The 7 elements of an Entrepreneurial Elevator Pitch

A good idea that nobody understands is worth nothing.

Do you share your business idea in a way that people understand?

The ability to clearly and concisely explain a business is important: in fund raising, in hiring and in selling to early customers.

An elevator pitch is a simple outline of the business that quickly communicates the key features of your business to others. It is called an elevator pitch because you should be able to deliver it in the time it takes for an elevator to go from ground floor to the executive office of the person you are pitching – between 30 seconds and one minute.

The 7 elements of a good entrepreneurial elevator pitch
A good entrepreneurial elevator pitch will contain these 7 elements:

1. description of the problem you solve
2. the individuals or groups that will benefit
3. the specific product or service you will deliver
4. how you differ from competitors and other substitutes
5. how you will make money
6. what resources you require (money, time, support, expertise)
7. an outline of the value that will be created

Don't just talk about your product
A good friend of mine, Nick, spent years at Apax Partners listening to entrepreneurs pitch their ideas.  He says "the pitch needs to cover how we are going to make money – not technology, not product, not idea, not market. How does it translate into making money? The worst presentations start with a product demo then stock company presentation."

The audience is not an expert in your market or product.  She does not have the necessary experience or criteria to judge whether your product is a good product, only that your analysis of the market, the competition, the route to money seems sensible.

A business is much more than a good product or a good idea.  A business is the translation of the product into a sustainable stream of revenues that is more valuable than the resources used to create this stream of revenues.

Other resources on this blog:
- You will be judged within seconds into one of 7 stereotypes
- How to do sales
- The need for confidence
- 12 tips for public speaking

What do you think?
Do you have examples of elevator pitches that you would be happy to share?  I would love to see some great examples.  I look forward to your ideas, questions and reflections.

Regional Culture Explained

Can we understand a region's culture by looking at the main cereal crop of five thousands years ago?  This is a little thought experiment.  This has no basis in science or fact and is merely a little story I am telling today...  I very much welcome reflections and comments.

• Asia - rice
• Northern Europe - oats and apples
• Mediterranean - wheat and olives

What is a culture of rice farming?
In most regions of Asia, the food source of the last thousand years has been rice.  Rice is a plant that requires backbreaking constant work to produce a crop.  If a farmer and his family works 10 hour days, he gets a full crop.  If he works 5 hour days, he gets much less.  If he does not work each day, he gets no crop.

First the farmer and his family must build walls to allow an area to be flooded.  River water must be  channeled into the paddys.  The farmers replant the rice plants multiple times to ensure that each has the space it needs.  All of this work is done with feet underwater and back bent at 90 degrees.

Rice = The harder you work, the better your crop.



What is a culture of oats and apples?
In the north of Europe, the food sources have been orchards, oats and barley.  These require a daily effort, but only in maintaining some order in the fields and orchards.  If you work 2 hours a day, you get a full crop.  If you work more, you don't get any extra benefit.  If you don't work, you don't lose everything, but your crop will suffer.

Oats = It is important to work, but there is nothing to be gained by over -working.



What is a culture of wheat and olives?

In the areas around the mediterranean, the crops are wheat and olives.  A farmer plants wheat and then returns 5 months later to harvest his crop.  There is nothing he can do to improve the yield.  There is no gain to be had by working once the wheat is planted.  If the rains come and the sun shines, you get a crop.

Wheat = There is little a human farmer can do to increase the yield except hope for sun and rain.





Is this an interesting analysis of Culture?
Our cultures of today: habits, style of eating, urban architecture, songs, languages, buildings arise out of cultures that were built around these core activities of food production.

A more serious analysis of Culture... (very much worth a read)
One of the best resources on cultural understanding is the framework of Geert Hofstede.  He identified power distance, individualism vs collectivism, masculinity vs femininity, uncertainty avoidance, time horizon and indulgence vs restraint as components that differ, and are important to understand if you are dealing with people from another culture.

Photo credits: ImageMD, RaeA, David Bradbeer

"Be water, my friend" Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee said "Be water my friend."  What does he mean?  What is it to "be water"?

On "being water"
What is it to "be water"?  Water flows and adapts.  It has no plan, but deals with the environment that it finds.  It fully explores the space.  It has no expectations of what it will find.  It forgets immediately when it leaves one space to find another.  It remains the same inside even as it flows and adapts outside.  Is this what it is to "be water, my friend"?  What did Bruce mean?

Bruce in speaking of be water is talking about a Tao concept called Wu Wei - knowing when to act and when not to act.  Wu Wei can variously be translated as "effortless doing" or "effortless action".  It connects to the Greek Rhetoric school and "Kairos" - recognizing the right moment to act, and knowing in the moment the right way of acting.

According to masters of rhetoric it is impossible to teach a general way to identify these moments and the right methods of action - so we must turn inwards and go back to our intuition, and really become good at listening to our own internal voice.

This is the path to being water.

"Don't make a plan of fighting
that is a very good way to lose your teeth
if you try to remember you will lose
Empty your mind
be formless
shapeless
like water
put water into a cup
becomes the cup
put water into a teapot
becomes the teapot
water can flow or creep or drip or crash
be water my friend"

Here is the video of Bruce (on the blog here):

Video: 4 Types of Audience

I have prepared a series of short videos for my IESE courses this year. This is a 3 minute video outlining the 4 attitudes that an audience will have towards you as a speaker and how to approach each of these 4 types of audience. (The video is here on my blog).




I wrote about the four types of audience back in December on this blog.  There is a greater discussion of the approach to dealing with a hostile audience in that post that the material covered in the video.

The four types of audience attitude are:

1. Friendly
2. Apathetic
3. Uninformed
4. Hostile

Over to you
Do you think about the attitude of people that you communicate with on a regular basis?  What category are employees in when you speak to them as a manager?  What category are teenagers in?  How do you deal with apathy in an audience?

The Persuasive Communication and Public Speaking Blogs that I read

These are the Persuasive Communication and Public Speaking blogs that I have up top in my Google Reader RSS feed.  This is my small way of giving thanks for the great material that this group regularly contribute to the public domain of the blogosphere (do we still call it that?).

I regularly read and learn from:

• Olivia Mitchell's Speaking about Presenting blog (RSS)
• Nick Morgan's Public Words blog (RSS)
• Andrew Dlugan's  Six minutes speaking and presenting blog  (Andrew has an extensive list of public speaking blogs here) (RSS)
• Max Atkinson's Jottings on Speaking blog (RSS)
• Jane Atkinson's The wealthy speaker blog (RSS)
• Travis Dahle's Communication blog (RSS)
• John Zimmer's Manner of Speaking blog (RSS)
• Martin Shovel's Creativity Works blog (RSS)
• Kare Anderson's Say it Better blog (RSS)
• Florian Mueck's Seven Minute Star blog (RSS)

Tom Peters says "you must out-read the competition".  These blogs are an inexpensive way to start out-reading the competition.

What blogs am I missing out on?  Are there other blogs on persuasive communications that are powerful resources for you?

How to deal with the Blows that Life Gives Us

Life often delivers unexpected blows.

How we deal with sudden shocks shapes our experience of life.

How do you handle the negative shocks?

• You lose a treasured item. How does it affect you?
• You are out driving...  you have a flat tire.  How does it affect you?
• You are waiting for a train...  and it is cancelled.  How does it affect you?
• Your friend cancels a dinner you were looking forward to.  How do you feel?
• The air traffic controllers go on strike and your wonderful weekend away is cancelled.  How does it affect you?

I came across George Leonard, author of 15 books and a teacher of the discipline of Aikido.  In the video below he speaks of 4 possible ways to respond to the sudden shocks in life.  He looks at 3 typical human ways of responding, and then demonstrates the Aikido path of response.



The four ways of responding that are demonstrated by George Leonard:

1. Defensive/Aggressive - respond to the blow with anger and a direct attack.
2. Victim - respond to the blow as a victim "Poor me, this always happens to me".
3. Denial - respond to the blow as if nothing happened.  "I feel nothing, I will go on as I am."
4. Aikido Blending - respond to the blow by centering myself, really feeling how the blow affects me, accepting the blow, accepting my feelings and then acting once I have blended the energy of the external blow with my own.

I have been researching the concept of mastery recently. What does it take to achieve excellence in a domain? In a sport, playing the piano, writing, speaking?

George Leonard's book "Mastery" is based on the Aikido approach to developing the mental and physical aspects of excellence. He speaks of the 5 keys to mastery.  That will be a future blog post.  His first step:  Find a teacher.  I find myself uncomfortable with this...  Is it true that the first step to mastery is finding a teacher?  I don't know if I agree...

How you do Anything is How you do Everything

Two months ago, I was at IESE business school with Verne Harnish and his wife Julie.  We were talking about entrepreneurial success and achievement.  He shared with me a quote that comes from his father-in-law:

"How you do anything is how you do everything."

Verne's father-in-law has apartments that he rents out.  What criteria does he use to identify good tenants?  How does he decide to whom he will rent out his apartments?

Detail from the Alhambra Palace in
Granada, Spain credit Pim Fijneman 

When somebody comes to view one of his properties, he takes the time to look at that person's car.  Are the tires in good condition?  Is the paintwork in good shape?  Is the inside of the car in good condition?  Is it clean?  If the person takes good care of their car, he knows they will take good care of his apartment.  He rents his apartments to those who take good care of their cars.

"How you do anything is how you do everything."

Coach John Wooden, the most-winning-est coach having led the UCLA basketball team to 10 championships in 12 seasons, has 3 rules for his players:

1. Show up on time
2. Show up properly dressed
3. Show up shaved

His view is that if you can keep these simple things under control, you have the discipline to master the big things.  

"How you do anything is how you do everything."

My brother Aidan (it is worth reading his recent blog post "Winners are Made not Born", especially if you are a parent!) worked in investment banking for a decade.

When he first started he joined a team led by a gruff senior banker.  This senior banker gave my brother one simple task that he was to complete every morning before the 7:00am team meeting - he was to send out an email to the team with 6 market indicators calculated for the day.  My brother delivered this email before 7:00am every day for 2 years.  One day, the whole team had a late night.  Everybody was out late celebrating.

The next morning, my brother's email didn't arrive til a few minutes after 7:00am.  The gruff senior banker immediately said to him "Never let this happen again.  How can I trust you with clients, with million dollar trades, if I can't trust you with this task.  Never again. Understood?"  

I would have felt cruelly treated in this situation - "I deliver 400 times successfully and the one time I deliver 3 minutes late I get beaten up!"  But the message was very clear:

"How you do anything is how you do everything."

Sweat the details.

The little things count.

"We can do no great things, only little things with great love" Mother Teresa.

Have a great weekend.

Video: How to be more confident

The nice people at Virgin Media Pioneers asked me for some thoughts (in video) on the need for entrepreneurs to be confident, or at least appear confident.

"Authority is 20% given, 80% taken" Peter Ueberoth. Your confidence is a big part in getting others to treat you as a leader, to accept you as an authority.  I posted a couple of weeks ago a little article on  How to be more Confident and this video (here on the blog) is a summary of that post.




Over to you
Do you ever "pretend" to be more confident that you really feel inside?  Did it work?  Are there any other routes to confidence?  How about lots of practice?

Video: The 3 Pillars of Persuasion

I have prepared a series of short videos for my IESE courses this year. This is a 3 minute video describing Aristotle's Rhetorical Triad, the 3 pillars of persuasion. You need to connect with an audience on each of these three levels if you wish to move them to action. (The video is here on my blog).



The basic principles of persuasion were developed over hundreds of years in Ancient Greece and Rome by philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian. At the very heart of this development was Aristotle’s triad of logos, ethos and pathos. Aristotle’s innovation was to include “ethos”, or credibility, into the accepted approach to persuasion.

Over to you
Do you consider these three elements in your communication?  Do you use them in emails, letters, presentations, negotiations and prepared speeches?  What ways do you demonstrate credibility?