The art of pitching

I had a catch up with a well known pitch doctor yesterday. He reminded me of some of the most important factors, and regular mistakes we make while pitching.

Biggest mistake: Wasting time talking about ourselves. They already know enough about us, or they wouldn’t be in the room. The right amount of time to allocate talking about ourselves is close to zero.

Biggest Opportunity: Leave some questions unanswered. (counter intuitive I know) This creates the opportunity for real conversation. When we converse, we see how each party thinks. It also enables us to determine if we have the right chemistry to work together.

The rate of change

Yesterday I was reading through the business and tech sections of the huffington post. There were so many new stories on new business ideas, new technology, upcoming research, recently funded startups, and product launches from tech giants that I had to stop and take a breath. I realised that there is no possible way to keep up with everything happening in the business world. It was a bit deflating to read it all. I felt out of touch.

With exponential change happening we’ve got to stop trying to keep up. It’s a waste of time. Instead we need to remember no one is responsible for all this innovation, and the only way to be part of any of it, is by focusing on the tiny segment which is right in front of us.

The human movement, movement

I was really impressed by how some of the smarter Skiing resort operators are using GEO-locating to enable a deep interaction with their customers. What some of the resorts have done is used their new electronic ski lift tagging systems as a social engagement tool. Skiers can register on-line via the resorts facebook page so they can compare how many kilometers, ski runs, hours they do on the mountain for the day, week season and compete amongst friends. It’s even got a nice gaming element to it. It’s a nice iteration taking ideas from the likes of run keeper. You can read more here about what ski resorts are doing to tech-up.

The thing that is clear to me is that there is a human movement, movement. It’s so much more than companies being able to track what people are doing, it’s actually about companies creating forums where we can actually track ourselves. So we can know more about ourselves and change the way we move and interact with others and personally. It takes away the privacy concerns, and moves us into a space where we co-opt information sharing for mutual benefit.

The question entreprneurs and marketers should be thinking about is, how can we help our people track their movement to get more out of when they move. It’s only just the start.

Gaming – A year in review

Some amazing stats that show just how big gaming is. And the next step is bringing these game mechanics into your brand or startup. Enjoy!

Interview with Seth Godin

Great 7 minute interview with Seth Godin which is both insightful and inspirational on the new economy.

What brands must do

Brands need to admit their imperfections. They all have them. It is the only path to perfection in an imperfect world.

2 horse race

If you haven’t already read the 22 Laws of marketing – then you should. It’s a short book which really should be called the 22 laws on entrepreneurship. It seems that most of the laws are true on a category scale – the type of scale that startups with big dreams should pay attention two. recently I’ve been reminded of the law 8: The law of duality.

The Law of Duality says that “in the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race.”

The most recent example of this is Twitter and Facebook. it seems as though they’ve won the social web race. Every brand or advertisement is now tagged with ‘find us on Twitter & Facebook’. We have to look pretty hard to find any of the other 400+ social networking sites. It seems the Law of duality is still true almost 2 years after it was written. It seems that certain power laws of dominance still exist, even though we all like to believe the market has fragmented and opened up for everyone….

The truth is there is only so much space in the mind. We can’t carry the baggage of too many ideas with us. So we simplify by limiting what we participate in. There’s lots new world industry examples of the law of duality.

Social: Facebook  & Twitter

Search: Google & Bing

Mobile: iPhone & Android

Computers: PC & Mac

The question for internet entrepreneurs, is which new categories are still to get their number 2 player. That is where the opportunity lies.

Old world, new world

Old World: Warning labels on products to protect the seller (not buyer) of said product from legal action.

New World: Only selling stuff for which warnings are not needed.

Carl Sagan on beauty – Quote

I’m slightly obsessed with Carl Sagan. I was recently watching Cosmos again and heard this quote which made me think of startups and what we should be thinking about contextually:

“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.”

This should remain top of mind with anything we start, build or do in a business sense. It’s why one startup is more successful than another even though they are trying to do the same thing. It says that the parts that combine to invent success are available to everyone, but what we do with these components is what actually matters.