In this workshop segment, Evan Carmichael walks entrepreneurs through two critical components of a compelling business pitch. First, he explains Step 4 – “Spice It Up” – where a one‑sentence hook is enhanced with a specific, funny, guaranteed, or award‑based element that resonates with the target audience. He provides concrete examples (24‑hour availability, a humorous mother‑phone‑number guarantee, a 110 % money‑back promise, and notable awards) and an exercise for participants to craft their own spicy sentence. Next, he outlines Step 5 – the full pitch formula – combining the audience’s frustration, the relief offered, and the spicy sentence into a concise, memorable statement, illustrated with his own brand‑pitch example. He then shifts to creating a 100‑word bio, emphasizing the blend of unique business achievements and personal details (hobbies, quirks, goals) to humanize the founder and capture attention quickly. He demonstrates his own 99‑word bio, breaks down its structure, and offers a step‑by‑step process: list unique business facts, add personal traits, combine, then edit down to ~100 words. Throughout, he stresses practice, iteration, and seeking feedback, encouraging participants to submit their pitches and bios for review.
Chapters
Number 4, spice it up. So again, even if you just do the first 3 steps, you're way better than 99% of the entrepreneurs out there who are talking about themselves. Next up though is I want to create a memorable and lasting impression on my target audience. Doesn't have to be something that everybody will understand or be really excited about, but it should be something that your target audience will really care deeply about. So you want to leave a one-sentence lasting impression on them, so we want to spice it up. So there are a couple of ways to do it. Something really specific, so the only company that's available by phone 24 hours a day, whatever, some kind of stat that you can put on there. If service and availability is a big issue in your industry, then if you're the company who is available 24 hours a day, you want to put that in. That's something that's memorable to your target audience. If it's going into industry where everybody does that, then that shouldn't be your spice it up because it's not interesting. Everybody does it. So something specific. The next, something funny that doesn't offend anybody but is a humorous way to get your point across. So again, if it's something around service, you know, I'll give you my mother's phone number and if we don't deliver, you can call her. It could be a funny way to be able to get people again to remember your message, and that would be something saying that if service is a really important factor for your customers and everybody's coming in and saying, "We'll provide the best service," you're going to give them your mom's phone number, so you better provide good service. Next, guarantee. So some kind of guarantee is great. It reduces the risk, makes people want to do it more often with you. So, you know, on time or 110% of your money back, not just 100%, 110%, and you'll find almost nobody takes this up. The people who do returns, even if you're giving them more than what they paid for, is tiny, tiny, tiny, but you'll see that the people who will sign up because of it goes up dramatically. So something you could test out. It may not be a money-back guarantee, but some kind of guarantee, again, that would be interesting for your target audience. And then some kind of example, so number one rated according to, you know, whatever magazine, newspaper that you've been featured in, or some award awards that you've won, some example that you can show that backs up whatever claim that you're making. The point of this step 4, spice it up, is to take everything that we've already said and add something a little more memorable to it. So again, it's easy to think, is this for me? And I can easily pass it on to everybody else. We face— we're bombarded constantly with messaging from people that we're meeting or advertisements, and so it's hard. To remember everything. Things get thrown out. So you need to have something that will leave a lasting impression. So your exercise, fill in the blank, my spicy sentence to make my message memorable is. And again, it doesn't have to be interesting for everybody, but something interesting for your target audience. So then we put it all together. So this is our step 5, and hopefully you guys will all do this as you go back after this workshop. I or we help the type of people, step 1, who are frustrated with whatever the frustration is, then you explain why, what relief you offer, and then you finalize with your spicy sentence. So here is one for me, this is what I use when I am pitching brands. We work a lot with big brands who are trying to target entrepreneurs. We help brands that sell to small businesses like TELUS and American Express who are Frustrated with their online marketing? Build communities with massive engagement. Guarantee at least 10,000 people to your site with each post that we create. That is short, specific, clearly explains who I'm marketing to, and for my audience, that works very well. So yes, they could sit down with me for 10 minutes and I could explain what I do, but it's really hard to get that message across quickly, so you want to come up with this, and this is on our on our page that promotes this service, it's right there at the top, bold, easy to see. People read that and they quickly make a decision, is this for me or not? And if it is, then they are interested to learn more and will read down on the page. And if they're not, at least we've left an impression that they might be able to pass this on to more business. So this is my example, and hopefully you can use it to match up with your business. And when you're writing in to tell people what you do, or if you're writing to me to tell me what you do, I want to see this kind of format. And I actually encourage you, if you guys go through this step, send me an email with this of what you guys do, and I want to, I want to see it, and I'll give you some feedback on it too. I think that'd be pretty cool to also learn about what you guys are doing, and in a way that I can quickly understand and know if maybe I could use your services, or at least maybe refer somebody on to you. So that's a challenge for those of you who want to take me up. I'd love to see those come in. So quickly there, and then practice. So for this, does it accurately explain your business? Hopefully it's yes. Is it memorable? And is it really memorable? Is this something that if you go back and you look at it next week, does it still really reflect what you're doing? Is it something that people are going to remember? And if a complete stranger said this to you, would you be curious to learn more? And as you practice it, it will get better. It may not be exactly what you write out, but it will get better each time you practice. Your first pitch is never as good as your most recent pitch, but it will get better each time you go through it. So the key step is to start and use that kind of formula to get you through it. Now quickly, I also want to talk about creating your 100-word bio. And for this, this is really important because we want to, again, as I talked before, talk about our story, talk about how we started it, and let people know who we are. I think as people are trying to decide if they are going to buy a product or service, they will look at the company's website and they will look in the about, and they will try to learn about who the people are behind this product or service. The more expensive it is, the more they are going to do their research. And you want to be able to tell your story really quickly. And you can have a longer version of it, but you want a quick story to be able to show people what it is that you do and why you do it. Something interesting that hooks people in. This will also be really important if you are doing any kind of media, because they are also going to want to know a quick bio about you that they can include with any mention that they create of you. So a couple of steps to this. One, what makes your business unique? So what is it about your company? This ties back to the steps we have already talked about. What is it that makes that makes your business unique, something you're super passionate about, if you've won any kind of awards that you're proud of that people would recognize, if there's other milestones that you're proud of, if it's a revenue figure or a customer figure, something that you're really, really proud of, not fluffy, just put it in there, but things that really kind of get you going. And if you have any big company goals, if you haven't achieved much yet, you can say, "Here's my goal, I'd like to accomplish this." Then you can put that into your your statements as well. So right now we're just putting a whole bunch of statements down and we're eventually going to shorten it down. Step 2 is what makes you unique. People want to buy from people again, so you have to show some personality. You can leverage yourself and really make that a difference maker because nobody else in your industry will be able to copy you, right, and your uniqueness. So what hobbies do you have? You have to put in some hobbies in there. If you want marital status, how many years, if you have a family or not, some of your favorites, sports team, food, music, books, movie, travel, whatever it is, something that you really like doing, any accomplishments you're really proud of that you've gone through, or any personal goals that you're really proud of. And again, from here I just start writing things out, point form sentences, and then we'll eventually work to shorten it down. But I want to make sure that in your bio you're talking not just about your company. which is what most people do. They just talk about their professional success or their professional history and where they went to school maybe, but they don't talk about any of the personal side, and I think they're really missing out on an opportunity because if you see anything on there that you can relate to, then you have a much better chance of being able to close that customer and create a relationship with them even though you don't know anything about them yet, but they feel like they know you, and that's a big advantage. Step 3, combine them, so mix up the personal and business points. Try to get them into one paragraph. It's probably going to be over 100 words to start. From there, you want to shorten it down. So take out the stuff that you're not as proud of. You want to keep the meat in there that you're most proud and passionate about, and you think will spark a reaction. And then the idea here is to get it to 100 words. What I like about 100 words is it's short, it's easy to read, it quickly gives somebody an impression of what they're looking for. If somebody comes to your website and they click on the About, they don't want to read pages and pages of what you've done, right? Most people won't. Quick, 100 words gets the idea across, and if they want to have more information, if they want your full resume and everything you've done, and that might be required for some jobs you're going after, that's fine, you can give it to them, but most people want it quick and easy, and I think If you think about your experience, if you're looking up a company, you want to just get a quick idea of who's behind it, and 100 words is enough to do it. Try not to go too far over. So this is about me. Now this is on my About page, so if you go to my homepage and you click on my face, there will be a link to my About page, and this is how I open it up. It says, "About Evan in 99 Words." This quickly explains who I am, so I'll read it out quickly for you guys if you haven't seen it already. Evan Carmichael helps entrepreneurs. At 19, he built then sold a biotech software company. At 22, he was a venture capitalist helping raise between $500,000 and $15 million. He now runs EvanCarmichael.com, one of the world's most popular websites for entrepreneurs. His goal is to help 1 billion entrepreneurs. He has helped set 2 world records, worked 20 hours per week, uses a stand-up desk, rides a Vespa, raised funds for Kiva, and helped create a line of entrepreneur trading cards. He graduated from the University of Toronto and enjoys salsa dancing, being a DJ, and the Toronto Blue Jays. So I started off very professional, talked about my background, pulled out some numbers and some stats that I thought might be interesting for people, shared what I do now, and also, you know, my goal for what I want to accomplish with the Billion Entrepreneurs. And then the second half is all personal stuff, hobbies, things that I do, personality traits, some things that how I run my company, about the, you know, how many hours I work and stand up desk. It's business related, but more what I want to do. And so that, you know, somewhere in there there's something that tweets people. Almost always there's something in there that people want to talk about. And that's great. I want to get that discussion going. I want people to come to this, read it, and want to learn more and be more curious. The more time they spend learning about me and wanting to find out more and asking questions, the more likely they're going to want to hire me for whatever services or buy whatever products. So as much as possible, you want to try to do something similar. I wanted to give you this example. I kept it at 99 words instead of 100, whatever. I thought it was good to be under the 100 number, but have something like that, you know, about your name in 100 words or 99 words, whatever it is. Something short, sweet, easy to understand, easy to, you know, pick out something from there that people can relate to, or at least cause some curiosity, and you're way ahead of most people who just put the formal bio of how long they have been in the business, and boring, right? Most people are going to be bored of that, so you want to make it easy to understand and exciting for people. Back to that shirt on the last page, "Wake me when you get to the point," right? That's going to be for most people, so you want to make it quick and easy to understand. So that leaves us— how many more minutes? 10 minutes, maybe a couple extra, probably give it to us to ask questions.
