Neil A. Carousso produces NewsNation original “Kurt’s Country” – a celebration of country music and a slice of Americana with host Kurt Bardella.
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WCBS Newsradio 880 Wins Gracie Award for Special Report ‘Chaos in the Capitol’
Posted by: Neil A. CaroussoNEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The Alliance for Women in Media Foundation (AWMF) has announced the winners of the 46th Annual Gracie Awards.
WCBS Newsradio 880 has been honored with an award in the category Frontline – Special Report [Radio Local] for our hour-long special “Chaos in the Capitol — A Nation Divided,” anchored by Lynda Lopez.
“Chaos in the Capitol — A Nation Divided” was a collaborative effort by the WCBS 880 team in the days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
The program featured firsthand accounts from lawmakers and reporters who were in the nation’s Capitol when it descended into chaos, including interviews with freshman Congressman Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, former Long Island Congressman Steve Israel, 20-year-old Black Lives Matter protest organizer Yahshiyah Vines and more.
WCBS Newsradio 880’s Steve Burns, Marla Diamond and Neil A. Carousso contributed reports to the special. The program was written by Martin Untrojb and produced by Carousso and Lopez.
You can listen to the Gracie Award-winning report below:
The Gracies recognize exemplary programming created by, for and about women in radio, television, cable and interactive media.
Honorees are selected in national, local and student markets, including both commercial and non-commercial outlets.
“Throughout this important year, we have enjoyed some of the most compelling content in our history. We were informed, enlightened and entertained by women in media across all platforms,” said Becky Brooks, President of the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation. “As we celebrate AWM’s 70th anniversary, we are thrilled to honor this incredible group of women who have demonstrated their commitment to sharing emotionally-charged, timely and compelling content. We look forward to reconvening in person to recognize these incredible achievements and brave storytelling.”
The Gracie Awards Gala will take place September 27, 2021 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles. It will honor some of the most talented women in television, radio and digital media, including Kerry Washington, Kelly Clarkson, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and more.
This year’s ceremony will also recognize entertainment and news programming that addressed timely topics and social issues.
Click here to see the full list of honorees.
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‘Shark Tank’ Star Barbara Corcoran’s Advice for Businesses Recovering from Pandemic
Posted by: Neil A. CaroussoBy Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — As the economy reopens this spring, businesses are increasingly struggling to fill open positions. Barbara Corcoran, investor on ABC’s hit show “Shark Tank” and founder of The Corcoran Group, says “competing for workers” is the number one priority for business owners right now.
“The workers are in charge now,” Corcoran told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank. “The (businesses) that are treating their workers like kings and queens, like they deserve to be treated, are retaining their workforce. And, those who aren’t, can’t do business because they’re cut off at the pants because they don’t have the workers to support it.”
She said some small and large businesses are offering to pay a chunk of tuition for part-time workers and other employers are offering signing bonuses to workers who commit to a term of employment.
“I never heard of that,” the entrepreneur said.
Corcoran noted some people are receiving higher unemployment benefits than wages offered, which is an unintended consequence of the enhanced federal unemployment benefits that were extended to September. There are now 23 states that are ending the $300 weekly federal bonus checks next month, including Florida, which announced Monday it would follow other conservative-majority states. It has been a key safety net for families whose children have studied remotely in the pandemic.
“Most businesses that are coming out of the pandemic are in debt,” she said. “They can’t squeeze their profit margins so what is actually happening instead is they pass along that additional cost to the consumer.”
Corcoran experienced that first-hand last week when she went to dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant in Manhattan. She noticed the service was unusually slow because they didn’t have enough workers in the kitchen, so the former New Jersey waitress lent the owner a hand and started serving dishes to customers. But, rather than earning tips, she was caught by surprise when she got the check.
“It felt like it was about 30 percent more expensive,” she said. “But, that’s the new norm.”
Restaurants are not the only businesses that Corcoran believes will be forced to raise prices this spring and summer to survive. The “Queen of New York Real Estate” still walks around Manhattan, surveying local businesses in her neighborhood, and befriending several owners who have closed their shops. The neighborhood is changing; blocks that she described as being “empty with no sign of life, no light” over the past 14 months are now bright with new faces.
“Over the past couple of weeks, I see constructions going on inside the storefronts and I see new signs out front, so we’re going to get a whole new breed of entrepreneurs who are starting businesses,” Corcoran said, adding, “The old guys won’t be back because they couldn’t take it; it was too long. But, new kids are taking their place. And, this is going around America.”
She sees a refreshing spirit among the new entrepreneurs who have found opportunities in the pandemic. In fact, she says about a third of her “Shark Tank” companies have grown somewhere between 50 percent and 200 percent. Another third are out of business and the remaining third, she said, are hanging by a thread.
“You need to learn how to try and that’s taught by the parents,” the mother of two said, telling Connolly and Carousso how she raised her children to have the courage to try and “get back up” after failures. Corcoran said “courage” is a quality successful entrepreneurs learn through great adversities.
She said she noticed a troubling pattern among some of the businesses she invested in on the show. Some of them were not effective in gaining repeat customers, which she said starts with organization.
“They were all over the place,” the “Shark Tank investor said. “I have to get them between their ears, squeeze their head in, get their ego back intact, and say, ‘Sit down, make a list of where all your businesses come from,’ and believe it or not, almost 80 percent, sometimes 90 percent, is coming from the same source. And, they don’t know it. They’re spending all their time on 80 percent of other stuff that’s not amounting to anything.”
Corcoran said that lack of focus can prevent businesses from upselling and finding new customers.
She told WCBS 880 digital tools assist in many areas and encouraged owners not to think of digital as a foreign language, but rather as something they need as part of their operations. An example she gave on the Small Business Spotlight is South Carolina-based Daisy Cakes, which she invested in on season two of “Shark Tank.” When their store closed due to COVID-19, owner Kim Nelson, once reliant on her Southern charm, made frantic calls to customers with ideas for cakes of the month.
“And then, she went online and started selling cakes through Goldbelly,” said Corcoran, adding Daisy Cakes sales tripled within a month. “What a wakeup call.”
The real estate mogul likes to use her social platforms to have fun, too, and said business owners should look at social media as a “free public relations vehicle accessible to all.” If you’ve been on Corcoran’s social media pages recently, you’ve seen the millionaire Shark dancing and “being silly” in TikTok videos.
“Does Facebook or TikTok or a stunt event of me bringing down my phone booth down to a park in New York City and reading tarot cards – all stunts, all ways to attract attention, all ways to entertain people – does it materialize in business?” she asked rhetorically. “I truly believe it does.”
“Each and every time you touch someone’s funny bone, get their eyeball on you, they’re predisposed to liking you. And, when people like you, they want to do business with you,” said Corcoran.
Watch Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso’s conversation with Barbara Corcoran on the Small Business Spotlight video above.
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FourBlock Spring 2021 Celebration: Inspiring Veteran Career Success Stories
Posted by: Neil A. CaroussoProduced by Neil A. Carousso, Carousso Enterprises, LLC
NEW YORK — FourBlock, a non-profit organization preparing U.S. veterans for careers after service, is celebrating the graduates of their Spring 2021 Career Readiness Program and commemorating their 10th anniversary in a live virtual event produced by Carousso Enterprises, LLC.
The event features a keynote fireside chat with former U.S. Army Officer and Bridgewater Associates CEO David McCormick, facilitated by retired U.S. Army Colonel and Citigroup Managing Director John Tien.
The one-hour FourBlock Spring 2021 Celebration will stream live on FourBlock’s LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter pages on Thursday, May 13 at 7 PM. All FourBlock students, alumni, military spouses, staff and volunteers, partners and the broader military and veteran-connected community are invited.
Carousso Enterprises specializes in producing corporate and sponsored videos, premier in-person and virtual events and multi-media content.
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Mr. Wonderful’s 3 Steps for Growing Your Business Again
Posted by: Neil A. CaroussoIn Best Of, Entertainment, Featured, Guest, Interview, Latest, News Stories, Technology, The World, videosBy Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary stressed business owners need to adapt to what he believes are permanent changes to consumer behavior as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast, presented by The First National Bank of Long Island, the self-made multi-millionaire entrepreneur made several recommendations of digital tools, sharing actionable advice for business recovery with host Joe Connolly. Mr. Wonderful also revealed what some of his companies have found success doing despite the economic turmoil.
1. MAKE THE “GREAT DIGITAL PIVOT”
O’Leary divulged that only 36 of the 56 companies he had been invested in across “almost every sector” nationwide are still in business a year into the pandemic.
“They did the great digital pivot and that involves figuring out how to set up a platform – most of them use Shopify not Amazon, number one – to change their websites to be far more interesting and engaging,” he told Connolly.
Shopify allows businesses to create their own e-commerce website using the platform whereas Amazon is the consumer-facing website for companies’ online marketplace.
“They went to 4K photography, 1080p video, they told stories about their products, they had other customers talk about testimonials and how they were using them, so they really engaged people for the first time in ways they’ve never done before because they were forced to – everybody was working remotely,” O’Leary said.
He also shared the trick to monetizing digital content on the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast. More on that later in Mr. Wonderful’s 3rd step to growing again.
2. PUT YOUR CUSTOMER FIRST
O’Leary said the best way to sell is to “promise customer support and deliver on it.”
He told Connolly his frequent advice to young entrepreneurs is that the customer is always number one, and if you treat them like that, you can have a very profitable business.
“The differentiating factor in selling is customer service,” O’Leary said, adding, “You can actually sell the same product for a higher price if you’re in the top quartile of customer service for it.”
The software tycoon invoked Apple as a prime example.
“When you buy a laptop from them, you’re paying 50 percent more than the exact same machine’s function on a Windows-based product or a brand you may not know, but because Apple makes you pay for customer support and you respect it and you want it, you pay a crazy amount more,” he said.
3. REDUCE YOUR CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COSTS
WCBS Business Producer Neil A. Carousso posed the number one question WCBS 880 listeners had for O’Leary, which was “How do you monetize digital content?”
Mr. Wonderful responded the only metric for monetizing digital content is whether it can reduce customer acquisition costs for one’s product or service.
“Basically, what you’re trying to do when you make new digital content is to tell a story about your product, show it in its best light, try and get testimonials from other users who are using it and why they use it, and try and acquire customers at the lowest cost you can,” the Shark explained.
“Remember, long-term outcome is basically customer acquisition costs have to be less than lifetime value of the customer acquired. Otherwise, you go out of business,” O’Leary added.
He produces a plethora of content for the companies he’s invested in and shows behind-the-scenes of commercial shoots, media appearances, and his daily life on his YouTube channel, which includes afternoon bike rides along Miami Beach, playing the guitar, cooking in his “Chef Wonderful” videos and enjoying O’Leary Fine Wines with his wife Linda.
A bonus step for growing your business again, O’Leary acknowledges, is a healthy work-life balance.
“I don’t work 9 to 5, obviously, and I try and find life balance in doing the things I love to do while I’m working,” said Mr. Wonderful. “I work seven days a week, but I don’t work every hour.”
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WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast: ‘Shark Tank’ Star Kevin O’Leary Boasts of ‘Digital 2.0 America’ in Growing Out of Pandemic
Posted by: Neil A. CaroussoIn Best Of, Entertainment, Featured, Guest, Interview, Latest, News Stories, Technology, The World, Top News, videosBy Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Kevin O’Leary, the self-made entrepreneur turned TV “Shark,” brought his straight-shooting, no-frills flare to the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast with Joe Connolly, presented by The First National Bank of Long Island, in sharing how to grow one’s business again.
O’Leary, who was nicknamed “Mr. Wonderful” by co-star Barbara Corcoran in season one of ABC’s hit show “Shark Tank,” praised business owners for their grit and resilience during the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic that has levied a burden on the economy over the past year and shut down major industries, namely restaurants and hospitality companies.
“The great thing about the American entrepreneur is they don’t let failure stop them,” he said. “The majority of them try again and learn from their mistakes.”
O’Leary emphasized a changed economy, telling Connolly owners must pursue a digital “transformation” to survive the pandemic.
“You’ve got to realize that you have to do a digital pivot,” he explained.
Mr. Wonderful said only 36 of the 56 companies he had been invested in are still in business a year into the pandemic, noting many of his still-standing “Shark Tank’ companies shifted to using Shopify for their e-commerce platform and incorporated high-quality photography and video to connect and find new customers.
“They really engaged people for the first time in ways they’ve never done before because they were forced to – everybody was working remotely,” said O’Leary.
“Retail is really challenged because if you’re just (in a) 1,200 square-foot space in a mall and the traffic’s dropped 20 percent, I don’t think that’s going to work out for anybody because consumer preferences have dramatically changed in the last year towards online retail,” he noted.
He suggested direct-to-consumer sales will help businesses to cut and manage costs, grow their gross margins, and build for the future.
O’Leary does not anticipate remote work habits will be broken. He’s actually betting on it to stay by shrinking his real estate portfolio from 31 percent to 8 percent over the next three years while the market adjusts to the post-pandemic economy.
“I haven’t had a cold or been sick since March 7th of last year and I’m starting to like it,” he said, adding, “I don’t think I’m getting in an elevator in New York going up to the 78th floor with 60 people ever again – not in December. I’m not going into a packed restaurant. That may just be me; I’m a germaphobe, but I’ve talked to lots of other people that have the same concerns.”
Kathy Wylde, president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for New York City, cited the “burnout” some employees feel by working from home where many feel they are always at work. She believes employers and employees want to return when it’s safe to do so. Mr. Wonderful disagrees with her assessment.
Photo Credit: ABC. “They have no interest in coming back to headquarters – not now, not ever,” O’Leary said of his workers. “In fact, if you try and force them, they’re going to find a job somewhere else where they get that flexibility.”
The O’Leary Financial Group founder told the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast that he hears most of his 10,000 employees enjoy working from home to take care of children and elderly parents while avoiding rough commutes in major metropolitan cities like New York.
Employers in professional services find productivity is up and they have a widened talent pool across the country and world.
The “Shark Tank” investor said he has made informed business decisions by listening to others he encounters while working remotely, himself, from his Miami Beach dream house where he joined Connolly virtually from his home studio.
One example of this is when he struck up a conversation with the nurse who administered his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine recently. She explained that at 24 years old she was uncomfortable with the lack of data around the vaccine and fertility.
“I had obviously heard of anti-vaxxers before, but I always thought they were the lunatic fringe – the 10 percent that thought the government was injecting them with a chip or something,” O’Leary said.
“I’m under the impression now, or at least in terms of my investment philosophy, that we’re going to get to a place pretty soon in the next 6 weeks, maybe 8 weeks, where we will have vaccinated two-thirds of the country and we’re going to hit a brick wall. The other third isn’t going to take it,” he believes, thus he’s downsizing his physical footprint, beefing investment in the digital space, and encouraging restaurateurs to re-think their indoor and outdoor dining areas while improving their digital ordering systems for takeout and delivery.
O’Leary sold his first business, renamed The Learning Company from SoftKey Software Products, to Mattel for $4.2 billion in 1999. Now, he owns O’Leary Financial Group, which is a conglomerate of brands that includes investment firm O’Leary Funds. He also serves as chairman of O’Shares ETFs. Kevin, a self-proclaimed wine connoisseur, owns O’Leary Fine Wines. Mr. Wonderful is also heavily invested in financial literacy firm Beanstox, Inc., which is geared towards young people in their 20s and 30s who are more interested in business and investing because of the pandemic.
“Basically, we’ve made it so simple that you try and take 100 dollars a week and put it into the markets through indexing,” he told Connolly of Beanstox. “It’s a tool to help people solve a big problem in America: 100 million Americans do not have anything set aside for their retirement.”
Mr. Wonderful knows how to have fun, too. He shows his lighter side to his 401,000 YouTube subscribers. His hobbies include biking, cooking and playing the guitar.
“I don’t work 9 to 5, obviously, and I try and find life balance in doing the things I love to do while I’m working,” O’Leary said in response to a question from WCBS Business Producer Neil A. Carousso, adding, “I work seven days a week, but I don’t work every hour.”
You can see Kevin O’Leary’s routine, his business philosophy, and actionable advice for growing your business again despite the pandemic on the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast with Joe Connolly, presented by The First National Bank of Long Island. Watch the full program above.
About Kevin O’Leary:
Photo Credit: ABC Kevin O’Leary’s success story starts where most entrepreneurs begin: with a big idea and zero cash.
Kevin O’Leary was born to a middle class family in 1954. The combination of Kevin’s mother’s family heritage as merchants and his father’s Irish charisma truly meant that O’Leary was born for business. Kevin learned most of his business intuition from his mother. She taught him key business and financial insights from an early age. These became Kevin’s core philosophies, and the pillars upon which he would one day build his empire.
Kevin’s approach to business went through major changes as a teenager. During his second day on the job at a local ice cream shop, his boss came into the front of the store where Kevin was scooping ice cream. She looked at Kevin and asked him to scrape all the gum between the Mexican tiles on the floor. Kevin refused and he was fired. That was the moment he realized he never wanted to work for someone else again and charted his path into entrepreneurship as a high school student.
As a university student, Kevin’s innate business sense led him along several different paths – including some very unusual, very entrepreneurial ways of making a profit.
Not long after he finished his MBA, Kevin had a meeting that changed his life forever.
He met a man who had a strange idea for a software product – an idea with huge, high-profit potential that Kevin immediately recognized.After years of ups, downs, sacrifices, challenges, and lessons learned — not to mention a critical phone call that nearly cost him everything — the opportunity that Kevin saw eventually turned into a computer software giant that was acquired for more than $4 billion dollars.
After his extraordinary success at the software company, he founded – and a difficult period of obstacles and legal disputes – Kevin eventually found himself on television, quickly becoming a sought-after host and personality on a range of shows – including Discovery’s Project Earth, CBC’s Dragons’ Den, and ABC’s Shark Tank.
Kevin has since launched O’Leary Funds, an investment fund company; O’Leary Fine Wines; and a best-selling book series on financial literacy.
In 2014, Kevin founded O’Leary Financial Group – a group of brands and services that share Kevin’s guiding principles of honesty, directness, convenience, and above all, great value.
