City this is the podcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation our feature conversation this episode is with John Tabis.

You may not have heard of him but you're going to know who he is after this episode and be glad of it.

So the quick story John Tabis is the co-founder of the books company they have literally disrupted the flower industry really fun stuff.

His story includes a rejection on shark tank but that's not the rest of the story we'll share that with you and then coming out of the interview.

I've got some more thoughts on this idea of rejection specifically.

How to handle knows.

I taught on this idea of turning rejection into redirection several months ago and then we got many of your stories very popular we're going to continue to expand on that some new thoughts because John's going to tell that story of how he handled the know.

I think there's some great takeaways that I got and I believe they'll help you as well and of course we're going to give you some free resources we've got a couple of announcements that will spread out through the episode so let's do this.

I am excited to tell you that I am opening up my calendar to speak to companies that we've already had several gigs come through from the Entry Leadership Summit people that were there and we connected and they said can we love to have come speak for our organization and we've made it happen.

So I have never talked about that on this podcast just let you know select dates we're not going to do a lot we got a lot going on here but for three years of really kind of kept my schedule really tight around our live events and the broadcasting that I do here but opening up the calendar so I would love to come customize a talk for your organization.

Here's how we do it we simply get on the phone with you Justin Doris and myself handles all that and we forgot what you need and I craft something custom to fit your needs so we'd love to do that so just know that is an option.

If you're interested in that you can just email us podcast at on trade leadership dot com podcast on trade leadership dot com will get you connected with love to come speak for your organization well let's get right to our feature conversation john tabus.

If somebody that had never heard of before but I love this story so much in this conversation for you entrepreneurs who are going after it and you can see.

The big vision it's beginning to come into focus for you and I don't care where you're at in your business journey you're going to get a lot out of this conversation so let's get right to it here is my conversation with john tabus.

Well john this is fun I must tell you I want to start our conversation because I and my kiddos eleven nine eight or big fans of shark tank and before we get into some practical.

Wisdom and knowledge from your very successful experience I want our audience to hear the story of shark tank because it's there's some great content here that we're going to pull out of you so let's start there take us through how the books company kind of got its shark tank exposure what happened and then the aftermath.

Sure yeah absolutely shark tank has been I say this all the time one of the best things that's happened to this company and it's kind of the gift that keeps on giving you know you go on the show and at least for us it has led to multiple multiple media appearances partnerships investors at this point so it's been really an amazing asset to the company.

So going back we're only about a year into the company not even about nine months and I got an email through an alumni list I went to UCLA Anderson here in Los Angeles for business school and emails saying hey shark tank is looking for venture back startups to join the show if anybody has a company like that that's interested you know you can apply here and so I'd watch the show for years I was a fan and I thought you know huh they're making a shift where they want to bring in the show and I'm going to show you guys a little bit of a story.

Some folks who had actually raised some capital and not just sort of the mom and pop in the garage things that I thought maybe that would be interesting and I spent some time pondering it I wasn't sure because it's different right a company that is you know $50,000 of revenue and the sharks are going to give you 50 grand for 50% of it is very different.

That company that's already raised some some venture capital so I neutered on it a long time eventually decided to move forward with it and we went through the process like anybody else you know a huge long written application a video application in person interviews and everything one of the things that's a little different for us is the studios are literally about a mile and a half from our headquarters so it was pretty easy to get over there and get back and logistically handle things and luckily enough we were chosen to be on the show and that's what I'm going to do.

And it became about do we want to do it because then I started to get nervous the producers essentially indicated we want you on the show that here's the opportunity here's how it works and everything and then I started getting worried that because our valuation was set by the round we had just closed that because we couldn't negotiate the sharks might accuse me of sort of using it just for publicity and I really wanted a shark to invest but we were at a different price range.

Then was typical and then I was nervous about the whole thing they do sometimes where you know the magic of TV you can make anybody look however you want to make them look and I started getting nervous that maybe because of that they might make me look like one of those guys that sort of manipulating the system or as little shifty and so I paused for about a month and I sort of held off and then eventually decided you know this is a once in a lifetime opportunity I'm going to do it and so we moved forward I talked to my co founder who resides in Ecuador but is a pretty private guy and he decided not to join me on the show.

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