Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per talk. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark.
And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Yesterday morning, you guys were jogging with me. You were driving to work. You heard from a very impressive 25-year-old named Justin Mayers. He sold his company, Exceptional, to Rackspace for $12 million, and he just got a six-figure book deal. Good morning, Top Tribe. Nathan Latke here, tucked in the Appalachian Mountains. You're going to love our guest today.
Talk about a big personality. I've got Haro founder, Peter Shankman, with us today. He is the best-selling, he throws this out there, hashtag CustServe author. He's a keynote speaker, angel investor, marketer, NASA advisor. He also is an Ironman, a skydiver, and most importantly, a dad. Peter, are you ready to take us to the top?
let's go to the top let's do it brother okay first question i saw you on stage talk about a personal personality i mean holy heck i think it was at a focus conference or something i said there's no way this guy would ever sell his company there's no way he's ever going to work for anybody why sell harrow to focus even though they were your biggest advertiser well i still don't work for anyone let's clarify that
you know, as he pops the bubbly in the background, you get two things in life. You either are a great manager or you're a great founder. And I'm a great founder. I'm really good at discovering ideas, starting companies, things like that. Once they get big, once they blow up, once they require management and, uh, healthcare, put numbers around that, but how big, how many, how much in revenue?
Um, uh, when I sold her, we were doing a little under 2 million a year in revenue. Okay. And that was from my couch. And it got to the point where it's like, well, do I want to have to grow everything like this up? Do I want to have to grow up myself, essentially? I've never been a fan of growing up. I like being a kid.
And so for me, it came down to, I could hire the HR person, I could hire this, I could hire that, I could become a manager, or I could give the company to someone already with a built-in infrastructure that can help
create the manager and do all that already it doesn't necessarily have to be me got it i love that now let me ask you real quick you're you have your diet peps your diet coke in hand your llc that haro was controlled by i love this was called two cats and a cup of coffee llc you literally were sitting on your like like couch building this business with two overweight cats with two overweight
Two overweight cats. I love it. You had to sell. You had to sell advertising spots to pay for cat food. Exactly.
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Chapter 2: Why did Peter Shankman sell HARO to Vocus?
Yeah, I love that. I think that's great. So, okay, so I want to eventually get into what you're focused on now. Somebody like you, you already have success and you have ADHD. Those are like two things that should never go together because you can do whatever you want and distract the hell out of yourself. Zombie loyalists. Why write a book? Everyone says you just lose a lot of money.
It takes a lot of time.
Well, for me, I enjoy writing. I mean, it's one of the things I'm really good at. I really have a nice time with it. What was funny for me was the concept of... you know you get a year to do it or eight months to do it and within two weeks left the My publisher calls and says, hey, two weeks left. How's the book coming? Are you ready to go? I'm like, yeah, totally cool. I haven't done shit.
I booked a flight to Asia. I sat down in seat 2D. I wrote chapters 1 through 5 on the flight out. I landed in Asia. I didn't even clear immigration. I went to the lounge, had a soda, took a shower, got back on the same plane, same seat two hours later, wrote chapters 6 through 10, and came home.
And you were done.
I was done. So I wrote my book in 31 hours and it was a bestseller.
Probably the only, probably the only book written completely on a plane.
It was, uh, having to explain to immigration, uh, they detained me. Cause when I get back to America, because I didn't have a stamp, my passport from, from Tokyo. Um, I, you know, I went there and I never actually checked in. And so, uh, as far as they were concerned, I was smuggling something.
That's funny. Yeah. Quick stop and bring it on back. So walk me through the number one, you know, people, a lot of the listeners, the top tribe there, they are launching books. We've had bestselling authors on, we've had publishers on as well. Folks like David Hancock at Morgan James publishing and episode number 29.
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Chapter 3: How did Peter Shankman build HARO from his couch?
So it's still up there. Wonderful. So, guys, what I'll do is I'll link to that in the show notes at NathanLacka.com forward slash the top 78. So you can see it sounds like, Peter, you kind of use tiers like almost like somebody would use in Kickstarter. Do this, you get this, etc. Exactly what I did. Very cool. Very cool.
Is that where you pull the inspiration from or no, you just knew this would work?
No, I knew the goal was to be able to create something that people would want that would be beneficial to them.
And remind me, self-published or not?
Um, it was not Paul, Paul Grave McMillan.
Interesting. Okay. Published it. Would you do, you're, I'm sure you're gonna write another book. You know, you take plenty of plane flights and it sounds like you pump out about one book per flight. So, uh, next launch self-published or work with a publisher?
Um, next launch, probably self-published.
Self, interesting. Why?
Uh, because I have an audience. I have a really, really big audience that I can get them to do things. And, and, and, you know, self-publishing, you don't really need the publisher anymore. They didn't, other than print the book, they didn't do anything for me.
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Chapter 4: What strategies did Peter use to sell his book?
Your cats are going to love this, Peter. It is time for the famous five. Are you ready? Let's do it. Okay, number one. Besides your best sellers, which are great, we'll link to them in the show notes. Everyone should buy them. What is your favorite business book?
Favorite business book is, it's twofold. One is called, well, Raving Fans. by Ken Blanchard. And that's all about, um, that's all about essentially that that's what, uh, was the first thing that ever, the first business book I ever read, I read in America online and taught me about the customer. So I'm a big fan of that. And the second one is of course, the art of war by Sun Tzu.
And you'd think the two are a complete diametric opposite because one is about how to win at everything. The other is about how to be nice about everything. But I, my logic is if you are nice, you don't need to fight all the time.
Okay. I love that. Number two, which CEO, Peter, are you following or studying right now?
I have been a fan of Richard Branson since day one because I do believe that he really does want to make the world a little bit better. And it's fascinating to see it. From a negative side, I'm also learning everything I can about the CEO of Uber, the founders of Uber.
Travis, those guys, right?
Yeah, because their whole basis for starting the company was not nice. Their whole basis for starting Uber was the fact they wanted to get laid. And they've actually came out and admitted that. And the negative things the company does, it's fascinating to follow. It reads like a play-by-play of what not to do.
Well, something's working if you're only measuring by valuation, right?
Something's working because they have a ton of money. But, you know, if you look at how much money they actually could have in the respect that they go to, you know, they went, could you imagine if they were in Las Vegas, how busy they would be if they were in Las Vegas? But why aren't they in Vegas? Because they walked into Vegas and they say, hey, we're Uber, fuck you.
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Chapter 5: How did Peter achieve success in marketing?
You know, I love my phone because my phone does everything I want. Right now, I'm a big fan of Google Shopping Express. Google Shopping Express, a simple little app that whenever I think about something, oh, I need that for the office. Oh, I need that for home. I just go and I click on it. And when it gets like five or six things, it automatically orders it for me, and it's there.
It shows up in my apartment. It's the greatest thing in the world. Other than that, I'm a huge fan of XE.com. It's an online currency exchange in real time. And I use that because I travel all over the world. And then the usual apps, United, Starwood, Priority Pass, things like that.
Love that. Okay, you're building an empire, Peter. You already have. You're having a lot of success. Yes or no, are you doing this in a balanced way? Do you get eight hours of sleep every night? I actually do.
I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of sleep.
Single, married, kids?
I have a kid. I am married. I have a kid. I have a two-year-old daughter. She's pretty awesome. She actually sleeps through the night. She's been sleeping through the night for a couple of years. She does what? She sleeps through the night.
Oh, I thought you said she sleeps with a knife. And I said, what the hell is... Jesus, I knew Peter was crazy, but Lord. All right. Jesus.
possible she's scared of the cats right okay two-year-old very good and married so so you do you you usually get about eight hours i am actually a huge fan my wife doesn't sleep at all but i'm i'm a huge fan of i believe that you're better if you have your sleep yeah there you go now peter how old are you now i am 43 okay love it 43 years young take us back 23 years if you wish your 20 year old self knew one thing what would it be
Get your ass overseas before you get out of college, get overseas. There you go. And just, and just study live. I mean, Jesus, I have, I have friends now that are, that are in, uh, that are like, you know, in their thirties and they live in Chiang Mai, Thailand and their, their, their monthly expenses are one 50th of what I have. And they're making the same amount of pay.
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