TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

Speaking with TJ Walker, dissecting the communication skills and practices of world class leaders.

Are you uncomfortable asking for money? If so, it just means you're normal. But if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, at some point you're going to have to make the pitch. Our special guest today is John Livesay and he is a master at the pitch. His most recent book is the Successful Conversations on Going From Invisible to Investable. And he's the host of a fantastic podcast I've just subscribed to called the Successful Pitch. John, thanks for joining us.

Tj It's a pleasure to be with you today.

John, you have a long history of making successful pitches in sales with the media. You've worked for the world famous Conde Nast. That includes brands like gq, Walmart, Wired, Vanity Fair. What lessons did you learn from that that are applicable to the average entrepreneur? Because you look at pop culture and people hear you work for organizations like that, they think it's all about parties and getting an internship for Anna Wintour and introducing somebody to a model. That can't be your whole pitch, right?

No, no. I worked in the corporate division packaging all those brands and together for print and digital and video pre roll before they would see an online show from Glamour or Wired. And it's always about the story. You create a story that provides content that makes people want to be part of that story. In this case, advertising. So storytelling is a skill. As Plato said, storytellers rule the world. That allowed me to win Salesperson of the Year when I was at Conde Nasty. Because when you tell a great, compelling story, people want to engage with you.

And how do you do that if it's just a concept? Because Conde Nest had a storied history before you ever showed up. If some of our audience members are just in the beginning stages of a new company, they really have a concept. They don't have a compelling case study story after story of successful customers and clients. What's your advice to them?

Well, my advice is let's start at the beginning. What's your story of origin? If you can tell a personal story of how you came up with the idea for your startup, where did you come up with the name? Was it a personal problem that you were experiencing and were frustrated with, that you wanted to solve, and that's why you're so passionate about making this startup a success that pulls people in far.

Better than saying, I want to be Groupon but for lawnmower parts, because Groupon is popular. A few years ago was the pitch you Heard from so many entrepreneurs. Now, John, you have been involved with a lot more pitches than I have. Full disclosure. I do work with entrepreneurs from time to time, people going into pitch contests, but it's pretty rare, frankly, because I can't seem to get money out of them. I tend to work with bigger corporate clients. But I have talked to so many investors who go to pitch events, angel investor events, and the thing they say to me again and again and again was that entrepreneur stood up, talked for 10 minutes, and I had no idea what their business was or how they make money.

It's a very common problem because a lot of founders think that investors are interested in their product and they're giving them money for their product, when in fact, the investors invest in the jockey, not the horse. And that's really where you have to sell yourself first. So once you tell them who you are and what problem you're solving, then it suddenly becomes something that's interesting. You know, one of my business partner, Judy Robinette, has judged many pitch contests, and she said a doctor was up talking for 15, 20 minutes and they were all confused about what it was. And she asked him a couple questions and she went, ah, you fix holes in hearts. It needs to get that simple and basic so that even if you're not an expert in that field, you can instantly understand it. Does that make sense?

Sure. And how do you change an entrepreneur's pitch? Because I've seen so many. I'm sure you have. They come in, their deck is made, and it's got fact after fact and detail, complex bullet point after another going into the intricacies of perhaps their technology. And they're so immersed in the details, they just don't have a sense of what people understand and don't understand.

Correct. I'm always telling people the whole point of the pitch is just to get people to say, hmm, that's interesting. Tell me more. Let me give you an example for what we do with crack the funding code, that the format will be something that everyone can start applying to themselves. Did you know that only 1% of pitches to investors get funded? Imagine there was a way to go from invisible to investable with investors in the right room and get feedback as to why they said yes or why they said no. Well, you don't have to imagine it because we've created that at crack the funding code and help a lot of founders, just like you get funded fast by crafting a concise and compelling pitch that makes you irresistible, and you get funded and your business takes off Now.

John, I gotta say, that sounds like you read it, but I really like what it says. It's really compelling. Invisible to investable is great alliteration. There's some other classic Greek oratorical structure in there, I forgot. But I do like it. It is compelling.

Yes. I didn't read it. I've got that, you know, memorized. But I can use and that's okay.

Believe me, I'm. I'm a big fan of people who can read and make it sound good, clear and understandable and intelligible.

The structure there is. I opened up with a statistic that grabs your attention. Did you know only 1%. Right. We worked with a gentleman named Cole Smith. He came to us. He didn't have a pitch, he didn't know any investors, but he had a great platform to help keep schools safe. And what it does is it instantly notifies first responders and all parents instantly when there's a problem, whether it's a shooter, God forbid, or a medical emergency. Right now they have parents calling each other and it takes forever. But where it really gets exciting is they also give a floor plan that's color coded as to where the problem is so the ambulance or the SWAT team doesn't waste time knowing where to go. So, you know, that is a good story, but we can really tighten it up for him and grab people's attentions and pull at their heartstrings a little bit and say, did you know that guns in schools has been increasing 30% in the last six months alone? Imagine there was a way that parents could get peace of mind and the schools could coordinate with first responders and the police to know exactly where a problem is. Well, you don't have to imagine it because at Tresit Group, we've created a platform that allows parents to have peace of mind, knowing that there's a plan in place. Whenever there's a problem, they're instantly notified in five seconds or less, instead of it usually taking 15 minutes. And more importantly, there's a color coded map that the police get of where to go when lives are at stake and seconds matters.

And so walk us through this person's, this entrepreneur's process. They came to you, they got help tweaking it. They went from no money to raising Angel Round or what did they raise?

Sure, they came to us and said, I have a couple of schools that are trying it, so I have proof of concept. It's still pre revenue. I don't know how to pitch and I've never pitched before. And I don't know any investors. So crack the funding code. We work with founders like that for six months, and we work them through a step by step program where we look at their business model. We show them pitch decks slide by slide that have been funded, so they follow that template so they don't make all the mistakes that you were mentioning, like too many words on the slide. And then we're on the phone with them twice a week. And he practiced the pitch. And once he had that ready, we started making an introduction to an angel investor. We know he liked it, invited Cole to pitch to the angel group. And he had 10 minutes. So 10 slides and a 10 minute pitch. And then he had a 10 minute Q& A. And then he got a little nervous. Tj he said, well, what are they going to ask me? He said, don't worry, we know. And we're going to give you the answers to those questions so you're not a deer in headlights. You know, if you got the questions before a test in school, that would be cheating. But in life, it's called preparation. So he got the second date, which is the whole point of a pitch like that. They invited him back to pitch again for 10 minutes more. Angels from the group would be in the room, and the Q and a went to 30 minutes. And he nailed that as well and went into due diligence. So once he had that for the 700,000 that he was seeking, we then got him in front of the New York Angels, which is one of the most prestigious angel groups in the country. And he walked in and he said, look, I really don't need your money because I have another offer. But I'm here because you have such a great reputation for mentorship and connections. So suddenly there's fear of missing out that kicks in. Right.

Can I follow up? Just right there. Isn't that sometimes the best fundraising pitch at all of all to say, I don't really need your money?

Yeah, but that's a strategy that you need to have in place, right? And that's where, you know, we purposely create that. So they say, well, yes, they start selling him as much as he's selling them. They're like, we have connections to the FBI. We could help you scale this really fast. So then he got an offer from the New York Angels, and then that's when Judy Robinette and I really start helping him with the strategy. Okay, who's got the best connections? Who do you like the best? What's the best valuation? How can we help you negotiate? So you're giving up the smallest percent of equity for the most amount of money. And one of the questions that he got asked that most founders really fail at TJ is who's going to fund your next round? And he said, most people say, what my next round? I'm just trying to get this 700,000 raised. But we knew that going in. So Judy introduced him to a woman at Parig Ventures that she sits on the board with who's a venture capitalist. And they tend to fund companies that have revenue. And it's anywhere from 3 to 5 million in the Series A round. She said, I'd be very interested in John.

We have a fairly savvy audience. But walk through your current definitions of angel invest. Seeing investing level A, Level B, sure.

Seed is, well, first it's friends and family, right? And they can give you anywhere from 20, 30, $50,000, 100,000. And then when you start talking to accredited angel groups, they start kicking in, usually around 250,000, all the way up to maybe a million and a half. And then series A, which is venture capitalists, start typically at the 3 to 5 million dollars range. And you have to have revenue coming in already. And then series B is just incrementally up from there. It just keeps going and going. Does that help?

Sure. And you had mentioned that the whole point of an initial pitch is often to get another meeting. A lot of people, their only perception of an entrepreneur pitching, unfortunately is Shark Tank where you give a three minute pitch, perhaps have a puppy or something cute and someone stands up and gives you 50,000 or 100,000 and hey, I give them credit for the show. If you're going to do a show like that on primetime about basically business meetings, I think they do it as well as you can. But it obviously can't be a very accurate representation of what goes on in the real world.

No. And nobody gets money on your first meeting. So there's a whole process called due diligence that has to happen. But if you lie during your pitch and they find that out during due diligence, the deal's off. So you have to really be credible and honest from the get go. So you can't hide any secrets. All of that's very important.

Our guest today is John Livesay. You can find out more about him@johnlivesay.com that's J O H N L I V e s a y.com and you'll find us in the show notes as well. You may want to pick up his latest book, the Successful conversations on going from invisible to investable. Or check out his podcast which is titled the Successful pitch. You're listening to Speaking with TJ Walker, brought to you by Media Training Worldwide. If you'd like a free no obligation online presentation or media training course to help you with your own speeches or media interviews, just click on the link below and you'll be sent a free 100 video online course on how to be a better presenter. So John, let me put you on the spot. I just gave up. I just gave a pitch to my own audience. Trying to do it in a way that is brief enough that it's not too annoying. Under 30 seconds is fairly low risk. No obligation giving them something free that's integral to what the whole concept of the show is about. The show is about communication. And I know nobody wants to trash a host who has them on the show, but how would you, how would you improve my pitch within my own show to my own audience?

I would recommend that you say something along.

And by the way, our audience should know I didn't tell you I was going to ask you that.

Okay, I like spontaneity. I would recommend that you ask some open ended questions that pull people in. For example, does this sound like you. Have you ever wanted to become a professional speaker or wish that you didn't get so nervous when you get in front of a crowd? If so, then I have just the solution for you and then you go into what that is. So you want to create who you're targeting something for with getting them to paint a picture and imagine themselves with that pain point and like, oh God, yeah, that does sound like me. I would like that. And I don't know how to get there.

All fantastic suggestions, John. I will take that under advisement. And folks, I gotta tell you, I'm not the best speaker in the world in every situation. But one of the things I think I do well and that all great speakers do is, is they're constantly looking for advice and feedback on how to.

Do it a little bit better.

And that is art of the secret. John, what do you do when people come to you and the problem isn't their pitch? The problem is they have a bad business and there's really not much you can do. I mean we all, we've all faced that. I've had people come to me before trying to be a better, let's say motivational speaker and they just had a horrible message. What do you do in that situation?

Well, that's one of the things that we work on before we even get to the pitch and crack the funding code is we look at the business model, and before we even decide whether we're going to work with somebody, we make sure that they have something that's scalable, because investors want a return on their investment of three to five times in three to five years. So if it's just a little business like a bakery or a travel agency or something like that, we just say, that's not what we do. We help tech CEOs who have something that could grow really fast because that's what the investors are looking for. So we refer them to the SBDC or something along those lines. So you can't put lipstick on a pig, per se. One of the investors told me on the successful pitch, if you're selling dog foods, we want to see the dogs eating the food. They really are looking for some proof of concept if you have a problem that you're solving. Let's imagine we're pitching Uber. Before Uber existed, the two questions that you have to answer anytime you pitch anything are why you? And why now? So why are you uniquely qualified, tj, to execute this offering that you're doing well? You've got a podcast, you've got expertise, you've got training, you've got case studies. Right? There's a whole answer to that. And then the why now? In the case of Uber, if we all didn't have smartphones, Uber would never be successful. So there's a lot of things that have to happen to make something successful, including the timing. So you answer those two questions, why you and why now? In any pitch then. Now more than ever, people need to have really great communication skills. Everyone's expected to talk like a professional newscaster when they get in front of a group, no matter how small or how big. That's something you could use, right?

Sure. Well, you mentioned Uber. You make me want to kill myself. I heard Uber folks give their investor pitch at the New York angel event. This was probably eight years ago, and boy, if I had put 10,000 in then, oh, yes. Oh, what I would be worth today.

Oh, well, yes. Well, imagine, you know, when you paint the picture for something like Uber, you would say, have you ever been in New York City in the middle of the rain at night trying to get a cab after the Broadway shows let out? Imagine you didn't have to do that. And you could have the cab waiting for you when you got out of your show or your concert or whatever it was. Or not have to be soaking wet with fighting with Five other people. Or if you ever had to go to Vegas for a convention and you stand in a line to get a cab that's an hour long in that heat, Right? So I painted the picture. You're either hot or wet, frustrated. Even if you yourself haven't experienced one of those two things.

I'm sweating right now. 72 degrees in this room.

You can say, oh, and then boom. Now you don't have to because we have this. So that's what you really need to paint that picture on.

And that's. They certainly have a compelling story. And full disclosure, I use them all. I'm not an investor. I wish I were, but I do use them almost exclusively when I'm in different cities. The only reason I don't use them, frankly, is if I'm in another country and I just don't have an Internet, easy Internet access and I don't want to get my credit card out to buy Internet in order to get the Uber. That's the only reason. But they do have a compelling story. But how do you help craft the stories of entrepreneurs who don't have anything as simple and as visual as an Uber? Because if you are selling a new type of data scraping for financial services where the audience is going to be the 100 largest banks, there might not be a sexy story there. You might have a billion dollar, multi billion dollar business. But it's abstract, it's technical, it's numbers. How do you bring a pitch like that to life?

Well, I translate the left brain tech speak into right brain storytelling. There's no amount of technical stuff that can't be translated into a story. And I usually say, tell me the story of one person who's benefited from something. So if it's a health care situation, right, Instead of talking about how your product cures cancer or whatever it does, tell me how one person has benefited from using this versus what they were using before your product came along. So you have to paint that picture. In the case of financial situations, there's all kinds of things that people are looking for. For example, if you could you have trouble saving money to save for your retirement. Well, imagine that every time you made a purchase online, it would round up to the nearest dollar. And that difference between the 350 and four bucks, it would just automatically put that into a mutual fund for you. When you have to think about it, Wouldn't that make it easy? Yes, well, that exists. So you can take almost anything and just describe. I call it stretching the gap from where you are to where you want to go. So I have people visualize, and you could do this for what you're doing. T.J. you're on the left side of a riverbank, and you want to get to the other side of the riverbank. In your case, you want to make people into really great communicators. Or in my case, I want to get people funding. So I tell people, in order to even get to the left to the water, you have to have done certain things. Like at Disneyland, you have to be this tall to ride the ride. So in my case, you have to have a team. You have to have an idea. You have to have a little bit of proof of concept that people want this. And then you start to dip your toe into the water. Well, you don't want to get in the middle of the river and start drowning. And what I do is I help people get across that river much faster than they can on their own and without having to do it alone. And when they get to the other side, they get the funding, or they now have all the communication skills. And then what does that give them, right? What does the funding give them? The funding is not the end all, be all. They go from being stressed out and overwhelmed to having, you know, multiple people that can help them. They can hire other people. They don't have to wear all the hats they can. You know, their dream becomes a reality. They feel exhilarated to wake up in the morning. That's really what you focus on.

John, you mentioned PowerPoint and words and 10 slides. Let's get really, really practical and tactical here. Guy Kawasaki famously has a system that he advocates 10 slides. I think it's three bullet points, very set metric. I, on the other hand, advocate not putting any text on a slide you project, but putting text in something you email or hand out, but just using images. But this show isn't about me. It's about you. I want to know, what platform, what format do you really Recommend for a PowerPoint presentation?

Well, I'm big on minimal words and big images, but I do like to have the slides labeled much like a script. When you present that to a Hollywood movie producer, they expect it to be something that they can easily follow, and they know where they are in the story, if you will. So I tell people, put a problem, the word problem, on your slide, and give me three problems, and then the next slide should be the solution, and it should be the three solutions to that problem. So, for example, with the example I was giving you with Cole, the problem is it takes over 15 minutes for all the parents to get notified and to get through on 911. The solution is it now takes five seconds for everybody to be notified. Right. The second problem is they don't know where to go. They have to waste time at the front desk. The second solution is they get a floor plan that's color coded with exactly where to go. Now, all those words aren't spelled out. There's just an image of a floor plan that's color coded. So the more you can make it really easy to understand, here's the three problems. Here's the three solutions. Boom. Is that helpful? I think, sure. Yeah. So instantly, you know, oh, I understand what problem you're solving and what it's like after someone uses your platform.

For example, John, you mentioned Hollywood. You worked at Conde Nast, the famed media conglomerate, for 20 years. It instantly conjures up images of sort of you're not old enough to be madman era, but it conjures up images of pitch presentations in sort of a madman boardroom. I don't want you to name names, but can you recall certain pitches that you thought were just awful? Whether someone was drunk, made sexist remarks. Are there any really bad pitches that stand out from your media career?

Mostly just talking and never listening. That's the worst thing in the world, is when you never ask the client a question and never have a sense of what problem you're solving. And just talk and talk and talk about how great you are, how great the product is, and you leave the meeting with no next steps, no sense of whether you help them, what their criteria was. It's just those are disasters when somebody just goes in there and doesn't ask any questions and hasn't done their due diligence. So I coach all my clients. You must do as much due diligence on the investors as they're going to do on you before you go in the room. So go on their LinkedIn profiles, see what blogs they've written, be able to comment on that, see what other founders they funded, and see if you can talk to those founders about what it's like to work with them. All that really sets you apart from your competition.

What's the best pitch you've ever seen in real life? And what's the best pitch you've ever heard of in pop culture? I'm instantly thinking of the ebay founder saying, here's this PEZ dispenser. They don't make them anymore. I want to figure out a way of getting. I mean, that was Essentially, his pitch. Who do you think has had some of the best new business pitches in history? And who are the best ones you've seen, whether they're a client of yours or not, where you've seen them in person?

Well, I think Airbnb has a great pitch and that pitch deck is available online for you to take a look at. And again, that's a classic example of why now, had the economy not been in trouble in 2008, 2009, people would not have been so willing to let.

People use strangers into their homes.

Yeah. So you really have a behavior change that's motivated by why now? So they really were able to tap into that mindset and that's why they were able to be so successful. Then they really took it one step further and said, the Millennials are not interested in signing a year lease on an apartment. So they want to check out neighborhoods in New York City and stay a couple weeks or a month in different neighborhoods before they commit to an apartment. I thought, wow, what a clever use of Airbnb's concept. Beyond just vacationers. All that really impressed me because there's multiple uses. I think one of the key things for everyone to remember is don't try to boil the ocean. That's what an investor told me. That's one of the biggest mistakes. Back in the day, Amazon just sold books. Jeff Bezos had 500 employees against Barnes & Noble's 5,000. And he said, we're just going to focus on being the best online bookseller and not worry about their brick and mortar and how many people they have selling books online. And of course, once they had the proof of concept with books, then they can now sell everything under the sun. But most people forget that and they start their entire pitch with, we're going to sell everything. Imagine if Amazon to.

Everybody.

Yes. Yeah. But Amazon was very specific and that really is the key focus on one thing.

First. And you look at so many successful companies, they did that. Facebook wasn't for the whole world. They weren't for the whole country. They weren't for all college students. They were just for students at Harvard. They dominated that and built.

Out. Yeah. One of the exercises I have my clients do, you're asking me one of the real life pitches that I have heard that I love is I have them stack their moments of certainty, tj, especially before they get in front of somebody to pitch. So instead of all that negative self talk kicking in like, oh, they're never going to buy from me or invest in me or I'm nervous. This never will work. I haven't shifted. I go right down four or five times in your life when you knew you nailed it. I got hired. I got somebody to go on a date with me, whatever it was. And you put that into your head before you go pitch somebody. So one of my clients, Martin, said that exercise really was powerful for him. I said, well, tell me one of your moments of certainty. He said, well, I was born in South America, but I grew up in the Netherlands. And When I turned 18, my parents took me back to South America and dropped me off naked in the Amazon jungle to survive for two weeks. Because in my culture, that's the rite of passage into manhood. And I said, guess what? That gives me goosebumps. And that's what we're looking for. I said, that's the opening to your pitch right there. Because again, investors investing, it gets your attention. Yeah. I said, what did you. But then here's where the skill comes in. I go, martin, what did you learn in the Amazon jungle? He said, well, I learned how to focus and pivot and persevere. I said, ah. And here's the transition statement. We're going to take those lessons from the Amazon jungle to the concrete jungle of being an entrepreneur. And when he had that practice in hone, he won a pitch contest because investors say, I'm going to put my money on the guy who can survive the Amazon jungle. He'll be able to survive any problems with his.

Business. Our guest today is John Livesay. You can find out more about him at. John, you can see the trailer for his new book in the program notes as well, so check that out. And you may want to listen to upcoming episodes of his podcast, the Successful Pitch Podcast. John, there's a lot going on with interest rates around the world, rates of return. Some have speculated that's caused a mass flooding of available angel investment and venture capital simply because investors don't know how to get any return on their investment. And you listen to Jason Gallicanis and those who are the real insiders, Silicon Valley, they say it's never been easier for a business to get funding, that basically anyone with a pulse can get funding because there's so much more money chasing it, combined with the fact that with storage space on the cloud, the expenses of so many startups are lower than ever before. Do you buy into.

That? Well, I think it's never been easier to get proof of concept. And there's a great book called Lean Startup. It shows you how to keep your expenses down and Figure out a way to get a minimum viable product where you can actually test it and see if people will use it and ideally pay for it. That's what, you know, crowdfunding, Kickstarter, all that stuff. The rules have changed so much now that people can get a little bit of proof of concept and raise 20, 30, 40, $50,000 and then take that to an angel group and say, look, people are willing to pay for this, they want this. And so all that is a great way that we didn't have before. So I think that is.

True. And what percentage if. I mean, it's hard to quantify this, but are there very many people who have great ideas and simply don't have the right pitch? They don't. They haven't practiced enough. They haven't gone to people like you to get better and are going unfunded. Or are most investors able to see through a bad pitch because the underlying business value is.

There? Oh, God. I would say that only 10% of the pitches that the investors hear are good and they don't have the time or the interest to see through it. The minute you confuse them, they're out. The minute you lose credibility, they're out. They literally see about 2,500 pitches in a year, and fund 25 and 24 of those came from a warm introduction. So not only do you have to have a good pitch, you have to have a warm introduction. Which is why Judy Robinette and I decided that was the winning formula, because we were struggling. Me in particular. You know, people would pay me to help them with their pitch, but what they really wanted was a warm introduction to the right investors. So that's the motivation to start my podcast, was I had to figure out a way to build my network of investors so that I could make the full circle. I'll make the introduction to an investor, but only after you have a good pitch. Because it's my credibility on the line and social capital that they trust me to vet you. And that's how it all.

Goes. So you're in a tough situation. You have a client coming to you, wanting you to introduce them to funders. But funders are not going to take your calls if you send them bad.

Entrepreneurs.

Correct. What's your weeding process? Your weeding out process? Because presumably if someone is just bad at giving presentations, you can fix.

That.

Yes. How do you weed out the ones before you say, okay, I can now submit this person to a funder and I know even if they don't fund it, they'll at Least respect the fact and appreciate the fact that I sent this entrepreneur their.

Way. Right. Well, the first thing is we don't work with anybody who's not coachable because the investors want people who are coachable. They're not just going to give you money. They want you to give feedback on their advice and see how easy you are to work with. So that's the number one criteria we look for. We don't have to work with anybody we don't like, trust or no. So we can tell that pretty quickly in a very short amount of time before we even let them in to crack the funding code. And then once you get somebody who's coachable and has a product that's scalable, then it's all about working with them on their willingness to practice and follow our advice. So you can't walk in and say, I'm pre revenue and I think my valuation is $10 million. When we tell people it's between 3 to 5 depending on where you live. And you know, if you say you have a $10 million valuation and want X amount of money for only a small percent, you're going to get a no. So there's all those areas go into.

Play. You mentioned earlier that some things people do in a presentation, a pitch, can destroy their credibility. What specifically have you seen people do? Is it say billion when they mean million? Is it saying we're for everybody? Is it chewing their nails? What are this? What are the sort of things that you have seen in the room where investors kind of rolled their eyes and that was.

It? We don't have any competition. That means you don't have a market. Please sign this non disclosure agreement before I tell you anything. That's a.

No. Let's take 30 seconds out for that. Explain. Explain to our audience what that even means and why most venture capitalists will scoff at the idea of any investor asking for or any entrepreneur asking for.

That. First of all, like I said, they're seeing so many pictures in a year, they don't have time to steal your ideas. They're not interested in that. And so a non disclosure agreement is just something that a lot of founders fear that someone's going to steal their idea. And at the end of the day, it's not about the idea, it's the person's ability to execute that idea. So it just shows you're an amateur if you don't trust the investors to listen to your pitch without signing a non disclosure.

Agreement. So folks, because people send those to me sometimes, don't send people your non disclosure. If you're asking for money, if you're hiring them as a vendor.

Fine. Right, right, right, right. Another one is if we only get 1% of all the people who take taxis, we're going to be rich. Yes. So those are the big three. A non disclosure agreement, only 1% of the market. And you want to do the opposite. You want to say, here's what we're going to do with your money. We're going to hire a sales force, then we're going to run ads on Facebook, and then we're going to build our business from the bottom up, not the top down. And then of course, we have analyzed our competition and here's what we do different and what our barrier to entry is so that somebody can't just duplicate what we're.

Doing. And that is the big fear of investors quite often. Is it? Okay, sounds like a good idea. Why won't Google do this? Or Apple or.

Microsoft. Exactly. Yes.

Yeah. Of course, Amazon heard that from Barnes and Noble and Walmart. The big players are typically too entrenched in what they're doing to focus on, on the small.

Stuff. Oh, yeah, you just, you need to stay in your own lane. As Michael Phelps said, you know, I had, you know, the good fortune to meet him at an event I did at Conde Nast, and he said, you know, you have to be willing to do what other people are not. I was willing to work out on Sundays when almost everybody else was not. So I got 52 more workouts in a year than most people. So it's not just your idea, it's your mindset and you're willing to do what other people aren't. That really sets you.

Apart. There are so many more opportunities for people to pitch than there used to be. You've got, I mean, part of it is the SEC regulation has changed. It's easier to crowdsource, it's easier to go on podcast. It's easier to connect with people on LinkedIn. There are more and more people out there calling themselves angel investors. How does someone, and perhaps this is a perfect reason why they should hire someone like you. How does an entrepreneur who has a pretty good idea and has a pretty good pitch even navigate all the different places where they can pitch these.

Days? Well, it's having a strategy and realizing that there's, of course, crowdfunding. And then we start working with people when they need 250 or more, like 500,000 and up angel groups getting introductions to those people. One investor told me, if you can't figure out how to get a warm intro. To me, you probably can't figure out how to find your customers. Then there's family offices, which is millionaire billionaire families that invest in startups as well. And you really need warm introductions to meet them. So it's about finding, who knows people that can get you in front of the right room. And one of our clients, Denise Terry, said, you know, trying to get funded by yourself is like climbing Mount Everest without a gps. So Judy and I like to think of ourselves as Sherpas that help people get up the mountain much faster than they could without the warm.

Intros. Okay, and let's be very clear here, what's sort of the ideal profile of a client of yours. It's presumably not two college kids who spend $5 on an app, think it might be the next thing, and haven't spent any money, and no clients and customers. But it's also not going to be Jeff Bezos who is your ideal.

Client? Well, our ideal client is a tech CEO who's struggling with their investor pitch. Typically, they've tried it on their own, and they realize this is much harder and very frustrating, and they're willing to get help and find the resources. They don't spend all their money on a patent or all their money on the app because the number two reasons people go out of business is lack of customers, and number two is lack of funding. So you have to spend just as much money on figuring out how to get funded as you do on how to have a great business. So that's our ideal client, somebody who really has a team, two or three people. They don't have to have revenue, and they have some proof of concept that what they have is something that people can use and that there's something they can show investors. And we take them where they're at. The interesting rung of that ladder of going from invisible to investable, and then we get them from 50% to intriguing at 75%, and then get them up at the top. So we have everybody who's between Cole, who's got the Trezit platform for keeping schools safe to someone. John and Beth, they have a platform called Homezada, which is helping homeowners manage their number one asset. So it keeps track of all the maintenance online that you have to do so you don't forget it. And if you're doing a remodeling project, it helps you manage all that. And insurance companies love it because if you lose anything, all your assets are tracked on that so that's another example of a tech product we're using and helping somebody with. We have a company that's called PT pal. They help physical therapists not have to give their patients paper to do the exercises at home. It's all done online with video. And the patients no longer have confusion and they are tracked. And so they have better outcomes and don't get put back in the hospital. And so they're having incredible traction with hospitals using it and Apple having them speak. And so having that kind of person and that kind of a product is great. And then we've also helped people who have revenue already and need to raise multiple millions of dollars. And that's typically where family offices come.

In. John, how did you make the transition from pitching for a big robust company with a long tradition? Because you had not only great stories as a part of Conde Nast, you had hard numbers and metrics. At some level, you can go to an advertiser and say, I'm guaranteeing you a subscription of 400,000 or a million, and they're buying on numbers. I'm not suggesting that easy, but it is different from selling a concept. And I also want to know, did you have any big failures as a pitch? Because I can tell you, personally, I failed a lot in speeches, presentations, And I can tell you also, my audience loves it if I post a blunder or a mistake on Facebook, as I did just yesterday. People love when I pick apart my own mistakes because that just makes it easier for them to relate.

Sure. Well, there's two questions here, so let me answer the first one. When I was at Conde Nast, we obviously had a lot of competition. There's Time Inc. And Hearst. So there's a lot of different places that an advertiser could put their money. So you had to still tell a compelling story to get them to say, why you? And why should I pick you and your magazine? And what are your ideas to make this investment pay off? One of the things I did incorporate at Conde Nast was look at startups, and particularly in the mobile area that Conde Nast could use to help monetize the brand. So the problem was that advertisers were saying, look, we're not going to spend $50,000 on a digital ad that doesn't sell product. We'll do it in print for branding, but we're not going to do it online. So I found a company called Hallstars H A U L that has a shoppable video player. And I thought, well, this could really help and so I had him come in and pitch, and he confused the people@style.com. they didn't understand how it. Because he talked about how it worked and it was time stamped. And they went, we're not going to let that go out into the marketplace. I said, let me work with him. So I said, here's the problem. Nobody clicks on a static banner ad. The solution is we film a fashion blogger who's got a huge following, so it's a video ad instead of a static banner ad. And while you're watching this fashion blogger talk, after you click on the ad, you can then buy the clothes right from her. They go, oh, well, now we understand that. We don't care how it works. And so they said, we'll let you if you go pitch with him. And our rep to the people at Ag Jeans. Ag Jeans said, this is exactly the kind of thing we're looking for. We'll use it. And they sold $50,000 worth of jeans in three days. So they already made their money back. And he got proof of concept. So that's how I transitioned from selling a Conde Nast to selling to help tech startups, because I realized they're not typically good storytellers because they're tech.

People. And how about any blunders? What was your worst pitch.

Ever? Oh, gosh, am I Conde Nast days or my days.

Now? Anytime I remember, although it seems less painful. If you can talk about 20 years ago, but I'll let you.

Decide. One of them that stands out was I was pitching Nordstrom's to advertise and. And my publisher had flown in from New York, and I flew up from LA to Seattle. And we got there, I confirmed the meeting. It was a Monday, 9am so we flew in Sunday night. And we walk in and they go, oh, we're so sorry. There's an emergency, and the key decision maker will not be able to take the meeting. And so we have, you know, some junior person who will sit in the room, which is totally inappropriate for a publisher to be meeting with somebody at that level. So he was already mad at me for that. And he said, just go through the presentation really fast because it won't make any. It doesn't matter. This person can't say yes. Anyway. So I'm like, all right, so I'm going through the slides. And the room was so small, TJ that you couldn't even pull your chair out without hitting the wall, Right? And the projector was a little out of focus, but it was mostly just words and so I'm going through the slides really fast and he goes, wait, go back and read that quote, because that's a good quote that we got from another retailer. And I'm like, oh my God, I can't really read it. So I picked up and tried to adjust the projector so that it could maybe get better focus and it ended up going up on the ceiling. I'm so humiliated. I'm like, what else could go wrong? So I just said, anyway, I'll send you the PDF and you can read it yourself later. So that was a disaster.

Pitch. And did anything ever come from that or, well, you know, one of the schedule. The reason I ask is in the media world especially, someone could be a 22 year old intern, unpaid today, six months from now be a booker or assignment editor, and 18 months from now be an executive producer. So you never really.

Know. Correct. I'm a big believer in being nice to everyone, including the receptionist, because they all have a say in, you know, do we like and trust you? Do we want to work with you? That's really the key. In that particular case, we had to reschedule and do it again. But you know, I still had two days with that publisher. I couldn't let that disaster ruin the rest of the trip. And I think again, going back to the Olympics, Michael Phelps came in second, but then he went on to win a gold again. Right? You have to let go of mistakes and not drag them to your next.

Situation. Our guest is John Livesay. You can find out more about him by clicking in the show Notes below his main website, johnlivesay.com youm can also check out his new book, the Successful Conversations on Going From Invisible to Investible. You may also want to check out and subscribe to his podcast, the Successful Pitch Podcast. John Most producers of talk shows will tell a guest in advance. You know, don't come on here pitching, don't plug your website, don't plug your book. This whole show is about communication and this show today is about pitching. So I want to give you an opportunity. Give us the pitch for your podcast. Who is it for? Why should people listen? What's it all.

About? Well, the successful pitch is for people who want to hear right from the horse's mouth. In fact, it's almost a feeling of eavesdropping in on a conversation that an investor has on how they decide which pitch they're going to fund. And you could have a very difficult time getting an investor at these levels on the phone, let alone getting them to Spend time telling you how they like to hear a pitch. Like one investor, Ben Nazarin is one of the top investors in Silicon Valley, and he said to me, you know, I invest in five things. Team, team, team, how big is the market and what's the vision? And I like to see the team slide as a second slide, which is not normally the right order. Well, that is just gold if you get the opportunity through a warm introduction from me, to pitch Ben, because you now know to put the team slide as the second slide. So there's lots of good little nuggets like that that you learn from listening to the successful.

Pitch. Nothing makes people think you're brilliant as much as telling them exactly what they want to hear in the order.

They want to hear exactly. It shows you've done your due diligence on them, and I just love it. I am so honored and privileged to hear from investors who are so successful, their own struggles, Some great sound bites. I've also interviewed amazing authors from Judy Robinett to How to Be a Power Connector, which is how I met her to become my business partner. To Tim Sanders. He's got a great book out called Deal Storming, which is all about collaboration. And of course, Jay Samet's book, Disrupt yout. He has a line there about failure that I love, which is, it's just feedback. Keep going till you get a zombie idea so great it won't.

Die. Just remind me. I have to tell you, I have a friend. I'm not going to mention her name, but she has had the worst business idea I've ever heard. She. And she went on Shark Tank and one of the investors said to her, this is the worst business idea. And she has been at it for seven years and doesn't seem to know. So I just put out there. There are times when you have to figure out it's just not working. But presumably most people can make pivots the right way and get around that at some point. Let's talk about your book. Give us a pitch for the book. What do I get from the book that I won't absorb by listening to your podcast on a regular.

Basis? Well, some people don't have time to listen to, you know, the podcast for whatever reason, but the book gives you 10 of the best episodes in one spot that you can put on your iPad or Kindle or whatever and read or hold it in your hands as a regular book and really digest what it is they're doing. And you get to see all 10 of these in one structure. And Start to look at some of the themes and go back and forth and say, oh, that's interesting. Guy Spier who paid over $600,000 with another investor to have lunch with Warren Buffett. He keeps talking about the lessons he learned from Warren Buffet about being humble and what he looks for in any kind of investment. And then you compare that to someone like Todd Herman who coaches Olympic athletes and how he takes that skill set and talks about how to think of yourself as an Olympic athlete when you go pitch. So there's a wide variety of interviews in the book that you start to really have some great takeaways of. Wow. Just these 10 interviews alone have made me smarter and more confident to go.

Pitch. John, in a moment I'm going to ask, to end on a really high note, talk about the specifics of how you help people at the funding code or crack the funding code. But I do want to get your sense of how entrepreneurs can be wary of kind of this underbelly in the funding world. I mean, just like if you have a chubby little kid, there's always a model, a so called modeling agency that says, I can make your kiss star. They're going to be a Runway model. Sign here. And by the way, all you have to do is spend $1,200 on photo books. There are people in the world who claim to be selling access to investors redoing the pitches and they'll take the last $4,200 from entrepreneurs. How can someone figure out whether a so called funding expert can really help them versus them playing a vanity.

Game? Well, the first part is, you know, investors themselves, some angel investors can be devils and some venture capitalists can be vultures and take too much of your equity in your company. So that's one of the first things that we really vet is the investors that we connect people to. You have to make sure that they're high quality. Then you have to make sure that they're not just willing to take just anybody, that there is a certain standard of where you are before you work with them. And you know, we have testimonials on my website and people have, you know, been kind enough to write testimonials from us for us. So, you know, it's, it's really doing your own due diligence on people. And you know, in the case of Judy, she literally sits on the board of Illuminate Ventures and Parag Ventures. And so you can see who she is and the credentials she has. There's pictures of her judging a pitch contest. With Mark Cuban. So when people are the real deal, there's quite a bit of evidence online for supporting.

It. One of my favorite tips is just take that person's name, go to Google, type in their name and then put the word plus fraud. Many times I've done that and sure enough it turns out the person was a, a con man. And I don't mean to be sexist, it was men. So that's, that's one quick practical tip that it's not, it's not going to surface every single problem with someone, but if they have a big problem, that's one way of eliminating them in about five seconds. John, any, as we're concluding here, any final tips you have for anybody giving a pitch for money, whether it is an eight year old asking for an increase in allowance versus an established multi billion dollar company trying to get even more funding for a new.

Spinoff? Well, the reason that Inc. Magazine called me the pitch whisperer is not only do I help founders with their confidence, but I help them answer the three unspoken questions that everybody has when they listen to you pitch anything. And the first question is do I trust you? Which is really a gut thing tj. That's why the handshake was first shown. That's why. To show you didn't have a weapon in your hand, that you didn't have to fight or flight. And then the second question people have when they're listening to your pitch is do I like you? Which is an empathy thing. So you want to show you have empathy for the investors and empathy for your customers. And then the third thing they have in their head when they're listening to you is will this work for me? Will I get a return on my investment? So you need to be answering all of those questions when you pitch your gut, your trust, your heart, likability and then the head questions of will this make any money? When you have all of that in sync, you will most likely get a.

Yes. John Livesay, you are a master of the pitch. Thank you for being our guest today. For more information go to johnlivesay.com the website is in the show notes. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for.

Joining. Thanks for listening to speaking with TJ Walker where the communication skills in practice masses of world class leaders are.