MBA1827 Why You Should Work On Your Pitch Even If You’re Self Funded + Free Ride Friday

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Traditionally or typically, people will work on a slide presentation, a slide deck to explain what their business is, what problem they're solving, the market they're in, the challenges they will face, and the potential of their business. They do this to raise money. They pitch to investors. They pitch to VC firms. They might even pitch to family and friends to get their initial capital to get their business up and running. And that's awesome. But I'm here to tell you, even if you're not looking to raise money, even if you are happy to be self funded, this exercise of pitching your business is vital to the success of your business. Why? Because you are selling. This is a sales exercise. And if you can't sell the concept of your business clearly, coherently, without rambling, without scrambling for words, it's going to be very hard for you to sell your products to strangers, to put together a sales page, to put together a marketing campaign. But more importantly, as you are working on your pitch and refining it, you might discover your product. Your business is not good enough. You need to improve it. You need to pivot. You need to change it. Typically, when you pitch to an audience or to anybody, you will get feedback. They'll ask questions like what makes you unique? Why would I go with you? Why don't I go with this competitor? What are your profit margins? What's your market share? What's your market size? And if you don't know the answers to these questions, like you know your own name, you're in trouble. You need to know these things. You need to know the information. It's okay for you not to know, but you need to get the information right. Can't not know forever. And working on a pitch and pitching forces you to to be in the position where you're like, you know what? I need to find these answers if I'm going to pitch. That's why I did it. I started Webinar Ninja, our software company, back in 2014, and I started pitching about a year into it. I would go to, you know, startup communities, I would go to coworking spaces, I would go to pitch nights, and I would refine it. I wasn't great in the beginning and I had a few slides missing and I was stumped on a few questions. But guess what? Immediately after that pitch, I found the answers to those questions. I wrote down all those things that stumped me. I remembered to fill in those slides that are missing. In fact, I used to record these pictures on my phone so I can at least have the audio so I can go back and listen to what happened. So what are some of the benefits of doing this? It's going to take you some time and it's going to take you a bit of effort. Well, number one, if I'm ever interviewed on a podcast, in a video show, for a newspaper or publication, I know my story, I know my pitch, I know my business, I know my why. I know my market so, so well. Because I've refined this so much. I'm ready for any question. I'm ready to answer it clearly and concisely and immediately. I am able to make people feel confident in my brand because I'm confident, because I know this stuff, all right? And I didn't always know it, but I got to know it because I was pitching two. When I have to talk to clients, especially high profile CL big businesses, logos that we want to put on our website, you know, I have to be the best salesperson in the company. I need to be able to go in as the founder, as a CEO, and say, hey, you need to sign up with us. This is why. 1, 2, 3, 4. We've built it because of XYZ and that's why we're better than the competition. And within minutes, I'm able to close the deal. Where did that come from? That came because I pitched it. I made a deck. I refined my pitch over and over and I got criticized and I got feedback. Nobody really, like, made me cry or anything, but it made me think. It made me think about what are the answers to these questions. I don't want to be stumped again. That's a great feeling to have, like, oh, I'm not good enough. I need to get better. The other reason why this is important is you never know what's going to happen. Business is unpredictable. Life is unpredictable. You might be self funded now. You might be coasting, you might be profitable, you might be okay. And you're not looking for funding right now, but things might change in the future. The best entrepreneurs are flexible. They keep their options open. Maybe it's not funding you're looking for. Maybe one day you want to sell your company, you want to exit, you want to IPO maybe, or even you're looking to hire a CEO to take over so you can enjoy retirement early. Of course you're going to look for a great candidate to fill your shoes or to fill that role. But the best candidates need to be sold on why they should work for you. And this is where the pitch comes in. This future proofs your business. Knowing how to pitch. Now, I want to say that you don't need to be some sort of master salesperson to be able to pitch. You just need to know your stuff. It's almost like knowing a speech very well. You're able to recite it from memory. It's like knowing a song or knowing a set. As a comedian, you don't have to be able to sell anything. You just need to sell one thing, your business. But most of all, pitching is about clarity. It's about being able to communicate clearly what your business does and doesn't do. Most people lack this fundamental skill. And as the founder, as a CEO, as the leader of your business, this has to be a must. You have to know how to do this. If you become a snooze fest every time you talk about your business, that's bad news, right? That's not something you want to have in your repertoire. What you want, you want people to get excited when you talk about your business, to fully understand what you do, to be sold on it, to be like, wow, that's a good idea. I really like that you want to inspire people. And that happens when you refine and refine and usually what you do with a pitch, and this is what I found, is that you actually take away things. You actually carve it out. It's like addition by subtraction, right? And you start to realize, this is all I need to say for this pitch. Everything else is fluff, Everything else is a distraction. And that we're finding that, like whittling wood, you know, like if you're like whittling wood into statues or sculptures, ClickUp.

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Podcast guys, to wrap up today's lesson, I want to show you how you get started. Very simple. Go to canva. Com. It's absolutely free to sign up for Canva. We're big fans of Canva. We work with them with webinar Ninja with slide presentations, but they have templates for pitching in Canva so they actually tell you what you need to say in a pitch. Use a template. Okay? Start with that. It's better than starting off the top of your head. Take the template and change what's in the template to apply to your business, your marketplace, your opportunity. Just do that. Create the slides with your information. Next, find somebody to pitch to. A friend, a family member, somebody sitting next to you in a co working space. Join a pitch night pitch once. No. You will bomb. Okay, it's not going to be fun. It's not going to be great. Know going in that this is going to be a disaster. Probably maybe you'll be all right, but I went in knowing that I'm not going to do well. But that's the point. By going in and knowing that it's not going to be so wonderful, you're going to get so much feedback, you're going to be receptive to feedback and this is going to be the start of refining your pitch. That's how you get started. That simple. And I'm so glad I got started seven years ago with my first pitch. Thanks so much for listening to the Hunter MBA show. If you love it here, hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Subscribe. Today is Free Ride Friday, so let's see who won this week's Free Ride. And the winner is. Lizzy Williamson. Lizzy Williamson says the best five stars. So happy I found this podcast. Such an insightful 10 minutes a day. When I feel like I'm giving up, I make sure I press play. Thanks, Lizzie, for that great, great review. And please don't give up. Keep going. We're here for you. We got your back. Every single day with a new lesson. You got this. If you are moving forward, if you keep pushing, you are winning. Speaking of winning, you have won Free Ride Friday make sure you email me over at Omar MBA Net so we can hook you up with the lifetime Access to Easy course over at EasyCourse Co, a $500 course on how to build your own online course in 30 days. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating interview and listen in on Friday to see if you won't. That easy. Thanks in advance for doing that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this Communication is the mother of all skills. If you can communicate clearly your ideas, it's very hard to fail in life. It's very hard to fail in business. Because communication is a mother of sales, It's a mother of business, of teaching, of content, of service. Communication is everything. So work on your communication. Work on always. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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