Talking With The Nicest Shark on ABC?
Robert Herjavec, the son of an immigrant factory worker sold his first internet companies for over 350 million dollars, and now he’s one of the 5 sharks on ABC’s hit show Shark Tank. He stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about the new season of Shark Tank and what it means to be an entrepreneur in America today. Excerpts of the interview appear below.
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Ron Bennington: Shark Tank is such a phenomenal show. The only thing that’s going to save us is entrepreneurism.
Robert Herjavec: You’re preaching to the converted. I was just talking to the guy in the cab…and I said, you know my dad came to Canada, he was a factory worker who escaped from communism and America was the land of opportunity. So when has success become a bad word? That’s what I love about our show. It shows people that anybody can do it. I barely finished university. I went out and started a business and here I am.
Ron Bennington: Well I think what’s gotten to people is the safety factor…where how many nights before you made it were you unable to sleep wondering if the whole thing was going to crash ?
Robert Herjavec: Ron there’s two ways to look at it. You can start a business where you have full control; you might crash or burn every single day. Or you can get a job at some huge corporation where some guy at the top is making a ridiculous amount of money, doesn’t care about you, and you show up for work one day, you’re happy, you just bought a house, you’ve got a mortgage and they say– you’re laid off. What would you rather have? People don’t understand risk. Risk is about being in control. I would much rather have my own business and succeed or fail by my own hands. I always tell people, the only person in life that you have to blame for your success or failure is the person that you look at in the morning in the mirror.
Ron Bennington: And most of the time it’s not about a great idea. When you start a small business, it’s about almost gardening in a lot of ways– people being able to grow this thing slowly; but most of the people who come on and do your show, they want to be rich by the time they walk out the door.
Robert Herjavec: People want the easy way out. People think if you invent a better mousetrap, people will beat a path to your door. I don’t believe any of that. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a better idea. I think it’s all execution. I think you can take anything and make it better.
Ron Bennington: One of the things I’ve noticed about watching Shark Tank– there are some good ideas, but most of the time you guys invest in people. That you feel somewhat good about this person.
Robert Herjavec: Well, a great entrepreneur can take a crappy idea and make it work. A crappy entrepreneur can take a great idea and bankrupt it.
Ron Bennington: What is this fear of sales that most people have?
Robert Herjavec: Everybody’s afraid of sales. So when I interview kids, here’s one of the ways I ask them to figure out if they’re good for sales or not. I tell them, hey the sales job you came for is filled, but we have a marketing job. 90% of the people– and it’s a trick– 90% of the people say, thank goodness because I really don’t want to do sales. People are afraid of sales. Cause when you think of sales, what do you think of? You think of a crappy used car salesman. But sales is everything. For you to get this job– I don’t know maybe your dad owns the station–
Ron Bennington: …he does, my dad is Bob Sirius…
Robert Herjavec: (laughs) But for you to get this job, you had to talk somebody into hiring you. For you to marry your fifth wife you have to sell her on you. So everything is sales.
Ron Bennington: So where do you think sales has gotten such a bad rap?
Robert Herjavec: Sales got a bad rap because people want the easy path so you’ve got to many sleazy fly by night guys trying to sell you stuff you don’t need. Sales is not the art of selling things that people don’t need to people who don’t want it. Sales is about creating value. And if you can do that, you can make a lot of money in America.
Ron Bennington: And you don’t have to carny it. It’s almost service in a lot of ways. If you’re a really good sales person you’re also a good service person. You’re solving other people’s problems.
Robert Herjavec: Great sales people listen way more than they talk. You know, the impression people have is, great sales people are go! go! go!go! go! and hyper. But the best sales people I’ve met in my life were people that listened, provided solutions and made a lot of money along the way.
Ron Bennington: When you sit down– and the four of you guys– it’s a game that goes on between you. Cuban is the whale. And I don’t think that he cares about anything other than getting over at that moment. Do you think? I mean, he loves to push all in.
Robert Herjavec: Well said Ron. My issue with Cuban is, when I was young everybody picked on me. Immigrant– didn’t speak the language– so I’m overly sensitive to overly aggressive and pushy people. And Mark is overly aggressive. So it’s just not a good combination most of the time.
Ron Bennington: It’s actually good tv though.
Robert Herjavec: But you know I love Mark. My favorite Cubanism is– “Robert what time is selling time? All the time baby!”
Ron Bennington: I love that you both enjoy the place that you’ve got. You’re not the Kardashians with money and yet, you enjoy the success you have. There’s a lot of people who get successful and they don’t act like they’ve won.
Robert Herjavec: Ron I just did an interview with a reporter and he said to me, “does money make you happier”? And I said ABSOLUTELY! You know, the only people who say it doesn’t, are people who have money. When my dad worked in a factory and he came home, he never said “you know honey….after working two shifts in the factory and sweep the floors, I don’t know if I’m fulfilled. Where am I going with my life?” You know, he put food on the table. I was a happy guy before I had money. I drove a twenty year old car that barely worked, broke down every other day but I loved it because I love cars. Today I have a little more money and I’m the same happy-go-lucky guy. If you’re not going to make money to enjoy life and make your family have a better existence, why do it? We’re going to go one day and you can’t take it with you.
Ron Bennington: Part of the problem seems to be people born into it. And then even the third generation….
Robert Herjavec: Don’t get me started. That’s a whole ‘nother issue. But I think part of the problem today is money is becoming a bad word. Having a lot of money is being associated with some level of privilege. And we can blame Wall Street for that. How many people have made tens and tens of millions of dollars without creating any value. By shuffling papers around. You know I created a business– seven years ago I went back to work. I had three employees. Today we have one hundred and sixty employees. I feel good about that. There’s nothing anyone is going to say to me that is going to make me feel bad.
Ron Bennington: And there’s a certain responsibility when you have those people working for you; you have a responsibility to the business that you started. But with the pirating stuff- from the 80s on where you could go in and chop up companies and sell things off….
Robert Herjavec: It’s awful. There’s a guy on our show– Kevin O’Leary– the mean bald guy. He shuffles money around; for him, it’s all about the money. So if you ask him, how do you build a great business, he says “you go out and you make money.” And I said, “that’s a bunch of crap.” Nobody built a great business to make a little more money. People build great businesses because they have a passion to do something. That’s how you get ahead in life. And guys like that, that work on Wall Street….you know I could talk about this for hours. I have no problem with somebody making 150 million a year, or 20 million a year if they’re adding value, employing others and giving back to the overall economy.
Ron Bennington: Yeah I think that’s how capitalism got the kind of bad rap that it has right now– from Wall Street and also from corporations who worry about quarter to quarter rather than building a great business and a great product. And the weird thing is, when you see great products out there– they actually have fans. Apple is a perfect example right now where people are waiting for the next product, loving to promote it, going out and talking to their friends about it. But we’ve gotten into a thing with investors where they expect big money every single quarter and there’s no chance of putting it back into the product.
Robert Herjavec: Look at the guys at Apple. They didn’t start Apple because they were unhappy with their job and they wanted to make a little more cash. They had a vision. And I think that at its zenith, that is the greatness of America. I think in America, the people here, we see all the problems. Where I came from? Eastern Europe? This is still the bastion and the shining light of free enterprise. There is nobody walking down the street here with a machine gun, today. And we can go back to that but we’ve got to get away from this corporate greed and suing everybody and all of this other stuff.
Ron Bennington: Here’s the other thing about Shark Tank. They stuck you on Friday night. It was almost like a throw away show and the audience found you. If you have something that’s good people will find a way to find you.
Robert Herjavec: We knew we had something because they kept moving us around. The first season, we got renewed on the last day. And wherever people put us on ABC, the audience came with us. So it takes awhile. It’s a bit of a complicated show.
Ron Bennington: And yet I think the thing that keeps people coming is, there’s going to be a certain amount of people that will always believe in a certain idea– in the work– the entrepreneur idea.
Robert Herjavec: Ron, you and I– well you’re way older than I am but you and I are more or less the same age. When we were young, there was no such thing as an entrepreneur class. So on Sunday I spoke to a thousand students going into business at my son’s university. So I asked the kids, how many of you want to work for yourself one day? I don’t think anybody in that room, out of a thousand kids, didn’t put up their hand. Kids today– they have classes in entrepreneurship. Those kids are thinking that way. They’re thinking, I’ve got to be responsible for my own destiny. They’re not thinking, I’ve got to get a job and work for somebody else for twenty five years.
Ron Bennington: It’s Shark Tank, go over to ABC…
Robert Herjavec: Emmy nominated!
Ron Bennington: Do you really get along with all the other guys?
Robert Herjavec: I respect everybody. Do I like everybody? You know, we come at things in such a different way. We had a lady come on this year and as she was leaving she thanked us for being on the show. So Kevin says to her, “what are you thanking me for.” I was like, “what are you doing?” and we got into a huge argument about it. And I think you can say no to the idea but you don’t have to crap on the people. Whenever I want to be mean to somebody– and trust me there are days that I really want to be mean to people– I always think of my mom about to hit me if I’m being rude to another human being. So, it’s hard to get along. Cause some of the guys on the show– that’s them. We’ll go out to lunch and their food comes out a little bit cold and they’re like “WOAH! SEND THIS BACK!” I can’t send it back. I feel bad for the waiter.
Ron Bennington: It’s one of the problems with growing up in Canada– you’re way too nice.
Robert Herjavec: You’re right, sorry. (Laughs)
Ron Bennington: ABC it’s back on, Shark Tank. Thanks so much Robert and I’ll see you the next time through.
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Follow Robert on twitter @robertherjavec and watch Shark Tank on Fridays on ABC.
You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio. Not yet a subscriber? Click here for a free trial subscription.
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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.
