TSP020 | Matt Dunbar – Transcription

Posted by John Livesay in Uncategorized | 0 comments

John Livesay:
Welcome to today’s Successful Pitch podcast with Matt Dunbar who has his MBA from Stanford and tells the story of how he became an angel investor, because he had the itch to work for himself and get into the entrepreneur spirit. He said there’s four things to do to build your credibility with investors. Number one, don’t over hype. Number two, know your numbers. Number three, don’t dodge a question.

And finally, number four, the little things matter, including don’t have any typos on your slides, because all that distracts the investor and reduces your credibility and when investors are listening to pitches, they tend to be a little cynical, because a lot of them don’t work out, so you have to be building your credibility, making sure you have all that prepared in advance.

He said what makes a good angel investor is someone who is disciplined, diversified, and patient. He even shares what kind of return on investment his angel investors are looking for and gives us some really great ways to validate your economics and then the two of you, you and the investor, can start to dream together of how big the company can get. Enjoy the episode.

Hi and welcome to the Successful Pitch podcast. Today’s guest is Matt Dunbar who is the managing director of the Upstate Carolina Angel Network. Matt has a very impressive background starting with an MBA from Stanford where I have several friends that have the opportunity to go to Stanford, so I know what it takes to get in there and be successful. He’s been listed not once, but twice in Greenville’s 50 Most Influential People in the business magazine. He’s worked at various companies that we’re going to ask him about and he’s an angel investor, so he’s going to give us lots of insights onto what it takes to be an angel investor and then what he looks for when he hears a pitch. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Dunbar:
Thanks so much, John. It’s a pleasure to be here.

John:
Matt, I always like to start with our guests telling our listeners a little bit about their personal story of what made you decide to become an investor. Obviously you had some experience that I’d love to have you talk about, you know, you have so many choices with a Stanford MBA, congratulations by the way.

Matt:
Thank you.

John:
It’s very impressive. Did you know when you went to Stanford that that’s what your end goal was or did you have a little pivot there in your career?

Matt:
I did not. So just a brief overview of my background. I’m a native South Carolinian, grew up here, was an engineer by training, actually my career started as a chemical engineer with Eastman Chemical Company in North East Tennessee. I did that for a few years and decided I didn’t want to be an engineer for the rest of my life. I was more intrigued with some of the business challenges I saw inside the company, so I decided it was a good time in my life in my late 20’s to have an adventure and get a great education and I must have the only South Carolinian that applied that year and they let me somehow.

John:
Awh. I doubt that.

Matt:
So, obviously that was really a life changing experience, because one of the things I got from Stanford was just exposure to ideas and careers and businesses I had no concept of previously, including, for the most part, this idea of entrepreneurship. I had some notion of that, but I had worked for a big company and so it was really my first exposure to this whole idea of entrepreneurship, although I was there from 03 to 05, so we will still sort of in the aftermath of the bust.

I think Facebook was founded while I was in school, so this more recent wave of entrepreneurship and all the great progress that’s been made about lean startups and all the software we have today was really just in its infancy at that point in terms of the resurgence after the bust and so, I don’t think there was quite as much buzz around entrepreneurship on campus then as there probably is now, but it did open my eyes to that world.

The other thing it opened my eyes to, I also didn’t know anything about things like investment banking or consulting and frankly I was really impressed with my class mates that came out of that world in terms of their skill sets around their ability to analyze data, their ability to synthesize that and communicate it really well. I was really impressed with that skill set. So, I decided I wanted to pick up some of those skills.

So, I did go the consulting track after school, I did move to the South East. California was great. I had a great experience there, but my family and my roots are back in the South East. I miss going to function football games, so I wanted to move back to the South East.

So, I landed in Atlanta with the Boston Consulting Group and, again, picked up some of those skills that I was intrigued by, but mostly working for big companies. So, most of our clients were Fortune 500s, so great experience, learned a lot, but I still had an itch from my exposure at Stanford to the startup world. An itch to be more involved in entrepreneurial businesses and younger hybrid businesses rather than just the large established businesses that I had previously been involved with in my career.

John:
Let me ask you a question, that itch, it needs to be scratched, doesn’t it? You can ignore it for a while and some people either have it or they don’t and you’re obviously exposed to a lot of different kinds of people working in big corporate fortune 500 companies and some people, it never occurs to them, they have no interest in it, and sometimes there’s people like you who are sort of, you know, entrepreneurs, I believe is the term, right, where you’re working in a company, but you have the desire to eventually start your own company, so I’m always fascinated to hear that itch. It’s an interesting way to describe it.

Matt:
Yeah, yeah. It evolved for me. Again, it was something I didn’t have a concept of, I think, when I started my career, but the more I got exposure, the more I was intrigued by it and the other thing I think I observed over time as a chemical engineer, you know, you are trained to think in sort of a linear way, which I think lends itself to being in a large organization and sort of moving from point to A to B to C in a linear way and actually my time at Stanford, I came across some research on that by a lady at the Garden School named Saras Sarasvathy, who has working on “Effectual Thinking” (Effectual Entrepreneurship) and it terms out the engineer way of thinking and sort of logical linear steps isn’t necessarily the best way to think about a startup, because nothing in linear and nothing in known and everything is ambiguous and so it was some what of a challenging transition for me, but I was intrigued by it and wanted to learn how to think in more of a sexual way, as she describes it, where you are faced with uncertainty and ambiguity and you can try to create order from that chaos. I was intrigued from trying to learn that as oppose to a more well-defined scenario in an established organization.

John:
I like that phrase, create order from chaos. We’re going to tweet that out from the episode. That’s a great line and it also speaks to what I talk about with a lot of my clients who also have engineering backgrounds is, you talk about it in terms of logical linear thinking, for me I just refer to it as our left brain and the interesting thing is, you do have to learn a new skill set to become right brain story telling, because when you pitch somebody, people buy emotionally and back it up with logic. Tell us a little bit more, Matt, about your own journey from that left brain to right brain, if you will.

Matt:
Yeah, so again, I gotten some exposure to that world when I was in business school and frankly this is one of those serendipitous things you can’t predict. It just so happened, you know, I spent some time at BCG. I have been on the road traveling, picked up some skills I wanted and then life happens, I got married. My wife is from Oklahoma and she moved out to Atlanta where she didn’t know anybody and I was gone all the time and we were in our early 30’s and wanted to start a family and I always wanted to come back to South Carolina and try to contribute something here and so we just felt like it was the right time to make a move out of the big city in Atlanta and move back to closure to my roots in upstate South Caroline and start a family.

So, literally, I just started networking, sort of classical networking story, trying to leverage some contacts out here, and growing up here and literally, couldn’t have predicted and didn’t have any concept of this, really this idea of organized angel groups. I knew about angel investing, but I didn’t know really about organized angel groups.

I was fortunate and blessed, you know, sort of serendipitously I bumped into some guys that were interested in starting an angel group and Greenville, South Carolina at the time I was looking to move to Greenville, South Carolina. They needed somebody to run it. There aren’t many venture capitalists running around South Carolina or folks who had a lot of experience in the space who just so happened the timing worked out where they needed somebody.

I was really interested in this space and getting involved. So, long story short, I came on board and actually April of 2008, to start this angel investor group called the Upstate Carolina Angel Network and, of course, we didn’t know what was coming just a few months later in terms of the overall economy, probably good that we didn’t know or we might not have made the change we did, but really, it was just serendipitous that I bumped into these guys and couldn’t have predicted that this was what I’d do, but the timing was right and I was really excited about the opportunity to take a step into the entrepreneur world that had intrigued me for some time.

John:
You know that serendipitous that you refer to reminds me the definition of luck is when opportunity meets preparation.

Matt:
Right.

John:
And clearly the opportunity presented itself, but you had been so prepared for that from your schooling and your exposure and that itch that you had inside to make that happen. Let’s talk a little bit about the importance of timing. I just read something about how important timing is to whether a startup succeeds, even some people are saying that’s more important than the idea or the team. They were giving the example of Uber or Airbnb. The reason that’s so timely now is people are looking for ways to be economical or have additional income. What are your thoughts on timing in general?

Matt:
I think it’s critical and it’s certainty one of those things that’s really difficult to control, but there’s been a lot written about, you know, some of the fastest growing startups we see today that are attracting a lot of funding are really very similar ideas and concepts to businesses that went bust in the dot com bust. Really largely because the infrastructure was not in place.

We didn’t have global funds. We didn’t have ease access to on-demand type communications like that where you can have such a powerful device in your hand to get real-time access and real-time sharing and things like that. So, business concepts that made sense at the time, didn’t have the right infrastructure to make a viable business, where as today that infrastructure is there.

So, certainty I think timing is critical and certainty we see that even in our markets where, you know, we’re not likely to see the next Uber out of our market, but we do see the companies we’re involved with that certainty need to catch and ride the waves, so to speak, of technological adoption and consolation and things like that that if you miss that way on one side of another, you might miss an opportunity.

There’s some great research we lean on, we’re thinking about our returns and exit strategies that Peter put together. He’s got a great blog and some resources on early exits. He’s making the case that a lot of times angel investors in particular can sort of ride it over the top, so to speak, with the startup and timing gets away from you and you didn’t sort of strike when the market opportunity was there.

So, he talks about these waves of consolidation when certain technologies sort of get bought up in a wave by strategics and if you miss that wave, you may have really missed the chance to generate returns. What you have to do as an angel investor is stay in the game, obviously, and so timing I think is critical, for sure.

John:
You know, it’s interesting, you’re talking about this fear of missing out, which is what all that social media stuff is about, you know, they watch other people’s post on Facebook for example and it’s like oh, nobody wants to feel like they’re missing out on cool events and/or cool investments. Like me ask you a little bit about your particular angel network.

Matt:
Sure.

John:
Are you trying to convince people who are in your network that invest that this is a better investment than the stock market, that it’s more risky, less risky, or better returns? Can you give us a flavor of how someone, how do you determine to be an investor in your angel network?

Matt:
Yeah, great question and here’s how we think about it and talk about it in our market. What we envision ourselves doing is really making a market or a more efficient market, early stage capital, where historically where we have not had a very robust market. So, you know, you don’t think South Carolina when you think hot venture market, yet with the advances in what we know and in the lower cost of infrastructure to run companies now, we got some really talented folks here that can build successful companies on the backs of that lower cost infrastructure with a lean mindset in place, we can have really successful outcomes both for entrepreneurs and investors that really make a difference in a market that hasn’t historically have a lot of that kind of activity.

So, we talk to our investors about trying to make a market where we’re bringing together investors who have capital and expertise with entrepreneurs who are leveraging what they’re learning to create compelling new opportunities and we want to make that, reduce the friction in that market to bring those parties together and try to find viable startup opportunities for investors and then help those entrepreneurs be successful by paying the capital and expertise that our members bring to the table in helping them grow and so when we’re talking to our investors, we certainty lay out the fact that, look, this is an extraordinarily risky asset class, so you really need to think about this as a small percentage of your overall investment portfolio.

You need to think about being very diversified within this portfolio, because we certainty can’t predict which of the two percentage of our portfolio companies are really going to drive the returns of our portfolio, so you need to bring a disciplined, diversified, patient approach to this, because this is also not liquid, so you can’t just pull this out of the market any time you want, you’re locked up for, in our case, we look for three to five year exist strategies in most cases. So, we talk about all those dynamics while recruiting investors, but we also..

John:
I love that. Disciplined, diversified, and patient. Those are the three key criterion that it takes to be a good member of your angel network or anyone’s, I assume. I love those three words, thank you for that and then exit strategies, you said three to five years. So, that’s really key for our listeners to know and take away that the investors are looking for some kind of exit strategy in three to five years. Would you mind sharing with us what the typical investment is from your angel network?

Matt:
Yeah, so we’re relatively agnostic about industry, because we have a diverse set of members who come from a lot of different backgrounds, so we can bring to bare different expertise and leverage that network to evaluate a lot of different things, however, we don’t have just enormous amounts of capital laying around ere, so we do need pretty capital efficient startups. So, that does tend to lend itself to things like software and some plays in life science, more typically on sort of the side or the digital health side and then we do have – we’re a manufacturing economy here, so we like to look at startups that enable more efficient manufacturing processes whether it’s sensors or materials or analytics and instrumentation, those things can fit well.

So, we’re looking for capital efficiency or scalability that we think there’s a viable market for, nice exit for this company in three to five years on the backs of, you know, a couple rounds of angel investment. We do from time to time that will go raise larger venture money, but that’s just a more difficult proposition in our market, because there’s relatively little venture capital here and so we like to look at a strategy where angels, again, these are individual angels investing their own money, so they can’t be as patient as an an institutional investor or an LP in a fund, because this is money that they’re trying to either generate for their retirement or to leave behind to their family and so we can’t afford a 10 or 15 year hold strategy.

We often don’t anticipate venture funding behind our deals, so in that case we’re looking at that sort of scalability, can we get it to several million in revenue on the backs of a couple of rounds of angel funding and then is there a viable exit strategy in that three to five year range and if all those pieces come together and obviously we like the team and we think the market is there and the technology works, then that’s what’s likely to get a check from our folks.

On average, we’re investing, out of our group, a couple of hundred thousand dollars at a time, but in the last year we’ve created a statewide network of angel investors to aggregate more capital around our companies. Again, in the absence of other easy access capital, we’re trying to draw in more investors from around the state and increasingly, there’s an appetite for this kind of investor among folks who are here or moving here and so now we’ve got six angel groups across the state that we co-invest with and so we hope to be in a position where we can efficiently aggregate half a million to a million to fund these companies in a more, in a quicker timeline without having to go too far away to syndicate the rest of the round.

John:
Well, what’s interesting about that, congratulations on that incredible growth from 200,000 to all the way up to a million with this network you’ve created, is the scalability factor and also what’s unique, from what I’m understanding, is you’re looking for an exit strategy in three to five years, it doesn’t necessarily require series A round from a big venture capital. The exit strategy could come from your couple of rounds from the angels. What kind of, sometimes the big VCs are looking for, you know, a ten time return on their investment, right, they want that unicorn. What kind of return are your investors looking for? Three, four?

Matt:
We’ll often think about in terms of rates of return, so again, we’re not a fund, we got the luxury to think more in terms of IRR than ROI, because we don’t have the pressure, necessarily, to say hey, we’ve got to return three times this fund in order to raise our next fund. Part of what we’re doing is, again, making that market and people care about seeing this economic growth in our market, so while our primary objective is financial, you know, we also talk about having fun and doing good.

So, our folks understand that if we want long term job growth in our state, it turns out that all net job growth comes from startups, so they understand that there’s sort of a broader reason to do this. It’s not that that allows us to relax our financial hurdles, but we’re doing it for more reasons than just a pure, healthy, ROI-driven mandate that a venture fund has, but all that said, we still have to make money to do this. We have to make good money to do this, so our first stated objective is, we like to do deals we believe can generate a 50% rate of return.

So, if you turn that into an ROI, that’s about four times your money in three years or ten times your money in five years. So, if you can hit those metrics then that’s really what we’re looking for and we’ve had several examples of generating those kinds..

John:
Oh, good. I was just going to ask you if you can share one. I love that criteria. In three years, we like to see a four time return in investment and in five years, a ten time return on investment. So, yes, please, since 2008 till now, you must have some amazing success stories. Is there any that you can share with us?

Matt:
Sure. So, our very first exit was a company that actually moved to South Carolina with the help of some incentives through a program we have here. We actually passed on their angel round a time or two. We thought the price was a little bit out of reach for us, but the company got into a position where they had some serious acquisition interest. They did have a venture fund in the deal and basically the fund was out of money and they needed some money on the balance sheet going into the acquisition discussions just to make sure they had leverage there and so we were able to get a very nice liquidation preference on a convertible note.

We don’t typically like convertible notes, that’s a longer conversation I can talk about that a little bit more if you like, but we don’t typically like notes except in a situation like this. We had a pretty high confidence that there was a real acquisition discussion on the way and so in about four months between the time we invested and the time the acquisition closed, we made about 3.5 times our money, which when you do the math on that, that’s about a 280% rate of return.

John:
Yes, I’ll say.

Matt:
So, if we can find those kinds of deals, we’ll do them as often as we can, but that’s pretty rare. That was our first exit and our best rate of return exit date. Last year we had a company that we had invested in a couple of times that was bought by a European company in the medical diagnostic space. It’s a company that’s a great local story that grew, you know, on paper that deal is worth about 11 times what we invested. We’re still in the lock up phrase.

We still have a few months and it’s publicly traded by a European company that bought it, so it will ultimately depend on what the stock is trading at when our lock up is over, but that will probably be our largest ROI investment return today, but we’ve had several other exits that are nice and several others that have hit 40-50% rate of return on our money.

John:
How exciting. Let me ask you two questions. The first one is do you ever fund a startup that’s pre-revenue in the angel world? In your world?

Matt:
We do, we do, but we would like to be really, really close to revenue if we’re not already there, so we will only invest, in most cases, when we have pretty clear line of sight to being in the market and generating revenue and we’ve talked to customers, so we really talk about being investors at the go to market stage, so you might be in the market and generating a little revenue, but you might be just shy of that and we have a strong enough validation from our due diligence at the markets there and some revenues ready to come in, so that you can start burning customer cash instead of having to rely on investor cash. Again, because we can’t necessarily count on easy access to a lot of follow up capital.

John:
Sure. My other question is because the podcast is called The Successful Pitch. I would love to hear what you think a successful pitch is and tell our listeners what they should do when they come pitch someone like you.

Matt:
Sure, sure. Yeah. I talk about this a good bit in various venues. I teach a course in the MBA program at Clemson here in downtown Greenville and so this is a big topic of discussion in that class and if I had to distill it down to sort of one quick phrase and I can expound on that, is that when you get in front of investors, your key objective is to build credibility.

John:
Love it. Build credibility when you’re in front of an investor. That alone is a tweetable moment.

Matt:
Well, you know, obviously these investors are seeing lots of different ideas, some of which are pretty crazy, which is good. We like to see crazy ideas, because those are the things that really, you know, can make a big impact, but because of that, investors over time develop sort of the healthy skepticism about most of what they hear, because we know a very few percentage of the companies we see will be successful and so when you get in front of the investors, you are already fighting an uphill battle, because the bias they’re bringing to the table is that most of what we see is not going to work. So, any missteps you make that undermine your credibility as an entrepreneur are going to quickly put you in the bucket of, okay, this is one of the 98% we’re going to see that aren’t going to work.

So, with every step in your communication and when you’re pitching, you know, I try to remind my students and entrepreneurs we talk with, be building your credibility at every stage. So, that means a lot of things. It means, you know, don’t over hype yourself. It means don’t make claims you can’t backup. It means, know your numbers when you walk in there. We know that performance are guesses, but if you don’t understand your unit economics, you can’t really defend the financial of the business model, you’re going to have a hard time getting investors.

It means, you know, don’t dodge a question. If an investor asks you a question, if you don’t know, say you don’t know, and then add some context around that and don’t spend five minutes in a circuitous answer not directly answering the investor’s question, because that hurts your credibility and even small things like, you know, and this was really sort of drilled into me in my days at BCG, but little things on slides matter.

We don’t necessarily expect you to be a designer when it comes to building slides, but if you got typos or formatting is off or things just don’t make sense, it’s not so much that the merits of those things matter, but it’s a distraction and you don’t want me distracted thinking about why your slides look kind of unprofessional or something is out of order, what you really want me focused on is you and your story and so don’t distract.

You lose a little credibility where you allow distraction if you don’t pay attention to those little things. So, at every step it’s about building credibility so that you can get to the next step. In our case, you’re not going to get a check based on a presentation. What you’re going to get is an opportunity to go to the next step which is due diligence and continuing to build that credibility.

John:
That’s so useful, Matt. Let me just recap again. So, the keys to building credibility, number one, don’t over hype, know your numbers, don’t dodge a question, and make sure that you’re taking care of all of the little details from what’s on your slide to how you present yourself. It’s all from the minute you walk into the door, you’re selling yourself and establishing a brand image and don’t get you as an investor distracted or confused, because the minute you do your credibility goes down.

Matt:
That’s right.

John:
I’d love to have you expand a little bit, since you’re such an expert in it, in defending the business model numbers, so when you say, know your numbers and we know it’s all projections, they have to know a lot about their market numbers too and I hear one of the worst things people want to hear is, oh, if we just capture 1% of this market, we’ll be good. Don’t say that. So, can you tell us what’s a good example of knowing your numbers and being able to defend your business model? What should they have and what kind of research should they have done?

Matt:
Sure. Yeah, yeah. So another great question and I tell my students up front, you will fail this class if you tell me you’re going to capture 1% of the market and it’s going to be worth X. We want to build the distinction from the bottom up, so that in itself is an incredible, non-creditable approach. Hey, we’re just going to capture 3% of this billion dollar market and you’re going to make a lot of money. That’s great, how are you doing it? So, give them the bottom up story.

So, again, we know that we can’t predict the future. We know that. So, we know that any sort of top line pro forma is a conjecture, but what we can do is drill down on the unit economics. So, what are the costs, the input costs, to making and selling your product. You ought to be able to get a pretty good handle on that and then we ought to be able to get a pretty good handle what is the market willing to pay and again I think this is one of the beautifies of the whole lean startup.

There’s some really pretty simple, but powerful ways to go get some of that data from the market place and validate your assumptions around what your product is worth and so we want to see that. We want to know that you’ve talked to the market.

We want to know in our due diligence process that we can talk to those customers and reference that and understand what the willingness to pay is to solve a problem, so you ought to be able to get a pretty good handle on what those unit economics look like and then we can sort of dream together on assumptions we make about how that could grow and if it grows, what kind of capital requirements do we need to fund that growth and we look at our cash flows, because only again, you know, we have to – you know, the number one thing you have to do in a startup is not run out of cash, right, so if you have access to lots of venture money, that’s one way to not run out of cash. In our case, we don’t have necessarily deep pockets of venture money, so the best way for us not to run out of cash is go get customers. If we can validate the unit economics and dream together about how it can grow, now we can get a handle on what those cash flows might look like and whether there’s a viable, scalable opportunity for us.

John:
I’m going to make this a tweet. Validate the economics and then we can dream together. That’s a great line that you just said. Thank you. Well, the 30 minutes goes so fast when someone as smart and knowledgeable as you. So, before I let you go, I just want to ask you two more quick questions, one is what book, as a professor, do you recommend your students to read or our listeners to read that could have anything to do with start a business or just living your life better.

Matt:
That’s a great question, so many to choose from, maybe I’ll say two off the bat. So, if you’re an entrepreneur and you haven’t raised money before, you need to go read Venture Deals, Brad Feld’s book and his partner Jason, oh shoot, his last name escapes me, but Venture Deals by Brad Feld.

John:
We’ll put it in the show notes, don’t worry.

Matt:
Yeah, just the mechanics of what a deal looks like so you don’t fall into traps as an entrepreneur, not knowing what you’re signing up for in terms of turn sheets and then maybe one, this is one that’s sort of been on my mind lately, there’s so many to choose from, but one is a thought provoking book that I think has some insightful lessons both for entrepreneurs and investors and in life is Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. It’s both a philosophical and treatise, I think, but it has some really, really thought provoking points around how what really impacts our lives in the world or things we can’t predict and so how do you build systems that gain volatility rather than breaking in the face of volatility and that’s sort of the challenge of the start up and in many ways the challenge of life. So, it’s a great thought provoking challenging book that I think is worth a good read or two or three.

John:
What a great recommendation. Well, you’ve certainty been a very thought provoking guest. I can’t thank you enough, Matt. How can people follow you? I know that your angel network focuses mostly on the South East part of the US, but even if they’re not in the South East and they just want to learn from you, do you have blogs? Should people follow you on Twitter? What’s the best way for people to be aware of what you’re doing with your angel network or people are fortunate enough to live in your part of the country and want to eventually pitch you, what’s the best way to connect with you?

Matt:
So one of the things you didn’t hear me say in my background was marketing, so I’m not a great marketer or blogger or any of that, but we do have a Twitter handle @UpstateAngels is our Twitter handle. We’re not terribly prolific on that, but we do tweet from time to time. We do a series of articles on our local business journal, so you can get access to that through our Twitter handle or through our website, which is just UpstateAngels.com and then increasingly we’re actually hiring some help to help us do a better job telling our stories and providing some of this insight through the South Carolina Angel Network. So, SCAngelNetwork.com is where you’ll start to see more content from us.

John:
Fantastic. Thank again. It’s been a pleasure having you on the show, Matt.

Matt:
Thanks so much, I really enjoyed it. I appreciate the great questions and I’m happy to participate, thank you.

John:
Alright, thanks.

TSP019 | Sam Horn – Transcription

Posted by John Livesay in Uncategorized | 0 comments

John Livesay:
Today’s guest on The Successful Pitch podcast is Sam Horn who is known as an Intrigue Expert. She’s the author of Got Your Attention?:How to Create Intrigue and Connect with Anyone. She speaks all over the world about how to get your message memorable with incredible stories that come to life. She said don’t tell someone what your story is, ask them something, like, ‘did you know?’ and once you get people to start thinking about facts and things they didn’t already know, you have them imagine it and from there you don’t have to imagine it anymore, it comes to life.

Sam has so many great tips and skills, she literally walks me through my own idea for a blog and makes it so much better than what I had originally done and so you’re going to be able to listen to her walk me through her step by step process of how to make something so engaging and so memorable that you feel like you’re in the room with the person telling the story. Enjoy the interview.

Hi and welcome to today’s episode of The Successful Pitch podcast. We are honored to have Sam Horn as our guest. Sam has an amazing and interesting background. She is literally the Intrigue Expert, just the title alone makes you want to know more, doesn’t it? She’s a world renowned author of six books, a key note speaker including TEDx, she’s the president of the Intrigue Agency and she’s spoken to more than half a million people worldwide, so she not only travels, but people seek her out. She has a new book out called Got Your Attention?, so that is something we’re going to talk to her about. Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Horn:
Thanks so much. I’ve been looking forward to sharing some ideas with your listeners.

John:
Terrific. Well, you have been a pitch coach for several companies. One of the things I wanted to jump right into was talking about you being a pitch coach for the British Airways face-to-face competition. People love to hear about pitch competitions and you certainly are a pitch coach, so can you tell us a little bit about that story?

Sam:
You bet. In fact, you may know, two of the people who are the number one and number two winners in this, number one was Adam Braun of Pencils of Promise, are you familiar with Adam?

John:
I am, he’s got an amazing charity.

Sam:
He certainty has and in fact, he’s got a great story, which is one of the things we’ll be talking about today is that how we can weave our story in in very concise and compelling and relevant ways so people can relate to our message and the runner up and a very close call was Danae Ringelmann of Indiegogo, I bet you know her as well.

John:
Indeed. I love it.

Sam:
So, one of the things that Danae has going for her, of course, she is really somebody who has revolutionized crowdfunding and she was really at the beginning of that movement and when you’re first to market, you own the market, so that’s one of the things we can talk about as well when we’re trying to pitch something and get a yes to what we care about.

John:
Well, that’s already a tweetables moment. When you’re first to market, you own the market. My favorite example of that is Uber versus Lyft. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Sam:
You know, I love it,because in my new book, Got Your Attention?, I used Uber as an example of who says there’s nothing new under the sun. Of course there are new things under the sun and I talk about my seven Ps of positioning and what they realized I that there was a problem that wasn’t being met, you know, people are standing out in the middle of the street, they can’t get a cab, the cabs are smelly, sometimes they over charge, you know, all that.

The premise is, why does it have to be that way? What if there were a better way and then you come up with a program or project that offers that better way. You make a promise so that people can trust your new venture and then you pop and bingo, you can be first to market and as you just said, when you’re first to market, you own that market.

John:
Well, you’re certainly the expert on so many things one of them being Pop Its, since that was you actually gave a Pop Talk recently. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean by Pop It?

Sam:
You bet. It’s – I think you may know I help start and run the Maui Writers Conference for 17 years and we did something that was unprecedented at the time. We gave people an opportunity to jump the chain of command and pitch face-to-face with decision makers. I mean, you could pitch your screen plan to Ron Howard.

John:
Wow.

Sam:
Guess what, no one knew how to connect with these decision makers. Blah, blah, blah, they’d talk themselves out of a deal. So, I realized that if we’ve got 60 seconds or if we’ve got two minutes, we’ve got to pop it so it pops out of the pack so that it is different than what they’ve heard before and it gets their eyebrows up.

John:
Ah, yes. You talk about that phrase a lot and it’s so interesting because when someone raises their eyebrows, whether it’s Spock or somebody being intrigued by what you just said, you literally have an eyebrow test that you ask people to make sure that their pitch passes, can you explain it to our listeners what you mean by the eyebrow test?

Sam:
You’re right. Well, here’s the back story toward it, is that I stood in the back and I watched those pitch sessions at Maui Writers Conference and I could predict who was getting interest in their project without hearing a word being said and it was because of the decision maker’s eyebrows. Now, right now, people listening to this crunch up your eyebrows, nit and furrow. Do you feel confused?

John:
Yes.

Sam:
Confused people don’t say yes. Okay, now just leave your eyebrows unmoved, you’re unmoved or you’ve had botox. Now, lift your eyebrows. See, now do you feel curious, intrigued? You wanna know more?

John:
Yes.

Sam:
Means we just got our ideas in your mental door, so that’s what we want from now and the first 60 seconds, we want those eyebrows up, it means they’re intrigued, they want to know more.

John:
I love that image of, we got you in their mental door. That’s something we’re going to tweet out from today’s show, definitely. Sam, you have a great story on a recent blog you wrote about a woman, Kathleen, who was pitching from Springboard her big idea and she only had a few minutes to get those eyebrows raised, would you tell us that story of how you work with Springboard, what that is and how you got her to make her pitch so successful at the end of the day when everyone is exhausted?

Sam:
Well, first let’s give a shout out to Springboard. Springboard has helped entrepreneurs get 6.6 billion in funding so this is Gale Goodman of Gail Goodman of Constant Contact. This is Robin Chase from Zipcar and Kathleen Callender of PharmaJet is part of the Springboard alumni and she said, Sam, I’ve got good news, I’ve got bad news. I said, what’s the good news and she said I’m speaking to a room full of investors in New York. I said, that’s great.

I said, what’s the bad news? She said, I’m going at 2:30 in the afternoon and I only have 10 minutes and she said, you can’t say anything in 10 minutes, how can I explain my business model? My financials? My competitive edge or team credentials and I said, Kathleen, you don’t have 10 minutes, you’re going at 2:30, you’ve got 60 seconds.

So, here’s the 60 second opening we came up with and then I’m going to share with the listeners how they can use this opening whether they’re coming up with a homepage for their website, whether they’re coming up with an opening paragraph for their blog, whether they’re opening up their TED talk or fund raising pitch, sound good?

John:
Sounds amazing. Can’t wait.

Sam:
Okay, here’s the opening. Did you know there are 1.8 billion vaccinations given every year? Did you know up to half of those are given with re-used needles? Did you know we are spreading and perpetuating the very diseases we’re trying to prevent? Imagine if there were painless one use needle for a fraction of the current cost. You don’t have to imagine it, we’ve created it and she’s off and running. Are your eyebrows up, John?

John:
Not only up, but I’m leaning forward. I’m intrigued, I want to know more. You got my head spinning with knowledge and it’s such a great framework. It’s absolutely so valuable what you said. Not only when you have a pitch, but a blog or a website, it’s ‘did you know’, ‘imagine’, and then that beautiful bridge you created and I’m so impressed with that bridge, because that’s lacking so often is this transition statement of you don’t have to imagine, which is just brilliant, Sam.

Sam:
Well, thank you and now let’s think about everybody listening. What is the situation? A high stakes communication coming up where you are pitching for funding, you are asking for a yes, you do want this project green lighted, you do want someone to buy this product. Have you been told to tell them what you’re going to tell them and then tell them and then tell them what you told them. That’s terrible advice! That’s makes us a bore, chore, or snore, right? Hey, shall we tweet that out, John?

John:
Yes, bore, chore, or snore. I love it. I love things that rhythm and I love alliterations. So, let’s not bore, chore, or snore. I love it. Great tweet.

Sam:
That’s right. So, from now on, instead of telling, ask, and like you said, three ‘did you know’ questions that go to the issue that you’re answering or the problem that you’re solving or shift in a trend that you are address and now if people are thinking, where do I find these startling statistics? You just GTS. Now, if we’re a boomer, that’s Google That Stuff, we’re a millennial that’s, Google That…yes. Just put in what are startling statistics about blank, now put in your industry, put in your product, put in your profession, and I guarantee you, in seconds up will come something, you don’t know and you’re an expert and that’s the goal! If it gets your eyebrows up, it’ll get your decision makers’ eyebrows up. Now you’ve turned it into a dialogue instead of a monologue. You’re only 20 seconds in.

John:
Fantastic.

Sam:
Now, that second step, should I stop for a second? It looks like you have something to say?

John:
No, I just love the GTS. I mean, we all heard of a global positioning system and you shifted that to a GTS, which we’re going to tweet that out. The old way of learning how to write a screenplay is show, don’t tell, and you taking it one step further with ask, don’t tell, so it’s just so incredible. I had to take a pause and recap just what you gave us there, before you go on to the second step.

Sam:
Well, I see that you’re getting this and I really appreciate that you appreciate the craft, because this is what we’re doing. If the clock starts ticking, the second we start talking, then every word, as William Strunk says, has to tell, right?

John:
Yes.

Sam:
But let’s not tell, let’s ask, because now we’re engaging instead of boring or snoring or choring. So, the second stage in this opening is the word imagine, because the word imagine pulls people out of their occupation. See, they’re not texting, they’re not checking email, they’re picturing your point. They’re seeing what you’re saying, so they’re completely engaged.

Now, link the word imagine to three aspects of your answer to that issue or your product that solves that problem. Think back to Kathleen Callender. Do you know how she used to start her pitch? How she used to describe what PharmaJet was?

John:
I can’t imagine. I’m sure it’s something very techy about dirty needles and something like that, maybe, right?

Sam:
Even if it were that visual, it used to be that PharmaJet was a medical delivery device for subcutaneous inoculations.

John:
Oh my God. I’m snoring, confused, and slightly bored. Wow.

Sam:
See, you focus on investors, investors don’t say yes when they’re confused, do they?

John:
No, nobody does and most people are so embarrassed to say they’re confused, so they just give you a no and they don’t want to raise their hand and go, could you clarify that. So, it’s so important when people pitch to give people clarity and you have such an incredible focus. If anybody doesn’t buy your book, Got You Attention and use that as their Bible, they’re crazy. So, now that we’ve got the imagine and the three aspects that solve the problem that you created with ‘did you know’ questions, is there anymore you want to talk about the imagine?

Sam:
Now, notice how we distill this – your proposal, your pitch, into one succinct sentence. Think about Kathleen Callender and what did her decision makers care about. Well, they cared about those re-used needles, so we made it one use. They cared about those painful inoculations, so we made it painless and, of course, all decision makers care about money, so we condense it into a fraction of the current cost. I mean, we distilled this into one, ‘who wouldn’t want that’ sentence and that’s the goal of this second part.

Imagine this, this, this, and everyone is thinking, that sounds good, who wouldn’t want that? And then you bridge into you don’t have to imagine it, we’ve created it, now is where you come in with your precedence and your evidence to prove that this isn’t speculative, this isn’t pie in the sky, this is a done deal and you’re ready to deliver it or here’s the benchmark where this had been done before successfully or here’s the testimonials, the article, coming in with proof, so they may, you know, what you have painted sounds so wonderful, you want to come in with gravitas and creditability so they and you can take it to the bank.

John:
Nice, that gravitas is a great word to explain how centered and confidence and focus you have to be when you’re closing up that short, short pitch, which is not only do you see the problem and see my solution, but I’m the person to bring that solution home.

Sam:
That’s right. That’s right. In fact, Jack Welch said, if you don’t have a competitive edge, don’t compete.

John:
Right. What’s the one thing that makes you special and everyone has something, which leads me to my first question that I normally ask guests, but I was so excited about your content and your genius, I skipped over it almost on purpose, because I couldn’t wait to get to the good stuff, but can you tell us a little bit about your story? How did you become an Intrigue Expert?

Sam:
It really went back to those beginning days of the Maui Writers Conference, because what we did, I mean, you’re an author, you know what it is to just jump all those chains of command. I mean, 20 years ago, you go your whole life, you would never meet and agent face-to-face. You would never meet one of the top editors at Random House, Simon & Schuster, you know, Doubleday to pitch Neil Niren, whose clients are Tom Clancy, you know, to pitch Rob Loomis, whose clients are Maya Angelou, Woody Allen, to pitch Rob, you know, Ron Howard, it’s just incredible and I could not believe that, A) people even hadn’t done their homework, you know, they walked in cold, winging it, which is like here’s their dream on the line, right, and instead their dream goes down the drain, because they didn’t prepare for it or here’s the other side to that, John, they did prepare and what happens and I see it in so many pitch competitions, is they prepare their pitch to death, literally to death.

It is so rehearsed, it is so mechanical, they don’t connect with people in the room and I’ve see top decision makers, they’re so quick, they get it in like 60 seconds and guess what, they want to ask a question and the other person doesn’t stop talking for 10 minutes.

John:
Yes, because if you over rehearse or as you described it, it doesn’t allow for any questions, because I’ll lose my place and you really don’t know the material you just memorized what it is without the content so that you can pivot even during your pitch, which is what I think is so important to do. If you’re going to show how you are able to pivot possibly during the business, you need to be able to show how you can pivot during a pitch, don’t you think?

Sam:
I love it, in fact, okay, you love quotes, you ready for a good one?

John:
I do. Yes.

Sam:
Amy Poehler, okay, so let’s get Amy Poehler in mind, right, Amy Poehler says, I’ll get a little itchy if I don’t have some control.

John:
Nice.

Sam:
Now, think about it. What happens in a pitch is that we’re dealing with senior investors, decision makers, executives, they’re used to being in control and guess what happens, someone comes in and starts talking for ten minutes and like 60 seconds in, the person has got it and at that point, we have to put a sock in it, because if we put a sock in it, then the decision maker can say, well, you know, what’s your background, have you ever taken anything to exit? You know, it’s like, do you have a patent on this? You know, tell me about your team? Then they run with it, they’re in control, they’re going to like it a lot better, because they’re making the conversation relevant to them and they’re in the driver seat instead of being held hostage, right?

John:
Instead of being held hostage, yes. It’s so true, because some people are so afraid of questions or objections even and I tell people to welcome them, because it shows that the investor is engaged and once they’re engaged, they’re telling you want their criteria is and either you have a fit or you don’t. You might as well learn it upfront if you’re a fit or not.

Sam:
Once again, you love quotes, so write this one down, okay?

John:
Yes.

Sam:
Objections are answers to the test.

John:
Ah, yes.

Sam:
They just told you why they’re going to say no and, if we can welcome that as you just said, the sign of a true leader, a confident executive, business owner, is a someone who welcomes the objections, because you just told me why you wouldn’t buy this, what your concern is, what you think it might be its fatal flaw. Now, if I can welcome that and answer it, then check, that’s no longer an objection, we’re closer to a yes.

John:
Yes, we’re going to tweet that. Objections are the answer to the test. Let me you ask you about your 70/10/10/10 rule for being clear since you talked about how the confused mind always says no, you have some great insights on how to help us get clear with this great rule. Can you break that down for us?

Sam:
Well, first it’s to understand that, as we talk about in the latest book, that goldfish have longer attention spans than we do, right? I’m not making that up. Harvard research Nancy Cohen found that goldfish nine seconds, human beings eight seconds, and Newsweek had a cover article about infobesity. We’re living in an age of infobesity.

John:
I love that.

Sam:
And infobesity is essentially TMI, too much information, any time, all the time, right? So, people don’t want more information. They want to be intrigued and the 70/10/10/10 rule and unless people are driving, let’s go ahead and I’m a leadite here, so if you have paper and a pen, let’s do four columns, alright.

John:
Got it.

Sam:
So, four vertical columns. The top of the left hand column is 70, next column is 10, next column is 10, next column is 10. From now on start with 70, do not start with infobesity, start with an anecdote. You know, an anecdote and I don’t say story and I don’t say example, I say an anecdote, because anecdote is a real life example pulled from your life, alright. Next, say when we start with an anecdote, it’s always original, it’s always organic, it gets people’s eyebrows up, because it pleasantly surprises them.

Now, next column is for ‘ah ha’. We pull an ah-ha out of the anecdote, because now instead of the platitude or a cliche, we have a blog title, we have a chapter title or presentation, it’s going to pop, right, and by the way, let’s do this with you afterwards, okay.

John:
Okay, fun.

Sam:
And next column is ask, because I’ll always remember as an Olympic athlete came to Maui Writers Conference, he talked about training for the Olympics, he chocked, he didn’t even finish up on the middle stand. He gave up the sport, couldn’t live with himself, came back, and got a medal, and I looked around and I could see people were politely applauding, but you know what, I could tell what they were thinking, well, good for you, but what’s that got to do with me?

Because since, never once did he ask three you questions, never once did he say, have you ever had a dream that didn’t work out the way – did you throw in the towel? You know, how did you feel about that? See, you questions are the hook and hint of our idea and anecdote and ah-ha, back to the audience so they can relate it in real-time so it’s relevant for them.

John:
I love that image. You questions are the hinge on a door that let’s people in to the mental door you were talking about, right?

Sam:
You just said it, yep, and then the final one is act and act is where we get prescriptive and that’s where we give a how to, that’s where we give the next step. This is how you can put it into practice, this is how you can get real world results and now look at this 70/10/10/10, it changes both the order and the Proportion of our communication.

John:
Wow, let me just recap it to make sure my notes and my columns are right. The 70 is the anecdote, then it is the ah-ha moment, then it is ask, and then finally, act.

Sam:
That’s right.

John:
Get it? Okay, great.

Sam:
Guess what people usually do exactly the oppose. It’s either all how-tos, do this, do this, and we feel like we’re being lectured or scolded that we’re back in class, right, or they tell stories and hey, stories are nice, but at the end it’s like, what’s that got to do with me, you know, how can I apply that in my life, you know, or they share platitudes, it’s all about the team, you know?

John:
The cliches, yeah.

Sam:
That’s exactly right, so this really does turn infobesity on its head.

John:
That’s another tweetable line. I love it. Turn infobesity on its head. Hire Sam, that’s great. Alright, let’s see if I can pull the 70/10/10/10 to work for the listeners and give them some kind of an example of how that would be.

Sam:
Okay, so can we set this up?

John:
Please.

Sam:
Okay. Now, is there a blog that you want to write or are you giving a presentation and in the near future or something?

John:
Yes. I am working on a blog right now.

Sam:
It sounds to me like you already have the ah-ha or the point that you want to make, right?

John:
Yes. I do.

Sam:
So, now, put that in column two, because see, sometimes we start, we know the point or we know the topic, but we’re going to write about leadership or we’re going to write about pitching, so see that’s a platitude cliche generic, right, but we start there. Okay, so let’s narrow it down. What is the topic or the subject or the point you want to make?

John:
You want me to tell you now?

Sam:
Umhm.

John:
How to become the Picasso of pitches.

Sam:
Ooh. Well done. Well done.

John:
Thank you.

Sam:
You got that alliteration going on, don’t you?

John:
Yes, I do.

Sam:
Okay, so now, good, you already have a good ah-ha, but now let’s go over to the anecdote, right?

John:
Yes, right.

Sam:
And the anecdote is either like your back story of how you discovered this or, you know, a good place to start, the opposite of this. When you experienced, you know, when it was not art. When it was not creative, when it was common, okay.

John:
Got it. Right.

Sam:
So, put in a scene now. I want to be sitting there, standing there right with you. Ready go.

John:
Francoise Gilot, who was Paloma Picasso’s mother told me this story of when she was painting her art during the war in the 40s, there was a shortage of canvases and they had to paint over their master pieces, because she had such a need to express her creativity and she was looking at a painting and she said, that’s the 5th one I did, my favorite was the third one underneath it and I thought to myself, oh my God, if we could pitch like Picasso or Francoise Gilot, then our need to express ourselves is so great that we would paint over our master pieces and could learn to pivot when we need to, we would really be successful.

Sam:
Wow. Okay, this is a fantastic start. Now, let’s, I’m going to show you how to wave an anecdote so it comes alive, sound good?

John:
Sounds great.

Sam:
WWWAVE.

John:
Yep.

Sam:
Okay, so the W is Who, now please verbally paint her so I can see her.

John:
Got it. Francoise Gilot is 90 years old, but she is still beautiful. In fact, both Picasso and Maltese were so inspired by her beauty, they created art interpreting her looks.

Sam:
Wow. Say something about the light on in her eyes. The light in her face, because I bet that was..

John:
She observes the world with such curiosity and passion that you can’t help but be intrigued by listening to her speak to you with an English, with her French accent.

Sam:
Wow, okay now if we had more time, see you just went a layer deeper and you see how rich it was and evocative and it was really colorful. So, see, you would paint your lead character in a way that not only we can see and we can feel them and they call it care-acter for a reason that we care about them, right?

John:
Nice, I love that. Care-acter. I’ve never heard that before, great. I live in Hollywood for God sakes with all the screenwriters, yes.

Sam:
Okay, the next is where and when. Screen writer, you know all about scene, right? So, see, if we just talk about her, we don’t know if you met her on a plane, we don’t know if we met her over lunch, we don’t know if we met her by the beach villa, so where and when did you have this conversation?

John:
I met her at her apartment five years ago when I was with the curator and author of the book about her life in her apartment, which was filled with not only her own work, but of course, Picasso’s, so it was completely intriguing and beautiful to be surrounded by the artwork that someone’s created through their life time as well as the person she was involved with for so many years.

Sam:
So see, this is the start of this anecdote is five years ago I had the unique privilege of having an opportunity to visit so and so in her villa, which was filled and now say these words, picture this.

John:
Picture this. Yes.

Sam:
Okay, we’re going to be in that room with you. Vicariously we’re experiencing what it’s like to be in that incredible place with this art on the walls, right?

John:
Right.

Sam:
Okay. Now, the third take, you’re a screenwriter, you know all about dialogue. Third W is What was said. Has to have coma quotes, right? I asked her, she said, I thought, because that’s when it comes alive, other wise a story i not a story, it’s distant, it’s removed, it’s only with dialogue that it comes alive and we feel as if we’re in that room having this conversation and it is as if it’s happening now.

John:
Wow. I love that. So, in this case I would say, she was showing me one of her paintings and she told me during the war in the 40s there was a shortage of canvases and she had to paint over them.

Sam:
And she said, not she told me, she said.

John:
And she said, got it, she had to paint over her paintings during the 1940s because there was a shortage of canvases and I asked her, “How did that feel to do that.” And she said, “It was hard to do, but I needed to express myself.” I ask her,”Which was her favorite of all the paintings that she had done on that one canvas and she said, “It was the third one underneath the fifth one.”

Sam:
Ooh, you see it, don’t you?

John:
I do.

Sam:
Okay, now do you see how this is one of a kind. When you do this, you’re 60 seconds in. Is everyone going to keep reading that blog? You bet. Is everyone going to keep listening to you? Has anyone ever told this story this way? No.

John:
No.

Sam:
And further more as a writer, both in verbal presentations and in writing, when you do dialogue, it’s line, space, line, space, right? So, you’re visually and verbally chunking up the content so that people are engaged in the interaction and it holds their attention, because it’s not like a paragraph of ten lines of dense text, right?

John:
Right.

Sam:
Okay, A is for Adversity and so we’re waving this anecdote so it comes alive. So, WWW. W is Who. W is Where and When, W is what was said, and of course, you know all about, you probably know Chris Vogler, huh?

John:
I know who it is, but I don’t know him.

Sam:
Okay, well, for people listening, Joesph Campbell, of course, has the Hero’s Journey and Christoper Vogler came to Maui Writers Conference for years. Kind of like Hollywood’s Christoper Vogler, Joseph Campbell, and you also know about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

John:
I love that, yeah. Self-actualization, you have to get your food and water set first, right?

Sam:
That’s right, but he also said that a satisfied need is no longer a motivator and he also said if you are down there in survival needs, you can not relate to self-actualization needs.

John:
Correct.

Sam:
So, see, if we’re pitching something and it seems like oh, that’s nice, but not necessary, I can’t meet payroll, well, yeah, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m going through a difficult divorce. It’s like, well, yeah, easy for you. So, the adversity in the story is either adversity from you or from her that makes this challenging where something went wrong because that’s what gives it an anecdote. That’s what makes it believable, that’s what makes it not airy fairy, you know, right. So, where’s the adversity in this story?

John:
The adversity in this story is the sadness that she had to paint over her favorite painting and it’ll never be seen again.

Sam:
There you go, write it down, because do you see how, if you say that and you move on, do you see how we just missed a moment?

John:
Yes.

Sam:
To give this depth, right, and humanity and scope of emotion. Yeah. It’s not pat or Pollyanna now, right? WWWAVE. So, now V is for Victory. This is the happy dance at the end of Star Wars. This is the epiphany, this is the insight, so what was your victory or what was your epiphany or the point of all this?

John:
The point of all this for me really was even though that painting will never be seen again, she remembers it in her mind and she had the passion to still keep creating and not hold on to one creation at the expense of creating something new.

Sam:
Wow. Write it down. I just thought one too. You know what, because you love alliteration and I also believe often in turning our ah-has into questions, because now they’re engaging, right, so you know what’s a very evocative line? Ha-ha! I love this. Do you know how Einstein knew he had a good idea?

John:
No.

Sam:
He laughed out loud.

John:
Awh, how great.

Sam:
So, see, if ever like a little laugh burst out of me, that kind of like, oh, get out of the way, good idea coming. You ready?

John:
Ready.

Sam:
Are you painting over your Picassos?

John:
Nice, great.

Sam:
So, and now you’re also seeing that one anecdote can yield several ah-has, right?

John:
Yes, definitely.

Sam:
Which means you can tell the story in different presentations with different points tailor, customized, to that audience or to that strategic purpose of the pitch or something.

John:
Right.

Sam:
Now, E. We’re on to WWWAVE. E is for Emotional context and now here is where you step out of the story and you talk about how you feel about it, you know, how grateful you were to have that opportunity, how you couldn’t stop thinking about it, how that night you just laid in bed going over and over in your mind, right?

John:
Yes.

Sam:
Or how you can’t wait to share that story with others so that they can vicariously experience and get their own epiphany from it or something, right?

John:
Right, yep, great. So, for me, when I look back on that day, I remember that I felt incredibly grateful to have met her, inspired by her incredible need to create and I was so excited to share it with startups to realize that is the kind of level of creativity and passion that’s required to continue to express yourself in the world regardless of what shortages you might be facing.

Sam:
Yes. It’s like. I tell you, we could talk to ten different people right now on that story and the best thing, well, I shouldn’t say the best, one of the many wonderful things about starting with an anecdote is that it’s very Socratic is that everyone listening is going to come up with their own insights, right? Because it will be relevant to them in different ways and so they really are engaged and so, like, just you and I back and forth, you know, there was this, are you painting over your Picassos?

If you are forced to, if you only have a few resources and you’re painting, whatever, it’s like how can you remember it, how can you imprint it so it’s not gone, it’s not lost, right? You know, who is your Picasso, who is your muse? You know, is the light going to be on in your eyes when you’re 90, you know? It’s the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it?

John:
Love it, love it, love it. Oh my gosh, this has been so incredible. You’ve been so generous with not only giving your insights to the audience, but letting me play with you and take what your concepts are and make them come to life not only me, but everyone listening, because these real life examples of your acronyms are gold, needless to say. You have written, speaking of being prolific like Picasso and Francoise Gilot, not only Got Your Attention?, but six other books. Tell us what are some of the books that other people should be getting of your six in addition to Got Your Attention? that you think could really help them with their pitches and their life?

Sam:
Well, thank you for asking and let’s go with two and the first one is Pop! And I was very honored when Seth Godin essentially said, well he said on the cover endorsement, “This book is revolutionary.” He said, “Words matter and this will change the way you use them.” And so, shall I give a quick example of Pop!?

John:
Please, yes.

Sam:
Okay, so this top of mine, so I’m going with it here, because we’re talking about pitches and Pop also can help you come up with taglines or it can help you come up with book titles or whatever, so he’s just an example of how to do it. The first time I spoke on conflict, it was called dealing with difficult people without becoming one yourself. That’s, it’s got alliteration, it’s got cadence, right? And when you put it in a beat, you make it easy to repeat. Guess what though, is that i a generic title, because if you go online, there’s thousands of people talking, writing, consulting about difficult people, right? So, see, we want to keep our antenna up for something that’s one of a kind instead of one of many.

I was very lucky, the first session I gave on that, there was a gentleman in the audience, he didn’t even get up at the first break to get a cup of coffee, he was just staring off into space and I went over. I was curious, I said, “What are you thinking?” and he said, “Sam, I’m a real estate broker.” He said, “I deal with some really demanding people.” And he said, “I thought you were going to teach us some zingers to fire back at them and put them in their place.” He said, “That’s not what this is about.” And I said, “That’s right.” And he was the one who said, “I’m a student of martial arts.” He said, “I studied Karate, Taekwondo, Judo,” He said, “What you’re talking about is like a verbal form of Kung Fu, isn’t it?” Kung Fu!

John:
Nice. A matter of fact, I see you have a book here that says, Tongue Fu.

Sam:
That’s right and see, Tongue Fu, see, when you create something that’s one of a kind, you can trade market it, then you can merchandise it, monetize it in perpetuity. I just got back and this is more than 15 years after I wrote the book, I just got back from South Korea where I spoke at the Asian leadership conference with Prime Ministers and President and see the power of coming up with something that pops is it really does help get people’s attention in a noisy world, gets their eyebrows up, and hopefully then opens the door to you making a difference and earning a living doing what you love.

John:
I love it. Got Your Attention?: How to Create Intrigue and Connect with Anyone. Pop and Tongue Fu in addition to ConZentrate and What’s Holding You Back. I mean, I’m going to buy everyone and study them, because it’ll just give us so much valuable information. Sam, how can our listeners follow you on social media and what’s the best way to keep track of what you’re doing and how does someone, you know, reach out to you if they want to hire you to be a speaker, etc?

Sam:
Well, thank you. You can go to the website, it’s real easy to remember, SamHorn.com and Twitter handle, we’ve been tweeting some things out during this is @SamHornIntrigue. Find us on Facebook and I blog regularly on LinkedIn and on our website, so you can check us out there and if you have a pitch coming up, if you want to get a yes, if you’re doing a TED talk, if you want to write a book, if you want to position yourself as a one of a kind expert, get in touch with us Cheri (at) IntrigueAgency.com and she’ll send some information and maybe we can have a chance to work together.

John:
Fantastic. I can speak to your blogs are incredibly well written, intriguing, of course, much like your books and personality, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been an honor.

Sam:
I’m thoroughly enjoyed it. Hope people found it interesting and useful.

John:
Bye.

TSP018 | Chris Hanks – Transcription

Posted by John Livesay in Uncategorized | 0 comments

John Livesay:
Today’s guest on The Successful Pitch podcast is Chris Hanks. Chris has an amazing background from being an entrepreneur himself to co-authoring the book, School for Startups with Jim Beach and now he started not one, but two entrepreneurship centers at different universities in Georgia. Chris talks to us about how to take action over just thinking you have to have the perfect idea and how important that is. He said, “when in doubt, just go do.”

He said, one of the things he teaches in making a great pitch is come up with something that’s going to give investors goosebumps and he gives examples on two or three ways to get people to get goosebumps when they hear your pitch so that they’re inspired to want to invest in you and it’s all about articulating the future. That’s what makes you CEO worthy. Enjoy the interview.

Hi and welcome back to The Successful Pitch podcast. Today’s guest is Chris Hanks who is the founder and executive director of Kennesaw State University, which is just a few miles north of Atlanta, Entrepreneur Center. Before this, Chris was the founder and director of the University of Georgia’s Entrepreneur Program.

He’s own multiple businesses including music, ecommerce, publishing, and export ventures. He’s the co-author of the bestselling book with Jim Beach on low risk entrepreneurs called School for Startups. He leads the International Entrepreneur Institute and is certified in business valuation, providing expert witness testimony. We’re certainty going to want to ask him about that. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Hanks:
Thank you so much for having me.

John:
Chris, you have such an interesting background. I don’t know where to begin, but I’m just going to ask you to start with how did you come up with the idea of founding an entrepreneurship center at these universities based on your own entrepreneur experience?

Chris:
Well, basically, I think it just came out of a passion and a nerdiness about entrepreneurship. I came to University of Georgia as a teacher just to teach entrepreneurship, but there’s so much about entrepreneurship that happens outside of a classroom environment and I have not found a better tool to affect change in people’s lives than entrepreneurship.

So, start off with literally buying pizzas for students and meeting in a class room after class and from there was a start of a, hey, let’s build a program and a center that’s known for transforming student and I did that for eight years at University of Georgia and now I’m in my first year at Kennesaw State University doing it all over again.

John:
Starting from the ground up just like another startup in a way, right?

Chris:
Absolutely.

John:
I really want to have you expand on that concept of using entrepreneurship as a way to transform students. That is so interesting to me, because people buy transformation, not information. I am constantly telling my clients that when they’re pitching investors and so if you’re literally helping people transform their confidence level, their perseverance skills, tell us what you mean by that. What is it that you see the students transforming into?

Chris:
Well, it’s really fascinating to me to like literally see people become a better version of themselves. There’s so much about, like, entrepreneurship is – there’s so much information out there, but it’s not information that changes us. I would rather students take my classes or come to my programs and they learn nothing, but they’re motivated to act on what they already know, because in entrepreneurship, action trumps everything and it’s through the actions that we learn about ourselves and we change and so forcing students to do rather than yes, we’ll study and analyze, there’s an appropriate piece to that, but hey, when in doubt go do.

Having that and watching people, you know, we learn how to become better by pitching, doing things that scare us. Even small things that lead to the transformation, for example, one silly thing that students make fun of me about is I never allow the students to sit in the same seat twice, never, because we have to get outside our comfort zone. We have to engage, we have to and by doing those, even small things can lead to big results.

John:
Well, if nothing else it gives you a different perspective, right, and you might have to lean in a little bit further to hear if they’re not at the front row. When in doubt, go do. We’re going to tweet that out. It’s one of the takeaways already. That’s a great line. I love it. Can you back us up a little bit Chris about what your own experience was in music and ecommerce as an entrepreneur and what made you decide, were you a college student when you said, I’m not doing the corporate route, I’m going to be an entrepreneur from day one?

Chris:
No, well, I did start two businesses in college, but I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur, I just knew I didn’t have enough money for tuition, so it was entrepreneurship by necessity, but I didn’t know that word. I didn’t know that was what I was. I just started a small delivery service and I sold t-shirts, but it wasn’t until – I left college and had a brief corporate career, but for some reason I was in my late 20s that I just, you know, like, I [cuts out] Saturday, because the next day was Sunday, which the next day was Monday. From Friday at five or Saturday at three I was happy.

So, I was basically just living for the weekend, right. I just wanted excited to get up on Mondays, so again, I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur, I just knew, gosh, I just want to be happy. I want to do something that I feel like it matters, so I started a small music store, just on the side. I thought, well, maybe this will be a fun thing to do on the side while I still continue my corporate job. I started as a very small music store, but that’s when I caught the bug. That’s when I knew.

For some reason, I know this is just 1,600 sq ft of nothing to the outside world, but when I walked in, I was happy, you know? So, I started a music store and then I got a small recording studio and then I got a very small entertainment business and this is all pre dot com and then the dot com thing happened and that’s what got me more sophisticated as far how do you raise money, how do you solicit investment, how do you pitch, how do you structure deals.

So, the dot com thing happen, which got me a little bit more sophisticated and then I got really into it because I started buying and selling small businesses. Buying a business for five million – sorry, five million in sales and saying, gosh, I could probably get that to ten million in sales and then realizing I was wrong, a lot, so that’s what lead to me becoming really understanding evaluation and getting certified as a business appraiser, because I really was, all the wealth that I have is trapped in the small businesses that I own and I don’t know what that means and so that lead to me doing expert witness testimony, which lead to the guest speaking in college, which lead to me teaching.

John:
Wow. What a journey. I love it. I really want to dig in a little bit on this business, getting certified as a business appraiser. We all know about real estate appraisals, right, how much is your house really worth to get the loan, how is that, if any, if at all, applicable to being a business appraiser. Is it similar to real estate or is it completely different?

Chris:
It’s conceptually similar, but it’s certainly a much more in depth process, because, you know, in real estate, we can look at like how is this in your community, but you know, as a proxy and business valuation is hard, because we can both own a Subway restaurant and maybe mine is zero dollars and yours is worth a million dollars and you couldn’t tell that from the outside.

So, there’s an intense analysis that goes with it and basically what you’re trying to assess at it’s core essence is how much cash will this business generate me in the future divided by the risk of me actually getting that cash, so conceptually it’s a little bit similar conceptually to how real estate appraisals are done from a financial perspective, but much more in depth and it’s a much more – a combination of like art and a science.

John;
Yes. I can’t ask enough questions about this, because this is one of the key areas that a lot of startups need help on when they’re putting their pitchdeck together, you know, we don’t want to undervalue our company, but we certainty don’t want to come across as naive and over value it, especially if we’re going to ask for a a million dollars for 20% of our company and that sets XYZ valuation, is that realistic. A lot of it has to do with this art versus science thing that you said, which is the risk factor and whether that entrepreneur has a really great track record or if this is their first startup, correct?

Chris:
Oh, absolutely, because, like, especially with a startup, you know, it’s all based on the future. So, one of my goals, if I want to increase my valuation is, how do I de-risk this in the mind of the investor. You know, so, you know, basic things that come to mind. I want a clear path to customers. If I have a clearest and directest path to customer will make this less risky in the mind of the investor so that increases my valuation, because anytime risk goes down, value goes up.

John:
Right, that’s a great tweet right there. Risk goes down, valuation goes up.

Chris:
Absolutely. So, management team, right. So that, okay, what tangible evidence do I have or what hard evidence exists of their accomplishments. That’ll de-risk it, right, that’ll keep the risk. So, a lot of folks, at least a lot of my students will think, well, you know, investors, they like risk, they’re suppose to take risk. Nobody likes risks, right, so to the extent that I can de-risk it and make the risk of this venture less and less, the more value, the higher the valuation of my startup.

John:
Great. So in addition to obviously having a great track record and a great team that lowers the risk and a clear path to customers, is there any other big thing that a startup can do to de-risk their startup to get a higher valuation?

Chris:
Yeah, there’s a whole host of things. So, certainty a team and revenue, right, come to mind, because those tend to be big deals. A clear path to revenue, any tangible customers, that kind of thing. As far as, anything I can do to, because one thing that’s hard about a startup valuation in the beginning is there’s not tangibility to the deal. Meaning, I can’t touch it and feel it, I can’t see your employees and all that, so one thing that de-risks it is being too articulate. Very clear milestones. In 18 months here’s the pitch of what my business would look like. If I could paint a compelling picture.

Now, a lot of times, we know we’re forecasting the future and that’s difficult, but if I could say, look, at 18 months, here’s where my business will be, even if it’s not there at 18 months, the point is I can clearly articulate the future and that’s what a leader has to do. I am taking you to a place that doesn’t exist now, you know, to a place that exists later and the better I can do that, that tends to de-risk it. It’s like look, this person has vision and resources always follow vision.

John:
I love that. Articulate the future, that’s what a leader does. That’s a great tweet as well. My goodness, that’s such a great line. Thank you. Incredible. Now, tell us a little bit about what’s it like to be an expert witness and when do you get called in?

Chris:
Oh boy, I thought being an expert witness would be a really fun and amazing thing and maybe because I watch too much television, it’s not as cool as it sounds. It is not. I definitely did not enjoy that to the extent that I thought I would, you know, the idea of being called in as an expert, I thought what a wonderful teaching moment that will be, it’s all about the facts, I’ve got a very well researched valuation that I’ve done and it doesn’t really work like that, because lawyers are trained to rip apart guys like me on the stand, so it’s not quite as enjoyable as I thought it would be. If they can destroy a medical expert, they can certainty destroy a valuation expert if your valuation is destroying their case.

So, not quite as enjoyable as a process as I thought, but I get called in and I don’t do them much anymore, because I don’t live in that world as often as I used to, but divorces are a big reason why people need valuation, you know, because you have to divide the assets. Partnership disputes, right, you’re going different ways, and eminent domain where the business is being disrupted. The state gift tax situation, an unfortunate death, and there’s taxes that have to be paid on the value the business created, so things like that. Because valuation is a very in depth process, it’s expensive, so a lot of business owners only do it when they’re forced to, like these kinds of circumstances.

John:
Right, how fascinating that it’s not just for the investors that there are so many other things that come into place of when you need an expert to give an valuation on that.

Chris:
Yeah.

John:
Well, I have to ask you about your friendship and relationship with Jim Beach, A) because he’s such a great guy and has this amazing radio show that you guys co-founded called School for Startups. In fact, that’s the name of the book you co-authored and the fact that team is such a key thing in whether somebody invests with you, as you said, it’s one of the key factors to lower the risk. How did you two guys meet. How did you come up with the idea for a book, what are some of the book’s takeaways, tell us that whole story.

Chris:
Well, basically we met at – we were both teaching at Georgia State University, that’s where we both fell into teaching. We’re both entrepreneurs who fell into teaching and I was doing a lot of guest speaking at Georgia State and they gave me a class and so we met there and we did, I kept hearing about him, because his classes were really popular and then he heard about me, because my classes were popular. So, we decided to do this seminar together on a weekend.

John:
Lucky students.

Chris:
Well, I’ll always remember the email that was sent. I saw an email that a student sent out and it said, “Finally! The Batman and Robin of entrepreneurship are together.” I thought that was the coolest thing in the world until I realized..

John:
You were Robin..

Chris:
Exactly, right.

John:
No one wants to be Robin, right?

Chris:
Exactly. Jim will be very nice and gracious and say things positive about me, but I’m clearly the Robin in that relationship and he’s the one, School for Startups was really sort of his vision, his efforts, he was the one who lead it, I just added my two cents here and then, but really, it’s Jim who is really the visionary and really the mind behind all of that. I just kind of rode his coattails a little bit.

John:
Which came first, the book or the radio show?

Chris:
The book. We were contacted by McGraw-Hill to write the book and they wanted us to write a book and so that title was actually their thinking, because they thought, hey, that would be a great name for a book and it will sell some copies and so from there came the radio show and the other things.

John:
For those that don’t know, the radio show is hugely successful. Jim interviews multiple people per week and I believe it’s carried in a 11 different syndicated stations across the country and I highly recommend it. School for Startups Radio and the kinds of guests that he has and the kind of information is quite valuable and intense. I love that a book spawned the birth of this really wonderful radio show and the two of you being Batman and Robin in the entrepreneur is quite great.

Chris:
Yeah.

John:
What was your favorite part of writing the book and what would you say is a big takeaway from the book for people?

Chris:
My favorite thing is the message, right. I mean, the overall theme, I guess, it’s basically a book about low risk entrepreneurship, meaning like, look, okay, it doesn’t, you don’t have to be the most creative person in the world to start a business. You don’t have to wait for passion, for, you don’t have to, you know, you can just desire something and actually start acting on it.

This idea that we have to sort of wait until we’re struck with a bolt of lighting before we do anything great is something that we’re both very passionate about de-mystifying that idea and so, you know, entrepreneurship is not for a select few. Entrepreneurship can be for anyone and so that is my favorite part of the book. Inviting all people into this tentative entrepreneurship rather than, okay, just the people with a business degree or just the people who have an idea that’s never, ever been done, which is a misnomer, because all ideas are, you know, most of all ideas are mostly copies and there’s just one small piece of it that’s a little bit of an original, have a little bit of originality to it.

So, I love the fact that it invites all people, people who say, you know what? I see an opportunity and I want to do something about it. I want to make my life better. I believe in the possibility of something better and I want that. I get excited about the message of it.

John:
I love it. Making my life better and then in turn, I make the world better, because it all starts with if you’re happier and you’re making a difference and that’s your focus, if you had to come up with three characteristics that you think investors are really looking for when they fun a startup, what comes to mind?

Chris:
I wish it was more of an original thought, because you think that you already sort of talked about and talk about a lot, but you know, obviously team, right. I mean, you always hear that over and over again., bet on the jockey, not the horse. So, you know, the people matter and what makes you CEO worthy. Why are you worthy of that? So, certainty team, right, and then obviously is there a business model that makes sense. How do you make money at what you do and when will you make money at what you do and very clearly, not just vague answers, with clarity builds power, right? So, I can’t just say, well, you know, I’m going to do this app and I’m going to have advertisers, that’s not a business model. Very clearly articulate your marketing system that guarantees you revenue by when. Really hard at doing that, but there’s a process and a method to that.

John:
Clarity equals power, is that what you said?

Chris:
Yeah, absolutely.

John:
That’s what I heard. Yeah, I love that. That’s a great little formula that makes it the clearer you are, the more power you have, the more compelling your proposal is, your pitch is to investors. Let’s dig in a little bit into some of the words that would make somebody CEO worthy. Is it integrity, is it perseverance, is it passion? How do you define CEO worthy?

Chris:
Yeah, it’s kind of a vauge thing, you know, like CEO worthy, but I certainty look at track record and that doesn’t mean you have to have 20 years of business experience or have lead companies, but you know, even if you delivered pizzas for Pizzahut, well, that’s great, what about that makes you a better you? Hey, you know what, I’m great at working under stress circumstances and I’m great at logistics, that’s what I took away from that.

So, I helped a woman who was a single mother of three raise capital and she was saying, you know, I don’t have anything in my background that makes me CEO worthy and I was like, wait a minute, you’ve raised three kids all on your own, what does that tell me about your ability to deal with a lack of resources. You know, your ability to deal with adversity, your ability to show perseverance.

So, you know, it’s translating our experiences in a way that’s meaningful. It’s like, what have I learned from my past that’s going to make me better in the future and being able to show that. So, CEO worthy is not necessarily here’s my list of MBA and ivy league school that I went to and all the courses I’ve attended. It’s know what – show me the evidence that makes you, what’s going to make you a leader that guest you great results for me.

John:
What I hear you saying, Chris, is what are your life lessons that make you CEO worthy versus what are your degrees?

Chris:
Yeah, absolutely, because everybody you’re pitching to has degrees. I mean, the degrees aren’t necessarily going to impress people. It’s like, okay, but so what? So, I like answering the so what behind it, like, okay, I have a degree, so what? And answer the so what. I had this job, well, so what? Answer so what? That brings a lot of value proposition. It’s not the differentiator itself, it’s the so what behind it.

John:
Right. Since you mentioned helping get a single woman with children funded for her startup, let’s talk a minute about women in the world of startups and you know, there’s a very small percentage of women in VCs and there’s a small percentage when you look at it of women getting funded in general. Do you see the classroom shifting from a demographic standpoint? Are there more women coming to these entrepreneur centers and classes?

Chris:
No is the short answer. If you look into my class and you say, okay, well, if you know, assuming there’s 50/50 women to man ratio, then I should see 50/50 in the classes and you just don’t. Women as far as – who gravitate towards entrepreneurship, it’s not as high as a percentage. I may have like a 20% women in my class. So, we don’t see that, but I don’t think that means women aren’t gravitating towards entrepreneurship, they just don’t necessarily see themselves in that light, a lot of times right at the beginning of their college where as you extrapolate the data later, 47.9% of all privately held businesses are owned by women.

Now, a lot of people argue that state, because they’ll say, what if we took out the Mary Kay or the daycare home, but a lot of times women run businesses, they’ll see it as an opportunity to okay, you know what, I’m tired of this corporate career. I’m going to do my own thing so I can stay home with my child or, you know, I never saw myself as an entrepreneur, but my spouse was laid off so now I need to do something, so we all, like as far as youth entrepreneurship, you tend to see more men than women, but later on in life, you see almost as many, just as many woman as men.

John:
Great. If you had some words of advice for someone going into pitch about how they could best articulate the future vision that they have for their company besides tell us a story, do you have any other words of wisdom or what is it that you teach in your entrepreneur class that people may not know from reading a book?

Chris:
Boy, there’s a whole bunch, because we spend a lot of time on this art of pitching, but one of the things, I mean, I got some saying that I say over and over again, but one of them is, goosebumps always sell.

John;
Great! We’ll include that up, for sure.

Chris:
So, what can you say during the pitch that will give them goosebumps, because if I can do that, I will get their money. So, what can I do, because that’s what we’re going for. It’s not the data, yeah, investors are smart, but it’s gut first, you know, mind second. I want to go with our gut. I want to connect with them on a gut level. I want to get them so excited that they’re going to tackle me before I walk out the door. Like, what can I do to say that or get as close to the bar as possible.

Also, another one that I’m big on is, a lot of times when we’re pitching we feel like we have to download all this information, you know, even right now during this interview, it’s hard for me because I’ve got all these things in my head that I feel like I should say, but you gotta remember, the investor is not listening to every – every time we pitch, they remember tone more than words, they remember body language more than words, and they’re not going to hang on every single word and be able to sort of remember that, so it’s not what sort of information I have to cover, it’s what do I want them to remember and I gotta stay focused on that.

Okay, they have got to explain this to their spouse two weeks from today what I want them to explain. So, it cuts through a lot of the jargon and a lot of the complexities. It’s like, okay, let me boil down what I’m pitching into a very simple language, because simple language is remembered better and it connects us more on a gut level better, even though I’m tempted to use big words, because I want you to think I’m smart. You know, it’s okay to say, dude, you know what, I’m going to make you more freaking money than you know what to do with. That’s a better thing than saying, you know, we have a sophisticated aggressive growth business model that will have revenue, you know, shut up.

John:
Yeah, it’s not conversational, yeah.

Chris:
That’s not connecting with me.

John:
Do you have a story that you heard and gave you goosebumps or do you have something that a student said that the class went wow, that gave us goosebumps.

Chris:
Well, there’s several, yeah, there are several things and several examples like, I actually won an elevator pitch competition using an approach that I like to sort of, I’ve named all of my pitch approaches after musicians, because I used to be in the music business and it’s easy for me to say, hey, put this sentence here and put that sentence there, just say, hey man, I want you to do a Kanye West strategy, you know, it’s just easier that way, so there’s a John Lennon strategy based on the song Imagine, but that’s a beautiful way and I’ve had several students use that where right away I talk about what’s possible.

So, like, you know what, imagine, and then you paint the picture in one or two sentences, right, imagine if you didn’t have to deal with this problem anymore or if this social issue was no longer a challenge and you’re painting a very beautiful picture for about no more than, sorry, no more than two sentences, then you go into how you solve that, how you create that. So, imagine approach works wonderfully well as far as creating goosebumps.

John:
Nice, yes. I’m just so hungry for on more example if I could. Give me another, like you said, Kanye West, what would be another example of a song transitioning into a goosebump moment.

Chris:
Let’s see, well, goosebump, I tend to – being from Athens, Georgia for so long, you have to have an approach named after REM. Being a REM fan, but there’s an REM song that many people don’t know unless you’re a big fan. It’s called I Believe. It was written in the late 80’s, but belief is a wonderful way to create goosebumps, so instead of telling you what I do, I’m going to start with what I believe and if I can really talk to you about what I believe and if you believe what I believe, we’re going to connect and that’s more likely to give you goosebumps than the data I show you after that. So, instead of starting with what you do, talk about what you believe in a way that connects the audience and you’re more likely to get goosebumps.

John:
I’ll say. That’s so great. Oh my gosh. That’s really wonderful. So, we’re coming to the end already. IT goes so fast and you’ve given us so many great takeaways. I love that. If you believe what I believe, we’re going to have a goosebump moment and connect and people are going to say, I’m the right investor for you and vice versa. Is there something else that you recommend to your students to read or that you’d recommend to our audience, our listeners, to read around entrepreneurship or any kind of help book that you think would be useful on getting to be a better version of yourself as you said in the beginnig.

Chris:
Oh, boy, there’s so many. There’s, obviously, I really – Jim Beach with School for Startups, I gotta plug that.

John:
Absolutely.

Chris:
That would be one. There’s also, you know, I mean, again, it’s a classic, Lean Start I like, because I like that, there’s a lot of images in that book that I like. Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. There’s one part in there, for example, every time I’m pitching, remember there’s a little man whispering in my ear, ‘so what?’ I’ve always liked that image. I would recommend that. There’s also a book by Chip & Dan Heath that I’ve liked called Made to Stick and basically, you know, why do ideas sort of stick in certain urban legends stick and others don’t and what makes things remembered.

John:
Great. Chris, I can’t thank you enough for being on the show today. What is the best way for someone to follow you on social media and keep update to on your words of wisdom. Is it best to follow you on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Chris:
Yeah, I’m certainty on LinkedIn. So, that’s certainty a way. I’m not as active on Twitter as I should be, but certainty through Kennesaw State University, if you Google that and our Entrepreneurship Center, that’s how you can keep a prize of sort of our events and what we’re doing, because we are very, very aggressive about transforming entrepreneurs and doing some neat things, so anybody who wants to get involved, they’re more than welcome.

John:
Fantastic. Thanks again, Chris.

Chris:
No, thank you.