TSP081 | Vince Thompson – Transcription

Posted by John Livesay in Uncategorized | 0 comments

John Livesay:

Welcome to The Successful Pitch. Today’s guest is Vince Thompson, who has a background that would make anybody impressed. He used to work at Facebook, he was one of the first executives at AOL, and now he has an amazing consulting firm and funds multiple startups that are hugely successful. He really knows what it takes to be a successful founder, and what it takes to get your pitch fundable. He said what he really looks for is someone who’s authentic, who doesn’t oversell, and doesn’t have unrealistic expectations in the deck that say, “Oh, we’re going to be growing at such a fast rate that you’ve never seen in the likes of this before.” It’s really about a relationship and getting that second date. He doesn’t write a check on the spot. He said, “You know, if you want to connect with people, it’s the things you do after work that gets you your next job, your next connection, your next investor.”

The interview begins in 45 seconds right after this information on how you can get funded fast.

Are you a founder struggling with your investor pitch? Do you need warm introductions to the right investors to get your startup funded? Do you need a funding road map to get you there fast? All of this and more can be found in Crack the Funding Code. Join host, John Livesay, and Judy Robinett, bestselling author of How to Be a Power Connector and board member of Illuminate Ventures, on their free Crack the Funding Code webinar. Simply go to judyrobinett.com – that’s J-U-D-Y-R-O-B-I-N-E-T-T dot com – and click on the webinar tab to see how to tap into their network of investors from around the world. There’s a link in the show notes as well. You’re only one click away from getting funded fast.

Hi and welcome to The Successful Pitch Podcast. I’m thrilled to have Vince Thompson on as our guest today. Vince is a consultant and author, specializing in revenue generation and business creation. Through his LA Consulting firm Middleshift, he and his partners have helped a variety of companies and highly profiled early stage ventures achieve revenue success and scale. Among them are GumGum, TV Guide, Michael Eisner’s, Guguru — I believe is how you pronounce that. We’ll find after the show if I was right or not. But prior to Middleshift, Vince was an early executive AOL and Facebook. He’s the author of a great book that I’ve personally read called Ignited. I highly recommend that. Graduated USC Annenberg School and Pepperdine. He’s just an all-around guru and wiz and nice guy. Vince, welcome to the show.

Vince:

Thank you John. Fun to be here.

John:

Well, I always like to tell our listeners a little bit more about who the guest is beyond what I just said. So would you mind taking us back to your days at AOL and Facebook? How did you get into that world back in 1998 and 2005?

Vince:

You know, I’m a sales guy, so starting there, right? I have been attracted to interesting media opportunities since the earliest days. As a kid I worked in radio. When I went to USC, I wrote screenplays and I got some things in developments, I went in the TV business at the station level and kind of the pre-internet days. Then when the internet, that started happening, I’m really excited about it. I got a line in 1994, and well, at probably ’92 on prodigy, but ’94 on AOL, and I really started seeing the promise of it with the browser, the netscape it created and it was mosaic then, and I tried to get in the business. I couldn’t get in for a few years, they didn’t know what to do with a local TV ad sales guy who wanted to work in the internet business because the internet was not an important thing.

But in 1998, I got a job. A really neat place, third-age media south of market in San Francisco, just down the street from Wired, back on the days when people were trying to figure out how big the ad banner should be. How many pixels, and what’s that thing will look like, and we’re all trying to figure it out. I had written an article for a publication called at that time, Electronic Media, today it’s called Television Week, I believe. It was an article that I wrote as a guest commentary, talking about how exciting the internet business was, and how great it was and creative, and unlike the television business that as you moved up in the ranks, it became more about math and ratings and numbers. The internet was kind of laid open with creative possibilities from marketers, and so I wrote that piece, about how excited I was to be in the business and a great guy at AOL, Charlie Warner, who was consulting Bob Pittman in helping build the company ripped it out. I guess they had talked about it and said, “Hey, here’s a guy who’s super excited about the internet and AOL needs somebody in the West.” It just lead to a great opportunity for me, so that’s how I got in.

John:

A great story that is, because we talk about now the importance of having a digital footprint and creating your own brand and blogging and posting, but way back then, nobody was doing that, but that’s what got you in the door. I love that story.

Vince:

Yeah. I often tell people when I’m talking to students, it’s not the things you do during your day job that get you your next opportunity, it’s the things you do after hours, and it’s exactly that. It’s having a voice, it’s blogging, it’s showing up at a fence, it’s hustling around and it’s those extra things that lead to your next opportunity. So it certainly did for me in a really big way.

John:

That’s great, and then I can’t let you go without talking a little bit because everyone’s always so fascinated about what was it like to work at Facebook in 2005?

Vince:

It was fascinating. You could see the vision that Zuckerberg had been then. Just an incredibly brilliant guy committed to the single vision of connecting the world socially and changing the way that people interact, and really facilitating relationships, and using software and the internet as a platform to do it. I got involved with the company in 2005. I went for a job interview they had. This is really true, there was about 20 employees, maybe a few less, and they literally had a sandwich board out front the office, just off University in Palo Alto, and on it said “Hiring,” and one of the jobs was VP sales.

John:

A sandwich board instead of online advertising for a position like that.

Vince:

Well, they may have done that too. Sean Parker had contacted me via LinkedIn and they asked me to come in an interview for the position, but it was a small company with a big vision. It was a fun experience, it’s fun being there.

John:

Now, has working at AOL and Facebook given you some really key insights as to what you now as an investor look for in a startup? Has it helped you be able to say, “Ah, this reminds me of AOL, this reminds of Facebook and I can see that this is the right team to execute this idea.”

Vince:

Yeah, I think both of them were informative for me. My 10 year at Facebook was very short, but I had come out of really big company. I’ve been at AOL which was massive, and so in the brief time I was at Facebook, I got a deeper insight into the startup culture and how fast things needed to move, how innovations — you know, 24/7. That was informative in that regard. AOL was a big company and innovative in many many ways, but it was bureaucratic as well. All of that said, I learned a ton at AOL about building products and companies to meet the needs of a variety of markets. AOL started just by putting people on the internet, but then just building solutions. You have a partner and you’re building solutions for people to address all of their potential needs online and offline.

There was a moment in time where the company was so incredibly hot, it was able to attract all these super talented people. So there are literally hundreds of businesses and I got to look at so many of them when I was there. I got to meet with people who were product managers and internal entrepreneurs on a regular basis, and see how they identified markets, how they work in to address markets, and I got to see some really interesting products being created, and I got to see a lot of stuff that in the first version failed, but we see it successful today. A lot of these ideas are forged out of many many many people trying and trying and trying and trying, and at some point the market timing is right and the resources are in line, and you find yourself into big success but it’s all hard fought.

John:

Yeah. Well let’s talk about three of the companies that you invested in and are also an adviser on, because I think our listeners would love to hear the story of how those founders found you to be both an investor and an adviser. Does that sound good?

Vince:

Sure. I don’t what companies you’re going to be mentioned but I’ll do my best.

John:

Well let’s start with Contract Cloud, because I know that one specifically. So if you wouldn’t mind, tell us what Contract Cloud is, why you were attracted to it, and let’s start with did they pitch you? I’m assuming they did, so I’d love to hear what that sounded like.

Vince:

The Contract Cloud is a really special company that is in the video agreement space, and what happened was I was at an event and I met this smart lawyer, young guy, and he was telling me that he had sat in the courtroom on many occasion and thought to himself, “Oh my god. This is a ridiculous frivolous lawsuit,” and if we just had a little video of what happened at the contract signing, well we had a little more evidence, we wouldn’t be here today. People who would sign mortgages and then later said, “Geez, I didn’t look at all the pages so I’m not responsible,” or “English is my second language and I didn’t understand this.” A variety of things that people will do in litigation. Listen, sometimes the people are right, right? But if he has video evidence, he could change that. So the idea of Contract Cloud is that at the end of the mortgage signing, you can confirm on video that yes I understand I’m getting a 7% loan, and yes I understand the — or they were today at 2.5% loan, and I understand that it’s a non-recourse loan and I understand what I’m signing today and I’ve had enough time to review it. So what Contract has found since is that there’s lots of very interesting ways to apply video technology and video agreements, and help both the consumers and the companies protect themselves and clarify their business relationships.

But the reason I got excited about that company is you had somebody who had domain expertise. This guy, he’s a lawyer, Paul Vaky, he’s a very smart guy and he was very passionate about the solution and it was a real problem. He had relationships with other people who are looking to solve the same problem. So that was a fun company to get involve in. One of the first things we did is got Paul introduced to Amplify LA which is one of LA’s leading venture accelerators. They did a lot to really help his company and take him to the next level and I’m going to see him later today.

John:

Fantastic. Well, the big takeaways from what you just said, Vince, for the listeners is investors like you invest in the person that has domain expertise that is solving a real problem, and that person’s expertise not just comes with smarts but comes with passion, which I really really like that.

All right. Let’s jump into another one. Jukin Media. Am I pronouncing that right?

Vince:

It’s Jukin Media.

John:

Jukin, sorry.

Vince:

J-U-K-I-N, and I’m an adviser to that company. Gosh, this is one of the best cultures I’ve ever seen in the media company. Great leader, Jon Skog, the CEO. Lee Eisner, the COO and president. These guys had just done a brilliant job. This is a company that is in the video business. They operate several businesses under the tent of Jukin Media, but their real core business is identifying the most exciting videos online in platforms like YouTube, and taking those videos and licensing them oftentimes along with the creators. Then making those videos available to TV morning shows, television productions and clip shows like Ridiculousness or Tosh 2.0, and that were their own very successful show which is called World’s Funniest Fails on Fox TV.

It’s just a very neat company that works in lots of ways. They got a television division that produces things and just licensing division. They work with marketers in a very special kind of handcrafted way to take this content and either use it as the messaging in the ads. Got a great example — I’ll tell you in a sec — or to advertise a site. Here’s a fun example. There’s a viral video of a police officer, a trooper, probably in the northeast somewhere I’m not exactly sure, who in a snowstorm had skid it off into a snowbank. A guy came along in a Subaerial and throughout a tow rope and pulled the police officer’s car out of the snow punk and back up onto the road. So that was a video that Jukin licensed and later Subaerial wanted to use for a commercial.

John:

Oh, how fantastic.

Vince:

So they literally have tens of thousands of videos identified.

John:

Right. Well, this whole concept of curation is such a needed thing with the volume of every information that’s coming at us. Can you tell us how the founder found you, and what kind of pitch they gave to you that made you say this is the right team?

Vince:

Well I had a relationship with Lee Eisner, who’s an accomplished CEO. The guy’s been involved in early stage incubators ventures, who’s a super-talented M&A lawyer, and I had been friends with him for several years and wanted to be involved in a project with him. As he had gotten involved in this company and he had needs over there, he asked me to come in and spend some time with them and that just grew into a consulting relationship for me, and a lot of fun also. So that’s been a lot of fun for me.

John:

One of the things that investors often ask founders when they’re pitching, they show people who are on the advisory board is how often is this adviser actually involve, right? Is it once a year? Is it once a quarter? Is it once a month? What is your typical involvement in these companies on a frequency basis? Or does it vary?

Vince:

I’m involve. I think there’s really two types of investors and advisers. I think this is very important point. There are advisers that as an entrepreneur, would be really important to have in your company, because they establish certain credibility. There’s a marketing or marquee value to their name that’ll help other people in the industry. They’ll give you credibility and will help you in your relationships. So that might be if you’re an entrepreneur and you wanted to go disrupt the farm equipment industry, right? You got the former CEO of Jon Dior, right? So being an adviser, that would be a major coup and you may be willing to give him some equity knowing that given their incredibly big life that you may only get to talk to them for once a month on the phone, and maybe see him twice a year or something like that, that might be a perfectly suitable adviser deal. I think, when I’m talking entrepreneurs, we’re building companies, when the fit’s right — if the fit’s right, you’re really like that person you can really learn from, and you understand like the marquee value of their name as what you’re buying a little bit with your equity. It’s okay to do a couple of those advisory roles. I assume an entire company is built on them. I don’t think that’s a very good idea, but you’re very strategic there.

The other type of adviser is really the working adviser, okay? That somebody that has a specific set of expertise that’s applicable to your company. So I’m working with this really interesting young company Steezy Studios, that teaches people how to dance hip-hop by introducing to them to the hottest choreographers in the business and people can sign up and they can take classes. So it’s a young company but really really neat, and in a situation like that, music and licensing is important, and technology is important, and subscription marketing is important. So with that type of company, I’ll work with the founders and we’ll make a list and say, “What are the things that we really need help on, and how can we identify a hands-on adviser who would jump into that scene and love this company as much as we will,” and so forth.

So I, John, I’m not marquee value. I’m just a guy who is good…

John:

Oh you are.

Vince:

Oh I get it. I’m really just a guy who has a lot of experience in the sales world, who really loves it, and is delighted to have any of those conversations all the time. So hopefully, the companies that I advise are getting a lot of value from me and taking advantage of the fact that I’m always willing to talk about the stuff.

John:

You said two things that I really want to underline for our listeners. One Vince is, when you’re looking for an adviser, make sure that they love the company as much as you and the founders do. I think that’s so key. Obviously, when you get someone to invest in your company, you want them to be part of the culture and get excited, but the same as too for the adviser. They have to love it as much as you do so that everyone on the team, whether it’s someone who’s doing that job everyday, an adviser or an investor has the same passion for the vision, right?

Vince:

Yeah. There’s something, John — well, you hear me talk about how I love these guys, I love this guy, but not everything’s perfect, right? I’ve worked with some companies that the founders are more short-sided and they think creating a business is a little bit like packaging a movie. You get all the right names and somebody exits, and it’s all great, super exciting, and they try to Bisdev the most exciting thing they can and build a lot of hype. The industry kind of points to some of those things and industry conferences, and some of the people in the industry try to maybe leave you with the impression that gosh, if you could just get these people and this venture funding and this thing that you’re bound for an exit. The truth of the matter is they’re 99% of the time, these companies are hard and they take a long time to build. There’s a lot of valleys and so the people that you get involved in your business, the reason why I say they have to love it, is because those people — they’re going to be with you for a long time through a lot of stuff.

John:

Yes. In fact, some of it last longer than some marriages, right? It’s 10 years and the average marriage is over 7.2 unfortunately.

Vince:

Yeah. That’s interesting, but yeah. Gosh. We need an app to fix that.

John:

Yeah exactly. There you go. There’s a solution for every kind of problem. What advice would you have for our listeners on when they are pitching you or any other potential investor? Not even an adviser, let’s say just an investor, what is something that you really look for when you hear a pitch?

Vince:

One of the first part is authenticity. You know, I don’t want to be sold and biased. The minute I think somebody’s kind of overselling, it makes me uncomfortable because it’s a long partnership, it’s a long road we’re going down. So I really want somebody give me an honest assessment and not oversell me. That’s really important. Honestly, I see entrepreneurs make claims quite often and then it make me uncomfortable. I think they’re kind of coached, you got to have this big chart and go way up to the right, and then this is what people react to. But yeah, if somebody comes to me and get their business plans and says, “Geez, you know, we’re pre-revenue but we’re going to make 1.5 million next year and 19 million in the next year.” “Yeah, I know man. How did you get there?”

John:

You can’t over-exaggerate your projections. It’s all about, as you said being authentic. But what I think you’re saying is I want to see someone’s logical thinking, and that they have some experience or have at some advisers that are giving them good information on that doesn’t makes sense to have that kind of growth. It’s much more realistic, especially with you coming from a background in sales. You can probably spot when somebody’s pushing too hard. Just to continue the analogy a little bit of dating and marriage and relationships in general, right? The whole point of a pitch is to get the second date, not to get someone to open up their checkbook.

Vince:

Yeah. It’s great. It’s a great point. I’ve never written a check on the spot and I think there are people who do that. But for the most part, it’s building a relationship and going down the road a little bit and figuring out what you can do. I think for me, if I want to have exposure to the venture innovation world, I invest as an LP in a couple of funds and that’s the way I get that exposure.

When I invest directly into a company, it’s because I also believe that I can benefit that company and be involved in a way that’s meaningful for all of us. So that’s the way I work. So I appreciate it when an entrepreneur says like, “Hey! Do you have any interest in medical technology and what do you think about that?” Right? I go, “Geez! I don’t know anything about cancer prevention but if it was fitness I might be kind of interested, right?” So then you start the conversation there rather than take a whole pitch.

John:

Right.

Vince:

Also for young entrepreneurs like if you want to spend time with somebody, tell them exactly what you want to do. Like all those people who wanted to meet me for coffee, “Hey! I want to pick your brain,” or “Want to come out?” Then I drive across town to go meet with them and then they want money. It’s okay to want to have me invest but let’s have a really productive meeting. Tell me you’re interested in me investing, send me a copy of your executive summary. Let me tell you if it’s exciting to me at all and we’ll go from there.

John:

Yeah. Nobody appreciates the bait and switch, right?

Vince:

Yeah. I think sometimes people aren’t comfortable to be that forward. It’s more helpful to all of us. By the way, if I’m not the person who’s interested in type of deal, maybe I can send it to somebody who is…

John:

Exactly. That’s the whole key, right? As if you build a relationship with somebody, they’re willing to let you into their network and that warm introduction is worth gold in the world. Is there any other company that you wanted to tell us about before — because a half hour just flies by with someone like you, that you’re excited about or want to give a shout-out to or have as a great story that you think would be a great thing for our listeners to hear?

Vince:

I mentioned Steezy Studios were early there, but that’s an exciting company. If you know anybody who likes dancing, or hip-hop, that’s totally great. You can go there and get a free account at Steezy Studio, and check that out, there’s some really great choreography there but also a dashboard that gets you into it and teaches dance in a way that you could never learn on a YouTube or somewhere else. So yeah, I’m excited about that. Some of the bigger companies on Los Angeles are really killing it like GumGum — they just do it. They’re just doing great and they’ve really pioneered this whole field of — and M&G advertising, and they’ve innovated a lot of the advertising technology that’s unique. That’s a very fun company to watch in the future of Los Angeles.

FanBread — for those YouTube influencers or people that have influence on platforms like Vine or Instagram, there’s opportunity to partner with FanBread and FanBread can help monetize your audience off of those platforms, on destination mobile sites with compelling content and commerce opportunities. That’s a new opportunity for those people who have develop audience and they are just looking to monetize. So that’s a very interesting company.

John:

That’s fantastic. I like both of those a lot. Is there any other book besides Ignited which we talked about, that you would recommend listeners to buy? Either about life or in the startup world?

Vince:

You know what? When it comes book only and first of all, Ignited is a book that I wrote based on my experience being a mid-level manager in major corporations. There’s a lot of leadership stuff in there. There’s some sales stuff in there, but the very specific nature of that book is focused on helping people in the middle understand the power they have in corporations by connecting the corporate vision to the real actualities of the work at the street level, and levering themselves up in their organizations to create true and meaningful change. That’s what that book’s about. So that’s not right for every entrepreneur, it’s fantastic I think for middle managers. You can let me know. But that’s the story there.

I’m a lifelong learner, I’m always reading. I’m always digesting stuff in the space, sometimes it’s biographies. I recently read Elon Musk’s biography, I thought it was fantastic. I read The Everything Store about Bezos, I just really enjoyed that book. Peter Thiel’s book for startups is a fantastic book.

John:

Those are great.

Vince:

I’m just piling through the stuff. Yeah, you pull some things out of each. Yeah. Listen, one of the best books I ever read in my career is Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s a framework for building good relationships and it’s just a good stuff for your life. Twenty years later, twenty five years later, I think about that book often. Probably really one of the most important books I’ve ever read.

John:

Wow. Imagine leaving that kind of legacy as an author, how great. Vince, how can people follow you? What is your Twitter and all that good stuff?

Vince:

I’m @VinceThompson at Twitter. I typically paste — post stuff that’s just related to the technology innovation in the ad community things. I don’t have a huge personal voice on that account, but these things that I think are interesting to share to our folks, and that’s it.

John:

Fantastic. And of course, your consulting firm Middleshift is another place where people can — Middleshift.com, reach out to you. We’ll put all these in the show notes for everyone as well. Vince, thanks again for bringing your enthusiasm and passion. I just can feel the energy coming through which is so helpful for people to realize that’s the level you need to be at when you’re talking to potential investors.

Vince:

Yeah. Thank you John. I always love talking to you and look forward to catching up again soon.

John:

My pleasure.

Thanks for listening to The Successful Pitch Podcast. If you liked the show, please go to iTunes and write a review, and encourage your friends to write reviews too. It really helps get the word out.

You know, people say that the longest distance is between someone’s mouth and their wallet. People can tell you they’re going to invest but when it comes time to write the check, they don’t do it. So, how do you get people to say yes and then follow through? Visualize yourself on the left side of a riverbank and you have to cross the river, and on the other side of the river is where the funding happens.

So, first, you make up your idea and then you make it real and then you make it re-occur. Once you start dipping your toe into the water to get to funding, that’s where I can help. I get you across that river faster than you would on your own with a lot less frustration than you will get when you hear a bunch of no’s and you don’t know why. So, if you want some help getting funded faster with less frustration, go to my free funding webinar, sellingsecretsforfunding.com/webinar and sign up and get in depth information on how you can get funded fast. Thanks.

TSP077 | Mark Bidwell – Transcription

Posted by John Livesay in Uncategorized | 0 comments

John Livesay:

Welcome to The Successful Pitch podcast. Today’s guest is Mark Bidwell. Mark is an innovation expert. He just recently closed a series B round of $15 million, and shares his secrets on how he does it. He said, “The key to getting an investor to say yes to you is to not be intimidated by them, and to ask them how you can help them.” It’s a complete mindset reversal that I think you’ll find very interesting. He said, “Investing is a human business. You need to ask what difference can I make? Is this the right investor for me?” And remember that trust has to be mutual and the “why” of what you’re doing is equally important, if not more so, than the “what” of what you’re doing.

The interview begins in 45 seconds right after this information on how you can get funded fast.

Are you a founder struggling with your investor pitch? Do you need warm introductions to the right investors to get your startup funded? Do you need a funding road map to get you there fast? All of this and more can be found in Crack the Funding Code. Join host, John Livesay, and Judy Robinett, bestselling author of How to Be a Power Connector and board member of Illuminate Ventures, on their free Crack the Funding Code webinar. Simply go to judyrobinett.com – that’s J-U-D-Y-R-O-B-I-N-E-T-T dot com – and click on the webinar tab to see how to tap into their network of investors from around the world. There’s a link in the show notes as well. You’re only one click away from getting funded fast.

Hi, and welcome to The Successful Pitch podcast. I’m thrilled to have today’s guest, Mark Bidwell, on with us because Mark has so much to tell us about innovation, fund raising, pitching. He actually has his own podcast called The Innovation Ecosystem podcast. He spent much of his 20 year career seeking out people and resources to help them innovate and grow businesses. He’s worked at BP, The Hay Group which is part of Korn Ferry, and most recently, Syngenta, where he led the creation and development of a $2 billion specialty crop business unit. He learns from other people’s experience, and with his Innovation Ecosystem podcast, he brings fresh insights and perspectives and tools that you can use to get yourself funded fast. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark:

Thank you very much, John. It’s a great pleasure to be here.

John:

You are calling in from?

Mark:

From Switzerland.

John:

Switzerland. I love it how global the world has become. Mark, I always ask my guest to take us back to what made you decide to pursue your career. Did you know in college that you wanted to get into business and investing and raising money for startups?

Mark:

Well no. I didn’t actually. I’m an anthropologist by training, and the reason I studied that was because I just love reading books about different cultures and explorers and travelers, and I found once I graduated that it didn’t really qualify me to do anything. So, I followed my father into business. He was in the food business, and I worked for his home delivery supermarket startup in London. This was in 1990, and from there I got approached by British petroleum and I thought startup is good but actually, to get a decent graduate trainee program under my belt with a large corporation, which BP was and still is, would have made a little bit more sense to me. So I joined them, was there for three years, and then I found myself in consulting because consulting, I think is a great way of learning, getting a lot of exposure to a lot of industries and lot of disciplines very very quickly, and I really enjoyed that. That’s where I started getting interested in innovation, business model innovation, because the consulting industry as a business or as an industry isn’t particularly an exciting business model, because to make more money, you either have to work harder or charge more, and you reach a ceiling on both of those.

So I got involved in thinking about what other assets did this company, The Hay Group have that they could make available to their clients, and I’ve found myself launching internet business in the mid 90s in Europe which was quite hard work back then. It’s hard to think of it but it was — 20 years ago the world was very different, and that got me into thinking more about business models, more about technology. I ended up going to work for the CEO in Philadelphia to help drive this program and finally, then, family came along and we relocated from the US back to Europe to Switzerland, and I joined Syngenta to open up their biofuels business. That one thing led to another. I was in the right place, the right time, and continued to help innovate in a number of different roles. So I guess, I’m an accidental executive, to be honest with you John. It was never really my plan but I was continually being offered really interesting opportunities, and that kind of took me to a place where at the end of last year, the end of 2014, I decided there weren’t the kind of opportunities available in that company any longer. So I thought now is the time to go out on my own, that’s when I left set up as an entrepreneur. I became chairman of one company and on the board of another company, and I’m building a business related to, but not specifically around Innovation Ecosystem. But really, helping companies and individuals become more entrepreneurial essentially.

John:

Wow. Well, let’s take a deep dive a little bit, if you don’t mind, because it’s such a fascinating story. This $2 billion Syngenta. Tell us about what that was like because it’s being an intrapreneur, it sounds like to me you’re within this big corporate structure, but you’re being very entrepreneurial within it. Is that accurate?

Mark:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Syngenta is the largest agri business in the world, and I was fortunate enough to — in the previous role to that, to leading the specialty crops unit, I was looking after a portfolio of products which were coming off patent. I was lucky enough to have a great team and a couple of quite good ideas that we were able to implement which resulted in some really significant value creation for shareholders. Because what normally happens when a product comes off patent is that the price collapses overnight, or in agriculture, it might take a couple of years, but in certain pharmaceuticals it collapses overnight, literally, as the trucks leave the Israeli manufacturing facilities at one minute past 12 full of your product. It’s an extraordinary industry. Now, in our business we are able to change that dynamic completely with a completely different strategy, related to the characteristics of the product we were looking after. As a result, we are able to raise prices for two subsequent years, pack and fill, which was unheard of in the industry. As a result of that, I was lucky enough to be offered an opportunity to form a new business unit and grow that out to a — well, it ended up as about $2.3 billion dollar business unit. So this was servicing or looking after, probably 40 different crops around the world, growing in every part of the planet, essential. It was a hugely exciting challenging scary role for four years. It was a roller coaster, but I learned. What I was able to do John was to take all the previous experiences of creating the conditions for innovation, and apply them across a team of many hundreds of people around the world. We are fortunate enough to generate some quite exciting results as well.

John:

It’s amazing. So, were you solving a particular problem of world hunger with all these crops? Or what was it that caused that kind of incredible growth?

Mark:

Well, I guess what we did was we thought far more about the grower, and what their issues where, and what their problems were, and a lot of these growers were based in subtropical or in tropical environments where they were — In agriculture, I think it’s the largest employer in the world, agriculture. I think it’s something at 17% of the world’s population are directly or indirectly employed by agriculture, or supported by agriculture. A lot of growers — you come from the US, there is some fantastically wealthy industrialized professionalized growers, and they reckon there’s about 100 million professionalized growers around the world. But this something like 500 or 600 million smallholders who are living — not quite hand to mouth, but whose family is in their — extended families rely on crops. So, what we did was we look and try to understand, what are there issues? Their issues really are not often how do they grow their crop, but it’s how do they market their crop. How do they fund the investment in their crop, how do they actually ensure that long-term, they have a business so they can hand over to their children. We took a very holistic view and we are able to then look at what’s available in the market and pull together a number of different solutions, which could be financial solutions. It could be traceability solutions, it could be new business models, and bundle them around our core products, and that enabled us to grow our market share, as well as create more value for the overall value chain.

John:

That’s such a huge takeaway, is you look at something and figure out a way to see it in a different angle, sort of an innovative way to look at something to solve a big problem, it seems like to me. Now, you’ve taken that skillset and that experience and have applied it to other things. Since this is all about how to make a successful pitch and one of the things investors look for is obviously, rapid growth, can you talk to us about your — and congratulations on this 15 — was it billion series B that you’ve just closed? Or 15 million I’m guessing?

Mark:

15 million, yeah. This is in agriculture. It’s an architect company based in Canada, and what we looked at, there are number of different ways that you can look at this industry, and I looked at it with the management team, and we figured out that this is what — the most compelling where I think about this is that as a platform play. So this company and the technology that we have enables other organizations or other products become far more efficacious and successful and perform far better in the field, with an ingredient if you like, which is the technology. So it’s almost like in Intel Inside, and if you look at it that way, you’re able to tell a story to investors which is around — this isn’t about how much product we can actually sell to farmers, but it’s about — actually we can enable a whole new category of products to become far more mainstream in the world of agriculture, literally around the world but starting in North America and moving very quickly to Europe.

So it’s using a different lens, and I think what we did was we look at the pharmaceutical industry and said, “Look, this is really where the biosimilars were ten years ago, which are now a huge business for a lot of big pharmaceutical companies. But ten years ago, they were just a very very small subsegments. So we used another analogy that investors could understand and say, “Look, here we are at the beginning of this curve in this industry.” By the way, this is the $70 or $80 billion industry and there are many companies like ours out there at this stage with this technology, with this potential in front of us.

John:

Well, you did a couple of things there that I want to really summarize for the listeners, which is when you’re pitching, no matter whether it’s a seed round, a series A round, or in this case a series B round for 15 million, you need to paint a picture and not talk about just numbers and how something works, but instead use analogies, see things through a different lens and then talk about how big the market is. What you’re doing is describing something that’s very disruptive, it sounds like to me, but when you talk about it almost being like Intel, right?

Mark:

Yeah absolutely. It does. When you got a huge market opportunity in front of you like we have, it is important to get people of a glimmer of how they can actually take advantage of that in a leveraged way. Because to build out a really significant organization by — with the direct salesforce, with all the standard marketing, it’s going to take an enormous amount of resource. So this is about finding a way to accelerate that growth in scale, like growth leveraging some of the other dynamics in the industry that potentially, some of these investors weren’t necessarily aware of. Because most investors in this space had been looking at drones, they’re looking at precision agriculture, looking at water, and very few of them are actually looking at this space. So they have to bring this space into mainstream and get them a glimpse of how it could grow into something significant, was really what we — and I say, we, that the management team in particular, the CEO did very well to close this funding, and it was probably 40% oversubscribed. So we were very happy with how it developed.

John:

Wow. So you really became irresistible and you had a multiple fear of missing out thing happening, so you were able to select which investors you wanted to work with, right?

Mark:

Absolutely. Now, you and your listeners will know, it’s not easy. It’s getting the first — the lead investor which takes a lot longer than one hopes, but once that group is in place, then a number of others do fall in partly because of the fear of missing out, partly because they don’t want to do a lot of the work associated with being a lead investor, and partly because you get developing more confidence and you are able to communicate with more confidence one you got the first anchor tenant on the term sheet essentially.

John:

Now, were you involved with the previous rounds before you got to the series B?

Mark:

No, I wasn’t.

John:

Got it. Okay.

Mark:

So this is the first institutional round essentially.

John:

Oh okay. Got it. So do you have any tips for the listeners on how to get that first lead investor, with a pitch that makes them feel willing to be the first one? Are there incentives to being a lead investor that you give?

Mark:

Well, I think it does come back to two tips I’ve given. Firstly, be prepared for a lot of knockbacks. So, it’s rather like interviewing for a job I guess. I haven’t done this for a long long time, but I do remember when I did it, that the first few interviews are an opportunity for you to polish your message and to get comfortable and confident, and to hit your stride. I think it’s the same with raising money, you’re going to get a lot of pushbacks and people, for whatever reason, are not interested in you either because of timing, either because of that sectoral focus, either, or because they’re looking at different bite sizes or different stages. So, be prepared, be resilient, be prepared to expand a lot of shoe leather and dialing for these leads.

Then I think the second things is, understand what they’re looking for. So it’s not about you, it’s about them and their issues and how can you actually meet their needs, and give them something that they genuinely want. Because I think, often it’s going in and selling too hard without actually listening, and there’s a reason we’ve got two ears and one mouth, right? It’s important to remember that.

John:

Yes, so it’s all about putting yourself in the investor’s shoes, having empathy for them as opposed to just saying what you need all the time. Is that accurate?

Mark:

Absolutely.

John:

Some of that has to do with your own due diligence, and doing a deep dive on that person’s LinkedIn profile, what are the investments they’ve made, any potential people you might have in common, things like that I think really help get the rapport going, get the trust going which is all needed to get someone to take a leap of faith with you, right?

Mark:

Yeah, absolutely. It’s a human business at the end of the day, and it’s them feeling comfortable with you, but also thinking something very subtle happens here unless you ask them at the beginning. Not necessarily using his words, but unless you are demonstrating an interest in what their needs are, then you can come up with the most compelling pitch, but there’s always going to be something in the back of their minds saying, they’re not really interested in me, they’re just telling a good story. So, I think it’s really important to somehow rather, demonstrate a level of empathy and interest in how can you help them, even though obviously, the dynamic is exactly the other way around. These are — particularly they’re saying, across from that a well funded prestigious venture capitalist, there’s a lot of intimidation going on on the relationship because they feel they hold all the cards. But I think, as you go in looking for money, have the energy that says, “I want to actually help this person.” If helping them means that they’re not going to invest in me, then that’s okay, and it’s very very subtle, but my personal belief is this is a hugely important distinction because it changes how you approach the meeting, how you hold yourself in the meeting, how you actually engage with them, both of them at a physical level, but also the sublinear level as well. Do I make sense?

John:

Oh my gosh, Mark. I love what you just said. No one’s ever said it quite like that. What I hear you saying is you need to think of yourself as a brand and they’re a brand, and you’re equals, that you each have something of value. You may not have the same amount of money in your bank account, but as far as intelligence and integrity and character and vision, you have something to offer to them. I’m guessing that what investors are looking for, in other words, how you can help them is by giving them an incredible opportunity and a return on their investment, in a way that they hadn’t thought of. Will that be something they would want?

Mark:

Absolutely. Let’s be honest, any investor in a fast-growth company is a difficult journey between the management team and the investors. It’s not going to be easy. So, you want people who are locked in for the journey and who have that level of mutual trust. A bad outcome is that you — for whatever reason you raise money, but there isn’t that level of trust because the first opportunity is going to blow up and that’s bad for everyone. So again, a lot of this is how you approach the meeting and it’s got to feel right. It’s not a marriage, but it’s a think about it as a long-term relationship and I think it’s going to make life a lot easier.

John:

Oh that’s fantastic. Now, you also have some insights about pitching for money from large corporations. Is that right?

Mark:

Well, yes. So in my last role with Syngenta, I was looking after a lot of new products and new research and development compounds that cost anything up to a quarter of a billion dollars to get to market. Often they require significant investment in infrastructure and assets. So I kind of got, quite a lot of experience taking big projects with many hundreds and millions of dollars of capital in front of the executives, the leaders, and the boards. So even though you know the individuals and you got a better sense of the politics and the relationships, it is, in many respects the same process. It’s being totally clear in what you want out of the conversation and what their needs are in the extent of which you can match the two. I think the other piece here is that it — I think the “why” is really important as well as just the “whats.” So I think it’s kind of trying to connect with how to paint a picture of what’s possible here or longer term beyond the financials is quite a useful way of thinking about it. Because it makes the conversation a little bit less dry and a little bit more sort of engaging emotionally, because at the end of the day, these decisions for public companies are big decisions and people need to feel they can trust you as an individual.

John:

I love that you said — we’re going to tweet that out. “The why’s is equally important to the what.” Right? So it’s important to have your numbers but you have to paint a picture and get people a sense of why this is important to you and why you’re passionate about it, right?

Mark:

Yeah, absolutely. The Simon Sinek TED talk, which is all about the importance of the why, and it’s easy to forget this because we’re all business people who go and then we talk about numbers and stuff, but in actual fact, comes back to what I said early on, if you can engage people of this sort of, emotional level and get them to understand why you’re doing this, I think is far more powerful than the what. It’s a precursor of this even for the what, but it is actually far more powerful. It moves people John.

John:

Yes. So that begs the question which was, what is your why to start The Innovation Ecosystem podcast?

Mark:

Well, it’s a really good question. So, I’ve been doing this kind of work in large organizations for almost, well probably over 20 years actually John. I’ve made lots and lots of mistakes, learn a huge amount, I got a few scars on my back, but I began to figure out how to do this and I figured it all out for myself in the sense of I didn’t know an overall resources, no go-to people, no places where you can educate yourself in this stuff. Because it’s not easy and it depends on the organization you’re in. So coming out of the corporate world, one of the things that I was very keen to do is to make available these kinds of resources, these kinds of insights, these kinds of experiences to people who are doing these kinds of jobs in organizations as I was. So entrepreneurs in large mature industries with long product life cycles, how can you actually help them move the needle, have an impact beyond what they’re expected to do in their day-to-day jobs because there’s a lot people, particularly as you got millennials coming into the workforce, who have been wanting to leave their mark on organizations. So they’re looking for purposeful work.

So I really wanted to resource these kinds of individuals because there’s a lot of people out there with insights and distinctions and materials. So that’s my why, and so I teamed up with a friend of mine who’s got a business, providing information to corporations and lots of links with business schools. What we’re doing is we’re interviewing a number of thought leaders in the area of innovation, change, leadership, which one of your previous guest, Guy Spier, is an interviewee. Now he runs a hedge fund, but we’re also interviewing a number of high performers, so a hedge fund manager, a concert pianist, we’ve got an explorer on, and then we’ve also got some CEOs and some executives and entrepreneurs, all talking John, about innovation, change and leadership. Then what we’re doing, Europe is not quite as advanced as North America in the podcasting world, so we’re working to create a number of digital assets, so that people can consume this not just verbally of the podcast, but they can download and read transcripts and that they’ve got nice designs. We’re also creating videos of the podcast as well, so people can consume them in multiple ways, such that, if they’ve got a need for this, there’s not a technological barrier, if you like.

John:

Well, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re being innovate in the podcasting world and bringing things to Switzerland and Europe that haven’t been done before by incorporating not just the audio, but the transcript and the video. Good for you. Let me ask you what about your speaking, because I know you’re an incredible speaker. I’ve watched some of your talks online on your website. What are your favorite topics and who’s your ideal audience to speak to?

Mark:

Well, and thanks John. It’s not something that comes easy to me, but I’m getting a bit more practice. What I like doing is, I’ve done a number of talks to organizations and industries that are mature, slow moving regulated. They could be banking, and it could be a banking company of a bank, it could be a glass manufacturer, companies that have similar characteristics to the agricultural business that I came from before. Just helping them understand the journey that we went on over the four years, building out this $2 billion business. One of the relevant topics that they can take away, what are their take aways, and then we’d worked with the leadership teams and start thinking about other certain things that they, as leaders are doing that they’re getting in the way of innovation for instance. So that’s one area.

Then the other one is entrepreneurship. I’m doing a number of talks and I’ve well have given a number, by the time this goes out to your audience on what is a mindset of the entrepreneur? How do you need to think? How do you need to articulate your purpose? How do you need to make decisions? Then secondly, as an entrepreneur or as a leader of entrepreneurs, how do you actually want to create the space for your team to come up with innovative ideas, to explore new concepts in a reasonably safe environment without the fear of failure, which characterizes a lot of innovation in large organizations. So those are two topics, if you like, that I’ve got a lot of energy around.

John:

That’s fantastic. This whole concept of helping people get over the fear of failure whether you’re an intrapreneur or entrepreneur is desperately needed. I’m sure it’s a topic that has everyone riveted to listen to. Mark, what inspires you? What kind of books do you like to recommend to listeners?

Mark:

I do read quite a lot actually John. Let me think. I’m just looking around my office at the moment. I guess, biographies, first of all. The first business book that I ever read was Sam Walton’s Biography, Made in America, which actually oddly enough, I took that book and reread it before I developed the post patent defense for this product I was talking about. Because the way he thinks and the way he executes and the way he identifies his core, a source of differentiation was fundamental for how we transformed this product. So biographies, I read a lot of books on, I suppose, personal development and professional development books. One of the great ones that I’ve read the other day was this book by Cal Newport called Deep Work, which I found really interesting particularly in this always on, overscheduled world that we live in. This is about how do you actually start focusing and do really good work in a way that enables you to really differentiate yourself from the vast majority of people who have multitasking, thinking they can get stuff done. The signs is very clear now. We are not wired for multitasking and you do need to create space and focus to actually dig into stuff, to deliver deep work in a way that is value adding. So those are some examples, but yeah, I’ve got probably more books piled up that I need to read, surrounding me, then I have in any point of my career.

John:

Well, I think that Deep Work is a great suggestion. We’re going to put all your recommendations in the show notes for people to be able to click and buy the book, or look at it. This whole concept of multitasking being a myth is another great message to put out to people. If you want to be productive and focused, pick one thing to get done before you go on to try to complete a bunch of other things. Mark, there’s many ways that people can follow you on social media, and you have multiple websites. Tell us all the ways that people can follow what you’re doing, subscribe to your podcast, et cetera.

Mark:

Well, I’ve just put up a new website which is markbidwell.com, and then the podcast is innovationecosystem.net. By the time this goes out, I think a book project that I’m working on will be pretty mature as well, so hopefully, there’ll be a number of resources that beyond the podcast interviews, that people will be able to get access to and take advantage of, and I guess most importantly, come back with some feedback to us. But I’m also on LinkedIn and I’m on Twitter as well.

John:

What’s your Twitter handle?

Mark:

My handle is @markehb and the other one is @innovecosys. I’ll give those both to you so you could put them in the show notes, so that people can spell them correctly.

John:

Okay, fantastic. Well Mark, it’s been a pleasure. I can’t thank you enough for giving us your insights on how important it is to position yourself from the standpoint of what can you do for the investors instead of being someone who’s just asking for something, and really focusing in on building trust and painting a picture. Thanks again.

Mark:

Not at all John. It’s has been a great pleasure and I love your podcast, and I’m very pleased that we’ve managed to meet, and let me know how I can help in any way.

Thanks for listening to The Successful Pitch Podcast. If you liked the show, please go to iTunes and write a review, and encourage your friends to write reviews too. It really helps get the word out.

You know, people say that the longest distance is between someone’s mouth and their wallet. People can tell you they’re going to invest but when it comes time to write the check, they don’t do it. So, how do you get people to say yes and then follow through? Visualize yourself on the left side of a riverbank and you have to cross the river and on the other side of the river is where the funding happens.

So, first, you make up your idea and then you make it real and then you make it reoccur. Once you start dipping your toe into the water to get to funding, that’s where I can help. I get you across that river faster than you would on your own with a lot less frustration than you will get when you hear a bunch of no’s and you don’t know why. So, if you want some help getting funded faster with less frustration, go to my free funding webinar, sellingsecretsforfunding.com/webinar and sign up and get in depth information on how you can get funded fast. Thanks.

TSP076 | Dan Weinfurter – Transcription

Posted by John Livesay in Uncategorized | 0 comments

John Livesay:

Hi and welcome to The Successful Pitch. Today’s guest is Dan Weinfurter, the author of Second Stage Entrepreneurship. The other title was going to be How Hard Could It Be?, but then decided not to have that title. He said, “It’s so important to hire smart people. The cost of hiring the wrong person is higher than leaving the position unfilled.” He said, “If you really want to be successful in sales, you must have people happy working for you, by having a culture that resonates for them, and they must like the person they worked for,” and he goes on to say that, “If you want to make a pitch, make sure that it’s targeted and consistent with your branding.” Who are you? What makes you different and better, and how can you prove it? And the best way to prove it is through storytelling. You must build credibility and trust to the stories you tell.

The interview begins in 45 seconds right after this information on how you can get funded fast.

Are you a founder struggling with your investor pitch? Do you need warm introductions to the right investors to get your startup funded? Do you need a funding road map to get you there fast? All of this and more can be found in Crack the Funding Code. Join host, John Livesay, and Judy Robinett, bestselling author of How to Be a Power Connector and board member of Illuminate Ventures, on their free Crack the Funding Code webinar. Simply go to judyrobinett.com – that’s J-U-D-Y-R-O-B-I-N-E-T-T dot com – and click on the webinar tab to see how to tap into their network of investors from around the world. There’s a link in the show notes as well. You’re only one click away from getting funded fast.

Hi and welcome to The Successful Pitch Podcast. Today’s guest is Dan Weinfurter, the author of Second Stage Entrepreneurship. He’s also the founder and CEO of GrowthPlay, which is a sales effectiveness business consulting firm, and Dan consults with many organizations developing and implementing sales and leadership effectiveness, strategies that drive profitable growth. In his 25 years of being a serial entrepreneur, he’s built three, not just one, but three successful companies including Parson Group, his first start-up that landed number one on the coveted Inc. 500. In addition to consulting, speaking, and interim management, he guest lectures at leading business schools, and was a mentor for the Clinton Foundation’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence. Dan, welcome to the show.

Dan:

John, pleasure to be here.

John:

What a great background that you have, and what great experience you have, especially for a podcast like this one called The Successful Pitch. You obviously know how to sell and pitch. Can you take us back to your early career of selling and your first start-up, and how did you know that that’s what you wanted to do?

Dan:

Well, it is probably a two-part question, so I’ll try to answer both singly and then we can go from there. So right out of college I was hired by General Electric, and I went through their sales training program. So that was back in the day where a company would hire a 22 year old and put him through a year of training, with the hope that the 23 year old would be able to sell sophisticated services to executives in big companies. Those days are somewhat gone where companies spend that amount of time and effort bringing young people up to speed. But for me it was really fortunate and has got me started in a career early, even the businesses I’ve started, the common denominator has been the buildup and deployment of an effective sales organization. So, my GE career lasted eight years, and then subsequently GE have now done — this is my fourth, actually, that I’m working are now all in business services, trying to help companies do one thing or another.

John:

Let’s talk about the Parson Group. Did you have to raise outside funding for that, and how did you come up with the idea?

Dan:

So the idea for Parson Group actually came from a business that I was involved with, previous to starting Parson Group that was an information technology staffing business. We watched ourselves grow and we completely, and continuously outran our operational capability which included finance in accounting, and so, we turned to the outside staffing, temporary service providers for help. As we watch what these firms did, we saw that they frankly were terrible and violated all of the things that we thought were responsible for our group at the firm that I was at. And so, the notion was hatched, “Well, what if you took our business model and applied it to the finance and accounting vertical, and you had capital and you built it correctly, what could you do?” And so, after ARC, which was the firm I was at went public, I resigned, wrote a business plan, and raised essentially $4 million on a PowerPoint. We used that to sort of hire five people in Chicago in July 1995, and six years later we had a $90 million business, all organic growth.

John:

Amazing. I bet those investors were happy.

Dan:

Well, we needed to go back to them a couple other times.

John:

Which is fine. That’s expected.

Dan:

Which is fine.

John:

You hit the milestones. You need more money to grow, yeah.

Dan:

We did, and so yeah, they were very happy. It worked well where all parties involved.

John:

Great. Well, let’s talk about this great book of yours. I’ve had the pleasure of reading it cover to cover. It’s just fantastic. How did you come up with the title Second Stage Entrepreneurship?

Dan:

Well, the original title was How Hard Could It Be?, which was not meant to be serious, but that was part of the problem. So, the editor that I was working with didn’t think that that title was right and thought it might offend people, and so as we were working with the publisher which is Palgrave Macmillan, we kicked around a bunch of different ideas, and frankly, the editor at Macmillan gets credit for this, and that she thought that there was this void between how do you start a business and then how do you get it to the next level. Plenty of books on startups, plenty of books on sales, but this whole — what we call “second stage growth”, she thought that there was a void in the market. So we reshaped it a bit through the editorial process, and made it far more broad-based, and then instead of just talking about sales, we talked about all of the things that tend to be important in growing a business from an early stage to what we call the second stage, which is a much bigger business obviously.

John:

One of the key things that’s over and over important is hiring smart people which you talked about in this great book. I know that investors look to that when you’re pitching for money, who’s on your team, and even as you continue to be successful you need higher and higher rounds, one investor told me that the quality of your team has to equally go up. The CEO can’t be the CFO anymore. Can you speak to some of the things you talked about, like how to hire smart people and in specific, I love what you wrote when you said, “intellectual curiosity.” Tell me what that means.

Dan:

So two parts. So, ironically, I think that the hiring process, while it is the most important part of the growth journey for any company. Ironically, my view is that it’s the least disciplined. So you think about what’s involved in hiring a person. So in most cases, it’s a million dollar and up decision that somebody is making, and seldom is that rigor applied for that level of decision-making. So salesperson for example seems fairly routine, it’s at least a million dollar decision, and then I tell people I’ve made it wrong enough times to know that my numbers are right.

John:

That’s great.

Dan:

And in a manager, so if you’re starting a new geography, that’s at least to $15 million decision and I could say the same thing there. I’ve made a mistake enough to know that that number is correct. So, first I try ground people in the fact that these numbers are real, and if you get the right person great things happen, and if you get the wrong person bad things happen. So, what the trick is is that, every role for every company at every stage of growth is different, and so you can’t just take what you’ve done in the past and apply it to the business that you’re a part of today. It might or might not work. It’s a flip of the coin. So I teach a class at Kellogg and I was guest lecturing into this class called Digital Innovation, and one of the things that the professor teach us in that class pointed out which is true is that, in the technology space, and it’s probably no different than anywhere else, the founder hires his or her number two 70% of the time without defining the role and without talking to more than one person.

John:

Really? Not even a — yeah, I can understand that to finding the role because it’s you’re going to do everything, but not talking to more than one person fascinates me.

Dan:

That would be a lack of intellectual curiosity, would it not?

John:

It would. There we go. We’ve got it defined, and you’ve brought it in full circle. I love it.

Dan:

But it’s funny, you talk to people, and this is one of my favorite tricks, is after an interview is almost done, you ask a person, “So, what are you reading today?” And it’s amazing to me how often you get an answer, “Well, I don’t have time to read. Too busy. I don’t really read,” or “I’d look at some magazines and there’s papers but I don’t read any books.” It’s hard for me to imagine how anybody can get the information that they need to do their job correctly without reading, and furthermore, just if you’re curious about life, you ought to be picking up things even if they’re not business related in reading or pick up a novel, pick up a political and non-fiction book. Read something.

John:

Right. I couldn’t agree with you more. Really is, it’s like what you’re putting into your body for fuel, what are you putting into your brain through reading to keep yourself growing. One of the things you say in Second Stage Entrepreneurship is “The cost of hiring the wrong person is higher than leaving the position unfilled.” We’re going to tweet that line out. Can you give us a story around that?

Dan:

Yeah, one of the things that I learned the hard way again is it’s better to have no one in the role than the wrong person, and the theory is there is if you have no one, you do something about it. If you just hope that it’s going to get better, guess what? It doesn’t. So I encourage all people, if you have somebody who’s not correct in the role, move that person along and then go about finding the new person. You’re going to be far better served in the — even in the short run.

John:

And Dan, how long do you give somebody in a new position to prove themselves? Three months? Six months? A year?

Dan:

Well, I’d give you the classic consulting answer, it depends.

John:

Okay. Let’s say if it’s a new salesperson. Let’s say I’m a founder of a startup, I’ve got somebody who obviously needs some training, and come up to speed, how much time do I give them to prove themselves, before I know it’s a wrong choice?

Dan:

If you’re paying attention, it shouldn’t take very long, and again, you have to pay attention. So it’s not so much that you manage it by numbers per se, because the specific numbers can be wildly good or wildly bad based on just luck and timing. But if you’re paying attention and you’re working with that person, you can see the quality of interaction they’re having with others, you can see if they’re doing the right things that are likely to make it work over time. So, be a little bit lax in terms of the specific empirical outputs, but be really rigorous about the quality of the interactions and the qualitative aspects that you know will dictate success for that role over time. That’s the critical thing.

John:

That’s incredibly valuable.

Dan:

That might be — it could be a week, it could be a month, it could be six months, but you just have to be paying attention.

John:

I love that, because so many people just look at the numbers, right? If you don’t meet your quota by this time, “Boom! You’re out.” Like you said, there’s a lot of other circumstances. If the person’s kind of a good work ethic, and is a good culture fit, and like you said, doing what it takes. The number of sales calls, phone calls, emails, whatever it is, to be successful then focus on that. Now, let’s dive into this whole section you have in Second Stage Entrepreneurship about the power pitch. I love your whole philosophy that if you ask five sales people to describe what the company does, five other people who are in sales, and then five trusted customers to describe what the company does, sadly, you would probably get a lot of different answers.

Dan:

You will, and it’s so fundamental and so basic.

John:

That you said, you keep talking about the need to be targeted and consistent with your branding, right?

Dan:

So think about it. Everybody should be able to answer these questions with complete clarity. What do you do for your customers? What do you do that’s different? What do you do that’s better? And be able to demonstrate or prove it. You should be able to do that in very short periods of time. You might only have, literally, 20 seconds to answer the question what do you do, you might have 15, and so people actually — they think it’s easy and so they just wing it. But to get that nailed down with the level of clarity and rigor that’s necessary, actually, involves a lot of practice, and a fair amount of, what I call, “preparation” so that you have different versions of that for different audiences.

If you’re talking to somebody at a cocktail party, it’s probably different than if you’re talking to a CEO or you have a prearranged meeting, and you have that actually, ready to go.

John:

Yes, and most people think they can just wing it, and they are so afraid of sounding robotic or they don’t want to memorize anything. I constantly teach people, “You know what? Tiger Woods doesn’t wing it. Meryl Streep doesn’t wing it. Everybody who is a professional prepares, right?”

Dan:

They prepare, and the only way that I’ve ever gotten people to take it serious is to film them and then actually show them how bad they are at it.

John:

Yes, you really hear the stumbling and how hard it is to follow what they’re trying to say and how few people really understood what they said and all that stuff, right?

Dan:

Well, I go back to my GE days, and we did this every day for my entire first year of training. We need to do these role plays and if you did it badly they play it back three or four times until everybody in the room was laughing. I mean, it was all in good fun with all these people here, but you actually get it nailed down, okay, this stuff all is hard and needs to take practice. That’s where all these started from and it’s how I become part of what I use to be, a critical path for business success, and get nailed it.

John:

Since you’re an expert in sales, and managing sales teams and hiring the right team, one of the things I’d love to have you share with us is how do you get sales people who are so competitive, not only outside of the company but within the company, to start sharing best practices with each other, so that the whole company can benefit?

Dan:

Well, it’s a simple question, but probably a complicated answer. So sales people, they’re competitive with each other, but they also like to be part of the gang. There’s a fair amount of camaraderie, if everybody hates you and you’re a salesperson, that doesn’t work very well because no one will hang out with you. So, effective sales teams that I’ve been part of, while they are competitive, they’re certainly more than willing to talk to their peers about what they do. Many times they will have the point of view of, you probably can’t do it as well as I do, so I have no risk in telling you what I’m to, but I think the sales manager who’s doing his or her job correctly is drawing from the entire group all of the things that can be done that tend to move the meter in work in that particular business. Then bringing the team together so that those best practices are shared amongst the group in a way that they’re digestible or consumable, and most people that I’ve worked with are more than willing to be part of that process.

John:

That’s great. Whether you’re pitching or an investor for money, or pitching for a new client, it’s all the same where you have to be able to describe what you said, “What do you do that’s different and better to be able to prove it?” And the best way I know is through stories, and you write about this is Second Stage Entrepreneurship a lot. Where you have a whole process of, tell a story about a problem another client had and be sure to name that client, and how they tried it without success, without your help, and then how you came up with the solution and then most importantly, which I think most people forget in these kinds of stories, is what kind of ongoing success does the client have from working with you? Can you tell us how you developed such a smart strategic way to tell a story that helps drive sales?

Dan:

Actually, I read a book and this is called What’s Your Story? It’s written by University of Chicago Business School Booth professor by the name of Craig Wortmann, called What’s Your Story? But it actually — some of that goes back before that is was at my GE days, one of the things that we would do is we would build stories about where we had done this work for others in the startup world, and it became a far bigger necessity for success. So if you have a company that doesn’t have a name brand and you’re trying to sell to a Fortune 500 client, you have to build credibility and trust. You can do a little bit of that by how you behave what they’d — in their heart to hearts, they want to also know who else do you this for, and how do I know that I’m not making a career limiting decision by bringing you into my firm. The stories are a great way to build that credibility and trust, especially if you can make them personal, and you name the person that you were working with, and you talk about the impact that it had, not just on their business, but on them personally. Because in the end, almost everybody makes a business decision based on the impact to them personally, and then they back into the business rationale for that decision. It’s not always that way, but it’s almost always that way. Great predictable human nature.

John:

I love that. Everyone thinks if we just do the job you’re asking us to do and there’s RFP, we’ll get the business. It’s like if you tell a story of somebody else hiring you over a competitor, and that person looking so good to their boss that they got promoted, that’s an example of a personal impact, right?

Dan:

Yeah, in fact, it’s rarely RFP away, you’re not going to win it. Unless you have to write it, it’s a waste of time and effort. Spinning your wheels.

John:

We’re going to tweet that out. “Build credibility and trust through stories.” That’s a great line. It really really is. In reading your book, I came across, that we have a mutual friend Paul Rand, who runs his wonderful social media agency in the Midwest in Chicago, my hometown, and he said, “Your brand is not what you say about yourself, it’s what your customers say about you.” Right?

Dan:

Exactly.

John:

I’d love to have you speak to, of that about, not just your brand that you’re working for — you know, how important it is to sell the brand of whatever company you’re working for, but this whole concept of having a personal brand, I think is really essential as a salesperson. Don’t you?

Dan:

It’s not only essential as a salesperson but for any role in life. Think of the politicians that are on the news right now. They all have their personal brands, which in some cases is helping them and then some cases it’s not. But, the other part of this is it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and not very much time in order to wreck it. So, what Paul talks about — and I’ll actually see him on Fridays, is you should live your life as though every day is part of the building of your own personal brand. Again, it’s not so much what you say, it’s people watch what you do, and just living a life where you’re truly your word, and if you say you’re going to do something, you do it. If you’re building a business or you’re part of a business, make sure the business behaves in a very similar way. If you say you’re going to get back to somebody on Tuesday morning, get back to them on Tuesday morning, not Tuesday afternoon.

John:

Dan, you’re singing my song. I mean, that lack of integrity drives me crazy, and sometimes you can set the bar just by doing what you say you’re going to do. If you say you’re going to follow up, follow up, that’s automatically sets you on the top, I don’t know, 10%, sadly, of salespeople who don’t follow up, that 90% that don’t.

Dan:

It’s probably higher than that.

John:

One of the things you talked about is this written monthly review, and a lot of people hate reviews, a lot of people love them, if they get good ones. But I like this whole concept of doing it monthly instead of quarterly or twice a year, and some of the questions that you think people should be is asking is how do you feel about last month? I think what’s really fascinating is to tap into people’s — do you feel proud? Do you feel embarrassed? Do you feel frustrated? And then what didn’t happen that you want? And this for me is the number one thing that made me successful is, what are your top ten accounts and your top ten opportunities? If you just focus on that, I think you will — the 80-20 rule kicks in, don’t you agree?

Dan:

I would agree, because the ones that are on that top list are probably not going to get done. You think about any executive is similar that they can only really act on the top five things on their list of objectives under a given point and time. So if you’re trying to get to them with something that’s not on the list, good luck getting — they might listen but they’re not actually going to take action on it, same as true with driving sales activity.

When I was first told I had to this, this is one of the stories I tell on the book, so I said, “You got to be kidding me. Monthly? Seriously?” I pushed back on it and I thought it was just going to be a time consuming sort of pure credit process but it’s just the opposite, the people have to come in with the knowledge of what they did in the prior months, what they’re going to do in the current months, and then, probably the important part is that the people who are doing really well, get really good reinforcement, and get the help that they need to do even better. Sometimes those conversations just don’t happen with the people that are doing well, and the people that aren’t doing well is sort of a paper trail or on a trail that’s built up over time. We talked about last month, you know, we’re having this same conversation again, it’s just doesn’t feel really good to me.

John:

It’s groundhog’s day, right?

Dan:

Deja Vu all over again as the saying goes.

John:

Right.

Dan:

It doesn’t take very long before you realize that this is not going to work in that point and you don’t have to go through the charade of a performance plan, you can just move on the person because the trail is already built. But the most important thing is it helps the good people do better, because it reinforces the behaviors that they have put in place, that are responsible for their success, and the review forces a conversation that you already need help. One of the big jobs of a sales manager is to really help the team, help the individuals that are part of that team be successful. It’s not to manage and control, that’s what people think, that’s not it. It’s been helpful.

John:

Right. One of the things you have on your GrowthPlay website is how to, not only find great talent but keep them. Can you speak to what your secret sauce is there?

Dan:

It’s probably not change in 30 years, and really, there’s two things that I think are critically important. So one’s the culture of the business, it is the culture and the mission resonate with the people that are part of the team. So if they’re engaged in a business that they don’t really like, I mean, good luck keeping that person over the long haul. So that’s one, and then related to that is who they work for, and part of the most important person is their direct supervisor, but if it’s corrupt or bad at the top, that will engender cynicism and it will end up rotting from the top eventually. There’s people who won’t put up with that over the long haul. So, I mean, the truth is when people quit, they quit their boss or their bosses first and foremost, and everything else follows.

John:

Yes, it’s not for the extra X percent of money, is it? It’s about not feeling appreciated a lot.

Dan:

Well, you just work for a jerk. There was a study in HBR, I just read a few weeks ago, was done by some Gallup researchers and this is almost hard to believe, I think it ran last year, and they pointed out that American businesses hire the wrong person in the first line managerial role, 82% of the time.

John:

Wow. Well, do you think, part of that is, if you’re a great sales person, then you get promoted, and suddenly you’re sales manager and it’s a completely different skill set?

Dan:

Absolutely. They’re in fact, the better the salesperson you are, the more likely it is that you’re not going to be a good sales manager. In fact, we have the science behind this, only 10% of successful sales people have the innate behavioral DNA to be successful sales leaders.

John:

So what’s the solution? Should they go through some training if they want to do that? Or is it just not in their DNA? Doesn’t a sales manager need to have been a sales person to understand what’s required?

Dan:

That is true. In fact, you have to have been a somewhat successful salesperson to be a successful sales leader, but you have to go find the people in your sales organization or who exist elsewhere, who both could sell and can lead people. And it’s a narrow pool of people you’re looking at, but you got to find them or it’s not going to work. Think about it, as a salesperson, it’s all about yourself. So as a sales leader, it’s all about the team. As a sales leader the job is to facilitate an outcome through collaboration. As a salesperson you just take charge and get it done. Much like, if you think about an athlete versus a coach, and it’s the same analogy.

John:

Yes. Got it. Terrific.

Dan:

If you’re really good, you don’t even realize what you’re doing, you just do it naturally. Can you train other people to do that? Maybe, some can.

John:

Yes. Or do you have the patience to train them, right? That’s the other thing you have to realize that — just because you’re on a certain level of expertise, the junior salespeople probably aren’t. They’re going to need some hand-holding and some patience.

Dan:

Very true.

John:

Well Dan, how can people follow you on social media, as well as, obviously, GrowthPlay.com. Tell us the best way to keep track of what you’re doing and how to engage with you.

Dan:

So I’m on Twitter at @danweinfurter D-A-N-W-E-I-N-F-U-R-T-E-R. I’m on LinkedIn, I think it’s danielweinfurter. I have a personal website danweinfurter.com and then we obviously have a company website growthplay.com. So all of those tend to work and work pretty well.

John:

Fantastic. Well, obviously besides the Second Stage Entrepreneurship, which we’re going to put the link in the show notes for people to buy, you also mentioned that great book What Is Your Story?, so we’ll put both of those in there. Dan, any last words or thoughts to leave with the listeners about how to pitch or how to sell?

Dan:

Probably the last thing, sales in my view is one of the last great frontiers that’s still not viewed as a discipline like finance or marketing or engineering, yet, half the people that come out of college end up in a sales role, and any white collared professionals spends a significant portion of his or her time in their occupation of selling, and so I think it pays everybody dividends to actually do what you would do with any discipline which is to study and get good at it, and not just think that you can wing it. There are definite activities and processes that are proven to work in sales, just as they work in other disciplines, and give sales it’s due and to stay in court, because it’s deserving of it.

John:

Fantastic. Dan, thanks again for being on the show. You’ve been a great guest, and everybody, go get this great book, Second Stage Entrepreneurship.

Dan:

John, thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to The Successful Pitch Podcast. If you liked the show, please go to iTunes and write a review, and encourage your friends to write reviews too. It really helps get the word out.

You know, people say that the longest distance is between someone’s mouth and their wallet. People can tell you they’re going to invest but when it comes time to write the check, they don’t do it. So, how do you get people to say yes and then follow through? Visualize yourself on the left side of a riverbank and you have to cross the river and on the other side of the river is where the funding happens.

So, first, you make up your idea and then you make it real and then you make it reoccur. Once you start dipping your toe into the water to get to funding, that’s where I can help. I get you across that river faster than you would on your own with a lot less frustration than you will get when you hear a bunch of no’s and you don’t know why. So, if you want some help getting funded faster with less frustration, go to my free funding webinar, sellingsecretsforfunding.com/webinar and sign up and get in depth information on how you can get funded fast. Thanks.