Your Cool Technology Is Worthless If You Don’t Know How To Sell. –The Baron Reichart Von Wolfsheild Interview
on Mar 6, 2009 - 2:53 AM PSTThe full program
This is an audio program. Listen and/or download here.
A few lessons from this program
(You can also see this video on YouTube.)
Ever notice how dot-com CEOs keep getting excited about cool features, but hardly ever mention sales?
You can learn a lot about the power of persistence and salesmanship from Baron Reichart Von Wolfsheild, co-founder of Qtask, a collaboration and project management tool. Reichart is a life-long entrepreneur who, in our interview, shared some of his adventures in business, including how he got his aquarium screen saver into the electronic store, Fry’s.
Here’s an edited excerpt from our conversation.
I looked at Fry’s and saw that wall of monitors, that was empty, and we sat and talked about this. We said, we should have our product on every monitor out there. This sells monitors. Monitors are a good thing to sell. And we allow you to compare monitors because you could actually have beautiful art that you want to look at side-by-side. It was that simple.
And I physically would go to the different Fry’s, talk to the manager on the floor in the computer department, and say to him, “Why isn’t this on?”
I’d stick it in the drive, pop it up on the computer screen, their jaw would drop and they’d go, “Oh, well we’re not allowed to just put this on here.”
I said, “Okay, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to give you a free copy of it, just for yourself.”
And they would say, “thank you.” It’s not payola, because we’d do it through the company. And separately, we would send them a few copies to put on the monitors. And we found out that it was all a bureaucratic nightmare.
So we wrote a letter to Fry’s saying, “You have permission to throw us on your monitors.” We just sent it out of the blue to them. “And here are some free copies. Give these copies to your floor managers.”
They did that. All 22 Fry’s locations had it. And they started selling extraordinary numbers of our screen savers. I can’t tell you exact numbers because of privacy issues, but pallet a day were going out the door.
It was great.
It was the first time people actually could have art on their computer screens. We are the bestselling screen saver in history.
What’s your opinion? Do agree with me that “cool technology” isn’t enough? Or do you think I’m exaggerating the power of salesmanship by pulling this short excerpt from an hour-long program?
[Thank you Elmer Thomas for suggesting I interview Reichart.]
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March 6th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Two words: Asperger's Syndrome.
Baron RK Von Wolfsheild is a case of a ridiculously high-functioning and gifted Aspie.
Great interview. BRKVW is awesome.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
[...] Reichart intereviewed on Mixergy [...]
March 9th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Yes, I completely agree.
i have a cool technology and many people agree that its great.
I am having a very tuf time selling it, we are unfunded and have very little resources.
any advice?
thanks
March 9th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Let's talk on the pone and see if I can help.
Are you free on Wednesday @ 9:30 AM Pacific? What number should I call?
March 9th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Fantastic interview! I must admit, I was excited to hear him talk about my most favorite game for the Amiga. I remember playing Firepower a lot as a kid. (And squishing the guys)
The stories were fascinating and inspiring. He definitely has a unique past and lots of valuable information to share.
March 9th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I had an Amiga too. I had to keep myself from interrupting and yelling, “I loved that computer.”
Meanwhile, as I was playing on the Amiga, others were making money off it. Can't repeat that mistake.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
lol, I wonder what artist tried to pay for their music video production with a cocaine. I think what Baron does exceptionally well is hes not afraid of taking risks and he lets customers finance his businesses. hes the master of parlaying products to revenue…what was different about this interview was Baron mentioned part of building a profitable business outside of increasing revenue is being capital efficient which includes taking advantages of taxes and contracts.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
lol, I wonder which artist tried to pay for their music video production in cocaine….anyways I think Baron makes a couple unique key points in this interview about increasing profitability, he tells us to look into taxes and contracts which are boring topics yet are so important to retaining revenue. When your bootstrapping and relying on sales to fund your venture, its so easy to forget elements outside of operations that can make or break you. In Barons case he took understood contracts very well which gave him tremendous leverage. Good interview!
March 10th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
- Love your shouting.
- work hard to be Lucky! Be prepared for luck. Great phrase.
- Thank you for drilling down to get that much information for us
March 10th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Really is a smart guy. I wish I had 5 hours with him to go over his whole business experience. Maybe even more time.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Thanks!
To be honest, I feel like I'm still trying to find my voice in video.
I get excited about these subject, but I don't want to become overbearing.
It'll take me some time, but I'll get my voice.
In the meantime, I have to make sure the ideas are solid. That's more
important.
By the way, releasedatez.com <http://www.releasedatez.com/>, your site,
looks great.
March 11th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Monti, I didn't hear back from you on this. I assume the time wasn't
convenient for you. Or maybe you prefer email.
No problem.
Andrew Warner
Founder, Mixergy.com
March 12th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Wow, that's a fascinating interview. I get the sense it could have gone on for a month and STILL be interesting. :)
What stands out for me is Reichart's world view on 'Luck”.
I hear the debate about people being “born” lucky or “unlucky” a lot and of course the standard reply, as you mention Andrew is “you make your own luck”.
I think what it really is, and Reichart appears to live this, is that luck is a state of mind.
Yes a lot of business deals are down to “luck” but you still get to choose every morning when you wake up to be a person who considers themselves to be “lucky” (and act accordingly).
I couldn't even count the number of times that Reichart seems to have been successful in business, which, on the surface, he appears to be saying is partly down to “luck” but what I did start to count is the number of times he got into different fields and opportunities because;
“one of my friends was in the business” or
“I happened to know a guy” or
“a lot of my friends were doing this” etc. etc.
Clearly “luck” to Reichart is at least partly down to being very well connected, which is down to as he said his “type A personality” he likely talks to everyone he meets and is unafraid to meet everyone he wants to talk to.
So his definition of “luck” really isn't the same as most peoples. He's playing the lottery with a LOT of tickets (his contacts and the trust they have in him).
There's a guy called Richard Wiseman who published a fantastic book called “The Luck Factor” which covers the “luck” question from a scientific, (experimental) point of view. I highly recommend it, in short the scientific conclusion is – yes, some people are consistently luckier than others and their only real secret weapon is, they believe themselves to be lucky people, which effects their behavior, which effects the results they receive.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I love this example. Go the the stores and ask “Why don't you have this, it is good for you.”
March 12th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I hated hearing him say “luck” so many times, because I like to believe that
we make our own luck. But the reason I want to feature real entrepreneurs
like Reichart on Mixergy is that they bring up the issues that sometimes we
don't want to hear. Glad he said it.
Good observation Paul.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Yeah! Great example.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
It's a bummer when the damn talent won't agree why WE think they are successful :)
I interviewed a talented creative person who I know plans what he does carefully and has an entire army of other people planning his career with military precision, yet when I asked him in the interview what he thought of planning, he came out with the typical artistic – I like to freestyle – answer. Several of his fans have since used his quote AT me as their excuse for purposely not planning and having no direction in their own careers!
I've also heard Tim Ferriss comment that the most talented people he's interviewed are not always the best people to explain HOW they do what they do. Not to take anything away from “the talent” but I think that's where the scientists and psychologists and modellers can be very useful.
On another note Andrew – you've hinted at being unhappy with parts of the personal development movement. I'd be interested in hearing more on that subject.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I think most the teachers in the self-help movement don't do anything but
parrot what other teachers in the self-help movement say.
When their customers don't get the results that they were promised, these
teachers blame the students for not applying it hard enough or not doing
EVERYTHING they were supposed to.
Am I being too hard on them? Missing something?
Andrew Warner
Founder, Mixergy.com
March 30th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Andrew,
I spent Saturday with Reichart. It was awesome. He is something else.
Steve
March 30th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
That's great Steve!
You have a great site by the way.
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