was a brilliant start. I look forward to Darren and his team doing it next year.
New Ideas
At the show, everywhere I went, people came up to me with business ideas. I was only too delighted to stop and chat. We have enjoyed a great season of Dragons’ Den on TV and the Irish public have been so supportive so I, and my fellow Dragons, were keen to give a little back. I actually did see a few ideas with real potential. A anti burglar device for sliding patio doors, a gift wrap alternative and a new twist on a scissors.
But coming up with a prototype for a good idea is so long away from an actual successful product. Through the Dragons’ Den people have seen that I am a marketing person who can take a product from an idea to mass market and fast. Becuase it is on TV I actually pay to do that. I invest in the company.
But I assure you the real investment is my time. To bring the Toilet Pipe Cover, the HidBin or TanOrganic to mass market success requires a huge time commitment.
I am very fortunate that the very large Corporations will pay large fees to retain me to advise them on their strategy and launch of new products or brand extensions. But this leaves me with hardly anytime to look at ideas other than those I have invested in on Dragons’ Den.
The Cost of Going to Market
What I am saying is if somebody came up to me with a brilliant idea I can tell you to get it to a ploace where people are aware of it and are looking to buy it in a shop takes at least €250,000 on marketing. And with marketing you need the very best advisors so as little of that spend is wasted.
Look what I am saying is, a good idea is only the very start. Imagine where TanOrganic would be now if Noelle O’Connor had not been brave enough to go on Dragons’ Den. I still believe Noelle is such a trooper that she would have got the product to market but it wouldn’t be the household name it is going to be by the end of 2010.
All the creativity that goes into inventing something is fantastic but you need to spend more time thinking about how are we going to get people to buy this product?
It all begins and ends with Marketing and Sales.
Finally – Best Speakers
Doug Richards who resigned from the BBC version of Dragons’ Den after two seasons to go off and manage one of the world’s big venture capital funds was at the show and was a great contributer. He is an expert in Technology but was alos great fun.
The speaker that impressed me most was Ian McDonald of weedle. Ian was one of the team behind Perlico and he has taken the money he made from its sale to Vodafone to now have a go at a skills version of Linkedin.
I didn’t get to hear it myself as I was speaking in the various arenas all day but Rachel Elnaugh’s talk was considered by many to very inspiring.
Keep it touch with my blog, next Blog Friday.
Marketing and how much money do you need to push sales?
What do you want to do with the money I’d Invest?
Every week on Dragons’ Den people ask for an amount of money and they are always asked by the Dragons what are they going to do with it? Inevitably it falls into two big chunks, stock and marketing. So they will say, for example, they want €100,000 and they will say €50,000 of this is for marketing. For launching a national product €50,000 won’t get you very far, but the big bonus of the Den is that you get a national TV launch and priceless publicity for you and your product.
On last Thursday’s show we had Peter in the Den with his paint brush holder. I found it very revealing that he found out after the launch of the product that he didn’t have enough money from sales to market it.
Here’s the secret formula
You need to have a product which you can make for about one-tenth of what you will sell it for wholesale.
So with every idea you look for two things – is this product going to achieve a premium consumer price, and can it be manufactured for very little? A good example of this is a board game. They sell for somewhere between €29 and €34, but in mass production they can be made for less than one euro!
Animatazz
In the first series I invested in Animatazz, the global rights to which we have now sold to Drumond Park. This UK company will manufacture it for about a €1 and will pay us - Michael Connolly, the inventor and I, the investor - a royalty of just under a euro. It will be sold to Argos at perhaps €10. On every kit they will add a further €3 for advertising and marketing.
So each kit will cost Drummond Park about €5. They will sell it to Argos for €10 and Argos will sell it in their catalogue for €16. The figures are very rough, and of course we should be talking sterling, but I am just trying to give you an idea of the numbers. If Argos places an order of 40,000 units, then Drumond Park will spend €120,000 on marketing. That’s how it works.
I want to know what is the cheapest price to manufacture
When people come into the Den, I often ignore what they say about marketing because they usually haven’t a clue. I tend to ask what is the very lowest price their product can be manufactured at? Then I ask what is the top price a consumer might pay for it? (You will read later on that Eamonn Treacy and Bin Trasher will only be sold off their web site, because if the product went into Dunnes Stores or Woodies it could be too expensibe by the time the retailer got its margin)
Watch out for cosmetics.
They are a marketing persons dream. The stuff that goes in the bottle is very cheap. It might cost as little as €1, but could sell in a shop for €30 or €40. So on a product like that you have plenty of room to earn the money to spend on marketing. Watch out. If a product like that comes into the Den in this series I will be very interested.
Finally Eamonn Treacy’s experience of how he succeeded in the Den
Are you one of the thousands of people who climb into your wheelie bin to compress the bags of rubbish inside? Or maybe you use one of the children to jump up and down in the bin so you can get those last two or three refuse sacks into it. When a friend of mine fell out of his bin and broke an ankle, I started thinking about my Bin Trasher. At my light engineering business in Bunclody, County Wexford, I came up with a prototype and have since successfully patented the idea. Then last October I did a mad thing. I applied to go on Dragons’ Den.
On that day, in the Den, after we all shook hands on my deal, I sensed there was great banter amongst all the crew about the fact that Sarah had made her first investment on the programme. What I sensed was, despite her tough as nails TV persona, she was good fun and joined in the slagging about her eventually making an investment.
It was all jolly after the deal had been struck but that wasn’t how I felt when I went up those stairs. It is very hard to explain it unless you have been there. I had featured on an enterprise slot last year on the Late Late Show. Pat Kenny was an absolute gent. But when I got to the top of the stairs and entered the Den, it felt like I was facing a firing squad.
When you face those Dragons you are so nervous you could forget your own name. Before I went in I had written off Sarah, accepting she will probably bow out early on. When she seemed to be genuinely interested in my product I began to feel really confident and I started to believe I was going to do well.
But if the Den is treacherous, it is worth it. I sense there is a much bigger reaction to the Bin Trasher this time than there was when we were on the Late Late. Admittedly I was heavily featured on Dragons’ Den whereas I only got a couple of minutes on the Late Late. During the programme last Thursday night we sold 160 Bin Trashers before my web site, BinTrasher.ie froze because there was so much traffic. So Friday was spent sorting out that glitch. Also that day I got a security check call from PayPal wanting to know why was this account suddenly so busy?
All this confirms our strategy is the correct one. Since the show was recorded, I have got great assistance from both Sarah and Bobby and they are of the view, and I agree with them, that we will keep this as a web product rather than going into the shops. If we went into shops they would want a margin and it would almost double the cost. By keeping it as a web based product I can keep it at just €49.95. Isn’t the web a fantastic development? Here I am making my Bin Trashers in Bunclody and over the web I get paid for them before they leave the yard. There’s a lot of talk about the Recession and how difficult it is to get paid. With the right idea and with the help of Dragons’ Den I am enjoying a very different experience.
The above article was written by Eamonn Treacy and was published by the Sunday Independent , 7 March 2010.