American inventor, entrepreneur, and television personality Lori Greiner is known for her amazing, innovative products, and of course for her presence in the reality TV show Shark Tank. Cited as the Queen of QVC, the holder of multi-million net worth Lori runs her Chicago-based company For Your Ease Only, Inc. along with her husband Dan Greiner.
So how did it all happen? How did a Loyola University Communications major end up as a multimillionaire entrepreneur? Let’s find out!
Watch Lori Greiner as the cold-blooded shark on Shark Tank. Source: Business Insider
You know how we all have these amazing ideas but we’re skeptical about it and someone else works on the same idea and is applauded for it? The same thing happened to Lori. She had these great ideas in the 1990s like a book of fairy tales but it only made it to her mind. It was when she saw a bestseller book which had an idea similar to hers that she vowed to act on her ideas right away and never hold back. Now she may not have been that successful at doing her part of not holding back if her husband had not been on her side to support her and pushed her to do her best.
We are not unaware of the fact that Dan Greiner is the best husband ever! He is the pillar of support for wife Lori and has always been a major source of motivation for her. He believes in Lori so much that he even left his job to join her company. Yes! Lori’s husband Dan is the vice-president of her company, For Your Ease Only Inc.
Lori’s breakthrough idea was an earring organizer. She sold it at J.C Penney during the holidays and it was a huge, huge success. A huge success that came from a very simple and practical idea as reported by philly.com.
‘I had a lot of jewelry that was just thrown in a box, and it was a mess. I couldn’t find anything. I really just thought it would be great to find a solution for my earrings so I could find what I wanted.’
And that’s how the great story began, Lori is now an owner of a company that sells over 100 products, mostly through QVC, and you can expect her sales to be somewhere around $40 million or more. She’s regarded as the ‘Queen of QVC’ not only because she’s done massive sales through the 24-hour product-selling channel but also because of her connections with her customers.
"She has a real connection with customers — they like her, they call in as if they know her. From a branding point of view, that's gold." Says Rick Domeier, QVC senior program host to Chicago Business.
Apart from this, Lori had a very distinct way of finding new ideas. Her husband who has been working with her for years, reveals to Chicago Business,
"It's thoughtful, looking up in the sky, with a slight smile like she just figured something out. By dinner, she'll be writing it on a piece of paper."
Lori and Dan Greiner work together from their own home and are also rumored to be sharing a desk. How lovely is that? And not only is she an entrepreneur, Lori is also a television personality. She joined the television series Shark Tank, which is gearing for its eighth season, in 2012. She is known as “the cold-blooded shark” in the show. In 2014, she invested in a revolutionary sponge providing company called Scrub Daddy which later turned out to be a huge success. Now Scrub Daddy is a reputed company with over $75 million worth sales, this company is noted as the biggest success story in Shark Tank history. But Scrub Daddy isn’t the only thing she’s invested in, she’s invested in a number of start-ups; Squatty Potty, Readerest, Paint Brush Cover, Hold Your Haunches, Drop Stop, FiberFix, and Screenmend.
We’re shooting #SharkTank Season 8! What do you want to see MORE OF behind-the-scenes? #InsideTheTank @ABCSharkTank pic.twitter.com/CPpg4k1FtS
— Lori Greiner (@LoriGreiner) June 23, 2016
Lori Greiner who has a net worth of over $50 million is also an author and has published a book ‘Invent it, Sell it, Bank it! – Make Your Million Dollar Idea into a Reality’. The book was a huge success reaching the #3 spot in the Wall Street Journal’s Best Seller List.