I had a great day today at the enVision conference put on by the Commerce Students' Association at the University of Toronto. I observed workshops on team-building and crisis-management in the morning, and then I got to deliver a lunchtime keynote speech on "Entrepreneurial Vision".
Most of my presentations are tactical: how to market smarter, 10 ways to fix your business, that sort of thing. Today I only had 15-20 minutes, so I went for more of a motivational message.
Students today really are graduating into an exciting world of unbounded opportunity. There are no limits to what they can do, and incredible new tools with which to succeed. As Internet marketing guru Seth Godin told me in an interview the other day, “If someone had sat down 15 years ago and said, 'How can we create an atmosphere that’s conducive to startups?', what they would have come up with is what we have today.”
So I tried to equip these students with the key entreprenurial attributes they will need to take advantage of all these opportunities - whether they end up in big business or small. I called these attributes "Entrepreneurial Vision," and offered five examples of what that means.
1. Superman can see through walls with his X-ray vision. Entrepreneurial Vision enables you to see around corners and into the future, so you know what’s coming.
2. Like a Blackberry, entrepreneurial vision is "always on," so you are aware of trends, patterns and connections nobody else has noticed yet.
3. Entrepreneurial vision means looking at problems in three dimensions: how things are, how they might be, and how to get them there. Some people look at climate change, for instance, and despair. Others see it as a huge opportunity to find new solutions, to transform people’s thinking, to find new ways of recycling, or getting to work, or harnessing the sun.
4. Entrepreneurial vision is reflective. It lets you see yourself truly, with all your limitations, so that you can acknowledge what kinds of help you need – from people to know-how or financial resources - and know where to find them.
5. Entrepreneurial vision lets you see your objective so clearly that you can vividly describe it to others to get their support. This is essential, as entrepreneurs don't do it all themselves. They succeed by getting other people – partners, employees, suppliers, investors, and most of all customers – to share their vision of how things could be.
May your Entrepreneurial Vision be 20-20.
Showing posts with label speaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speaking. Show all posts
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Don't Undersell Yourself!
I got some valuable feedback from a client recently on my speaking style. And I’m wondering if it could help you, too.
“Don't undersell yourself,” I was told. Essentially, her message was: You have good information. Don't back into it. Don't waste time explaining it. Just get into it.
Like many entrepreneurs, I’m a naturally modest type. It’s a habit hard to break. And to an extent, modesty is good. It implies the opposite of bombast and hype, which every Canadian entrepreneur can spot a mile (okay, 1.6 kilometres) away.
But sometimes – especially when you are speaking or presenting as an expert – a little hype is expected. It shows confidence in yourself and your material. It gets people revved for your information.
Of course, you don't want to oversell your message. But underselling it can be problematic, too.
You should already have a 10-second introduction about you and what you do that highlights why you are an expert in your field. Follow the same formula in your presentations: let people know what your information can do for them, and why you're the best person to present it to them. Don't brag.
Just make the truth sparkle.
“Don't undersell yourself,” I was told. Essentially, her message was: You have good information. Don't back into it. Don't waste time explaining it. Just get into it.
Like many entrepreneurs, I’m a naturally modest type. It’s a habit hard to break. And to an extent, modesty is good. It implies the opposite of bombast and hype, which every Canadian entrepreneur can spot a mile (okay, 1.6 kilometres) away.
But sometimes – especially when you are speaking or presenting as an expert – a little hype is expected. It shows confidence in yourself and your material. It gets people revved for your information.
Of course, you don't want to oversell your message. But underselling it can be problematic, too.
You should already have a 10-second introduction about you and what you do that highlights why you are an expert in your field. Follow the same formula in your presentations: let people know what your information can do for them, and why you're the best person to present it to them. Don't brag.
Just make the truth sparkle.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Report from Vancouver
The SOHO/Small Business conference in Vancouver yesterday was a huge hit, with folks lining up for the trade show all day long, and standing-room-only in the seminar halls. People seemed really happy with SOHO's combination of motivation and information, and they gave closing speaker Peter Legge a standing ovation after he challenged everyone in the room to live their "Olympic dream." 
[Speaking of which, probably few Canadians outside BC are paying attention, but the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are going to be huge. Most of the formal business opportunities (e.g. licensing and contracts) have long since been locked up, but there are many other niches - accommodation, hospitality, communications, security, etc. - for hungry entrepreneurs to fill. The opportunities are many and varied - London Drugs was even selling Hallowe'en-themed 2010 Winter Olympics pins! For $9.99, no less. )
Thanks to a sponsorship from Visa Canada, my contribution to the SOHO conference was a presentation on "10 Ways to Fix Your Business Now." I even cited some local case studies from BC firms I have studied recently (such as City Express, Coastal Contacts and MediaWave Communications).
For posterity's sake, here are my 10 Fixes:
No. 1. De-commoditize your business. Distinguish yourself from the competition by finding new opportunities to add value to your traditional products and services.
No. 2: Get out and talk to your market. Become the Ed ("How'm I doing?") Koch of your industry.
No. 3: Adapt to the Web 2.0 world of burgeoning communications technologies.
No. 4: Make the Internet work for you.
No. 5: Jump into pay-per-click advertising. Now.
No. 6: Set up an advisory board for your business.
No. 7: Invite your banker to lunch. If the economy weakens, you need someone at your bank on your side.
No. 8: Add creativity to your HR skills. Innovate with talent-focused techniques such as group interviews and Try Before You Buy.
No. 9: Leverage your resources by making constant and strategic use of partnerships.
No. 10: Well, I cheat a little here. I ask members of the audience to break into groups of two to share fixes they have made (or are thinking of making) in their business. It's very powerful - the buzz in the room almost raised the roof.
When I finally reasserted control, I asked the audience to share the fix stories they had just heard from their partners. (I figure most people would rather brag on behalf of someone else than for themselves.) Congratulations to Leanne, who told us about her partner's decision to involve his entire management team in strategic planning. What a great fix that will be!
For her contribution, Leanne won a rare copy of my (still available on Amazon) book, Secrets of Success from Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies.
[Speaking of which, probably few Canadians outside BC are paying attention, but the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are going to be huge. Most of the formal business opportunities (e.g. licensing and contracts) have long since been locked up, but there are many other niches - accommodation, hospitality, communications, security, etc. - for hungry entrepreneurs to fill. The opportunities are many and varied - London Drugs was even selling Hallowe'en-themed 2010 Winter Olympics pins! For $9.99, no less. )
Thanks to a sponsorship from Visa Canada, my contribution to the SOHO conference was a presentation on "10 Ways to Fix Your Business Now." I even cited some local case studies from BC firms I have studied recently (such as City Express, Coastal Contacts and MediaWave Communications).
For posterity's sake, here are my 10 Fixes:
No. 1. De-commoditize your business. Distinguish yourself from the competition by finding new opportunities to add value to your traditional products and services.
No. 2: Get out and talk to your market. Become the Ed ("How'm I doing?") Koch of your industry.
No. 3: Adapt to the Web 2.0 world of burgeoning communications technologies.
No. 4: Make the Internet work for you.
No. 5: Jump into pay-per-click advertising. Now.
No. 6: Set up an advisory board for your business.
No. 7: Invite your banker to lunch. If the economy weakens, you need someone at your bank on your side.
No. 8: Add creativity to your HR skills. Innovate with talent-focused techniques such as group interviews and Try Before You Buy.
No. 9: Leverage your resources by making constant and strategic use of partnerships.
No. 10: Well, I cheat a little here. I ask members of the audience to break into groups of two to share fixes they have made (or are thinking of making) in their business. It's very powerful - the buzz in the room almost raised the roof.
When I finally reasserted control, I asked the audience to share the fix stories they had just heard from their partners. (I figure most people would rather brag on behalf of someone else than for themselves.) Congratulations to Leanne, who told us about her partner's decision to involve his entire management team in strategic planning. What a great fix that will be!
For her contribution, Leanne won a rare copy of my (still available on Amazon) book, Secrets of Success from Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Your No. 1 Business-Fixing Tip
The SOHO conference in Toronto on Tuesday (Oct. 16) seemed a raging success. Lots or people, lots of buzz, and some great comments from a panel of dynamic entrepreneurs: Ray Civello of CIVELLO Salon-Spa Group, Greg Taylor and Cam Heaps from Steam Whistle Brewing, and Kerry Knee of Flirty Girl Fitness.
(That last is a women’s fitness centre that apparently specializes in pole-dancing and similarly stripper-inspired exercises. It’s already opened a second outlet in Chicago, and more are to come – apparently.)
It’s what I've always said: there is no limit to the number of potential niches out there.
I spoke at the Visa Seminar room on “10 Ways to Fix Your Business Now.” (I’ll be doing a similar presentation at SOHO Vancouver on Oct. 30, so come on down!)
Most of the buzz afterward centred on “Fix No. 6”: Set up an advisory board.
As I said in my speech, “It’s probably the single most powerful step you can take to tune up your business and keep it running smoothly into the future.”
Most of my knowledge of this topic comes from work that I did with uber-preneur Greig Clark, founder of College Pro Painters. This summer we interviewed business owners across the country on the subject of advisory boards: who uses them, why, how they work, and how you can make them work better.
An advisory board is a group of experienced business people who meet regularly – often three or four times a year – to learn what’s going on in an entrepreneur’s business and offer their advice and feedback. The entrepreneurs we talked to pick their advisors’ brains on everything from hiring and firing people to finding new sales leads and dealing with their bank. Greig calls it “success insurance,” and indeed we have found several companies that have become major players in their industry because of the success of their advisory boards.
Your board can be as formal or informal as you want – friends who meet once in a while over coffee, or a rigorous watchdog group that advises on all aspects of operations. We found that every board is different – but we also found evidence that the more seriously you take your board, the more you work with them and the more you include them in your deliberations, the more benefit you're going to derive from their help and expertise.
What’s it cost? Some advisors work for free; some expect stock options or phantom stock, and others expect a flat fee for every meeting. But no one does it for the money. They join advisory boards if they like you and believe in your business and respect the other people on your board.
If you want more information on boards, we have distilled our research into a four-part series running in PROFIT Magazine. You can read Part 1, the advisory board primer, here. Future chapters will also be available online (or sooner on the newsstand).
(That last is a women’s fitness centre that apparently specializes in pole-dancing and similarly stripper-inspired exercises. It’s already opened a second outlet in Chicago, and more are to come – apparently.)
It’s what I've always said: there is no limit to the number of potential niches out there.
I spoke at the Visa Seminar room on “10 Ways to Fix Your Business Now.” (I’ll be doing a similar presentation at SOHO Vancouver on Oct. 30, so come on down!)
Most of the buzz afterward centred on “Fix No. 6”: Set up an advisory board.
As I said in my speech, “It’s probably the single most powerful step you can take to tune up your business and keep it running smoothly into the future.”
Most of my knowledge of this topic comes from work that I did with uber-preneur Greig Clark, founder of College Pro Painters. This summer we interviewed business owners across the country on the subject of advisory boards: who uses them, why, how they work, and how you can make them work better.
An advisory board is a group of experienced business people who meet regularly – often three or four times a year – to learn what’s going on in an entrepreneur’s business and offer their advice and feedback. The entrepreneurs we talked to pick their advisors’ brains on everything from hiring and firing people to finding new sales leads and dealing with their bank. Greig calls it “success insurance,” and indeed we have found several companies that have become major players in their industry because of the success of their advisory boards.
Your board can be as formal or informal as you want – friends who meet once in a while over coffee, or a rigorous watchdog group that advises on all aspects of operations. We found that every board is different – but we also found evidence that the more seriously you take your board, the more you work with them and the more you include them in your deliberations, the more benefit you're going to derive from their help and expertise.
What’s it cost? Some advisors work for free; some expect stock options or phantom stock, and others expect a flat fee for every meeting. But no one does it for the money. They join advisory boards if they like you and believe in your business and respect the other people on your board.
If you want more information on boards, we have distilled our research into a four-part series running in PROFIT Magazine. You can read Part 1, the advisory board primer, here. Future chapters will also be available online (or sooner on the newsstand).
Thursday, September 06, 2007
5 Rules for Better Communication in a Web 2.0 World -- Part II
Earlier I posted about my speech in Burlington, Ont. on Sept. 4 on “Communicating in a Web 2.0 World.” Here’s the takeaway from that session: five tips for getting noticed and communicating more effectively in a world where everyone is talking at once.
1. Know your customer. If you're going to reach the greatest number of customers and prospects, you have to know who they are and what their media habits are.
We know that more than 70% of car buyers do research on the Internet before they visit a dealership. How do your customers seek out information? Are they reading ads in the paper, searching on Google, or reading blogs? Are they talking with friends on FaceBook, or over the back fence? Would they read your blog, would they subscribe to an email newsletter, would they respond to a contest for the best home-made video of someone trying out your product?
2. Get people’s attention! When you know what you want to say, say it well. Stand out. Be lively, be interesting, be fun. Don't hold back. And never, ever be boring.
Most ads, most brochures, most website copy is dull. Boring. Written by people who didn't understand people’s needs to be entertained, amused, teased and intrigued. Take a chance, hire a marketer, and find a way to be dazzling, fascinating, habit-forming.
3. Make it easy for your audience to find you. Archive all your ads, your press releases, your product specs or announcements, your newsletters. Get an SEO specialist to give your site more Google juice (i.e., a higher ranking on the search engines). Trade links with other businesses. Put your URL in your ads and n your business cards, let people know where to find your blogs, newsletters or limited-time coupons. If your market can't find you, it doesn't matter what you're saying.
4. Overuse the word “You.” Have your customers and their needs in mind at all times. Don't talk about your products or services – talk about how your products and services solve their problems. Get over yourself and put the customer and his or her needs at the centre of all you do.
5. Experiment. There is no one fix for every business. If blogging isn’t for you, maybe you'll make a splash with YouTube videos or pay-per-click advertising. If newspaper ads work for you, stick with them, but experiment with interactive elements that help you build your database and communicate with more customers directly.
Above all, ask your customers what they're listening to, what they're reading, how they're using the net. That's how you can focus on the best opportunities for your business to stand out, be heard, and serve its customers better.
1. Know your customer. If you're going to reach the greatest number of customers and prospects, you have to know who they are and what their media habits are.
We know that more than 70% of car buyers do research on the Internet before they visit a dealership. How do your customers seek out information? Are they reading ads in the paper, searching on Google, or reading blogs? Are they talking with friends on FaceBook, or over the back fence? Would they read your blog, would they subscribe to an email newsletter, would they respond to a contest for the best home-made video of someone trying out your product?
2. Get people’s attention! When you know what you want to say, say it well. Stand out. Be lively, be interesting, be fun. Don't hold back. And never, ever be boring.
Most ads, most brochures, most website copy is dull. Boring. Written by people who didn't understand people’s needs to be entertained, amused, teased and intrigued. Take a chance, hire a marketer, and find a way to be dazzling, fascinating, habit-forming.
3. Make it easy for your audience to find you. Archive all your ads, your press releases, your product specs or announcements, your newsletters. Get an SEO specialist to give your site more Google juice (i.e., a higher ranking on the search engines). Trade links with other businesses. Put your URL in your ads and n your business cards, let people know where to find your blogs, newsletters or limited-time coupons. If your market can't find you, it doesn't matter what you're saying.
4. Overuse the word “You.” Have your customers and their needs in mind at all times. Don't talk about your products or services – talk about how your products and services solve their problems. Get over yourself and put the customer and his or her needs at the centre of all you do.
5. Experiment. There is no one fix for every business. If blogging isn’t for you, maybe you'll make a splash with YouTube videos or pay-per-click advertising. If newspaper ads work for you, stick with them, but experiment with interactive elements that help you build your database and communicate with more customers directly.
Above all, ask your customers what they're listening to, what they're reading, how they're using the net. That's how you can focus on the best opportunities for your business to stand out, be heard, and serve its customers better.
Communicating in a Web 2.0 World – Part 1
How do businesses get noticed and heard in our noisy, overcrowded Web 2.0 world? That was the topic of a short presentation I made yesterday to a breakfast meeting of the Burlington Network Group, a business group that meets biweekly at the beautiful lakeside Water Street Cooker restaurant, in Burlington, Ont.
Web 2.0 of course refers to the whole gamut of creative new online communication tools and channels. In Web 1.0, you used the Internet to read stuff or order products and services. Today, Web 2.0 turns consumers into producers, by enabling anyone to interact with
websites, praise or critique products and services, blog, podcast, post videos, advertise or sell advertising, etc., etc. It even lets you create products for you or others to buy – such as the Canadian Entrepreneur coffee mug from CaféPress.com, which I handed out to a lucky audience member yesterday to salute their pioneering efforts at blogging.
Among the best tools for small business I cited blogs, search engine marketing, Linked-In and Facebook, and Google’s Adwords, the pay-per-click service that lets you target your advertising directly to qualified prospects – and in which you only pay for results (i.e., when someone clicks on your ad to learn more). It amazes me how many people don't know about this powerful product, and how cost-effective it can be.
As I said in my speech text (I spoke mainly from memory, so the actual wording varied):
“AdWords (along with its counterparts from Microsoft and Yahoo) is one of the best targeted marketing methods ever invented. Big businesses are using it more and more, and you should be looking into it too.”
Click here to learn more. And no, Google isn’t paying for this recommendation. I just think every entrepreneur must explore the potential of this medium.
And here’s the payoff: Advertisers can not only target their pay-per-click ads by topic and geographically, but you can also use it to test, test, test. If your copy doesn't sell – that is, it doesn't convince consumers to click on your ad - you don't pay a thing. So it provides free marketing lessons, which shuld interest any business that normally can't afford to test advertising variables. You can find out what copy works best, what headlines make people act, and which sites and keywords produce the most clickthroughs. And it’s so affordable - you can set your own prices and limit your maximum monthly spend.
I got a number of people to agree to look into Adwords this week. I hope you do, too.
In Part II: 5 Rules for Better Communication in a Web 2.0 World
Web 2.0 of course refers to the whole gamut of creative new online communication tools and channels. In Web 1.0, you used the Internet to read stuff or order products and services. Today, Web 2.0 turns consumers into producers, by enabling anyone to interact with
websites, praise or critique products and services, blog, podcast, post videos, advertise or sell advertising, etc., etc. It even lets you create products for you or others to buy – such as the Canadian Entrepreneur coffee mug from CaféPress.com, which I handed out to a lucky audience member yesterday to salute their pioneering efforts at blogging.Among the best tools for small business I cited blogs, search engine marketing, Linked-In and Facebook, and Google’s Adwords, the pay-per-click service that lets you target your advertising directly to qualified prospects – and in which you only pay for results (i.e., when someone clicks on your ad to learn more). It amazes me how many people don't know about this powerful product, and how cost-effective it can be.
As I said in my speech text (I spoke mainly from memory, so the actual wording varied):
“AdWords (along with its counterparts from Microsoft and Yahoo) is one of the best targeted marketing methods ever invented. Big businesses are using it more and more, and you should be looking into it too.”
Click here to learn more. And no, Google isn’t paying for this recommendation. I just think every entrepreneur must explore the potential of this medium.
And here’s the payoff: Advertisers can not only target their pay-per-click ads by topic and geographically, but you can also use it to test, test, test. If your copy doesn't sell – that is, it doesn't convince consumers to click on your ad - you don't pay a thing. So it provides free marketing lessons, which shuld interest any business that normally can't afford to test advertising variables. You can find out what copy works best, what headlines make people act, and which sites and keywords produce the most clickthroughs. And it’s so affordable - you can set your own prices and limit your maximum monthly spend.
I got a number of people to agree to look into Adwords this week. I hope you do, too.
In Part II: 5 Rules for Better Communication in a Web 2.0 World
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