Week 6: Life’s a Pitch

Hey Steve… Interested in your theory of not presenting your power-point presentations. Sure i understand leaving them a printed version with your IM… but why not present it first?

P.s Cheers for sharing … this is a damn interesting read!

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Thanks Steve and enjoyable read. I too am intrigued by not presenting a Powerpoint and talking through your opportunity only. Regards, Kelly

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Steve Sherlock Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 7:51 pm

@Kelly and Lippy and James.

if there is only one other person in the room, pointing to a computer is too much of a monologue, for my liking.

i prefer a dialogue instead i.e. a conversation which allows me to hear and see the train of thought of the other person.

by encouraging questions i can gauge where the investors understanding is at and then fill in the gaps with a little help. (did i mention i that i attach things to investors heads? http://twitpic.com/sn9rh

I remind myself that I’ve been thinking about this stuff for years and years – so i reckon i need to ratchet forward through acknowledgement on each step as opposed to assuming that their ‘nodding’ and ‘yeah’s’ actually means that they do agree. Conversely they might get it really quickly and we can get deeper into the whole story rather than sticking to the slide order. (plus i can’t read and listed at the same time. pictures ok)

however I might use a page from the PowerPoint to help make a point that needs some visual re-enforcement…. I do often bring my nine loyalty cards with me (four frequent flyer and five rental membership) so they can see all these numbers can be stored in the cloud (so to speak)

In the end I want to know about them as much as they want to know about the opportunity, especially given I’m going to have to work with them over the next couple years.

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There’s a classic (maybe apocryphal) story about the guy that pitched the palm pilot.

At the last minute, before pitching to VCs, his laptop was destroyed, stolen, lost, something (became unexpectedly unavailable). Instead, when placed on the spot, he used his small leather diary to introduce his concept.

By the end of the meeting, the leather diary had mysteriously taken on an aura of potential, had been passed around with reverence and awe, and came to represent everything that a palm pilot could be.

I’d like to believe that the story is true.

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Lachyw Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 5:01 pm

I dunno, that sounds like a “Made to Stick” urban myth!

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James Tuckerman Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 7:03 pm

Heckles from over the partition! Outrageous!

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Hi Steve,

Thanks to @James Tuckerman (whom I happily follow on Twitter), for pointing me to your Blog Series; and to Anthill for being fair-dinkum enough to recognise the value in such a series.

I didn’t find it until today, and I’ve just read all of your articles and all of the comments. How far away is the eBook mate?

Bluddy great stuff and I’ll thank you heaps now before I go rambling on. Thanks heaps

Though from a small business perspective, I’ve endeavoured via my blog and by participating in the Small Business Owner Blog (http://mybrc.myobnet.com/), to provide, perhaps fatally, as honest and as transparent an account as I can of the trials and tribulations of my burgeoning small business. It was an unfortunately short story…which I fully intend to retrospectively call ‘Chapter 1′ …

Long story short: In my view I was effectively ‘small business supported’ into oblivion. I’m now highly dubious of ‘expert’ advice…though clearly the ‘expert’ advice I got was from the bottom-end of the market…the beggar’s end, not the chooser’s end. I was starting my life again literally from nothing…and I’m back at the beginning again…except now I’m debt.

My business had a very successful launch and was unable to trade within a couple of months. I thought it was rather paradoxical that contrary to the ‘expert’ advice that I had received, the people with the money think very differently to what the people that talk about the people with the money think they do.

Being a beggar at the time, I was deemed not to be in any position to argue business acumen…reason had long since succumbed to ‘pathways’ and ‘box-ticking’…my 48 years on the planet seemed to count for nothing, as did the fact that I had previously lost something…

And unfortunately I can only speculate as to why my Bank wouldn’t provide my requested $25,000.00 loan (or even an overdraft), as they would not provide any feedback, even when asked.

The most resonant speculation I’ve had is that I’m a one man band. That no matter how good the numbers and projections, a sole proprietor/owner/operator, even an overly insured one, is perceived as too much risk? If this is true, I reckon it would’ve been a tad more ‘acumenical’ had they mentioned this up front…

I thought it was strange that they were happy to back my business to start-up point (enough to get me into debt), but were unwilling to provide assistance to keep the business going and progress the wholesaling opportunities that I had generated…now no one gets any money.

Anyway, I’m now in the rethinking stage of replanning and rebuilding my business on a much, much larger scale…a scale that I envisage would entail investors at some point.

And though your business is indeed in a very different ‘space’, thanks to your generosity, curiosity and ‘exploriosity’ and that of your great commentators, I now have a very useful map…and for that I’m grateful.

Trying to distil some semblance of a useful map from the quanta of vested babble freely available under the guise of ‘business tools/support/advice’ is like trying to build ‘Google Earth’ with match-sticks and sticky tape…is a major bluddy WOFTAM.

So thanks again mate…I’ll be reading, learning and hopefully contributing as you go…

Cheers

Stephen G

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Steve Sherlock Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

@Stephen thanks for the positive feedback and adding your story.

my brother made the point recently that people don’t fail, rather there are failed attempts.

Sahil wrote article recently http://bit.ly/7jcX85 pointing out that in the USA having lost some money on a start-up was almost a badge of honour or right of passage as an entrepreneur. i.e. a failed attempt but the entrepreneur is not a failure. whereas in Oz it seems it’s taken personally as a personal failure.

so it’s good to see Stephen that you’ve dusted off and are persisting. Recent book i read “Borrowing Brilliance” he also has some great stories of not giving up. i need to also remind myself of this.

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Stephen Glanville Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

Hi Steve,

You’re very welcome…

And thank you very much for pointing me to Sahil. I’ve been catching up on his excellent articles too…heartening indeed.

And yes, I hardly feel like a failure myself…getting as far as I did with what I had was nothing short of miraculous, even to me

Getting back to your journey for a moment Steve, there is one thing I am interested to gauge your feelings on; your Time-line.

Do you feel that you are realistically on track to ‘seal this deal’ by the end of January 2010?

It would seem to me (based only on what I’ve read), that if you are pitching in December, that it would be unlikely to have anything signed by then?

Thanks again

Cheers

Stephen G

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Steve Sherlock Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 2:25 pm

i was asked this on the first post and its a fair question. its more like end of march realistically. Jan was more spin as part of pitching the blog to anthill

Steve, the one problem I have experienced with leaving printed material with potential investors is that they will invariably draw incorrect conclusions if left to their own devices. At least if you present the Power Point you have one (and it is often all you will get) opportunity to place YOUR interpretation on the contents and what you are trying to convey.

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Steve Sherlock Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 12:29 pm

@Jerry – yeah good point. I’ve used the ppt printout to emphasise select points, like you say, to place my interpretation.

If talking to two or more people i think your point is even stronger given chance of multiple interpretations of a slide, so leaving them with your’s being even more important.

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A good theory, but you also need to pitch a proposition to investors, i.e. specifically what’s in it for them – investor rights, valuation, etc

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Just on the time estimate; our current deal which we are in the final stages of closing (assuming it doesn’t fall over at the last minute!) has taken 14 months to get to this point…

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