#257: How To Win Over Buyers at Toy Fair with Barry & Jason
New York Toy Fair is just around the corner and if you’re preparing to launch your toy or game at this event, learn this lesson: it WON’T sell itself! Buyers see hundreds of pitches, and even the best ideas can get lost in the noise.
The real secret? It’s not just what you pitch, but HOW you pitch it. So, how do you make buyers stop, pay attention, and want to play?
That’s exactly why I’m bringing back an episode with Barry McLaughlin & Jason Lautenschleger, who share how to pitch and stand out at New York Toy Fair.
In this episode of Making It In The Toy Industry, Barry & Jason share their wildest Toy Fair pitch stories, including the time Jason literally proposed with Game Night in a Can—and walked away with a deal! These longtime friends (who have competed on 11 game shows together) have mastered the art of pitching with energy, humor, and theatrics to grab buyers’ attention. From landing deals with Goliath Games and PlayMonster to turning trade show pitches into full-blown entertainment, their unique and fun approach proves that showmanship sells.
Barry & Jason reveal how mini-games during a pitch can instantly engage buyers, and how reading body language cues (like the "surprise inhale" and “writing the nods”) can help you close the deal faster. Plus, they explain why not knowing all the rules of the toy industry actually helped them innovate.
If you’re prepping for Toy Fair or looking to level up your pitch game, this episode is full of must-know strategies. Learn how to grab attention, keep buyers engaged, and turn a pitch into an unforgettable experience. Put on your headphones and get ready to SELL MORE TOYS!
Listen For These Important Moments
[00:29] - Preparing for New York Toy Fair
[02:17] - The Journey of Barry and Jason
[06:03] - Creating Game Night In A Can
[15:27] - First Toy Fair Experience
[17:10] - Pitching Tips and Strategies
[23:51] - Connecting Through Humor
[24:15] - Adapting Your Pitch Strategy
[26:25] - Memorable Pitching Anecdotes
[30:50] - Handling Competition and Doubt
[31:38] - Keys to Pitching with Pizzazz
[33:07] - The Importance of Presentation
[40:46] - Final Advice for Aspiring Game Creators
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Get more game-changing tips from Barry & Jason! 🎲
Follow @BarryAndJason on Instagram and check out barryandjason.com for their latest games and projects!
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making It In The Toy Industry, episode number 257.
[00:00:11] Azhelle Wade: Welcome to Making It In The Toy Industry, a podcast for inventors, entrepreneurs, and makers like you, and now your host, Azhelle Wade.
[00:00:23] Azhelle Wade: Hey there, toy people, happy Wednesday. Thanks so much for tuning in. Okay. I am going to be sharing a repeat episode this week, and this is perfectly time for the upcoming New York Toy Fair.
[00:00:38] Azhelle Wade: How many of you are going to New York Toy Fair? Raise your hands and message me and let me know. I'm gonna be there. I'm going to be visiting some of my students who will have booths there. I'll be visiting students who are just walking the show. Some are participating in the inventor event, the creative factor, and I'm just excited to report on and see some of the new products that are out.
[00:01:00] Azhelle Wade: I've been invited to some booths. So I'm excited to see those products as well. If you are going to New York Toy Fair and you're presenting product, likely you're getting ready for pitches. Hopefully you already have meetings lined up. And if not, I thought bringing back this episode interview would be the most helpful in getting you ready to pitch at New York Toy Fair.
[00:01:20] Azhelle Wade: We're probably going to be talking about New York Toy Fair a lot this month, because I want to make sure that if you're listening to this podcast, that you are ready to make. the most of it. So please enjoy this reshare of an interview I had with Barry and Jason, the ultimate pitch kings of the industry.
[00:01:39] Azhelle Wade: And stay tuned as we do more dives into New York Toy Fair ahead of the show, which starts March 1st. So I can't wait to see some of you there. Again, if you're going to be at New York Toy Fair, send me a message on LinkedIn or Instagram. Let me know that you're there. You'll be there. We can meet up, snap a photo, say hello and all that good stuff.
[00:02:02] Azhelle Wade: Okay, toy people. I will see you very soon.
[00:02:06] Azhelle Wade: . My guests today are Barry and Jason, and they reached out to me to share an incredible topic with you guys.
[00:02:12] Azhelle Wade: And that is Pitching with Pizzazz. Let me tell you a little bit about these two gentlemen. They're two best buds who invent party games, host live game experiences, and recently decided to start developing game shows, speaking of which they've been contestants on 11 game shows between them. They live in LA and they're all about inspiring laughter and creativity.
[00:02:33] Azhelle Wade: Their very first game creation was "Game Night In A Can" with Goliath Games and their new game with Play Monster, "Okay, Genius". As I said today, we're going to talk about Pitching with Pizzazz. I'd like to welcome Barry and Jason to the show.
[00:02:46] Azhelle Wade: Welcome guys.
[00:02:48] Jason Lautenschleger: By the way, I was fully expecting to show up for Pitching with Pizzas. That's what I thought the topic was today. So, I am completely unprepared except for all these pizzas that we have here.
[00:02:59] Barry McLaughlin: I was wondering what the pepperoni smell was.
[00:03:01] Azhelle Wade: How long have you guys been friends?
[00:03:03] Jason Lautenschleger: 27 years.
[00:03:05] Azhelle Wade: Where did you meet?
[00:03:06] Jason Lautenschleger: I do the math because I like to hold it over his head. We met on the first day of college at UCLA.
[00:03:12] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah, it was immediately, uh, It's, it's like that moment in Step Brothers, like, did we just become best friends?
[00:03:18] Azhelle Wade: So how did this friendship turn into a business venture?
[00:03:24] Barry McLaughlin: Oh. Well, it, we took a lot of twists and turns over the years.
[00:03:29] Barry McLaughlin: I mean, we started with a, a comedy band called the Bicycling Mariachis.
[00:03:34] Azhelle Wade: I did not know this. This is a great tale.
[00:03:37] Barry McLaughlin: It was, it was really fun. I mean, our very first show was playing in the, uh, dining hall at UCLA and.
[00:03:46] Jason Lautenschleger: Our first paying gig.
[00:03:47] Barry McLaughlin: Our first paying gig, that's right. And then we would play in people's houses and we would play in different buildings on campus.
[00:03:55] Barry McLaughlin: And then we started playing at the Troubadour and the Whiskey A Go Go and the Viper Room. And we would open for the band that became Maroon 5. Sometimes they, for us, this was when they were a band. It's flowers, and we were just all friends and all making funny things together,
[00:04:13] Jason Lautenschleger: And we had this thing where we would be writing the show right up to the day of the show, and one of the things that we would know we had was a finale, and so we had a finale at the Whiskey A Go Go one time called Balls, where we threw 500 balls out into the audience
[00:04:31] Barry McLaughlin: Like Chuck E. Cheese balls
[00:04:32] Jason Lautenschleger: Over the course of the finale. Uh, somebody came in to deliver a pizza like halfway through the song like that's the music cut out and and he opens the box of pizza and it's just 100 ping pong balls in there and he tosses those all out and and then at the Troubadour we printed up, uh, 300 diplomas and tied them together and it's and it was like because of the finale song 'Valedictorian'.
[00:04:55] Barry McLaughlin: And. We were just always tossing things out into the audience and we actually got banned from the whiskey for throwing too many things.
[00:05:05] Jason Lautenschleger: Well, it was, it was, it was the processed meats. I think that really,
[00:05:08] Barry McLaughlin: Oh, we were throwing baloney, which is terrible. And I became a vegetarian soon after and felt horrible about that.
[00:05:16] Jason Lautenschleger: That is, but that is a fun, a fun little, uh, feather in our cap is that. Uh, there are two bands that have been completely banned from the Whiskey and it's us and The Doors.
[00:05:26] Azhelle Wade: So, okay. I didn't, I didn't even know you were in the music industry. So how did you end up coming into the toy industry?
[00:05:32] Barry McLaughlin: So we, we had some different travels on our, on our, our own.
[00:05:38] Barry McLaughlin: Uh, Jason was in TV development. Um, I was in advertising, there was a lot of short films and comedy happening. Then we were doing these live shows, uh, these live comedy shows that were more like sketch and variety. And then at the same time, we were contestants on game shows, and something in that sort of transfigured our live shows into more of these live game nights.
[00:06:03] Barry McLaughlin: So we started kind of combining those experiences and we just kept doing these game nights and they were super fun and there was one game night that was just so electric, like we could feel the creativity buzzing in the room and we decided that night that we needed to make this into a game. Jason even had the title Game Night in a Can.
[00:06:27] Azhelle Wade: Where was this?
[00:06:28] Barry McLaughlin: Ready to go. So we took that that night and that name 'Game Night In A Can' and we took about a year, this was in, I think, 2015. And we just came up with a bunch of different ideas. We took a lot of the games that we were doing live at these events and that we distilled them down into very simple, quick instructions and how someone could play at home and decided to make this game that was like having us in your living room, uh, hosting the game night. And so we did a Kickstarter, we raised enough to make the game. We put it up on Amazon and then we went to our first, uh, New York toy fair a year later, and that was that was it.
[00:07:10] Azhelle Wade: How did you come up with the games that you were playing on stage? Where did those initial ideas come from?
[00:07:15] Jason Lautenschleger: Uh, yeah, it all comes from entertainment. I would say is like, what is the most fun that we can have with people on stage? And then us, us facilitating that game. You know, was, was always the easy part because that's what we'd been doing together is, you know, hosting and performing and then bringing people to compete was always fun.
[00:07:34] Jason Lautenschleger: But like what is going to yield the most entertainment was kind of always the metric that went into these games. And then also moving the night along, you know, we'd have, we'd have people off doing a creative competition, like go outside and rewrite the national anthem for this country. You know, and and while they're doing that, let's have a paper airplane throwing competition inside, which is really funny because it's such a simple idea and yet so many people have forgotten the art of actually making a paper airplane.
[00:08:03] Jason Lautenschleger: And so, uh, so we found that like, okay, we can do these physical competitions while these creative competitions are happening. And so it became, like tempo and kind of like, you know, act structure, if you're talking about a game show, right? Like, like breaking that down in a live way.
[00:08:19] Barry McLaughlin: Jason, our first handful of game nights, Jason plays seven different instruments, and so he would have a keyboard and a saxophone ready to go, and a bass, and would play little things in between, and then that became too much to do that, and so then we had some shows where we would have a lot to carry around.
[00:08:38] Azhelle Wade: Well, this is really interesting, because like a live performance, especially when there's one or two performers on stage, and you've got hundreds, let's say. Dozens or hundreds of people in the audience. You've got to engage all of their senses to keep them excited and entertained and, you know, giving you the energy back that you're giving them.
[00:08:59] Azhelle Wade: So I see there's a lot of, it opens your creativity up, right? Because you're not just thinking what will fit in this box and on this table and be $19. 99. You're thinking what will engage all these people with me and with each other. And do you think that that is what is kind of your superpower in that you don't sit down and think about what's going to fit in this box?
[00:09:21] Azhelle Wade: You think about what's going to engage a group of people.
[00:09:23] Jason Lautenschleger: Azhelle, I think you just ended the podcast right there with the right answer.
[00:09:28] Barry McLaughlin: That's it. We have nothing else to say. That's our secret sauce.
[00:09:31] Jason Lautenschleger: Thanks for having us.
[00:09:32] Barry McLaughlin: Everybody knows. Uh, yes, that, that's. That's right on. I mean, we really try and work backwards from what's the experience we want to create.
[00:09:42] Barry McLaughlin: And it is different in every project. And certainly as we've been in the industry longer, we do have to think of the box size and the cost and all of these things. But we definitely don't start out that way and we, we certainly didn't start out in the industry that way at all. And we learned along the way, like, "Oh, we need to have insurance if we're selling our own."
[00:10:02] Barry McLaughlin: And we need to make sure that the, the, the box, or in our case, the can actually says what this thing is and does and what your experience will be on the shelf or else people aren't going to get it. But in the beginning, and also when we're in our early brainstorm phases, it is what's the experience, what's something different.
[00:10:21] Barry McLaughlin: What makes, gets people laughing? What gets them talking? What's just fun?
[00:10:26] Jason Lautenschleger: Yeah, and I will say this as far as like business development and process wise, sometimes your greatest asset is what you don't know. And I think for us coming in, you know, kind of guns a blazing, and we try not to use too many, military or ammunition based metaphors.
[00:10:45] Jason Lautenschleger: That's my balls. Balls of juggling balls. We come in balls. We, we came in balls of juggling. that's a great game, . Anyway, noted. Uh, note trademark. Copy written. Yeah, sorry. Uh, no, no. I, uh. I always look back at like Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, who wanted to, you know, create this streaming platform where everyone could have music in like the model of the way everyone has any utility, right?
[00:11:09] Jason Lautenschleger: And he didn't know that you needed to get license rights for these songs. And he was so far down the road in creating Spotify that, he got to a point where he was like, Oh, now I need that. But it was already a runaway train. And then at that point it was like, okay, how do we get universal music group on board?
[00:11:26] Jason Lautenschleger: How do we get these other majors on board? And once they got one or two, everyone else kind of followed suit. And so his superpower to use your word was, was ignorance in a sense. And, and for us, You know, ignorance on one side of the coin could be, you know, expertise on the other. And so we, yes, we brought in a certain expertise to an industry to which we were largely, largely ignorant.
[00:11:48] Jason Lautenschleger: I think that was actually the best combination.
[00:11:50] Azhelle Wade: That is literally what I tell people that come into the industry and come to my classes or TCA and I'm like, your zone of toy genius, as I call it, is the thing that is not in this industry. It's a thing that the toy designer at, you know, Hasbro won't know because they spent 10, 20 years studying toy design, not studying psychology or teaching, you know, they don't understand what you know. When I was building my program, Toy Creators Academy, I had this one module that's like, okay, now that I taught you all this stuff, I want you to like go outside and not think about it for two days.
[00:12:22] Azhelle Wade: And I remember as I was like recording that, I was like, people are going to think this is so ridiculous. Like what woo woo course did I just get into? But it's so important to like, okay, you know, a bunch of information. But completely forget about it for just a little bit, go out there, have some fun. And just now that you have this new perspective, other things are going to pop out at you.
[00:12:40] Azhelle Wade: But I don't want you getting all like what's going to fit in a box. And was it like not too soon? We don't want to go there too soon, right? As in, yeah,
[00:12:47] Barry McLaughlin: Absolutely. Yeah, that's where the connections happen too, when you're open in that way, you're not hyper focused and all these little things start popping in different ways that can work here.
[00:12:57] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:12:59] Jason Lautenschleger: I think you start, you know, putting together the pieces of where your epiphanies come from to like for me I'll need to walk and I get, 12 to 18, 000 steps a day. And it's like, yeah, I mean, but that's, that's how, that's how I've learned I work and, and I'll need to do it for a really long time.
[00:13:17] Jason Lautenschleger: And then sometimes it'll just be like, there it is, or, you know, out of the blue, these ideas will come in, but it's always, it's that shower principle. Like you have to be doing something else and then it comes.
[00:13:26] Azhelle Wade: Okay. Okay. Finish the sentence. The thing that surprised me the most about the toy industry was
[00:13:32] Barry McLaughlin: Okay, is how anything can become a toy or a game. I don't think I realize just how open it really is. And when you look at some of the ridiculous, just how insane some things are that are, I mean, you know, we can start by just talking about all the different poop games that there's a hundred different.
[00:13:56] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:13:57] Barry McLaughlin: And there's, games where you've got tiny hands that you're using. There's games where you wear a water balloon on your head. I mean, there's just anything can become a game. Same thing with, with toys. I mean, I, I think from the outside, it feels like there's more of a science to it. And I know there is some things, the things that come hits, but when you're really in it, it's, everybody's looking for something. So there's space for anything.
[00:14:24] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. Yeah. And Jason, Please finish this sentence.
[00:14:27] Azhelle Wade: The thing that surprised me most about the toy industry was.
[00:14:32] Jason Lautenschleger: How small it is, uh, and how quickly you find out that everybody knows everybody
[00:14:38] Azhelle Wade: and everybody
[00:14:39] Jason Lautenschleger: you worked with, buddy. And now that person works over here, but they used to be there. And, we, you know, we live in Los Angeles and we dip into the shows here and there.
[00:14:49] Jason Lautenschleger: And I feel like some people are more in the industry than, than, than we are sometimes. But it's like, yeah, the same names pop up. You know, pretty quickly.
[00:14:58] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:14:58] Jason Lautenschleger: And also it's a, it's an industry that some bad actors have made it to the top of their field, you know, through success and that's how they're able to stay there.
[00:15:07] Jason Lautenschleger: But others that don't have that success are kind of quickly identified. And if you ask around, you'll quickly get the scoop on who's real and who's not.
[00:15:16] Azhelle Wade: You guys are now known inventors in the industry. So your first creation. Let's talk about Game Night in a Can. Let's talk about that journey. So you took it on Amazon and you went to Toy Fair.
[00:15:27] Azhelle Wade: What was your first experience at Toy Fair with that initial version of Game Night in a Can?
[00:15:31] Barry McLaughlin: We had a five foot booth. Like a hallway.
[00:15:34] Azhelle Wade: Okay.
[00:15:35] Jason Lautenschleger: Like, yeah, like a narrow stretch of real estate.
[00:15:38] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:15:38] Barry McLaughlin: And we were very active in our booth. As people were walking down the aisle, we were trying to get everybody's attention, which I know it can be pretty annoying, but we were, we just were doing whatever we could do to get some attention to start because I mean, at New York Toy Fair and at your first Toy Fair, it feels gigantic and you feel like the tiniest fish. And so we would try and make jokes to people as they come by, not at their expense, of course, we would, hold up, you know, game night in a can in different creative ways.
[00:16:13] Barry McLaughlin: I think Jason saw, a rep from Uncommon Goods walking down the aisle and he actually got down on one knee and held it up like an engagement ring.
[00:16:22] Azhelle Wade: Did it work?
[00:16:24] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah. Yes. It worked.
[00:16:26] Jason Lautenschleger: That was kind of our first big placement was Incoming Good and it, it stemmed from that, but that was just to stop traffic because otherwise they're walking by and you know what it's like that stretch of like the five foot wide booths where you're like, uh, uh, yeah.
[00:16:41] Jason Lautenschleger: And some of the people are sitting on chairs in the back of their booths eating their tuna wrap, their ill advised tuna wrap from the Javits Center. They're just like, Oh, waving at people, you know, and like, you're like, how are you ever going to move that? You know? And also you paid $5, 000 for this booth.
[00:16:56] Jason Lautenschleger: So you better do something.
[00:16:58] Azhelle Wade: Pitching at a show like New York Toy Fair, which is massive. By the time buyers get down to that new vendor section, they're exhausted. Sales reps, they're like half interested by the time they get down there. For somebody that is not quite as outgoing as you, how would you encourage them to get over that?
[00:17:18] Azhelle Wade: What is the first little easy thing they could do? To just give them that first step of like, just trying to talk to somebody
[00:17:26] Barry McLaughlin: For me, a couple of things come up. One is not having to prescribed of a scripted pitch, because if you get nervous about it and you get a little off track, you're going to be in your head like, wait, what, what am I saying that?
[00:17:42] Barry McLaughlin: And then it's going to be all about that. And it's really just connecting from human to human. I try to remove myself from what the thing is that we're pitching as far as having any of my ego in that product, in that item. So that, because there's always going to be feedback. You hope that it's good, but also sometimes it's going to be constructive and that's not a reflection on me.
[00:18:04] Barry McLaughlin: And so if I've already taken that out of the picture and I'm not trying to memorize something, then I'm taking a few roadblocks already out of the way and then just practice, like we'll certainly practice pitching things to each other and try and tell the story in different ways and how do we distill this and then yeah, I will usually practice with our wives to you know other just Interested friends that want to hear it and so we're able to get comfortable in what are the important aspects of this that I need to hit, but that it doesn't have to be super prescribed all the way through because I want to be able to have a conversation with this person so that they don't feel like they're just being talked at.
[00:18:46] Barry McLaughlin: And
[00:18:46] Jason Lautenschleger: I think it's the number of conversations that really defines and continually morphs that message, right? So you may walk, go into Toy Fair with your idea of what the elevator pitch is, but by the time you leave it, by the time you've had 20 conversations about it, you realize. And we have a phrase called writing the nods where it's like each interaction, you, get hopefully more and more nods of understanding.
[00:19:11] Jason Lautenschleger: Okay. And so it's just communication, but like, we ride the nods. We're like, Ooh, that was a good line.
[00:19:16] Azhelle Wade: I noticed one at the last show, there was the, the mesh was huge at the last Astro show. And I remember I was showing several items and I would say, this is a social emotional item, which is the same thing.
[00:19:29] Azhelle Wade: And they'd be like, Oh, yeah, it's interesting. And I'm like, Yeah, you know mesh? And they'd be like, Oh my! Mesh? What? There's just things you have to refine. You know?
[00:19:38] Jason Lautenschleger: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I would say to go back to your initial question of like advice, if you're starting out and you ask somebody for advice, like, Hey, excuse me, can I ask you for your opinion on my product?
[00:19:51] Jason Lautenschleger: Yeah. If you're there trying to gather information for future iterations, and I guess that would be the first step, too, is acknowledging that, no plan, you know, survives first contact, right, with the outside world. Yeah. You know, and so just, just knowing that there are going to be iterations.
[00:20:05] Jason Lautenschleger: if you're a shy person who doesn't feel comfortable with like an established pitch or pitching, you know, an outgoing pitch, then maybe the tech is like to gather that feedback and to be more vulnerable and say, like, can I ask your opinion on this?
[00:20:18] Jason Lautenschleger: I feel like the cautionary tale of Toy Fair is the person who is wheeling around the 20 year old invention that hasn't changed in all that time.
[00:20:27] Barry McLaughlin: Because we, we have seen some people where we'll just see them at these shows. And maybe they've come up to us at some point, but we will see that they're pulling out the exact same thing that they pulled out in previous years and that it hasn't changed.
[00:20:42] Jason Lautenschleger: I'll come up with a title like water soccer, right? And let's say this guy is walking around with this game water soccer that you created and you can tell. And then also you'll talk to the booth next to you and like, "Ah, that guy has been selling that thing for, you know, years./" and you're like, oh,
[00:20:56] Barry McLaughlin: And I think we want to make clear that sticking with something you believe in is amazing. And sometimes it might take 20 years to find the right person who's like, yes, this is it. I think what Jason is talking about and what I feel as well as when there's not, change and improvements and, adapting and listening.
[00:21:16] Barry McLaughlin: Listening is really important. I think in pitches too, like we will be pitching someone and they may say something that will clock because we know that "Oh, when we get to that aspect of this game, maybe we leave it out, or maybe we're able to speak about it a little bit. "
[00:21:33] Azhelle Wade: Oh yes. Like, like that. Okay.
[00:21:36] Azhelle Wade: Let's clarify that though. What he's talking about is changing your pitch mid pitch like
[00:21:41] Azhelle Wade: you have a plan and you know what you're going to highlight about this product. But as you're talking to the person you're pitching to, you're already realizing they're not going to care that this is mesh.
[00:21:50] Azhelle Wade: So then you're like, I'm just going to not mention it. You know, why waste time? Why lose their interest and just dive into the things they like? Yeah.
[00:21:58] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah. And sometimes there's something that they really respond to. And it's like, Oh, let's just go down that road. Like, let's just keep talking about that, whatever that thing is.
[00:22:06] Azhelle Wade: Have you ever seen the show Lie to Me? It's some guy who would just analyze people's facial features to see if they're lying or not. So I'm going to ask you guys, are there any facial actions or body language responses that you identify as like, Oh, they like this? Let's keep talking about it.
[00:22:21] Barry McLaughlin: Oh, that's a great question.
[00:22:23] Jason Lautenschleger: I think I think the nods, right? Like we were saying earlier, the writing, writing the nods. And then it's almost always for me, a confirmation bias of something that person already believes. I really think it has to resonate with that person on a deeper level where it's like You've said something that this game does or offers that they've been looking.
[00:22:45] Barry McLaughlin: There's also a slow almost inhale and having your head go backwards. That's like this.
[00:22:52] Azhelle Wade: Oh
[00:22:54] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah, that's one too.
[00:22:56] Jason Lautenschleger: That's the one they didn't see coming.
[00:22:57] Barry McLaughlin: Yes, usually that's a surprise like "Yes, of course." It's that sometimes there's the looking up.
[00:23:04] Jason Lautenschleger: I would say human nature wise, that one's more rare. Because, because you're less likely to change or adapt somebody's mind on the spot. And you're more likely to kind of judo their mind in that like you use the energy they already have and then you move it into your direction.
[00:23:21] Azhelle Wade: How do you do that?
[00:23:23] Barry McLaughlin: With your hands like this, again, Jason is taking his hands as if he's holding a ball in between them and moving it to the left off camera.
[00:23:31] Barry McLaughlin: Um, well, I think that goes into the writing the nods. I mean, it's such a silly name, but I feel like that one concept does so much for our pitches. Because we will respond to the nods and to the, we respond to laughs for sure. We're always. You know, trying to do something funny at some point of the page, and it's not usually prepared.
[00:23:56] Barry McLaughlin: We just want to have fun and connect with the person. So if they're laughing, that always helps. But if you're not a funny person, or if your jokes are falling flat, there are still those nods of recognition, and we just try and go deeper into those. I just feel like that one thing does so much.
[00:24:15] Azhelle Wade: So, if you don't see a nod, how long do you keep going before you try to change course? If you know you've lost them, do you kind of end that concept pitch early and move to the next one? Or do you keep trying different things? Like, what do you do when you're not getting that feedback?
[00:24:27] Barry McLaughlin: I think we move along pretty quickly.
[00:24:29] Jason Lautenschleger: Yeah. I, I, I think there are some brick walls that just. It's going to be there too. Right. And there's some people who are so set in their ways and closed off to the possibility. I feel like the pitching game is have the best idea, have the most passion and hope for, you know, the fertile soil really on the other side.
[00:24:45] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:24:45] Jason Lautenschleger: And, it's a two way thing. It's like basically, I, I look at Providence and Opportunity as a high level line, you know, let's say it's a horizontal line going across and then your work is these like peaks and valleys below it. And at sometimes that Providence line drops down and you reach it and you hit it and it's, that's the sweet spot is where it's like, but you can just raise your frequency, and your effort and get better and better and better all along.
[00:25:11] Jason Lautenschleger: But at the same time, that bar just could be, you know, unattainable. And that company you know, maybe they just had an offsite where they're like, we're not doing any judging games, you know? And it's like, we've all heard that, but it's like, guess what?
[00:25:26] Jason Lautenschleger: Like somebody is going to do a judging game that now is going to stand out.
[00:25:29] Barry McLaughlin: I also think that people know fairly quickly in a pitch, whether or not they're interested, and I think it's pretty hard to get over that initial lock.
[00:25:43] Azhelle Wade: It is.
[00:25:43] Barry McLaughlin: And, I think that that's just a great time to switch gears and just wrap up that thing and, and know that, okay, well, I, I'm still going to pitch this to 10, 15, 20 other people.
[00:25:53] Azhelle Wade: Yes. And not try to explain why they should be interested. This is something I teach my students over and over again after every TCA pitch event. I'm like, do not hard sell. If they say no, you say thank you. And we keep going like, you know,
[00:26:10] Barry McLaughlin: Awesome. That's great advice, Azhelle, because I feel like a lot of people, especially early on. Will even hear no and then keep pushing it. And it's, you can always come back to that person. You made a tweak and then you come back later on.
[00:26:25] Azhelle Wade: Exactly. Do you have any memorable anecdotes about how you pitch with Pizzazz Game Night in a Can?
[00:26:31] Barry McLaughlin: One of the games in Game Night in a Can is called Frumpy Bumpers, where you and your partner have to bump butts as many times as you can in 30 seconds.
[00:26:39] Azhelle Wade: Okay.
[00:26:40] Barry McLaughlin: It's so silly. It's so dumb. And we had no trouble doing that on a Zoom call, just having to readjust our computer and then get up and then bump butts for, usually we wouldn't do it for the full 30 seconds. Because, because cramps, the company that we ended up going with was one of the earliest ones we pitched too.
[00:27:01] Barry McLaughlin: So we could have saved all that butt bumping, but yeah, we ended up doing it with Goliath and Goliath, a lot of their, game development team and their sales reps would play Frumpy Bumpers with people that they were looking to sell the game to. Which is so funny to us because it's the, it's the silliest, dumbest game, but it just makes you laugh and it's very physical.
[00:27:25] Barry McLaughlin: So I was like a pay it forward, a frumpy bumper.
[00:27:27] Azhelle Wade: How many games are in Game Night in a Can? 35. I'd bring that up to say you guys really strategically know the depth of your own game, but you chose what would make the biggest visual impact and create the most memorable moment for the people you were pitching it to.
[00:27:41] Azhelle Wade: You didn't just say, let's just roll the dice and whatever card comes up, comes up. Like, no, you loaded the deck and you intentionally showed the best of the game.
[00:27:48] Barry McLaughlin: Yes. We always load the deck for sure. And I think there are some that we have, we've certainly had some pitches, with any of our games where we would just to keep it interesting would leave it to chance for what's going to come up and we always try and make sure that the content is good enough, right? So that anything that comes up is still going to be fun. But yeah, with game night in a can, there are more games. There are some games that are much more visual than others and that get across the point really quickly.
[00:28:15] Barry McLaughlin: There's another one called bank face where one player holds the can and the other has a ball of paper. You try it. You get one point to get the ball in the can, but three points if you bank it off their face into the can. And so that one live works really well. People like to play that one live.
[00:28:32] Barry McLaughlin: You get into it immediately.
[00:28:33] Jason Lautenschleger: So at trade shows, we would have the, all the cards spread out on the table and we would have on the top, you know, our favorites certainly. And that we actually use that too, throughout revisions of game night in a can where it's like, okay, what are the cards that we would pick up and put back down?
[00:28:50] Jason Lautenschleger: Right. And not pitch. And it's like, We can beat that. If we're not pitching with that game, we can beat that. And so, so like over the course of the last, like, you know, eight years, those games that were always left at the bottom, they just got pushed out and we came over, over the top with ones that were way better.
[00:29:06] Azhelle Wade: Your pitching process sounds memorable. Did you ever have somebody that you pitched to bring up one of your pitches like at a much later date?
[00:29:15] Barry McLaughlin: There's a very memorable pitch from a game we had called Underpants Apocalypse. It comes with two gigantic pairs of underwear, like impossibly large pairs of underwear.
[00:29:26] Barry McLaughlin: And It's all of these mini games that you play and one of them is called Squirreling Away for the Winter, where you have, I think, 30 seconds to gather as many items as you can and put them into your underpants from the room. So we were pitching, Tanya Thompson from Hasbro. We love Tanya and she's the best.
[00:29:49] Barry McLaughlin: And we were pitching her in this glass room. So we realized that we had not brought items to kind of run around and pick up to put into the underpants. So Jason notices that Tanya has this huge bowl of snacks on her desk. And so I start a timer and Jason just starts taking Snickers bars and Pringles and pretzels and a stapler.
[00:30:13] Barry McLaughlin: And essentially taking her all the snacks out of her bowl and
[00:30:16] Jason Lautenschleger: All of her office supplies in his giant underpants. And she's just smiling,
[00:30:22] Barry McLaughlin: Just like, well, this is interesting. First, first pitched her and there's people looking from outside of the glass.
[00:30:28] Jason Lautenschleger: Like, what is this, who is this thief in giant underwear that just ran into this room to steal all of these goods and snacks?
[00:30:34] Azhelle Wade: Did that get item get placed?
[00:30:36] Barry McLaughlin: We did shelve that because a game came out in the UK called Fill Your Pants. And it's where people wear large underwear, not as large as ours, but we didn't want to seem derivative. Yeah. So yeah, we shelved it.
[00:30:50] Azhelle Wade: This is a great time to move into conversations of struggle and doubt. I had a student message in our Facebook group for TCA that she'd noticed somebody had a similar game to hers at a convention she was going to. And she'd noticed it like I think a day before the convention. It had been a game she'd been working on for a while, you know. What do you do when that happens?
[00:31:13] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah, I mean, in that case with the student, if I were in those shoes, I would just move forward with it and hope that mine
[00:31:22] Azhelle Wade: is better. Yep.
[00:31:23] Barry McLaughlin: Sort of what is that? That's great. Yeah. Because nothing you can do. And sometimes great ideas are just in the ether and multiple people have sort of plucked them from the clouds and brought it to reality.
[00:31:38] Azhelle Wade: Do you have keys to pitching to pizzazz that you want to share with the listeners? I asked my leading questions, but I want to give you space to share what you think is important.
[00:31:47] Jason Lautenschleger: I think if it's a funny party game, then you've got to get him laughing. I mean, it seems so obvious But I do feel like it's an important thing to reiterate and if it's a skill in action game You have to get them to the point where they want to do one more. We've just been talking about this lately where it's like that's what success looks like when the game is brought home and played, you should be looking for that same level of success in the pitch.
[00:32:17] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah, I love that. I think also, play around. People want to know how that goes.
[00:32:23] Barry McLaughlin: You, you can sell the pitch without playing around, or at least you can get interest to get to the next round with that person if you don't have a playable version, but it makes such a difference. They already feel like there's a trust. They know that you're not just having wild ideas, but don't know how to get from A to B to C.
[00:32:40] Barry McLaughlin: And so if you have four concepts, but one of them is playable, then starting the pitch with that is helpful for us. I think also knowing, like, does this need to be in person? Or does it have the same impact over Zoom? Cause they're very different ways.
[00:32:57] Azhelle Wade: Like, you can't really play most games via Zoom unless they're designed for it.
[00:33:02] Azhelle Wade: So what do you do differently?
[00:33:03] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah, so with Pizzazz. So, uh, well, you wear a shiny jacket. That was key. That was something that we did early on in our toy career was we had different colored shiny jackets. And, we have mostly dropped the shiny jackets, but
[00:33:20] Jason Lautenschleger: It's been flattering to see others do the shiny jacket.
[00:33:23] Barry McLaughlin: That's true. Others have picked up on the shiny shoes. Well, one is just really knowing like is this better for in person or is this better for Zoom? And then not trying to squeeze it one or the other, you know? And so waiting, I have to wait until this event, that's how we feel about it.
[00:33:39] Barry McLaughlin: Because sometimes. If something just comes off with a little bit of a thud because of the technology and not having that energy in the room, or if it's a skill and action game and you really want them to play. If we know that something isn't too far off in person, we'll wait. But for Zoom, if we do need to try and get the game across over zoom, which we have sold games over zoom that we haven't been able to play with them in person, certainly during the pandemic, we try and add some fun elements to it.
[00:34:08] Barry McLaughlin: So we'll make a title card and we will hold that card up to screen to just kind of cleanse the palette. Like, okay, now we're going into this. Here's a little bit of a visual. We don't share our screen. We did that before and we realized that all of the focus was on this document or something. Unless we really need to show that, we would rather print something out and hold it up to camera.
[00:34:35] Azhelle Wade: Interesting.
[00:34:35] Jason Lautenschleger: And then bring it back to us and then you can send support materials after.
[00:34:40] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah. And that way we can really connect. And it's the connecting, I think that leads to the pizzazz because then we feel looser. We feel more confident. We can make more jokes. Yeah. We can listen better. We had one pitch where we were, we had a presentation and we were sharing the presentation on screen and it fell so flat and we just felt so silly afterwards.
[00:35:05] Jason Lautenschleger: Yeah, we learned a lot. Yeah, Barry, Barry, like we ended that call, we closed the laptop and Barry was like, never again. But, but that's, but that was the thing. It's like, and it was, I'm glad you said that because it was one of those defining moments where it's like, you can choose to learn from it right away or you can lose the lesson over time, you know, and, and right away it was like, this is what went wrong.
[00:35:26] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:35:28] Barry McLaughlin: And then we came back and pitched them about a week and a half later and they were blown away.
[00:35:33] Azhelle Wade: On Zoom or in person?
[00:35:35] Barry McLaughlin: On Zoom. Oh, okay. And it was because we did that thing where we printed out our materials when we needed to show something, how it's a screen, and then things that we could make playable that we could print out and glue and cut cardboard and just have these different elements to show made such a difference Yeah, as opposed to sharing our screen
[00:35:57] Jason Lautenschleger: I will say one more one more thing one more piece of like actionable pitching advice that I think everybody can use is this idea of the familiar surprise and the familiar surprise means that it's something that is not so out there that the recipient of this pitch has no frame of reference, right? And yet it's like, so how is it similar to successes that are out there and how is it different?
[00:36:22] Azhelle Wade: Yes.
[00:36:22] Jason Lautenschleger: Right. And so you take, you know, it's like there's the famous. Alien, the film, the best way to summarize that is like Jaws in space, right? It's like, you know what Jaws is, you know, I mean, everything with that, that, you know, the, from the box office success to the people lined around the block to the people scared of going in the water.
[00:36:41] Jason Lautenschleger: Okay. Like now that's in space, right? Got it. Okay. I got it. Right. Even if you've never seen Alien, you get what it's about from that. So like, what is that version, you know, and certainly, you know, I'm sure these buyers, you know, get weary of hearing it's Cards Against Humanity with this, but there is, there is something to that where it's like, you're grounding them, you're grounding them, and you're also, you're priming them, right?
[00:37:04] Jason Lautenschleger: Exactly. But for the love of God, don't pick something that was not a success to compare it to, but then it's like, "Okay, it's like this, but..." And then that's your special sauce.
[00:37:14] Azhelle Wade: It allows you to not have to waste so much time in the details too. You can, it's almost like there's like a pre explanation of pre understanding.
[00:37:21] Jason Lautenschleger: It sets the boundaries of where their imagination can go.
[00:37:24] Azhelle Wade: I remember there was one thing I had Tanya on my podcast and she was saying, if I hear one more person tell me they have the next big monopoly. And so what I, teach people is there's a difference between a familiarity pitch and then you just trying to say that you have the next big Uno or the next big this, right?
[00:37:41] Azhelle Wade: There's a total difference and you saying like, this is the next big whatever, or this is like Monopoly with crypto. Like that's a different conversation.
[00:37:49] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah. Right? 100%. Oh, I was just gonna say one, one other thing that is fun to play with. And it is, uh, a tasteful prop here and there.
[00:38:01] Azhelle Wade: Why do I feel like you don't actually mean tasteful, but okay.
[00:38:04] Barry McLaughlin: Like a slide whistle, if you will, or a bike horn. We have brought in some musical instruments, and usually it's me as John Strident. Yes. And Jason is usually like, all right. And then sometimes it's worked. Sometimes it hasn't.
[00:38:20] Jason Lautenschleger: One of the times I was fully on board with Barry's like, "Hey, let's show up for this next zoom pitch with maracas and let's just start shaking our maracas."
[00:38:28] Jason Lautenschleger: And I was like, all right, cool. Let's do it. Well,
[00:38:29] Barry McLaughlin: And let's start off screen and then rise up into screen while shaking the maracas.
[00:38:34] Jason Lautenschleger: So, so we were ducks down and then we started lifting up and shaking our maracas only to realize that the person we were pitching did not reschedule another pitch and we walked right into.
[00:38:45] Jason Lautenschleger: A pitch that was already happening with about 12 with 12 other people. And two, two, two guys, three feet on this screen with shaking maracas and we're like, we will just show ourselves out. Thank you. Very
[00:39:00] Azhelle Wade: Hilarious. Thank you for sharing. I do want to put a caveat in here though, because I feel like some of my students might be listening in there and be like, "Azhelle said we have to make a sizzle video."
[00:39:11] Azhelle Wade: Please, these gentlemen are experienced professionals in entertainment. Okay. When we get there, you can also go off the cuff and do your own thing. For our first pitch, we are doing sizzle videos. Okay. We are keeping it clean. Okay,
[00:39:28] Barry McLaughlin: Keep it clean. Don't listen to these.
[00:39:31] Azhelle Wade: Not yet. We're not ready for that yet.
[00:39:33] Azhelle Wade: We need one round, one main intro because listen, it's not easy. Sometimes I feel people like you and even myself. We might underestimate how easy it is for us to naturally talk about something we're excited about to sell right to pitch.
[00:39:49] Azhelle Wade: And then when you see somebody who just that inclination doesn't come to them and you just throw them into the spotlight and you're like, go and they can't like they don't they don't know how to formulate the sentence.
[00:39:59] Azhelle Wade: They can't go off the cuff. They don't know what to say. They freeze or they talk quiet or their speed and there is just really. It's not that easy. And in those cases, that's where I say, build yourself a sizzle video. Make yourself a pitch deck. Give something that can help keep you on schedule, amped up, and keep the energy flowing.
[00:40:20] Barry McLaughlin: Oh, absolutely. I mean, then everybody's looking at the same thing and then you're more answering questions than you are having to do a full A to Z pitch. So that's great. I mean, if you have something that people can watch, they can play, they can touch and feel, then that does so much of the work for someone who is, who's very shy.
[00:40:44] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah. I just want to tell the whole story. Yeah. That's great.
[00:40:46] Azhelle Wade: I would love to get your final bit of advice because you're in your journey from music to game nights to the toy industry from manufacturers to inventors is so inspiring. What advice would you have for other aspiring game creators who might be looking to develop, manufacture or pitch their own ideas?
[00:41:03] Barry McLaughlin: The thing that helped us the most was talking to as many people as we could in the industry and getting different stories from everybody and sort of taking from that what made sense to us and what resonated going to trade shows is very helpful because that's where you get to make friends in the industry and everybody starts sharing their experiences.
[00:41:26] Barry McLaughlin: I think listening to your podcast is a huge benefit to new, inventors and established as well. I mean, it's, it's a really helpful resource what you're doing. And I think that, whoever's listening to this right now is already listening to it. So that's great. So congratulations, listener, you made an excellent decision.
[00:41:42] Azhelle Wade: You made a great choice. You're welcome.
[00:41:45] Jason Lautenschleger: Very, very just secured part two right there.
[00:41:47] Azhelle Wade: No, definitely. Yeah. You guys have to come back for part two.
[00:41:51] Barry McLaughlin: I think just one of the main things is being passionate about whatever it is that you're bringing to the table because it's going to take a lot of hard work and you're going to have to talk about it over and over and you have to really believe in the thing.
[00:42:05] Barry McLaughlin: There are people I've spoken with who like, I want to invent something like I have this thing. I think maybe this thing would be the thing. And to me, that sounds like that's not your thing.
[00:42:16] Azhelle Wade: Yeah, for me, yeah, even picking clients and students. I'm like, it's not even the idea as much as it is the person.
[00:42:23] Azhelle Wade: You can sense a person who's going to dig and find that idea, but yeah.
[00:42:28] Barry McLaughlin: Yeah, totally. Yeah. And it, you might not have the thing at first, but as long as you're willing to dig in and to find what it is that you're passionate about, and then you're able to really see that thing through to completion, whatever it is that that feels like an important one to me.
[00:42:45] Azhelle Wade: The very last question, my favorite question, what toy or game blew your mind as a kid?
[00:42:51] Jason Lautenschleger: The Ewok village always comes up for me. It was the most true to the story. Like, like it was a great toy that represented the return of the Jedi films with all the Ewoks and everything, but you could also, it was also this like blank canvas where G. I. Joe could step in and Snorks could fall down the same thing.
[00:43:11] Barry McLaughlin: Mine was, I think I have two in the board game world. It was Fireball Island. When that first came out, they brought it back recently. You have this idol at the top of this 3d printed board and it spits out these fireball marbles that run down these paths and can knock your character over.
[00:43:30] Barry McLaughlin: And as a, I don't know, maybe 10 year old, uh, I went bananas for that. Ooh, this looks awesome.
[00:43:36] Jason Lautenschleger: Yeah, and when like Raiders of the Lost Ark was like, uh, it was still, you know, mainstream.
[00:43:41] Barry McLaughlin: I had that spirit to it, for sure.
[00:43:45] Azhelle Wade: That's so fun.
[00:43:48] Barry McLaughlin: It's fun. it's great for, for tweens.
[00:43:51] Jason Lautenschleger: For tweens, tweens.
[00:43:53] Barry McLaughlin: The perfect age for that.
[00:43:54] Jason Lautenschleger: What a nice vac form tray is such an industry.
[00:43:59] Azhelle Wade: Nerdiest comment ever.
[00:44:01] Jason Lautenschleger: Check out the vac form tray on that one. It's true.
[00:44:05] Azhelle Wade: Oh my gosh, guys. This has been a great interview. Really informative and fun. Thanks for making me laugh. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the next show.
[00:44:13] Azhelle Wade: Well, there you have it, Toy People, my interview with Barry and Jason. Let's dive into a quick conclusion of some of the key points that we learned today. Number one point that I want to highlight from today's episode is this. Your ignorance from the toy industry can actually be a superpower for you.
[00:44:32] Azhelle Wade: Jason gave that great example of the creator of Spotify who built an app around music without first understanding the licensing aspect of it. So don't be too afraid if you don't have full knowledge of the toy industry yet, that will come in time. And in the meantime, what you don't know can actually be your superpower to motivate you to do bigger things than have ever been done before. The next thing we learned from today's episode is how to pitch with pizzazz. And we specifically talked about getting creative at New York Toy Fair, getting people to stop at your booth, even though you may feel annoying, it may feel awkward. Barry and Jason shared that one of their biggest placements happened because they playfully stopped a buyer as they passed by their booth.
[00:45:19] Azhelle Wade: Another great point we learned today is the benefit of practicing your pitch, but not scripting it. If you've got the ability to speak off the cuff, this is for you. And this practice is to make sure that the person you're pitching to feels like they're part of a conversation, and not just being pitched at.
[00:45:38] Azhelle Wade: Barry shared, it's important to make a connection with the person that you're pitching to. And oftentimes, a scripted pitch Just can't do that. But you still do have to memorize and state key sales points about your idea, but everything in the pitch around that should come more fluidly. And then my favorite takeaway from today's episode is around the conversation of facial reactions and body language to look out for that are key indicators that your pitch is actually going pretty well. And we talked about what to do when you get those positive key indicators that your pitch is going well and what to do when you get the opposite indicators that they aren't going well. In summary, we talked about leaning in to what the person you're pitching to likes and steering away from the things that they clearly don't like.
[00:46:30] Azhelle Wade: As always, I want to thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know that your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week, I'll see you later, toy people.
[00:46:46] Thanks for listening to the Making It in the Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade. Head over to thetoycoach.com for more information, tips, and advice.
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