HOW to get your company on Shark Tank!

In our new book we share with you the specific strategy we employed to get Balloon Distractions on the ABC hit show Shark Tank!

From our initial online application, to our insane audition video, to actually filming the show in Hollywood!

Learn why NOT getting a deal actually INCREASES your shot at getting air time!  

You can download our book, We Twist for Tips, from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1502546671/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me

This book is a fun read for anyone who has ever wanted to start their own business, and especially for any of the ambitious entrepreneurs who want to appear on Shark Tank.

Happy Reading!

Acorns and #Entrepreneurs.

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As the founder of Balloon Distractions I have one simple goal that will probably take me another decade to achieve: get a team of twisters going in every city in the United States…. a couple thousand restaurants, and over a thousand balloon twisters.

No company has ever done this before in our little entertainment niche, but with existing teams in over 40 cities we have a good foundation and all the online systems in place to reach our goal.

During the work week I’m on the phone every day, talking to entrepreneurs in target cities and coaching all the new Regional Leaders that we’ve recruited since we appeared on Shark Tank earlier this year. Developing a Regional Leader is like planting an acorn, it takes time to grow but eventually you’ll grow a forest if you plant a new acorn every day, consistently and over a number of years.

During the weekends I’m out there filling balloon twisting gigs in our client restaurants, earning cash and staying in touch with the very basics of our business. Developing new leaders and then going out to entertain children keeps me grounded. I find tremendous in satisfaction in filling a gig, making kids laugh, and then driving home at the end of the shift tired, but with a pocketful of cash.

I used to think that it would be awful to be out twisting balloons at 40 years old, as if I had failed in some way…. but if we get this company to 200 cities and 3,000 bookings each week I’ll still be out there filling gigs. A child doesn’t care how big your business is, or even what you’ve achieved, they are in the moment and as an entertainer I’m bringing them a small memory of joy.

Nothing wrong with that.

If you are reading our blog and you would like to start a team with us take a look at this link:

http://balloondistractions.com/build-a-region.html

Have a GREAT weekend!

Benjamin T. Alexander

Awesome power of #Scalability combined with #SharkTank

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Tech apps scale like nothing else.

Case in point:

http://www.businessinsider.com/cycloramic-video-app-downloads-skyrocket-after-shark-tank-2014-2

It’s really cool that a common platform, like the I-phone, can unleash the entrepreneurial creativity that exists OUT THERE across the globe. What else will people invent?  

A rotating camera app is not going to solve world hunger, or filter water for the Billion who do NOT have it, but this is an excellent example of the ABUNDANCE found in a globally connected economy with tech platforms that can scale to infinity. .  

You can even LAYER multiple platforms, the hash tags in this blog post will cause people from all over the world to look at THIS BLOG and potentially start a balloon business!

http://balloondistractions.com/build-a-region.html

Amazing, really.

-Ben Alexander

February 3, 2014 

 

Time to raise the bar.

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Last week I ordered a 7 foot backdrop from our local print shop to use as a background wall when we filmed clips for BD’s YouTube channel.

When I went to pick it up I rolled it out on the floor of my printer’s office and stared at it silently for a long time. I looked up at the owner of the print shop and asked him:

“Can I borrow a sharpie marker?”

For the next few minutes I got down on my hands and knees and began circling all the FLAWS in the logo that you would only notice when the logo was expanded to 7 foot proportions. It was a real mess. When I was done I stood up and looked at the Printer.

“This is a B minus logo, can your design person fix it? I’m tired of second best, I want a logo that’s A plus, with zero flaws, even if its expanded out to the size of a building.” 

Just like our logo on the print shop floor Balloon Distractions enlarged a bit when we went on national television, and there were little things in my business that I tolerated BEFORE because I thought those tiny details were not that important.

I was dead wrong. 

I was cutting corners on OUR own success.

No more, we’re done with AVERAGE.

We’re done with “just getting by”. Mediocre is DEAD.

We are the biggest in the country in our weird little niche, but right now we are NOT the best.

Not yet. 

This year, 2014, we are going to raise the PRICE we charge all new clients and raise the Training level of EVERYONE in our organization. We are going to DEMAND nothing LESS than A plus work from every single member of our team.

We have a handful of advanced level Entertainers in the company, by the end of this year we are going to RAISE THE BAR and get 95% of our people to that level. We are going to be so dangerously good at this that we can double and triple what we are currently charging.

Let’s raise the freakin’ bar, folks. Let’s make amazing stuff and MELT THE BRAINS of every restaurant GM who sees us in action!

If you are on our team right now and have no desire to GROW and get BETTER and be AWESOME please leave, right now, and go work for my competition.

For those of you who are still here?

B minus is NO LONGER going to fly at Balloon Distractions.

WE are the BIGGEST, it’s high time that we are the BEST.

-Ben Alexander

Jan 30th, 2014  

 

 

What is the #VortexOfHappiness ?????????????

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When you’re in a restaurant or an event and twist a balloon for a child there is always that moment when you finally hand them the balloon and they smile back at you.

When you do an entire 3 hour shift and this happens over and over you always feel good at the end of the shift. Your feet might hurt, your voice might be tired, but your heart is full.  

The shapes that you make will deflate in a few days and get discarded, but the memory you created in that child could last forever.

That child will grow up, and inevitably face difficulties at some point, as we all do, but perhaps they will remember that tiny moment when a stranger smiled at them and showed them KINDNESS, which in reality is an expression of love, writ small.   

As the Entertainer you gain as well from making children happy.

So what IF you MULTIPLY that moment? What IF you create a Vortex of Happiness 100 times, a thousand times or a million times?

What if YOU join us and become a Trainer and teach 50 people how to bring JOY to children everywhere?

Or even a Regional Partner who grows this concept across 10 or 15 cities? How many LIVES can you touch in a POSITIVE way?

It all starts here:

http://balloondistractions.com/build-a-region.html

God Bless!

Ben Alexander

Jan 25, 2014