Episode 67

full
Published on:

2nd Jul 2025

Queen of Pitch, with Forbes Riley

Celebrity host, actress, and TV pioneer Forbes Riley dishes on overcoming physical insecurities, hitting it big with Body by Jake, being the original host of the X Games, working with her kids, being at the "right place at the right time with the weirdest talent", and her slightly controversial opinion on legacy.

Transcript
Gary Michels:

Hello everybody. Welcome to our show today, Let's

Gary Michels:

Talk Legacy, and today, we have Forbes Riley on. Forbes Riley is

Gary Michels:

known as the Queen of pitch. She's a celebrity TV host,

Gary Michels:

pioneer and industry leader in the field of infomercials and

Gary Michels:

the home shopping TV with product sales over $2.5 billion

Gary Michels:

that really that opened my eyes when I first heard about it

Gary Michels:

coming on, having a appeared in nearly 200 infomercials, and

Gary Michels:

you've had a lot more go on in your life. Welcome to the show.

Forbes Riley:

I appreciate you. Welcome, welcome. Thank you.

Gary Michels:

So let's dig into this a little bit. You didn't

Gary Michels:

have it particularly easy growing up, and things got

Gary Michels:

turned upside down for you when your dad, who was an inventor,

Gary Michels:

had a terrible accident.

Forbes Riley:

I love that you mentioned my dad right off the

Forbes Riley:

top, and I appreciate that my dad was this beautiful inventor,

Forbes Riley:

magician and an engineer who didn't graduate college. And

Forbes Riley:

when I tell my story, people ask me, Why are you so interested in

Forbes Riley:

communication? And I'll start with just talking about my story

Forbes Riley:

before I lead into his because one of the problems when I was

Forbes Riley:

growing up is that I had an odd deformity in my jaw, so they put

Forbes Riley:

me in braces. Not a big deal, right? You embraces for a year.

Forbes Riley:

Two years, I was in braces for eight years of my life. And not

Forbes Riley:

only braces, but they put this thing in my mouth. I'm

Forbes Riley:

interested in memory, chocolate dress. For two years, they

Forbes Riley:

bolted it to the top of my mouth. I couldn't talk. What

Forbes Riley:

came out of that is that my father, who built a printing

Forbes Riley:

press, he was standing on the printing press, and he slipped,

Forbes Riley:

and he tore off the whole front of his left hand, and that would

Forbes Riley:

send him to the hospital for 15 operations over three years

Forbes Riley:

while we were in high school, my family was completely broke

Forbes Riley:

because of this. My mother turns to me when we kiddo we have no

Forbes Riley:

money for college, which is the only dream that I really had.

Forbes Riley:

What do I do? Well, there's a beauty pageant in town, and what

Forbes Riley:

happened was my father's doctor looked at my mom and me and our

Forbes Riley:

situation and said, I'm going to fix your daughter's nose. And I

Forbes Riley:

got kind of cute, and I entered this pageant locally in a hand

Forbes Riley:

me down bridesmaids dress, and I won. There were 500 girls when I

Forbes Riley:

walked into that room and I said to my dad, one of these girls

Forbes Riley:

going to be on TV, and it's going to be me. And I learned a

Forbes Riley:

lot. I learned about people's opinions about you, but I also

Forbes Riley:

learned about insane perseverance and his idea the

Forbes Riley:

law of attraction, and I've taken that throughout my entire

Forbes Riley:

life. And when people say you can't do it, all I hear is the

Forbes Riley:

word go. At some point after college, my went to college to

Forbes Riley:

be a lawyer. I graduated in three years with two degrees,

Forbes Riley:

like I was weirdly smart, but I also just want to get out of

Forbes Riley:

school. I wanted to be an actress, because that's all I

Forbes Riley:

had when I was growing up, was movies and TV and books. I'm

Forbes Riley:

gonna figure this out. I didn't have a whole lot of help. I

Forbes Riley:

didn't have any inheritance. I didn't sleep my way or marry my

Forbes Riley:

way, anywhere I did it. I was on a soap opera called As the World

Forbes Riley:

Turns with Julianne Moore and Meg Ryan. They were both my co

Forbes Riley:

stars. I wanted to be on Broadway, and I discover I can

Forbes Riley:

control this. And I opened, and I'm 26 years old. I opened an

Forbes Riley:

agency. I got stationary, I got a voice answering service. Back

Forbes Riley:

then it was a woman, not even a machine, and I hired a woman

Forbes Riley:

named Lindsay Maxwell. And Lindsay was the manager for

Forbes Riley:

Forbes, Riley, and she was freaking brilliant, because she

Forbes Riley:

knew all the things about Forbes because I was her, and I would

Forbes Riley:

get on the phone and pretend, and I booked commercials and

Forbes Riley:

movies because I was my only client.

Gary Michels:

Oh my gosh.

Forbes Riley:

And for years I never told I mean, I was afraid

Forbes Riley:

I was gonna get arrested, you know, arrested or found out or

Forbes Riley:

blackballed. I never told anybody.

Gary Michels:

So now, when you were getting rejected and

Gary Michels:

whatnot, how did you pivot to that new path of TV hosting?

Forbes Riley:

A lot of life is about showing up whenever it is.

Forbes Riley:

Now, the cool thing about being an actor is that you show up for

Forbes Riley:

auditions all the time. If you land an audition and get a job,

Forbes Riley:

it will change your life. Now, there's probably no other

Forbes Riley:

business where that's quite as easy. I walked into a lot of

Forbes Riley:

auditions that I just booked out of the blue. One of them that

Forbes Riley:

changed everything was a pen on a desk. And so what happened for

Forbes Riley:

there was, I walked into an audition and it said, Sell me

Forbes Riley:

this pen. No one is interested in buying a pen at that moment.

Forbes Riley:

They don't even know what you're talking about. I have a whole

Forbes Riley:

formula. If I'm going to sell the pen, I'm never going to talk

Forbes Riley:

about it. I'm going to say something like, you know when I

Forbes Riley:

this is what I did. This is what I said. I don't even know back

Forbes Riley:

then, how I knew this? I looked at the pen, I said, disappoint

Forbes Riley:

my mom. When I went off to college, I was I skipped a year

Forbes Riley:

high school. I was 15 and a half years old, and I was really

Forbes Riley:

nervous and shy and very insecure, traveling away from

Forbes Riley:

home, and my mother would write me handwritten notes. Every day.

Forbes Riley:

I'd race to the mailbox to get them, and I realized a pen like

Forbes Riley:

this can reach out and touch somebody's heart. I did that,

Forbes Riley:

and I expected to leave because I thought it was kind of silly,

Forbes Riley:

right? I silly, right? Well, Jake of body by Jake walks out

Forbes Riley:

from behind the camera, grabs my face and says, you're going to

Forbes Riley:

make me a lot of money. And I'm like, dude, okay, if you'd think

Forbes Riley:

back 30 years ago, cable TV had just started. I did that job for

Forbes Riley:

five years. We made so much money that Jake sold it to Fox

Forbes Riley:

for $500 million in 1993 and what happened was infomercials

Forbes Riley:

came along, and there were no girls who sold who sold

Forbes Riley:

anything. That's not what they did on TV, right? Men were

Forbes Riley:

carnival barkers, and that is when the infomercial industry

Forbes Riley:

started. I was one of the pioneers. I was one of the first

Forbes Riley:

females, like you said. I'd done almost 200 Infomercials. I was

Forbes Riley:

at the right place, at the right time with the weirdest talent. I

Forbes Riley:

don't know if you know this, but I'm the original host of the X

Forbes Riley:

Games.

Gary Michels:

Wow.

Forbes Riley:

I have a little bit of ADHD. Maybe you noticed.

Forbes Riley:

So one of the things I found in my 20s was I took a trip to Club

Forbes Riley:

Med. So I was doing a Broadway show, and I was a little burnt

Forbes Riley:

out, and I booked a trip in 1986 to Club Med, and I fell in love

Forbes Riley:

with it. And I walked into the Club Med corporate office, I

Forbes Riley:

said to the receptionist, she said, Can I help you? I said,

Forbes Riley:

Well, I'm here to help you, who's in charge of your

Forbes Riley:

entertainment. And I sat down, and I said, Look, I've just been

Forbes Riley:

to your club. Here's what I noticed. I think I can offer you

Forbes Riley:

a way to do something different. And I went down there, and I

Forbes Riley:

created game shows from that. I came back to New York, and now I

Forbes Riley:

had a new idea. I wanted to ski. I opened up the newspaper, and

Forbes Riley:

there's a little thing that says Club Med style show person

Forbes Riley:

looking to work for a company called ski, whatever it was, he

Forbes Riley:

view. And I applied because the job had nothing to do with

Forbes Riley:

skiing, and I knew that it had to do with creating a bar party

Forbes Riley:

at four o'clock in the afternoon to entertain people. All I know

Forbes Riley:

is it was a crazy thing that I created. And one day, ESPN, two

Forbes Riley:

hears about this and makes a little half hour special out of

Forbes Riley:

all the things that we're doing, because we also had an outdoor

Forbes Riley:

snow volleyball game. It was a big production. Then next year,

Forbes Riley:

they call me out of the blue, I know nothing about sports, and

Forbes Riley:

they said, Hi, this is ESPN. We'd like to offer you $75,000

Forbes Riley:

for two weeks. Two weeks to host the X Games on ESPN. And I'm

Forbes Riley:

like, Mike, why are you calling me? And the X Games was

Forbes Riley:

launching. There was no X Games, so I didn't even know what I was

Forbes Riley:

getting involved in, and they hired me. But you know what? I

Forbes Riley:

did that job for six years. Then I worked for nine more years

Forbes Riley:

doing a dog game show for them and doing the great outdoor

Forbes Riley:

games. And I guess I was right that I maybe said to myself, you

Forbes Riley:

belong on TV. You'd be great doing that. Here's the thing

Forbes Riley:

about the work that I do, is that you can do a commercial in

Forbes Riley:

two days. There are 365 days in a year. I could do 10

Forbes Riley:

commercials, three movies, four episodic TV shows, and still

Forbes Riley:

only get up to June. And so you're like, wow, we saw you all

Forbes Riley:

over the place, and you were doing all of these things.

Forbes Riley:

That's very different than a typical job. I just kept going

Forbes Riley:

from experience to experience, and we've been trying to have a

Forbes Riley:

baby. It wasn't working, and I rolled the dice and said, Let's

Forbes Riley:

do in vitro. And I got blessed with two twins. And so now I

Forbes Riley:

give birth to twins at 42 my kids are now 22 and they both

Forbes Riley:

run my company, so I must have done something right in all of

Forbes Riley:

that crazy you have, because I will tell you, I enjoy my kids

Forbes Riley:

very much. I'm in business with them. I travel with them. I love

Forbes Riley:

them so very much. So I traveled a lot around the world, worked

Forbes Riley:

on QVC and home shopping and sold products. And then at some

Forbes Riley:

point, while I was overseas, I found a spin gym, a handheld

Forbes Riley:

product. But I looked at this crazy product in the middle of

Forbes Riley:

the night when the gentleman showed it to me on set at home

Forbes Riley:

shopping, and I said, this is a fitness product. He said, Oh,

Forbes Riley:

no, no, no, no. It's an office de stressor. It's like a fidget

Forbes Riley:

spinner. I said, No, no, I know fitness. This is the greatest

Forbes Riley:

fitness thing I've ever seen. I said, Tell me about the company.

Forbes Riley:

He said, Look. He said, I don't want to do I don't want to do

Forbes Riley:

the company anymore. I've been doing it for five years, not

Forbes Riley:

made a lot of money. I'll give it to you. If you sell 25,000 in

Forbes Riley:

the first year, give me a small percentage. It's yours. I wrote

Forbes Riley:

manuals and books, and, I mean, I went nuts, and then I

Forbes Riley:

manufactured them, and then I went on home shopping, and I

Forbes Riley:

went on a TV series, and I've sold 3 million of these things,

Forbes Riley:

and I could have created an entire empire, but when COVID

Forbes Riley:

kind of hit, I stopped manufacturing China for a while,

Forbes Riley:

and my daughter came downstairs at 17 and said to me, I'm going

Forbes Riley:

to build you a company. I've watched you get screwed over

Forbes Riley:

online. Mom, you suck at it. You're not good at the digital

Forbes Riley:

thing. You're just, let me build your company. I'm like, but

Forbes Riley:

you're 17. She's like, okay, Mom, let me show you something,

Forbes Riley:

because I used to take her with me everywhere. My son stayed

Forbes Riley:

more at home. She traveled and she met all my friends, like Les

Forbes Riley:

Brown and Joe Theismann, the NFL football player. And she said,

Forbes Riley:

Mom, I've been building websites and coding and YouTube channels

Forbes Riley:

for all of your friends. And she showed me her bank account and

Forbes Riley:

had six figures in it. And I'm like, where did you get this

Forbes Riley:

money? She said, You're the only one who doesn't believe in me.

Forbes Riley:

I'm like, well, because I thought you were just my

Forbes Riley:

daughter, I didn't know that you're going to be a business

Forbes Riley:

partner. She said, Mom, if you give me three weeks, we're gonna

Forbes Riley:

put you online. And give me a year, I'll make you a million

Forbes Riley:

dollars the first night I go live, I do my very first

Forbes Riley:

webinar. I do my first webinar with 25 people in the room, and

Forbes Riley:

I sell my training for $1,000 I have a four week course on how

Forbes Riley:

to pitch. I wake up the next morning and I look at the

Forbes Riley:

account I have to call her, and I'm like, I don't understand

Forbes Riley:

this yesterday, and for the last three years, this account that

Forbes Riley:

I've been playing with had $0 in it today. It says K, what does

Forbes Riley:

the K stand for? So what do you mean? I said, it says 25k said,

Forbes Riley:

Mom, you made $25,000 last night. You sold 25 people in the

Forbes Riley:

room. You sold. You closed 100% in the room. We did that four

Forbes Riley:

times in a row. We had a six figure business in four weeks.

Forbes Riley:

And five years later, we have 47,000 students.

Gary Michels:

Wow.

Forbes Riley:

When you talk about legacy, that's literally

Forbes Riley:

what she said. Because she said, Mom, you should stop doing spin

Forbes Riley:

gym during COVID. Let's focus on pitch. And I said to her, I

Forbes Riley:

said, McKenna, I said, Look at me on television. I can't teach

Forbes Riley:

this. She said to me, Mom, I appreciate and you are brilliant

Forbes Riley:

in what you do. But. You have a system, you have a formula. You

Forbes Riley:

do the same thing every time. And I looked at it through her

Forbes Riley:

eyes, and she was 100% right. I literally, like I said, we never

Forbes Riley:

start with the product. You start with an assumption of,

Forbes Riley:

well, you know what you're selling. You look at an

Forbes Riley:

assumption, what is that person's biggest problem, given

Forbes Riley:

what my solution is, and you orchestrate it in a very

Forbes Riley:

specific way to get a yes. She said, Mom, this whole thing that

Forbes Riley:

you teach about pitching, we've traveled around the world. We do

Forbes Riley:

very well so, but if you don't teach other people this system

Forbes Riley:

what you know, you won't have a legacy. And that's what we built

Forbes Riley:

the company on.

Gary Michels:

So, you know, our show is called, Let's Talk

Gary Michels:

Legacy and and a very high level, what is legacy mean to

Gary Michels:

you?

Forbes Riley:

You know, I used to argue about this, because I

Forbes Riley:

thought there was no such thing, because I worked with Jack

Forbes Riley:

LaLanne. So I worked with Jack for eight years. We sold juices.

Forbes Riley:

We had one TV infomercial that grossed over a billion dollars.

Forbes Riley:

It ran for eight years in 80 countries. If I ask anyone under

Forbes Riley:

the age of 25 they have no idea who Jack LaLanne was. No idea

Forbes Riley:

this man was on television for 35 years. This man has pictures

Forbes Riley:

with Marilyn Monroe and Johnny Carson, and he's Arnold

Forbes Riley:

Schwarzenegger's mentor. He literally started fitness, and

Forbes Riley:

no one knows who he is. So if Jack LaLanne doesn't have a

Forbes Riley:

legacy, you and I don't stand a chance. And I truly believe that

Forbes Riley:

on some level, that us fighting for a legacy is not the right

Forbes Riley:

thing to do. The legacy needs to be here while you're on earth.

Forbes Riley:

How many people can you impact? How profound is your life and

Forbes Riley:

how happy are you? Because I do really, truly believe that about

Forbes Riley:

10 minutes after you're gone, the only people who care about

Forbes Riley:

you after the people look on Facebook is the people who loved

Forbes Riley:

you, whose lives you touched.

Gary Michels:

For a lot of people, there's a difference

Gary Michels:

between a personal legacy and a business legacy. Are they the

Gary Michels:

same for you, or are they intertwined?

Forbes Riley:

No, you know, we're still dealing with

Forbes Riley:

companies that are hundreds of years old. We still mention

Forbes Riley:

names like Vanderbilt and Carnegie, and we drive forwards

Forbes Riley:

long after he's dead. I'm going to tell you, it's the top 1% of

Forbes Riley:

1% of 1% from Apple. People remember Steve Jobs forever

Forbes Riley:

because we use his product. But that is such a small thing to be

Forbes Riley:

looking at. I don't think Tony Robbins will have a legacy long

Forbes Riley:

after he's gone, because he will no longer be teaching. And a lot

Forbes Riley:

of his teachings, he's got books, and it's great, and

Forbes Riley:

people will write, you know, he was also on television and a

Forbes Riley:

couple of movies, they'll remember him, but short of him

Forbes Riley:

as a coach, how many coaches are you going to remember? So I just

Forbes Riley:

don't think that people this is me, focus on the here and now.

Forbes Riley:

Focus on who you touch and what you do, because that is your

Forbes Riley:

legacy. Your legacy is how many people you help, you impact, and

Forbes Riley:

how happy you are in this life.

Gary Michels:

Right. So what are you currently doing now?

Forbes Riley:

Well, you know what I'm what I do right now is

Forbes Riley:

I have a new book coming out called Pitch secrets, A to Z,

Forbes Riley:

and it's my a lot of the stories that I love telling and very

Forbes Riley:

helpful for people that'll be launching a little later this

Forbes Riley:

year. Very excited about that. That is part of the legacy that

Forbes Riley:

is part of outside of me, and living beyond that. There is a

Forbes Riley:

thing that's happening now with Amazon live and Tiktok live, and

Forbes Riley:

people are selling all over the place. I do not think I'm going

Forbes Riley:

to jump on that bandwagon, because that's a young person's

Forbes Riley:

game. I spent 30 years doing home shopping. I was very well

Forbes Riley:

produced, and it was beautiful and fun, and I made a lot of

Forbes Riley:

money doing that. Beyond that, I've got a bunch of movies

Forbes Riley:

coming out. I still love being an actress. I have an action

Forbes Riley:

packed Western, I have a documentary that I just got

Forbes Riley:

asked to do, and I'm just going to enjoy the ride, because I am

Forbes Riley:

65 years old and that. And I don't know about how you feel,

Forbes Riley:

but there's a little bit of a tick tock. You know, when you

Forbes Riley:

were in your early 30s, 40s, going this little time thing

Forbes Riley:

about having a child, and now there's, how much fun Can I

Forbes Riley:

have? How much How can I enjoy? I mean, I'm in love with my

Forbes Riley:

second husband, and I'm having the time of my life. People say

Forbes Riley:

Forbes, you know, what do you want? What's your future look

Forbes Riley:

like? What is your five years? I'm like, my five years is to

Forbes Riley:

wake up with this man every morning and still be healthy

Forbes Riley:

enough to enjoy it. He is a bodybuilder. I have no desire to

Forbes Riley:

be a bodybuilder. But then something happened last year.

Forbes Riley:

He'd said, there's a bodybuilding competition in our

Forbes Riley:

hometown. And I said, You know what, I'm 64 years old, but you

Forbes Riley:

know what, I'm going to go for it? And I did, and I ended up on

Forbes Riley:

stage, and I ended up with a medal, and I ended up with the

Forbes Riley:

next chapter of Forbes Riley's life.

Gary Michels:

That's amazing. Where do people find you? I

Gary Michels:

mean, you're all over the place, but if they wanted to be in your

Gary Michels:

course, or they wanted to learn more about you or just be around

Gary Michels:

you, how do they get in touch with you?

Forbes Riley:

So my name Forbes Riley is rather un-unique. It's

Forbes Riley:

that on all the social medias, but if you go to Forbes

Forbes Riley:

riley.com All my links are there, and here's what I'm going

Forbes Riley:

to offer you guys. Every Sunday Since COVID started, I show up

Forbes Riley:

to do a two hour training on Zoom. I ask people, What do they

Forbes Riley:

do? And I will spend time revamping their pitch. When I'm

Forbes Riley:

done with you, your pitch is going to get an applause. That's

Forbes Riley:

how good it is. So I highly invite you guys to go to a thing

Forbes Riley:

called Pitch secrets masterclass. I teach it every

Forbes Riley:

Sunday. I teach it to real estate professionals, to

Forbes Riley:

lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, teenagers and when you can

Forbes Riley:

articulate and communicate, what you do to get a yes from someone

Forbes Riley:

else. I promise you your life changes forever. This thing

Forbes Riley:

about pitching. Training. It's not sales training. It's just

Forbes Riley:

getting Yeah, so Gary, watch this. If I said to you, Hey, you

Forbes Riley:

want to see something cool, what are you going to say? Yes, see,

Forbes Riley:

my dad taught me as a magician. There's things that you do and

Forbes Riley:

you set people up to take certain actions. Imagine when

Forbes Riley:

you're doing a deal that you already know what someone's

Forbes Riley:

going to say, because you've been training on assumptions, on

Forbes Riley:

what that person looks like, feels like, and is more likely

Forbes Riley:

to do. You know how you show up. You know what you're offering

Forbes Riley:

has value. You don't over talk it. And when you connect all of

Forbes Riley:

these dots, and I love teaching teams, we do a lot of that go to

Forbes Riley:

pitch secrets with an S masterclass.com and you'll be

Forbes Riley:

blown away. The system works. It's not about you being a

Forbes Riley:

genius or you being the best. McDonald's exists because of a

Forbes Riley:

system. A lot of things that are successful in legacy outlive the

Forbes Riley:

person because they were systematized, and that is the

Forbes Riley:

only way that effectiveness runs well.

Gary Michels:

Thank you for joining us today. This has been

Gary Michels:

an amazing time.

Forbes Riley:

It has been such a delight.

Gary Michels:

Absolutely.

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Let's Talk Legacy
Presented by Southwestern Legacy Insurance Group
What does it mean to build and maintain a legacy, either in business, or for your loved ones? What tools and resources are available to help? Join the discussion along with exciting guests and real listeners just like you, to tackle the answers to these questions, and learn how to grow today, for a better tomorrow.



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