How to Master Your Business Pitch | 12 Minutes to Success

Hey, it's Evan Carmichael. I've been getting a lot of your questions and I'm slowly and slowly falling behind on my ability to answer everything in a timely manner. And so I thought, why don't I combine a whole bunch of these videos together and, and we'll see how it goes. So I'm going to answer a lot of your questions in this one video for the Ask Evan Show #1. And let me know what you guys think about the format, if we should keep it, dump it, or do something else. Leave a comment. Okay, so let's kick it off. Let's start it off. First question from Dulosz180: Good stuff. Don't ever stop the success stories. I love them. Do you have anything on Mark Burnett? I don't have anything on Mark Burnett yet, but it's a great story. I've read his book. I don't remember what it's called, but it's a great book. And I think you should watch the channel because something soon might be coming on Mark Burnett. Next up, Linda B asks, Evan, this is off topic, but can you make a video about how you make your videos? Like which camera and lights you use, how you make the white screen, etc. That would be really great. Thank you in advance if you can do it, and also thank you for your videos in general. Thank you, Linda. I've done a number of videos explaining how I do my setup. It's really not that complicated. I use— when I'm doing just audio, I use my Yeti microphone here that I bought at the Mac Store. When I'm hooked right into the camera, I use a clip mic that I bought from the Sony store for $90. My camera— I started off with various cameras from Costco because they had a long return policy. It was within 30 days you could return it. And eventually outgrew that, and now I use a Canon camera. I forget which one it is, but I've talked about it on my other videos. You know what? I'm going to take a picture. Smile. For the white background, I just use a white wall in my house. So my office, my home office, I got a white wall. I just stand up against that and I use natural light. I turn off all the lights that I have in the room. I have a big window. You want to just do it, video, so that you're facing the window. Here in this room, I've got a light in front of me and I've got a light beside me, kind of behind me, so it creates a little bit of a shadow on this side, but it's okay. Just don't stand with your back towards the light or it's going to come out really poorly. One thing that I want to remind you guys, if you're starting off doing video, don't go out and just buy all the gear, okay? I've got the tripod, the two microphones now, the nice camera that costs about $2,000, but start with this. Start with this. Start with this. Start with the laptop camera, right? It doesn't have to cost it doesn't cost you anything, make sure you love it, make sure you're having— you're getting results from it before you start investing money into anything. Because you can easily spend tons of money on it and not get any return, and your camera and all your gear sits there in a corner. So I made sure that I was loving the videos, and I made— I don't know how many— hundreds of videos, 800 videos maybe, before I even invested into this camera. So you have to make sure that you're getting a lot of results out of it. Next up is Daniel, who writes in to say, "The video is perfect. I just subscribed to your channel." Thank you, Daniel. "I'd like to ask, how do I find an angel investor? I went to different websites like Goos.com and others, but I'm afraid to share my business idea, which is not an idea anymore, but I'm afraid because anybody with little money can do it. I know it's going to be very successful because it's unique." Anybody can do it, but it's unique. "And the mission is amazing, which is donating part of the profits to help children around the world." buying school supplies for education. So it's a social entrepreneurial business. So based on this, where do you think I can find the right angel investor? Thanks. So Daniel, first of all, we got to get really clear on your pitch. You start talking to angel investors, you got to be really specific, right? You're saying anybody can do this, but it's unique. So you're giving me a little bit of heartburn listening to you here with your pitch. Okay, listen, the reality of angel investors, most of them work through informal networks. They're not going to be on websites. They're not going to be advertising their profile because they're going to get bombarded. You got to remember most angel investors, they have full-time jobs, right? They're dentists, they're doctors, they're lawyers, they're entrepreneurs. They have their own businesses, right? So they don't want to be inundated. So they usually work through their informal networks. They work through their lawyers. They work with their accountants. Those are the people who you want to connect with. Their financial advisors, if you're dealing with high net worth individuals. These are the guys who you want to reach out to The first angel I met through my dentist, and he connected me to other angels and other angels. And so you want to start talking to everybody, right? You want to start talking to anybody who has those connections in. Use your informal networks, and they'll start introducing you to people. But you got to, you got to, you got to make this pitch better. You got to wow me. The social aspect is great, but it's not enough. I got to know a little bit more about what your business is all about. And yeah, I mean, you want to pitch an angel investor, you got to be super specific, you got to be super clear, and the best way to reach out is through your local network. All right, next up, Edward Suarez, who's one of my YouTube viewers, writes in to say, hey Evan, my name is Edward Suarez. I'm a 20-year-old college student on a small island in the Pacific called Guam. I really want to start up a laser tag business on my beautiful little island, Guam is a small family-oriented island economically driven by the tourism business. Locals and tourists would love the experience of it all. There are no laser tag facilities on the island, so the laser tag market is nonexistent, and I have a great burning passion to build it. But the only way to do so is to acquire a small business loan from a local bank. I have no assets, but I believe that the profitability of a laser tag business would be incredible. It's a small island with very little things to do. We've been around the same malls and entertainment facilities for many years. Should I take the risk or wait for better circumstances? Thank you for your time, Sir Edward. So great question. If nobody's doing it, it's a warning sign. Some people see it as an opportunity, but I see it as a warning sign because if there are great opportunities, you're probably going to see people jumping on them in some way or another. Now I hate jumping into businesses on a loan. It's scary. You don't want to be risking your entire future on this one idea, and if it doesn't work out, then what happens? And you have no assets. Like, you're not starting from a great place. What I would try to do is think of how can I start this business for as low cost as possible, ideally no cost. How can you start up a partnership with somebody so you can get this started with no cost? But think about how can you do it without a location? Without staff to start it up, right? So you just have the equipment, you just have the actual laser tag guns. Can you partner up with another local business? Can they provide you with the space? Can somebody even provide you with some of the funding if you're going to be running it so you're not putting your own outlay of cash? This I don't see as a tourist attraction, right? I could do laser tag here, I'm not going to come to Guam. If I'm going to Guam, I'm not doing laser tag. So you got to be something— it's got to be selling to locals. So I'd be looking at, can I get enough locals? Maybe you can even pre-sell it, right? Can you go to enough locals and say, hey, we're selling memberships for this laser tag thing, and if you get 100 memberships at X amount of dollars, that provides you with the financing to go out there and get the equipment? And then you make a partnership with some local business or hall or whatever it is to use their space or do special events. And then build yourself up. But it's really scary when I hear entrepreneurs say, "I need to take out a loan to get equipment and pay for staff and get a location." That's a lot of dollars, and if you've never done this before and you have no, you know, track record, experience, momentum behind you, then the chances of you failing are going to be pretty high, and it may take time for you to be able to build up to get, you know, to the point where you're pivoting and figuring out what the right model is for this. It's going to take you a little bit of time, and so you don't want to run out of cash. On that path. So figure out a way to start this without spending money. Spend a lot of hustle, put in your energy, but not spending money. If you can get that off the ground and get people to support you, then I think you could be on to something. If you're really super passionate about laser tag, then let that show through everything that you're doing. Next up is another YouTube viewer, Shafiq, who wrote in to say, "Sometimes it's easy to decide but very difficult or lazy to act on. My question is, How to get energy, motivation to make a decision and turn your dreams into reality? For example, to study hard and so on. Thanks for the answer, Shafiq. This is the eternal question for a lot of entrepreneurs. Motivation is one of those things that you have to schedule in. You have to figure out a plan for it every single day because one day you might be super high, you know, you might come out of a meeting, you might come out of seminar, feeling excited, you read a book, you watched a video, you're on top of the world, you're ready to go, you're killing it, you landed that deal, you're so excited, you're pumped up, and then the next day you wake up and you're starting all over again from scratch and you feel like, where did my energy go? What happened? And it's such an emotional roller coaster being an entrepreneur that you need to schedule in and create a You need to design your environment to support you as an entrepreneur. So what I would do is, especially in that early days, like when you first wake up, the first part of the morning, what is your schedule? What is your routine? What do you do to surround yourself with that supportive environment? So the music you listen to, you know, the first thing that you check in the morning, whatever task you're working on should be something that inspires and motivates you. Remembering what your big why is. Your life-changing goal, your big purpose, your passion, whatever it is. Remembering the little whys, which are people that you've helped recently, small wins that you've had in your business. All of those things help. And for me, I remember when I was first starting up my first business, it was a software company. I'm making $300 a month, barely surviving, not even surviving. How do I get up every day and go to work and be excited and be happy and be motivated? What really helped me was one, having stories of famous entrepreneurs that I would read regularly and reading about Bill Gates and how he started and how he had nothing and how he was in software. And then other people who are outside my field, if it's Oprah Winfrey or Richard Branson and these stories, you look at how they started and it was nothing. People like people like you and me started with nothing and turned their dreams into reality and built businesses that they can hang their hat on and say, "I made this. I'm really proud of what I just did." That was inspiring for me because these guys weren't handed their success. They made it on their own. So that combined with the little wins of reminding myself of all the people I've helped and the conversations I've had where people said, "Thank you so much, Evan." This is really helping me in my life or in my work, or, or what you said helped change my path. Those things really excited me and motivated me. So you have to remember the big why, right? Why you're doing this, why it's important. The little why, the people that you're supporting, the small wins that you've had. Create a routine that supports you in the morning. Surround yourself with things that inspire and motivate you. And it's, it's a daily challenge. It's a daily struggle. Every day you wake up and it's a new opportunity to motivate yourself to go out and chase your dreams. And anybody who says it's easy just hasn't gone through it. So that's it for Ask Evan #1. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment below. You like the format? You don't like the format? Let me know. And subscribe to the channel to see more videos like this. Thank you guys so much for watching. I'll see you soon. Don't forget to check out my newsletter. Click the link below. Hi, I'm Jason J. 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