Pitching for Gold

I’m often asked “what’s the one piece of advice you would give to someone aiming to create or grow a successful business”.

The answer is easy.

Create a great pitch.

Why?

Well all successful businesses have to build a network early in their lives:
• supporters who encourage them, advise them, advocate them to others, and maybe
lend them money or make investments in them (Often this is just family and friends in the
very early days)
• loyal customers who like them and recommend them (Facebook fans for example)
• suppliers who understand them and do their best work on their behalf
• partners who can help them distribute their products and expand

You never stop building this network , however big the business grows. As the business gets bigger you have new things to add to your network though:
• quality employees who get what the business is about
• supporters in the conventional and digital media
• professional investors and banks

My approach to doing this in all businesses I have been involved in has been to pitch the business to everybody I know and everybody I meet. All the time, continuously, at every opportunity. You never know where such a pitch can lead eg:
• “that’s great I’d love to get together to find out more”
• “when can I sign up”
• “I’m going to introduce you to someone you should make that pitch to”

Of course you don’t always get such a helpful response, but if you have a great product , and you pitch it well often enough, you will get enough good responses to build the network you need. Sometimes all you get is great feedback and often that’s the most valuable thing of all.

The problem with all this is that the world is full of pitches. Just this week I’ve listened to 10 (I’ve made a few as well!). Of the 10 , 3 were in meetings where I was expecting to be pitched to, 3 were unsolicited phone calls from people I knew and 4 came through the email from people I didn’t know. We all suffer from pitch fatigue and yours has to stand out to be heard.

You have to demonstrate your product meets a real customer need, and it does that better than the competition.
You have to deliver the pitch with clarity and conviction. It has to be quick to avoid boring the listener (I aim at 90 seconds) and your enthusiasm has to shine through.

This is not easy , but it can be done. I’ve been developing pitches like that for myself for 25 years and I’ve helped a lot of people develop their own pitches in recent times. It’s very rewarding to do that.

Developing a great pitch is a creative act. In developing the pitch you discover what makes your product great, what’s different about it (so it beats the competition) , why you are enthusiastic about it and why you have what it takes to deliver it. Developing a great pitch changes everything – it’s truly a transformational process.

Glittering Prizes

This is a picture of the Garlik team , taken on 23rd December 2011 , after an all night negotiating session finally clinched a deal to sell the company to global data giant Experian. It was a deal that worked for everyone and it reminded me  that of all the glittering prizes that come with business success there is none more satisfying than an unpredictable result achieved by  a team which worked brilliantly together.

In fact I would suggest anybody looking for glittering prizes from business needs to be able to put such a team together – almost all worthwhile results come from teamwork.

Individual business owners should not despair at this point, you can create a virtual team of  suppliers, distribution partners, JV partners, investors, informal supporters, mentors and even key customers as well as anyone you might employ or partner with. You will find a virtual team coalesces around you almost effortlessly if you can excite people by what you are up to and if they see you can be relied on to do what you say and to get results even when the going gets tough.

Exciting people by what you are up to is what my Perfect Pitch workshop is all about.

Becoming relied on to do what you say and get results even when the going gets tough is the subject of another workshop – The High Performance Coaching Master Class.

It’s everything I’ve learned about leadership and getting results packaged up into a four hour workshop which is designed to give you an immediate and lasting  boost to your capability to get results with resilience and speed.

I run this workshop every three months or so and I have a few tickets left for  24^th February from 1pm to 5pm at The Hubworking Centre ,5 Wormwood Street, London EC2M1RQ -near to Liverpool St Station. I used to run these events in the corporate world at £500pp . The small business rate is £200 plus VAT.

Participants leave the Master Class with:

- a few simple insights , which will make a huge difference to their performance going forward

-a workbook with a number of processes designed to deal with the stickiest and most difficult of issues

-a 3 month plan to get breakthrough results

You can get tickets here.

The Mindset of a Winner

I said something at a conference the other day about a particular behaviour not reflecting the mindset of a winner.
The concept of mindset of a winner attracted so much attention and so many questions I decided to write a series of blogs illustrating what I was talking about.
Let’s start with a quote “Golf is a game that is played on a 5 inch course – the distance between your ears.” .

That one is by Bobby Jones who was co-founder of the Masters and one of the greatest golfers who ever lived.
Business success is very like success at golf;
• you need to have some natural attributes – notably determination and an ability to find out and understand what people need
• you need to learn and practice critical business skills – like managing cash flow , putting plans and strategies together and pitching
• you need to recognise that success is 80% in your head – you need to build a winner’s mindset

When I was creating businesses like Firstdirect, Mercury and Egg which set out to grow at pace and transform entire industries I used all the help I could get to transform my own leadership. I needed my leadership capability to grow to be capable of taking on ever greater challenges as the businesses grew ever bigger and more influential. As this level of leadership you have all the skills and it truly becomes a mind game.

One of the things I recognised early was that I had to transform the leadership capability of many people and teams in the organisations, not just mine. That was an exciting quest and gave me insights which I use now when I’m mentoring business owners, entrepreneurs and innovators.

Here is the first insight I want to share with you:
A winner shows greatest strength and courage when dealing with the most difficult circumstances.

I used to watch people who worked for me carefully when the going got tough. I watched whether they seemed to freeze, whether they were blaming others or whether they were covering up or ignoring the problem. All natural human reactions, but the winners saw trouble as an opportunity to discover in themselves new reserves of courage and strength which they didn’t know existed.

Try it for yourself next time you are facing a tough business issue, notice how you are reacting and if you are blaming others or trying to wish the problem away, pause, take a deep breath and ask yourself: what’s this going to take from me? It’s amazing and exhilarating what you can discover about yourself in such circumstances.

High Performance Take 2

By popular demand I am running another High Performance Coaching Master Class on 24^th February  from 1pm to 5pm at The Hubworking Centre ,5 Wormwood Street, London EC2M1RQ -near to Liverpool St Station.

I really enjoyed presenting the last one on November 22^nd.  I had 40 participants and in four hours of presentation, interaction and practical demonstration  I gave them everything I know about how to get great business results with speed and resilience. As I told them: “ it has taken me 35 years to make things this simple without losing any power”.

Participants leave the Master Class with:

- a few simple insights , which will make a huge difference to their performance going forward

-a workbook with a number of processes designed to deal with the stickiest and most difficult of issues

-a 3 month plan to get breakthrough results

Tickets are available below for 24th February .There is a big discount if you book before the end of 2011.

see some reactions from participants

And here’s what other participants had to say:

“Very powerful stuff!
Your last slide gave me goose bumps and made me really excited about somehow being involved in what you are about to do.”

“Woke up this morning feeling like a loaded gun! The best thing that I got from last was the idea of focus and attention in business being very similar to that required in sports”

“Thank you for one of the most important evenings I have ever spent – SO much material – and oh, SO simple,  BUT ….. delivered and shared from that place of deep and extensive professional experience…..I was just hungry for more!”

“Incredible session. The biggest thing I got from the day was MASSIVE clarity! Really looking forward to taking action”

“Mega session thank you Mike, you’re advice is always amazingly insightful. I’m inspired. Thank you.” Keep Reading…

Back to the Launch of Egg

Phew! I sent out an email at 5:45am on Tuesday about a high performance coaching master class I am running on 22nd November. Less than 90 minutes later it was oversubscribed and now I’ve got a long waiting list. It took me back to the launch of Egg when we hit our 5 year target for deposits in the first 6 months.

It’s a four hour workshop which I run for MBA students at world class business schools (for free) and in large companies at £500 per person ex VAT. I’ve now decided to run a series of workshops aimed at business owners, entrepreneurs, and ambitious employees of organisations of all sizes. I’m pricing these (for the moment) at £150 pp ex VAT. It’s possible I’ve underpriced this I suppose but I’m keen to make it accessible.

I’m collecting names of people who may be interested in getting priority booking for future workshops.

Please email me at mike@findyourlightbulb.com if you are interested.

About the Master Class…
Keep Reading…

Small Iconic Businesses

Staring in this video are a number of small businesses well on the way to becoming iconic :
The doctor who is redefining the experience of women who feel helpless as they grow older.
The Executive Coach who is transforming how leaders in financial services organisations employ their strengths
The graphic designer who creates a visual experience for people to be known and seen for who they really are.
The movement specialist who leaves her clients feeling brand new
The Personal Trainer who transforms London business men from being in a mess to being amazing.
The letting agent who creates fantasy rental homes for high end tenants.
The Martial Arts inspired fitness trainer who leaves people feeling drop dead gorgeous
And although she’s not on the video A woman plumber who is on a mission to change the perception of women across the world – starting with an all woman plumbing company called Stopcocks!

Keep Reading…

Inventing the Future

I’m speaking at the London Business School Entrepreneurship Conference on Friday 3rd June.

The theme of the conference is Inventing the Future and it is focusing on the role of the entrepreneur in creating wealth and societal value. Looks like a good line up with interesting speakers and good panels. I think there are some tickets still available. Keep Reading…

That will never work!

Interesting article in the Times today about Google vs Facebook . (Can’t link to it – it’s an online subscription model at the Times now).

“Ex Googlers suggest that when Facebook began to gain traction among web users it was dismissed inside the Googleplex. It was considered frivolous ,a distraction and worst of all not a nobel pursuit”. Keep Reading…

Life is a Pitch

I spent 11 hours last week on pitches. Either pitching business ideas myself, preparing myself or others to pitch, or listening to people pitch ideas me.

I reckon I’ve spent at least that amount of time on pitches every working week for the last 20 years and it’s often been more time than that.

If you are successful at business: life is truly a pitch. You are constantly seeking to get others’ support for your ideas or listening to others tell you how they can help you. In my view success in business is more than 50% determined by the quality of your pitches and your judgment on what pitches to back Keep Reading…

Should I Get Feedback For My Business Ideas?

Keep Reading…