In short
Dr. Forbes Riley explains her “billion-dollar pitching formula” and argues that massive revenue comes from mindset, one-to-many TV-style pitching, and enrolling customers emotionally rather than listing features.
Guest backgrounds
Dr. Forbes Riley is an actress-turned-direct-response pitch expert. She worked as a social secretary for a billionaire, pioneered product pitching for Body by Jake (a 24-hour cable network; Jake sold the company for $500M in 1993), and later became a top infomercial/home-shopping spokesperson. She claims her pitches contributed to major sales totals, including crossing $1B in sales.
Key claims
“Broke mentality” limits outcomes; money wasn’t her driver—she focused on acting and solutions. Don’t “talk about your product”; demonstrate it and tailor assumptions about the viewer. Avoid one-to-one thinking; sell to anyone, not a narrow avatar.
Notable examples
selling pens “sell me this pen” moment; Louis Vuitton trunk embarrassment; selling Barefoot Science insoles via sand-walking proprioception; Cool Towel hot-water/heat-gun demonstration; Jack LaLanne Power Juicer pitch rework (8 years, 80 countries, $1.4B juicers).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOForbes Riley's Journey to Riches
0:28 to 3:10
Forbes discusses her upbringing, early career, and mindset towards wealth.
“What gets the mindset of someone to be capable of thinking hundreds of millions?”
Early Experiences and Learning
3:10 to 5:10
Forbes shares pivotal experiences that shaped her understanding of success.
“This is going to be embarrassing, but I grew up in Long Island.”
The Evolution of a Pitcher
5:10 to 9:00
Forbes describes her transition into pitching and its significant impact on her career.
“It's funny that so many similar stories of successful people, you know, 16 year old kid, I worked at the local Kmart and my job was announcing the flashing light specials.”
The Importance of Mentorship and Education
9:00 to 11:08
Forbes emphasizes the role of mentorship and learning from experience in business.
“And my first reaction was, where'd you get that money?”
Teaching Others to Pitch
11:08 to 14:01
Forbes discusses her approach to teaching pitching and the shift in mindset required.
“I understand all of this, but I never owned it all with no gatekeeper.”
The Importance of Mentorship in Pitching
14:01 to 14:51
Learn how mentorship shaped Dr. Forbes Riley's career in pitching.
“And he was a phenomenal pitcher directly to camera.”
The Formula for Successful Pitching
14:52 to 15:34
Understand the key principles of an effective pitch without product focus.
“So for example, I've got a solution here.”
Creating Compelling Demonstrations
15:35 to 16:38
Discover how demonstrations can elevate your product pitch.
“And so this is where I had an absolute edge because I am relentless.”
Understanding Your Audience
16:39 to 18:14
Learn why knowing your audience is crucial for effective pitching.
“Because being that visionary is very powerful in business.”
The Art of Enrolling Customers
18:15 to 22:47
Explore the mindset shift from selling to enrolling customers in your vision.
“I wouldn't have been so successful on TV.”
Show all 19 chapters
The Limitations of Avatars in Marketing
22:48 to 23:39
Find out why narrowing your target audience can limit your sales potential.
“all the time and you're missing out on your grandkids.”
The Journey to Billion-Dollar Sales
23:40 to 26:22
Hear Dr. Riley's path to reaching over a billion dollars in sales.
“Oh, well, but that's an interesting thing.”
Balancing Life and Business Success
26:23 to 27:35
Understand the importance of maintaining life balance amidst business achievements.
“Yeah, I know when the first year we crossed$100 million in revenue, and then the team came to me early this year and said, you know, boss, we've done$2.5 billion in sales since we started.”
Breaking Free From Limitations
27:36 to 28:00
Learn how to defy conventional wisdom to find your unique path to success.
“And I don't quite know why I figured this out, but I did.”
Personal Journey and Challenges
28:00 to 29:18
Forbes shares her struggles with weight and the entertainment industry.
“So I've always had this weight thing, which allowed me to crush the fitness.”
The Reality of Hollywood
29:18 to 31:06
Forbes recounts a shocking meeting with a Hollywood agent and her journey in the industry.
“And I'm like, luckily he was a shorter man.”
Lessons from Selling
31:06 to 32:54
Forbes reflects on her experiences in sales and the importance of mindset.
“You know, I remember the first time somebody said, Forbes, is that you?”
Goal Setting and Mindset
32:54 to 37:44
The discussion shifts to the importance of setting ambitious goals and overcoming past limitations.
“Isn't a camel a horse made by committee?”
Rethinking Success and Happiness
37:44 to 39:14
Forbes emphasizes the importance of happiness over money and shares her experiences.
“The second part of this is people come to me all the time.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Dr. Forbes Riley:The most embarrassing moment was Mrs. Grace had me in the car one day and said, you need to get Louis Vuitton out of the trunk. And I turned to her and I said, who's in the trunk? When I hear people talk about I'm broke, I'm like, you've got a broke mentality. And I literally set out to study what does it mean to be rich, to act rich, to appear rich. At the end of the day, here's the crazy thing. It was never to make money. And because money was not important, I made a lot of it.
0:22Brad Sugars:All right. $100 million podcast, Forbes Riley. Way more than$100 million. First question, though. What gets the mindset of someone to be capable of thinking hundreds of millions? Evolution.
0:34Dr. Forbes Riley:Because I didn't start out this way. I started out broke. And I have kind of a weird mindset. In fact, it was a little bit of a shock to me how much money I could be making. And I didn't set out to make money. I set out to be an actress. And you do that because you love it. So I would do theater anywhere. If you put me on a stage, I would just do that. Then you make movies. And you're like, I'll make a little bit more money. and then my entire life changed one day. I walk into a studio and there's a pen on the table and says, sell me this pen. Now, I don't like to sell. My dad was in the hospital for three years when I was a kid and we were flat broke.
1:06Dr. Forbes Riley:But I did have a moment, and this is where I just love how life leaves clues if you're smart enough to look at them and pay attention. And so even though it's my entire high school, my father was three years in the hospital, he was an inventor and a printer and he ripped off the whole front of his hand in a printing press. But his hospital room overlooked the only mansion in my hometown. Now, I grew up as a very awkward kid. I couldn't speak. I had braces for eight years, but they wired something in my mouth for two years. So, now I talk like that. So, for two years of my life, no one wanted to be my friend.
1:34Dr. Forbes Riley:So, I have very few friends and I'm pretty awkward. So, communication was always very important to me. So, I watched a lot of TV and movies because I couldn't go out a lot. I literally had no friends. So, I'm dreaming about all the rom-coms and the Oscars and all the places I wanted to be James Bond. My entire world was in my own head. And so now I'm sitting there and I'm looking at this beautiful, and you couldn't see it from the street because it had cypress trees around it, but it was a giant red brick mansion with two chimneys and a circular driveway. And I kept thinking, we had a 1 ,300 square foot house.
2:05Dr. Forbes Riley:And I'm like, what is Christmas like there? What is Halloween? Did they give out full candy bars? And who are the, what do you have to do to do that? And so I set out to discover what it meant to be a millionaire billionaire. Right out of college, I got a job as a social secretary for a billionaire. and I'm living in their 11 room house in the townhouse in New York City. Who has an 11 room house like that on the Upper East Side? Well, I got quite an education because I'm a scrappy little girl from, you know, Ukrainian immigrant parents. And I'm like, you guys want me to be your social secretary?
2:37Dr. Forbes Riley:I didn't even know how to wear clothes. I didn't know how to do a lot of things, but I was very innovative and I think they like having me around. And the most embarrassing moment was Mrs. Grace had me in the car one day and she said, you need to get Louis Vuitton out of the trunk. and I turned to her and I said, who's in the trunk? And she looked at me and she said, you'll learn. And I said, you're right. And I literally set out to study what does it mean to be rich, to act rich, to appear rich. And then, but I didn't set out to just make money. If I had, I would have gone to Wall Street. I would have done some job that had to do with money.
3:08Dr. Forbes Riley:Want to hear something really naive? This is going to be embarrassing, but I grew up in Long Island. Long Island is a very blue collar, small town. I didn't know what the word CEO meant until I was 30 something years old. I'd never met one. I kind of distantly heard about it. There's no social media. And I never knew anyone who owned a company. So it was very interesting when I discovered what marketing was. And I looked at, so brands were the first thing that kind of clicked for me going, Coca-Cola is a brand. I watched a girlfriend of mine who was in a marketing class. I studied poli sci. I was going to be a lawyer.
3:37Dr. Forbes Riley:I went along the path that they told me. By the way, they are wrong. You know, they told my, they called me into school one day when my daughter was like 12 years old. And they said, your daughter's being disruptive. I said, why? He said, well, because we're making resumes and she needs to get a job after school. And she keeps telling people she'll never need a job. And this is the kind of mom that I am. I walked into school and I sat down and my daughter's like, oh, please, mom, don't. I'm like, excuse me, Ms. Guidance Counselor, how much money do you make a year? And I said, you don't even need to tell me.
4:07Dr. Forbes Riley:It's public knowledge because I pay your bills. $62 ,000. I said, here's my daughter's bank statement. She's been online for the last four years. she made 62 ,000 last month yeah and so all of a sudden that kind of clicked in for me so I do this pen thing and I didn't do it like any of the other actresses I looked at the camera and I said you know I was 15 and a half when I went off to college I was smart enough to skip a grade but not smart enough to be insecure and really lonely and my mother god bless her would write me long hand notes every day I'd race to the mailbox because that made me feel comfortable and I realized a pen like this can reach out and touch somebody's life.
4:42Dr. Forbes Riley:That moment changed my life. I then started working for Body by Jake, who had a 24-hour cable network, and he asked me to pitch products. He gave me no training. I'd never seen anyone do this before because no one had done it before, and I literally pioneered the concept. That's why this book is written, because nobody really knows it's what I did. You can go on YouTube now and watch. I did 1 ,500 products. Jake sold that company for$500 million in 1993. And that's what woke me up.
5:11Brad Sugars:Yeah. It's funny that so many similar stories of successful people, you know, 16 year old kid, I worked at the local Kmart and my job was announcing the flashing light specials. Cause one day I was left to my own devices. I was in men's room and the lady told me you have to sell all these shirts and no one would do an announcement for me. So I went and did the announcement and all these people come rushing down there, including the general manager of the store, who's running down there about to yell at whoever did this wrong announcement. And he runs down and sees people running to buy these things.
5:46Brad Sugars:And he goes, who did that announcement? And he looks around and he goes, go do it again. And so he bought me a microphone to just walk around the store and announce specials from there on out. So you and me grew up pitching and that's where it all started. So So how did or who did, who flipped you into, was it the body by Jake where you got the idea that millions and hundreds of millions was the capability or was it before that? Where was that point for you where, because most people never get it that you can do hundreds of millions.
6:15Dr. Forbes Riley:You know, I could keep going down the road. Here's my personal problem. I still want to be an actress. So, and I don't really care how much you pay me. I don't know why money was never a driver for me. I always assumed I could make it. now that's there's another little funny caveat to this i don't know if i should be telling you this this is gonna this is gonna bite me i'm sorry but in my 20s i i didn't want to i knew i wanted to be an actress i knew i didn't want to be a waitress how do you make money so you're gonna laugh friend of mine is the writer's strike in the early 80s and he comes to me he and his buddy he's a comedian his buddy is an agent for strippers i know his story's gonna get good right and i don't tell this one a lot but i would love this to be a tv series so i'm gonna start to talk about it he calls me up and he says, Hey, I know you've been a Broadway dancer and you, you know, I had kind of view of my body.
7:01Dr. Forbes Riley:I was very prudish, but my body, cause you have to literally had to take off all my clothes in front of somebody pulling a curtain one day. Well, when I said, turn around, he said, not on your life, little lady. That's where I got into this business. So as a dancer, you don't really think about your body sexually. So he said, look, here's what, here's the idea. We're going to have a girl go into a, like, like meeting you at a, even on a podcast. And at some point you're going to act and set up a scene. And then you're going to press a little button on a tape recorder, boombox, and you're going to go, happy birthday, baby.
7:29Dr. Forbes Riley:Happy birthday. And then, that's very cute. You got a singing telegram, Brad. And then the music would go, da-da-da-da-da. And I had 15 layers of clothes underneath my outfit. I know you've never heard this story. And at the end of it, I ended up, I had the garter belt. I'm out with the stockings. I'm like, oh, you know. And you, your wife is, now that they got the gear, the stockings are coming off, the garter belt's coming. Your wife is laughing her ass off. Your business partner is going, gotcha. And I punked people. And I was wearing more, less, you know, I wore the same that I wore at the beach.
8:02Dr. Forbes Riley:So for me, it was not about nudity. No sex, no nudity, no touching. My parents, my conservative parents knew what I was doing. All of a sudden, people started paying me. It was 100 bucks plus a tip. Plus, at some point, I had$10 ,000 in cash in my apartment because my beautiful parents, this is what I got taught, how limiting beliefs was that money was finite. If you get cash, don't put it in the bank. Don't tell the government about it. I had drawers with 10 ,000 everywhere. And I'm like, all of a sudden, I'm like, I have to get educated about this. Still didn't happen. I did 10 ,000 of those, by the way.
8:37Dr. Forbes Riley:10 ,000 of those? See, here's the thing. I was relentless. I had a drive that, when I look at me as a 20-year-old, is bizarre. I had a whole lot of jobs. and again when I couldn't get what I wanted I found an alternative so I know you want to go back to the money thing but the money thing came a little bit later for me it was not ever my focus in fact I can remember I'll fast forward when my daughter and I opened our coaching company when COVID started and we're all sitting in the house and doing nothing and my daughter says to me my mother's doing nothing I said yeah and my husband had just been in a really bad motorcycle accident and she said to me she came downstairs she was 17 years old this is six years ago said mom let's start a company and I'm like could you just get a b in English I really looked at her and she's like like mom let me share something with you you know because I used to take her with me to all these events because I firmly believe don't let a don't let school get in the way of a good education yeah and she would come with me and she was very innovative and I noticed that she was talking to my friends like Les Brown and Joe Theismann turns out she wasn't just talking to them she was building their websites their landing pages and she came over to me said mom um can I show you something?
9:44Dr. Forbes Riley:Her account had six figures in it. She's 17. And my first reaction was, where'd you get that money? And she said, well, you're the only one who doesn't believe in me. I said, okay, that's not true. I'm your mother and I want you to get a B in English. And so she said, look, you teach pitching. Let's teach the world. I said, I can't teach people. This is how I print money. I mean, I've already done in the Jacqueline's user did a billion dollars in sales. I already kind of knew that part, but it wasn't my company. I always got paid as the spokesperson. I got paid really well to do my job. I never thought about owning it all.
10:16Dr. Forbes Riley:It was not even in my framework. That sounds crazy, I know. We put 25 people in our very first webinar. It was March of 2020. And I had a$1 ,000 product. I would teach people to pitch for a thousand bucks. She'd come to me for four weeks. I know how to do that part of it. And I wake up the next morning. Now, I had ClickFunnels for three years. I made no money. I'd hired two agencies to help me hook it up. They both screwed me over. And my daughter literally said, my mom should not get, I'm going going to fix this. Okay. The next morning after that first webinar, I opened the account and I have to call her and I said, what does the K stand for?
10:49Dr. Forbes Riley:I said, what do you mean? I said, it says 25 K. What is the K? I said, mom.
10:54Brad Sugars:I know how naive am I, right?
10:56Dr. Forbes Riley:She said, you made 25 ,000. Well, because that was almost incomprehensible. Like literally my life changed at that moment. I could just talk. There's nobody has to hire me. There's no QVC. I mean, I did a million dollars a day in my fitness product. I understand all of this, but I never owned it all with no gatekeeper. Yeah. And I said, let's do this again. In the first month, four weeks of 25 people each, we made a hundred thousand dollars. Nine months later, we're walking across the stage, getting a$1 million funnel, the two comma club. Yeah. We are now making a million dollars a month in that company.
11:26Dr. Forbes Riley:Yeah. That was, and you know, what's interesting when I look at this, I had a lot of issues growing up, a lot of limiting beliefs. My daughter was not raised with those. she came to these events she saw her mom at a different level i had a different energy about money we'd already made a lot of money i own a tv studio i made my in the it was not an issue about that so she didn't have these beliefs and so she's been teaching me about how big the sky is and how effortlessly within reason it is to generate that much money and i wish someone had taught me what you're doing in this podcast several decades earlier i would have organized things differently And the biggest mistake that I made was never truly understand.
12:07Dr. Forbes Riley:I didn't go to business school. I didn't, you know, my business school was being at HSN, was being at home shopping, was figuring out as I went along, it sucks to build the plane when you're flying it. And that's what I did. I would have loved to have gotten a little bit more education on how you do this. Unfortunately, that's not in college. It's by watching shows like yours, right?
12:24Brad Sugars:Yeah, look, I mean, I go back to the education you got at HSN, at QVC, of doing millions of products, not just 10 of something or 100 of something. Just the knowledge you get out of seeing Jake, like Body by Jake, they just sold thousands upon thousands a day. And that's what you just casually say, we're doing a million a week. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just a casual thing right now. And the leap from starting my own business to thinking about writing a business plan to do a hundred million or writing a business plan to do a billion, today, ChatGPT will write it for you, for goodness sake.
13:09Brad Sugars:You can cheat every single strategy, but there's got to be a psychological shift. And I think you've said it a lot about how your daughter didn't need to make the psychological shift. She was born into it, if that makes sense. So is there something that you think that you could help people that are not there yet to get volume and get scale and understand that process.
13:32Dr. Forbes Riley:The world has just become so easy. If you master literally the one thing that I teach. Yeah, out of pit. And that's what you did also in Kmart. Here's the crazy thing. I talked to a television camera. So I never sold. I never, by the way, I never met any of the people initially.
13:48Brad Sugars:You never sold one at a time? Never. One to millions.
13:51Dr. Forbes Riley:I would never do that.
13:52Brad Sugars:No, and that's. It kills me though that people think one to one is still the thing.
13:55Dr. Forbes Riley:Unless it's really high ticket, don't do one-to-one. But there's skills in here, and this is what I came to understand. I innately knew how to do this. So I looked at the camera. That's what Jake got from me. By the way, I did have the best mentor. Jake was already well-established. Oh, yeah. And he was a phenomenal pitcher directly to camera. I mean, he was my mentor every day for five years. I know.
14:13Brad Sugars:I bought three of his programs.
14:16Dr. Forbes Riley:He was really, truly brilliant. And then fascinating because I was right there when infomercials happened. Again, one-to-many through a television camera. You know what's awesome about right now? You have a television camera in your hand. So there is no excuse except if you don't know how to pitch. And so I'm offering everyone the opportunity to ramp up to hundreds of millions of dollars. Because the concept is, and I've got a formula for this, don't talk about your product. And maybe you innately know this, but as soon as somebody's got a product, they can't wait to tell you all about it. And that's the death of a pitch.
14:50Dr. Forbes Riley:And so what I teach is understanding that you've got a solution. don't tell people what it is. So for example, I've got a solution here. I've got a handheld fitness product that by the way, this is the story about this is that this is the first company that I created. I built this from scratch. I own the entire company. And so business things that I learned along the way, most people want to borrow money. I was the bank. And this was a very interesting lesson. At some point on HSN, I made 85 % profit margin. Why would I want to invest in any other company and make 15 % or 24 %? No, I'm making 85.
15:20Dr. Forbes Riley:So I invested in double down on the creation of this. And then people are like, well, you can't sell it through a TV camera. You have to touch it to feel it. No, this is really based on that. So again, if there's one
15:30Brad Sugars:thing you've proven, you can sell anything through a TV camera if you pitch it right.
15:34Dr. Forbes Riley:Well, that's what chapter D is. How do you create demonstrations? And so this is where I had an absolute edge because I am relentless. And you know, I'm a magician. My dad was a magician. And this is how I managed to create brands on television to work. It's a magic trick. so one of the brands that I did was an insole and here's the other thing too guys I didn't have my own company or a business plan for the first 30 40 years of my life I represented other people's companies all I did was have to pitch and I got paid I handled no customer service no inventory no business management nothing I'd showed up did my magic and left with a very nice check over and over again well the cool thing about that is if you can do that and this was my small mindedness why do I need to own a company yeah and I do think my daughter hadn't come along, I might not, because I am very happy not having all that responsibility.
16:25Brad Sugars:Is that terrible? But you look at the model, and the model now that you've proven, Shaq. I mean, let's go back to 50 Cent with vitamin, and you start looking at the water. How did that guy, he walks down the aisle and goes, I want to sell water.
16:41Dr. Forbes Riley:Right. Because being that visionary is very powerful in business. So this guy comes to me with an insole. It's called Barefoot Science and it's got a little insert and every week you put a higher and higher insert in it. He says, and I'm taking it on home shopping, and he says, you need to share with people about the proprioception in your foot, that's why it works. And I'm looking at him going, dude, you can either be right or rich because I am never, and this is my genius, I'm never going to say that word because I don't know what it means. You sell to the masses as though they're eight year olds.
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17:09Dr. Forbes Riley:And I said, look, we're going to put this in our shoe and it mimics walking in sand. And doesn't your feet feel so good and your ankles feel awesome and your hips get activated because you were walking in sand. $28 million worth of insoles. Boom. Cool towels comes to me. And so that really is my genius. And now even when I look at business plans, I can see holes in things that other people don't see, which makes me very valuable. The guy comes to me with a cool towel. I don't know if you've seen it. It's a piece of material. You snap it and get it wet. I've bought them.
17:40Brad Sugars:So yes. Okay.
17:41Dr. Forbes Riley:Well, you might've bought it because I created the pitch for this. They were on TV and they were talking about it. I'm like, stop talking, go to chapter D and start demonstrating. So here's what I did. And it was a magic trick. I got a bowl of hot water and a heat gun. Ooh, the water's hot. Put this in there. Ow. And I give it to the host. The host is somebody that they trust. So step five of my formula is assumptions. We're taught today to not make assumptions. I'm going to teach you. It's the best thing that you've got. You don't need to ask somebody a question. Look at you. Look how he's dressed.
18:09Dr. Forbes Riley:Look how he talks. Look what he drives and figure out what he wants. Are you always accurate? No. But this is a skill that if I didn't do what I did, I wouldn't have been so successful on TV. You show up at a Tuesday morning, 9 a.m. to sell a product. Do you ever think about who's watching you? Most people, and I watch it, only think about what they're there to sell. Wrong answer. I'm thinking 9 a.m. That woman is sick. She's got young kids. She's got old family members. She's been fired. Talk to her. Then at 3 a.m., because you're on 24 hours a day. That woman is very different from 9 a.m. She's up late at night.
18:46Dr. Forbes Riley:Maybe her kid's not sleeping. She had a fight with her husband or she's an insomniac. I would talk to people like they were people through a TV camera. And this is probably the biggest thing I want to teach all my TikTokers now. You want to make some serious money? I'm watching people make a million dollars a day on TikTok, again, with no gatekeeper. But if you don't know this thing, if you're just yelling and screaming at the camera or talking about the features and benefits of your product, you're not going to sell nearly as well as the secrets that I've got for you.
19:12Brad Sugars:You know, it's kind of crazy though, that people learned selling one-to-one. They never learned selling one-to-a-million or one-to-many. Who's going to teach that, right? Well, you. Who else? Who else is going to teach it? There's not many people that know it.
19:29Dr. Forbes Riley:Have you taken sales trainings? Yeah. Okay. The overcoming objections, what the five or six things, I never dealt with that. I don't believe in that. In fact, here's another thing I don't believe in. Do you believe in avatars?
19:42Brad Sugars:Sometimes.
19:43Dr. Forbes Riley:Okay. Avatars, I'm going to tell you, are great when you do outbound marketing. But for me, I had an MBA come and analyze my company, my fitness company. And so, by the way, so this is a product that tones your upper body, right? But you can't feel if you're through a TV camera. So you have to go, hmm, how do I get that woman at home to want to buy this? Oh, the first thing I'm going to do is get a half-naked man, turn him around. Come on, I'm relentless. And you're going to watch his muscles fire and I'm gonna I literally looked at a man his back is firing and I'd said on camera I said this is where your bra fat lives but I'm on a man so the woman at home is drooling over the man thinking oh I want to get rid of that bra fat but he's cute and then one of my favorite moments on camera ever I'm relentless about this is when you do this and you've got a really tight bra on and big boobs your boobs pop up and down and so I'm having fun and laughing about what this will do for you but the woman then i say to the woman at home you want to look great in that in that mother of the bride dress you want to look great when you take off your sweater yeah you want to look great when you get naked whether it's for your husband or not you look in that mirror you're going to feel so good about yourself i'm talking about a hunk of metal right but that's not what i'm selling no and so when you teach people that it's like oh my god this is a it's it's it's a very unique way to get people to say yes to you yeah and i'm really good at how do you get it get
20:58Brad Sugars:over the sales and pitching the difference because it's it's entirely different oh completely
21:05Dr. Forbes Riley:different well here's the thing the first thing about pitching is just get a yes get someone to say tell me more when you're selling selling to me is a very harsh concept i want to get you in this car i'm going to get your money or i'm going to invest and you're like there's an energy about it when i pitch it's like i have a solution here watch this put your arm up like this oh i was about avatars. When you feel the back of your arm, is it tight or is it a little wiggly jiggly? If yours is tight, I'll bet your wife is not quite as tight, right? Oh, let's think about how do we get her this product because she wants to feel good about herself.
21:37Dr. Forbes Riley:Happy life, happy wife, happy life. I just, you're not my avatar, by the way. And this is what I do. So the MBAs come in and they're like, all right, your avatar, his name is Sheila, which is kind of ironic, Mr. Australia. She's Sheila. She's 43 years old. She's got two grown kids. She drives a Lexus, not a Tesla, walks a Labradoodle. And I'm listening to them say all this and I'm like, God, that's so one-to-one annoying. Why would you limit yourself? And so I did this in front of an MBA class. I said, I appreciate you think I need to go out and find Sheila. I'm going to sell five of these in that same amount of time you're looking for that woman.
22:08Dr. Forbes Riley:And I'm going to sell them to people you would never imagine. Let's start with a seven-year-old girl. Hey, little girl, I'm watching you do gymnastics. You got to be really strong, but you're too little to go to the gym, right? Oh, purple's a great color for you here. Look, oh, I know. And your mommy's got your credit card. Boom, one sale. I've got two TikTokers, about 18 years old. They're doing this on their phone. I'm like, you know what guys, you want more followers? You got to get some better posture. This is going to give you that posture. So you get more followers. Notice what I'm doing.
22:33Dr. Forbes Riley:Stop telling them what I think they need. Get them to want what I have. I've got a solution for more followers with your posture. And then I'm going to go to a 70 year old man sitting in his Barker lounge with a little belly and a beer. And he's like, you can't sell me. I don't need to sell you my darling. I need to enroll you into your life because your wife's a little sad that you're sitting on that couch all the time and you're missing out on your grandkids. You want that back? This is it. I've just sold five in the amount of time somebody's looking for their avatar. So what I learned is that pitching is enrolling people where they are.
23:02Dr. Forbes Riley:And I truly believe that everyone in front of me is going to buy my product because you may not want it, but that beautiful wife of yours from Boston, come on. She wants a, you do right, right?
23:14Brad Sugars:Oh yeah. It's going to improve the pickleball game. That's, that's what's the biggest thing right now. It's like, but when you think about that though, your mindset isn't like most people. And this is, I hate to say it this way, but they've niched themselves down so much that they've forgotten they can sell to anyone and everybody sort of thing.
23:33Dr. Forbes Riley:That's what people are being taught.
23:34Brad Sugars:Yeah. I mean, did you go to business school? I went to business school. I became an accountant. So, you know, I learned how to count other people's money.
23:42Dr. Forbes Riley:Oh, well, but that's an interesting thing. Number one, you realize you don't want to be doing that anymore, but also understanding the books. I'm going to tell you something. I am such a visionary and I do see things so big. And I'm lucky. Infomercials, by the way, when I started, because right after Body by Jake, infomercials came out. And again, it's through a television. And I worked with expert marketers. I mean, the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer. Do you remember this show? Oh, yeah. Okay. First of all, they had an actress hosting that show, a very well-known actress. And she read the script and it bombed.
24:13Dr. Forbes Riley:And they called me and they said, hey, you know, we watched you do this pitching thing. and you're doing really well over there on that network. Can you maybe talk to us? I said, yes. First of all, stop selling a juicer. Nobody wants a juicer. But they do want Jack's energy. They want to be young and vital. And I literally had to re-educate them on what it means to get other people to want what you have. This exists, by the way, on YouTube. You can watch this video. Because we got Jack to come out and simply say, I'm so doggone excited about this, I can't sleep at night. Because I know what it's going to do for you.
24:43Dr. Forbes Riley:And I will tell you, that opening pitch that we created is probably the most fantastic pitch I've ever seen. That show, that one conversation, Jack, me, and Elaine at a juicer ran for eight years in 80 countries. I've heard myself in Hindu and Japanese and Portuguese in every language it was translated into. 1.4 billion dollars of juicers. And I'm gonna tell you, it's that pitch. It's that conversation. It's that dream. And when I saw, first of all, I didn't even know we made that kind of money because I had a royalty deal. and I remember I had flown to, I'd moved to Florida. I'd left my husband for the first time with my two kids and I was a little lost and is it okay?
25:23Dr. Forbes Riley:Here's the thing too, even though you see a hundred million, it seems flashy. You cannot forget to live your life. You have five kids. I have two beautiful ones and some stepkids and don't miss out on that. There is no amount of money that takes the place of those things and so I'm sitting there and I'm a little confused what I'm gonna be doing next and I do think you gotta hit rock bottom at some point to go, okay, I'm going to reconsider what this means. But I also know what it's like to go on home shopping and make a million dollars in a day. I don't know other people who talk like that. I don't have a whole lot of people to even share this with who think I'm insane.
25:55Dr. Forbes Riley:And I sat down and somebody called me and said, hey, did you hear it? You crossed a billion dollars. I'm like, I'm sorry, what? I honestly, I was good with hundreds of millions, but a billion dollars, you add the zeros, that's a whole lot. And then I started adding up not only that show, but all the$100 million hits I had with Montel Williams and George Foreman and Kevin Aaron, like, you did$2.5 billion in sales.
26:21Brad Sugars:I stopped counting 10 years ago because I don't need to prove anything anymore. Yeah, I know when the first year we crossed$100 million in revenue, and then the team came to me early this year and said, you know, boss, we've done$2.5 billion in sales since we started. And you sit there and you just go, huh, that's kind of cool. And now it's like, well, maybe I should aim for a billion in one year. You know, what if I just did that sort of thing? But it's not about the goal. And this is something back to you've made this point, this reference several times. It's not about the money. It's not about the actual thing.
26:56Brad Sugars:It's what that gives you. You've talked about it in your pitching. It's not about the thing. It's about what it gives you. For me, the 100 million podcast is more about it's a vehicle that can give you your life back. And we talked about this before. you're going to exit your business, whether it's in a pine box, you kill it, it kills you, or whether you're going to exit business with a passive exit or financial exit. The whole point of business is to give you back more life. It's funny how you are so in tune with that though. Was that always the thing or did that change when you hit Florida? I mean, was that -
27:33Dr. Forbes Riley:You know what? I've always managed to have a great deal amount of fun, seriously fun. And I don't quite know why I figured this out, but I did. Do you know what Club Med is? Yeah. Okay. So I'm 25 years old. I'm working on Broadway with Christopher Reeve. And by the way, how did I get that show? Again, I can't wait to see the movie of my life. It's going to be so exciting to watch this. Well, because I'm working as an actress and one of my biggest issues in my entire life was being a little overweight. And so I got criticized. I'm doing a Broadway show. I got sent to Overeaters Anonymous. So I've always had this weight thing, which allowed me to crush the fitness.
28:06Dr. Forbes Riley:I'm in the National Fitness Hall of Fame because of all the things I had to go through. I failed at every diet. All the crazy things fitness-wise, I'm an amazing model, but I was never the ab fit girl. I was the one always struggling for that. So I'm in New York and you're supposed to get an agent. Here's another thing I want all of you to listen to. Stop listening to what they tell you to do. They don't know. They have their head up their ass. We all build our own they. yes but i will tell you they they influence us from from because even i went out to hollywood and they told me if you're not big breasted with blonde hair you're not going to be successful and i'm like but wait a second my role models are jane fonda she's little boobs and short hair yeah and so you've got to be careful how you create your they because it's it could be either side look at all politics everybody's right because that's what you hear in your own head i'm not going to go down that road but so now i'm in new york and i get a great agent he's gonna meet with me at a hotel i'm gonna have lunch with him we're gonna sign i'm this is what i wanted and i would have been very happy to be julia roberts and sandra bullock by the way i did not set out to sell anything yeah and oh it's not at the lunch it's not at the restaurant it's up in his room i'm like okay that's fine and i'm so naive in my 20s and there's a whole big spread of food but it wasn't about food.
29:23Dr. Forbes Riley:I was on the menu too. And I'm like, luckily he was a shorter man. And he started chasing me around the bed. And I'm like, Strong, what are you doing? Really? That's never happening here. And I went home and I thought, okay, what do you do? Now I'm going to go back to the fact, I didn't have a circle of friends. I didn't have anyone that I could go to and go, man, this happened to me. This was horrible. I went home to me. And I know that sounds kind of weird, but me, myself, and I have good conversations. And one of us said, let's open an agency. And I created a thing called CMA, Creative Management for Artists.
29:58Dr. Forbes Riley:Now we need to hire somebody. We don't have any money. Okay, we're going to hire a British woman named Lindsay Maxwell. And Lindsay thought Forbes Riley was a wonderful actress. Lindsay was also a great pitcher because she was Forbes Riley. And for three years of my life, I pitched myself to be in movies and television. That's one way I probably learned the art of this. And you want to talk Talk about imposter syndrome. I was like leading a double life. And I thought at some point they're going to arrest me. But I'm going to just keep going because I'm doing what I want. I'm on soap operas. I'm on movies.
30:28Dr. Forbes Riley:I'm on TV. There was one really awkward moment. I'm on set and the producer's like, I need to call your manager. I'm like, this is pre-cell phone. I'm like, I'll be right back. I need anybody get a quarter?
30:40Brad Sugars:The reason I laugh so much is my first telemarketer, his name was Brett Simpson. He sounded a lot like this guy. Are you serious? 100%. that Brett Simpson was the alter ego. It was like, I kind of wanted it to be Bart Simpson, but you know, a whole weird thing. But I know sometimes I didn't feel like pitching myself was the right thing to do, but I was still pitching me. And it was like, oh, well, let me get Brad on the phone for you. Deferring authority. People said to me, that guy sounds a lot like you.
31:06Dr. Forbes Riley:Yeah, I've trained him real well. You know, I remember the first time somebody said, Forbes, is that you? I'm like, no. We should have been friends when we were younger because I've not met anyone who else has done that. I think it's a very odd sense of, I'm just going to keep going. And at the end of the day, here's the crazy thing. It was never to make money. And because money was not important, I made a lot of it. Doing stripper grams, I had more cash than I knew what to do with. I've never not generated money. When I hear people talk about I'm broke, I'm like, you've got a broke mentality.
31:35Dr. Forbes Riley:Let me tell you, you can always sell something. There's so many things to do. And nowadays, with that cell phone, you don't need, in fact, we just talked about two days ago, QVC filed for bankruptcy. They were a great role model. I was on them in every country. But here's what I learned is that the buyers were always challenging. The goals were always kind of weird. And then I watched things that they weren't doing right, but I had no power over. When the internet just started, and yes, I'm old enough to remember the internet starting. I think I invented fire. No, just kidding. Not that old. But I'm on air.
32:08Dr. Forbes Riley:Let's have a 3 ,000 sale goal. I came off air. And I said, yeah, we made it. Because you can see the numbers. and the producer would go, no, you didn't. I'm like, what do you mean, no, I didn't? He said, no, you made$200 of sales on TV and$1 ,000 of sales on the internet, but those don't count. And you go, wait a second, what do you mean they don't count? It's that same hour, I'm responsible for those, they count and they would say no. And when they say no, you left because it was no. I did that for three years of my life and I'm sitting here the whole time going, you guys need a new CEO because you're missing out on what's coming.
32:40Dr. Forbes Riley:It took them three years to acknowledge that the total sales was your sales. That's a big corporation. Why would it take them that long? And I don't know the answer to that. I've never really been in a C-suite aside from my own, but I'm going to tell you the more moving parts, the harder it is to get things done. Isn't a camel a horse made by committee?
32:57Brad Sugars:That's the joke. And it's definitely close to the truth. So, okay. Final question. Someone. No, I don't want to stop. Look, but we, we, we need to get to this. I think this point, and that is this. thinking big, thinking massive, thinking, you know, I told you earlier, my TED Talk's Diary of a Wimpy Goal, because I think we live in an epidemic of wimpy goals. Where did or how does someone shift to that massive thinking rather than let me just get one?
33:28Dr. Forbes Riley:Well, let me ask you that question. I'm kind of curious because this is obviously something that's burning in your head. How do you think?
33:34Brad Sugars:I think I know for me, it started with this thought. If I know how to do it, it's not a goal. If I know how to do it, if I don't have to grow, learn, develop, get better, it's not a goal. It's a to-do list item. Unless I have to grow, I haven't actually set a goal. Unless I have to become new. And one of my professors, his name is Alan Pease. He said, how is the enemy of goals?
34:01Dr. Forbes Riley:Yes, he's right.
34:01Brad Sugars:Because you start asking, how do I do this? How do I do this? And eventually you talk yourself out of it because you asked how. so my thing is you know you got an elon musket i want to settle on mars you got a jfk and i want to go to the moon you got to check you've got to have a goal that means you have no clue how but you're willing to learn and grow into it 16 when i met jim rohn i decided by 25 i would financially retire everyone said can't possibly happen and technically they were correct 16 year old version of me could not make that a reality. But I was willing to read a book a week. I was willing to do the study, do all the things and become that person.
34:46Brad Sugars:Yes. You know, I've watched your story and even just the things you say today, I don't even think you noticed how some of those things changed, how big your thinking became. And it took your daughter to actually make it a reality? Well, I will tell you, it comes down to mindset.
35:04Dr. Forbes Riley:You know, you're focused as I look at what your company is about. It is the goal to get there. One of the things that I do on this planet and why I think I'm a blessing at this moment, I'm going to start to cry, is that I've helped heal a whole lot of people who can't even get to that mindset because they can't get over their past. And so one of the things that I don't talk about publicly, I do a training, breakthrough training. And I've now had thousands of students who will come to me and they're never going to get to the$100 ,000 goal. That's how small minded they are. So I'll hear words and I'm all about shattering these.
35:34Dr. Forbes Riley:And if that's my legacy on the planet, I've helped a whole lot of people who will say I'm a procrastinator. And I'll say, you know what, there's no such word. Procrastinate is somebody who doesn't have a consequence and you've never set up a consequence for your goal. So for example, when you said you want to retire at 25, who cares if you made it or not? But if you said, you know, if I tell the world I'm going to do this and I don't do it, I'm going to be embarrassed. Okay. You ever set the snooze alarm and then turn it off? Yeah, right. Because you can, because you didn't have to show up for work or it was a Saturday.
36:01Dr. Forbes Riley:No consequence. It's a Monday. You don't hit the snooze alarm. You know, when you're not procrastinating about the snooze alarm, when your house is on fire, boom, you're up and out and you don't even ask about, right. But watch this. You change the consequences. You change the outcome. That is one thing I teach a lot. I fact, I just ended a bodybuilding competition because I, after a car accident, I told everybody I was going to do this crazy goal and I don't want want to be embarrassed. And that was enough to keep me in the gym when it was really hard to do. I didn't want to do it. I'd lost my own personal goal.
36:30Dr. Forbes Riley:I'm like, don't make me embarrassed. I had a student the other day who said, I've got to finish this paper, but I can't seem to do it, which I hate the word can't. I mean, I am a huge fanatic about the words that you use create your reality. And so I said, great. Do you think you can do it by next Friday? She said, yeah. I said, great. You know what? I get$500 if you haven't done it. And she's like, and watch the adage. It was like, what? I'm like, you said you could. And I'll tell you what, that Netflix show you want to watch is worth$500 to you. Watch it or pay me. The paper was done by Wednesday.
37:01Dr. Forbes Riley:So I've over and over again proven this. But the other part of this that I'm very passionate about is that you cannot write your future from your past. I'm happy to tell stories of my past, but I no longer feel them. You know, if you literally, where do you put your past in space? Is that a curiosity?
37:16Brad Sugars:Put your hand somewhere. Behind.
37:18Dr. Forbes Riley:Behind. Okay. Most people do this. They're like, my past is here. I'm like, if your past is here, you're living in that shit. I want you to take your hand and literally push it way back to where it is. And let's figure out why you're still dealing with the fact that your mom told you this or your dad touched you or whatever it happens to be. That is why you keep repeating the bad relationships. That's why your mindset is so small. So I encourage people to clean this up because that is very different if you're not being dragged down by all this weight. The second part of this is people come to me all the time.
37:46Dr. Forbes Riley:I want to be a billionaire. I'm like, you know, you don't. Let's get real about your goal, okay? And I think that's what I'm on the planet to do, not to get you to achieve it, but to get you to set it up in the right way so you don't get disappointed. If I say I'm gonna make$100 this week and I make it, I win, I get confident. I'm gonna make$100 and I don't do it, I'm not so confident. So set goals that make sense for you that are micro achievements because 100 million takes a whole lot of steps to get to. Second thing I think personally, you don't wanna be a billionaire. Talk about having to work way too hard and missing your life.
38:19Dr. Forbes Riley:Oh my God. There's three ways you can become a billionaire. You can sell a company, you can marry it, or you can inherit it. I don't think you're going to work for it in the span of your lifetime. And why is that your goal? Can you not live on a hundred million? Let's get real here. Do you not live on 10 million? Have you never made 10 ,000 a month? Let's start here. I want to be in a world where people are happy. And I was going to say the thing about Club Med. So I was doing a Broadway show. I went to a club med thought oh I like this I ended up getting a contract where I could go to club med anytime I wanted and help create their entertainment I talked my way into this paid$15 a day but you know what I got I got to go scuba diving play tennis and golf and horseback riding learn people from all around the world please don't make money the only goal because you'll miss out on all the good stuff that life has to offer full drive pitch secrets follow learn
39:10Brad Sugars:study, read, do all the things. Oh, wait a minute. There you go. That was good. Thanks for joining me on the hundred million dollar podcast. If you've got value from today's episode, make sure you've subscribed and share this with all of your friends. Never miss a strategy that could change your business and your life. And remember the fastest way to scale is to learn from those who've done it. That's what this show is all about. See you on the next episode.
39:40Thank you.
From the publisher
Most people think scaling to millions starts with strategy. Dr. Forbes Riley argues it starts with identity — the ability to think bigger, pitch better, and stop carrying limiting beliefs into your future.
In this episode of The $100M Entrepreneur Podcast, Brad Sugars sits down with Dr. Forbes Riley to unpack the mindset shifts, pitching frameworks, and life experiences that helped generate billions in product sales across brands like Body by Jake, Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, and HSN. From growing up broke to pioneering one-to-many selling on television, Forbes shares the psychology behind massive success, why most people sell the wrong way, and how mastering “the pitch” can completely change your business and life.
They also dive into why traditional sales training often misses the mark, the power of demonstrations, and how Forbes built a million-dollar webinar business with her daughter during COVID.
About Dr. Forbes Riley:
Dr. Forbes Riley is a television host, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and pitch expert best known for generating over $2.5 billion in product sales through infomercials, home shopping networks, and live presentations. She has worked with brands and personalities including Jack LaLanne, Body by Jake, and Montel Williams, and is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of modern direct-response pitching and one-to-many selling.
About Brad Sugars
Internationally known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs, Brad Sugars is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and the #1 business coach in the world. Over the course of his 30-year career as an entrepreneur, Brad has become the CEO of 9+ companies and is the owner of the multimillion-dollar franchise ActionCOACH®. As a husband and father of five, Brad is equally as passionate about his family as he is about business. That’s why, Brad is a strong advocate for building a business that works without you – so you can spend more time doing what really matters to you. Over the years of starting, scaling and selling many businesses, Brad has earned his fair share of scars. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy road. But if you can learn from those who have gone before you, it becomes a lot easier than going at it alone.
Please click here to learn more about Brad Sugars: https://bradsugars.com/
Build a Business That Gives You More Time, Money & Life:
Get The $100M Playbook: https://go.bradsugars.com/100m-playbook-ebook
