Lunch & Learn - Session 13

Good morning from Indonesia. It's Jackie. And I wanted to say thank you so much for joining us for our lunch and learns these past few months. We are going to do a compilation of some of our fun segments that we've done, and then we'll also be with you this week and next before taking a short holiday break, December 24th and December 31st. Then we will pick back up on January 7th and resume the lunch and learns heading into the new year. So thank you so much for joining us for the ones you have, and please plan on joining us beginning January 7, 2026.

How do you take what you know now into pitches that you've been, you've been sitting in these for so long. How would you do a pitch differently now, your age, with your experience? I mean, what would you, like, tell your younger self in those pitch rooms? What questions would you ask now?

I mean, I think I would try to develop relationships with the people I'm pitching to before I did the pitch. If any, if nothing else, I would learn everything I possibly could about the group. I would ask, like, whoever was the leader of the group, who are these people? Where do they come from? How do they know each other? Like, I, I'm a speaker. I love to do keynotes. And one thing I always ask is, who's the audience? How old are they? What are they interested in? What are they excited about? How can I tailor my talk to your audience? Because what I'm trying to do is I want to connect with the audience. I want to give value to them. I want them to see my talk as, like, the best talk that's ever happened. And so how do I do that? The only way you can do that is to know your audience. And so I would do a ton of research on whoever and whatever. I'm always blown away by people who ask for advice, and they've never even looked the person up. So for me, I have a TED Talk now. You don't. Nobody has to watch the TED Talk. But I'm always like, I'm always shocked by people who are like, oh, I want to. I want to learn from you. I want to be mentored by you. And I'm like, have you read anything about me online? Have you watched any of the talks I've done? They're like, no. Like, okay, so your level of commitment is zero, but you're asking me for full commitment. And I think a lot of times founders do that, which is, I want you to give me your time, your energy, your effort, and your money. But I'm not going to do any investment in you. And I think, wow. So if I was to go back or if I was to tell any founder, it's like, no, understand the group, understand who they are, what they care about, or to your point, what are they normally invest in? If you're way outside their investment parameters, it might be a complete waste of your time to show up to that room because that's not the audience that you need to be pitching to. So I would do a lot more research and try, shoot, I'd go to the city and the restaurant and see if I could find them at the bar, for heaven's sakes. Like, I would ask my network, do you know anyone in this group that I can talk to beforehand so I can get an inside scoop on who these people are?

And one of the things that we talked about last week was just where revenue leaks out without even being noticed because it hides in success. So, for example, we talked about the founder's dilemma, and that's where there's. That what got them where they are. They were so confident and they, they ran with it and they knew what they were doing. But as they get more and more success, it gets harder and harder for them to step back and, and question what's been working. And that's like that real precipice where things can start going south without them even recognizing it. And so being aware that that's something that can happen with, with confidence versus validating strategies. And that's where if, if they go down a certain path, it may be working, but it might work better this way. And there might be a whole bunch of revenue left on the table because they just didn't ask the, the customers.

That they think oftentimes that the capital is the answer to solving the next level of problem. And when we start digging into it, the first is generally the capital they've already brought in, Whether it's their own capital or outside investors or bank financing, it's not even aligned with where they're trying to go. So it's like trying to build. We use Jenga as an example. So the base of the Jenga system, they've already pulled the pieces out from the bottom. So no matter what we do at the top, that piece is going to collapse. Right scenario. So that is an interesting talk.

Money doesn't fix bad habits. So when you have something maybe structurally or like what you're speaking about, Betsy, if you have misalignment there, money's not going to necessarily fix that. In many cases, what we've seen is capital can actually make it worse. It really highlight how big of a challenge this is. It can lead to regulatory challenges, to really significant structural challenges for the organization, potential litigation. So getting that, that is such a critical piece to growth outside of just getting capital. And we're not saying that that's the solution instead of capital. We're saying they go hand in hand.

Don't be afraid. If you're in front of an investor, don't be afraid to make your ass right away. Like, we're raising X amount of money so that we can tell this story, so that we can do this. And part of the so we can do this is to clean the oceans and get our investors in return. Because investors will want to know what's in it for them. If it's clean oceans, great. Some people are inspired by that. Other investors will want to know the numbers. Like, what's what? Yeah. What can we expect on what timeline here as far as getting our money back?

So you get your belt, your bulletproof speech down, you know, 28 seconds or better, then you have a one pager, but you generally don't leave that right away. You might do that, but that's a reason you follow up with them. You've already got them for the appointment, by the way, an email is only an activity. Getting the appointment is a result. That's the next result that you want. So sending an email and sending a proposal or sending your deck is a bad idea 100% of the time. 100% of the time, right. So you're like, hey, here's a little bit of something to tell you about it. But that executive summary generally is best when you come in. And you're going to leave that with them. So you made the presentation, you're going to give the executive summary. Because the whole point of doing that first presentation is to get the next date. Now, if they pull out their checkbook and they're ready to write the checkbook, don't say, no, no, no, we have to date again. You're like, yep, I'm getting married. There we go. If they feel like a good group, right?

If it's the right money.

If it's the right money. If it's right. But you've already done your homework on it, right? So it's the right money.

And I believed, because I was a high performer who would achieve the goals and do all the things that all who were looking to have an impact in the world operated under the same sort of operating system. Boy, was I Wrong. You want to talk about lose everything that you had just made very quickly. That was me because I looked at it from the opportunity and I looked at it from that. This is what I would do. And of course they're going to do that too. Of course.

Of course.

You know, I was somebody and I still am. I love people and that's why I stay in consulting and coaching is because I really the potential in people and love to get them to that next level or be a part of that journey. And so I had that innate belief and I just trusted the people and did not do people due diligence enough. Okay. Every failure that I have had to date has a first and a last name. Every one of them in investing, every one of them. And even, even along the way, I mean, like it was to the tune of almost $10 million of a loss. So it was a pretty big fail when.

Oh, that's. You're in the punctuation.

It was my first one.

Right?

It was my first one. And it's the, it's the one that you want to just throw up because you worked so hard to get to exit and you just like give it all back.

Here you go. Here you go.

Those first ones feel way bigger than your big losses because you've been seasoned like you've already. Once you've already gone through a big a failure that's sizable and size doesn't equate to dollar for a lot of times it's. It's the time of your life. It's where you took the missteps and then you get better at losing. You get better at making mistakes and accepting and taking the lesson and moving forward and applying what you need to know, like what you learn and take it forward and knowing that you can earn it back, knowing that you can make it back, knowing that you can. You've got the skills, you've done it once, you can do it bigger and better the next time.

So it is amazing with the technology that we have today, what we can find on people, including on people that think that they are extremely well hidden. And, you know, with things such as the doi, you know, where you have to divulge where it is, or your mailbox, you use a personal, you know, private mailbox drop company and now they want all your data in there. The government's really good about sleuthing around, just like Candace does to say, no, you can't hide anything more. And so it has become incredibly challenging to do that. However, I will start with one very basic thing. Most founders say, my company, most founders are more like conjoined twins with their business, or even one in the same, in that they believe they are one in the same in their business when it suits them. And then when a lawsuit comes up, they separate them or try to separate them. And that that includes not just businesses, it includes assets. So people will say, hey, this is my house. Oh, but it's actually held in a trust or an irrevocable trust, or better, you know, better yet, by an llc held by an irrevocable trust. And you're paying rent to it. Which, you know, within that scenario, we've even gone to points where it's like, no, you can't do that. It's like, yes, you can. Here's the legal ways that you do all these various pieces.