Last week I had the good fortune to meet “Mr. Wonderful” himself, Kevin O’Leary, from the hit TV show Shark Tank. He gave a talk at a conference I was attending and it was one of the highlights of my week.

Here are my top 10 takeaways from his session:

10. When he looks at companies to invest in, he likes to start with the head of sales because they know firsthand what’s happening in their market. The CEO is not always that clued in

9. Trust is hard to buy and easy to lose

8. Successful sales people like themselves but love what they sell. If you don’t love your product, you can’t really be successful at selling it

7. Successful contestants in the show can articulate their idea in 90 seconds or less. This is true when he looks for companies to buy too

6. Successful contestants can also demonstrate why they are the right person to execute the vision

5. Don’t procrastinate. Make tough decisions and execute them quickly.

4. In his experience, women do better at sales than men do

3. Likewise, the female CEOs in his businesses provide a higher ROI than the men do

2. Employees are not your friends

1. Service trumps price. Customer service is now the #1 differentiator that investors are looking for when looking to invest in a business