Bargain Alert!
Sometimes, laughter is all you have. And, when Delivering Joy, part of that Purpose is connecting with your audience in an authentic, meaningful way. With that in mind, our own Shawn Wilsie, Shop LC Host, recently appeared on the “A Corporate Time with Tom and Dan” podcast.
Tom and Dan are huge fans of Shop LC, and home shopping in general. The duo feels especially connected with Shawn Wilsie, whom they’ve come to admire for his live presentation abilities. The podcasters recognize that live television is an art form, and that it takes true skill to do so successfully.
“It is my favorite form of entertainment, shopping via the television,” says Dan Dennis*, co-host for Tom and Dan. “That is my favorite! I’m not a movie guy, I’m not even a radio guy anymore. I’m not even a podcast guy, and that’s what feeds my family. I am a home-shopping-from-the-television-boy, and it is what I love!
Dan: I think a lot of people think (home shopping is easy), trying to be engaging…and getting out the details of the product.
Shawn: Everything we do is ad-libbed. And it’s one of the things why I love this channel. We have to work off the cuff, non-stop. We are given little story points…and from there, we might have to talk 30 minutes to an hour about something.
Tom: It’s a form of improv, but it’s also a form of thinking fast on your feet, and then being able to know where you’re going with something and then tie a bow on it at the end. There’s a lot of skill to it.
Shawn: At Shop LC, they get that there is room for all of these personalities. This network does everything right, we can be ourselves, we can have fun. Our mantra is “Delivering Joy,” and I think that’s what we’re doing.
Tom: Is there someone in your mind that’s your mentor, or vastly better than you?
Shawn: I’ve been very fortunate. Right now, the woman who is my co-host, Karen Connelly, she and I worked together 20 years ago. She’s been in the industry longer than me, and she is like a mentor.
Dan: You guys are the best for the virus. If you don’t want to think about how hard things are right now, if you want a pleasant friend, you got to watch these channels.
Shawn: We try and be that friend. We try to be friendly people…We’re all very approachable. I’ve had people come up to me (at the grocery store), and say “Hey I bought this from you!”
I love meeting people. You have to be a people person to really succeed in this. And Shop LC is great about hiring people that are like that. We have a great management team here that supports us in being ourselves.
Tom: It’s real, and that’s the genius of it, and Shop LC realizes it. That’s why it sells, because you’re being honest. They know your personality; the viewers know you.
So, Shawn…the products themselves. How does that work exactly? Are they overstock, or liquidation, are these products specifically made to market in this way?
Shawn: All the time! That’s one of the things I love about this. This past weekend, we were selling a closeout of a fragrance called Norell. Karen and I sold literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of this product in one show. We knew it was going to be popular, but we had no idea it would be to that level.
Conversely, we’ve had many things that we think, “this is going to be the best thing ever,” and (it doesn’t sell well).
Our parent company is a jewelry company, and most of that product is made in India. That keeps our costs down. When you buy jewelry from a retailer, there are like 7 to 8 markups that take place along the way; we get rid of that.
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*Not to be confused with Dan Dennis, host at Shop LC.
Updated November 28, 2023.
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