ABC’s The Shark Tank is great because of the questions they ask

One of my favorite TV shows is ABC’s The Shark Tank. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, budding entrepreneurs pitch their business to a group of 5 very experienced, Venture Capitalists who decide on the spot whether they will invest in the company. It’s a fascinating look at the ins and outs of creating an effective pitch. Some do it brilliantly, others not so much. But the best part of it is the questions being asked of the entrepreneur by the VC’s. They effectively remove the emotion from it, and help to immediately determine whether or not the business is viable and scalable. (We’re all a little too close to the forest to see the trees about our own ideas.)

While I like all the VC’s for different reasons (even if they can be in your face and obnoxious), my favorite VC on the show is Daymond John. He was the founder of FUBU, an apparel company he started from the ground up and grew to $350,000,000 in sales. He also happens to be a very engaging and fascinating professional speaker and we just booked him for a gig with one of our clients. I know they’ll enjoy hearing from him, but perhaps most of all, they’ll enjoy the questions he’ll ask them. Without high quality questions, it’s hard to get high quality answers. And it’s also exceptionally difficult to rely only on yourself to come up with those questions.

So who are you surrounding yourself with that will ask you the hard questions that will give you greater clarity? Daymond John would be pretty high on my list! Who is on yours?