The MBET Experience

I found an interesting post on Guy Kawasaki’s website today, Is a Business Plan Necessary? He cites a study performed which “found no statistical difference in success between those businesses started with formal written plans and those without them…”.

This was interesting, because it is hammered into us that we need a business plan. A plan is necessary for raising money, but if you are bootstrapping, you may be able to get away without one.

I think it is important to note Guy’s closing comments: Do not think that analysis, planning, vision and communication are unnecessary!! These are still critical, but you do not need to spend months and months on “the perfect plan.

It has been a little over a week since the pitch contest, so I thought I’d better post a follow up. There were about 40 teams, and nine teams made the finals. James delivered the pitch for us (I did the contest that last year, so thought I’d sit out this year), nailed the first round, and we made the finals!! There were a lot of strong pitches, and despite delivering well in the final round, we didn’t walk away with one of the prizes. One of our classmates did take home $1000, and MBET had 4 people in the finals. It was a great showing for our class!!

Overall, the pitch contest was an excellent experience. It forced us to think about our business and flesh out some of the details, and gave us something to work with and refine as we go forward.

Now back to sales training… coincidentally, we’re talking about communicating your value proposition this morning. These are good sessions so I should really stop writing and get back to paying attention.

One thing I have learned this year is that being able to clearly and succinctly explain a business concept is a valuable skill that takes some work. A great way to practice this is the 90-second “Elevator Pitch”. We had to develop one of these during the fall semester for class, now it’s time to put our skills to the test in the Ignition $1K Pitch Competition, part of the LaunchPad $50k Business Plan contest.

My classmate James and I have (what we think is) a great business idea. We have interest from potential customers, and decided to enter the pitch contest. We spent almost the entire evening tonight working on our pitch – first whittling down the content to fit things into 90 seconds, then fine-tuning until it flowed smoothly.

The true value in doing this is that it really forced us to quickly and clearly articulate our product, value proposition and business model in a short period of time. I highly recommend that anyone thinking of starting a business work on their elevator pitch – it’s a great exercise that forces you to flesh out the core elements of your business!!

Check back in a couple days and I’ll let you know how things turn out for us! Hopefully we’ll have one of the $1000 dollar prices to put towards our startup funding!!

Semester Two started off well today with a great sales session delivered by Rod Foster. Rod is the CEO of Covarity , a startup software company located in Kitchener. Rod has an interesting background, with over 20 years of sales experience. He has grown a number of organizations from the ground up, to sales of over $100 million in just a few years.

One of the great things about having someone like Rod in to talk is that he speaks of his experiences. To me, this makes the entire presentation more authentic – you know that he is not talking about stuff he read in a book, he is sharing his experience and what made him successful.

There were a few gems in the class today that I wanted to share:

• Forecasting should be based on what the prospect is doing (are they willing to work through requirements with you), not what the sales rep is saying
• You get a customer’s attention by showing value!
• Show the customer value in every interaction.
• Sell the way your client buys. If they lease, you need a leasing program. If they buy in bulk, you need to sell in bulk.
• It is essential to build up trust with your customer during the sales process. That way, when things go wrong (and they will), the customer will trust you to fix things.

For any job seekers out there, here is one more good one:

• Your resume is your value proposition to an employer.

Anyway… we’re getting back into things here. Check back soon for more stories from MBET Semester #2!!

It is back to class this morning… nothing like a nice snowstorm for my drive in. We start off today with a nice 8-hour day of class. Three and a half ours of sales training this morning, followed by marketing and tax class this afternoon.

This morning’s session seems like it will be interesting. We have Rod Foster, the CEO of Covarity, in to teach the session. Rod has a lot of experience, both in sales and raising capital, so I’m sure we’ll get a lot out of these sessions!

Time to get back to class! Term two is officially underway!

Wow… what a couple of weeks its been. Since my last post, on December 8th, I’ve managed to finish off four projects and write an accounting exam. Here’s how it went down:

December 11th – Marketing: Market Assessment

The goal of this project was to select a potential opportunity, and do the research necessary to decide if the opportunity was attractive. We had to look at the market for the product, identify potential customers, look at demand trends, research the competition, assess entry strategies, and ultimately, make a recommendation on the attractiveness of the opportunity. This project was a lot of work, and trying to squeeze all the information into 2000 words was impossible (I finished at 2500 words). Despite how much I swore while working on this assignment, it ultimately helped me recognize that the opportunity I was looking at was attractive, and worth pursuing.

December 12th – Accounting: Exam

The day after our marketing project was finished, we had our second Accounting “Quiz” of the term. I had done quite well on the first, and with a little studying, I felt pretty good for this one as well. However, it was a little trickier than I expected. We already have our marks back. The class average was only 70%, so I guess everyone found it hard. I ended up doing quite well, so I’m happy with that one.

December 13th – Law: Case Analysis

For our Law assignment, we were given a case to read involving a startup company. We had to identify the legal issues and recommend an action plan. The issues mainly pertained to intellectual property, shareholders agreements, and employment agreements. A good way to see the mistakes that others have made, and to learn what you should do when starting a company to avoid making the same mistakes!

December 15th – Strategy: Business Concept

At the end of a brutal week, this was a tough one. We had four pages to describe a business concept, which included looking the problem and solution, why now, and how to create and sustain competitive advantage. We also had to include a plan and vision. Again, a good assignment – the part on creating and sustaining competitive advantage is particularly tough, but well worth thinking about.

Overall, while this was a busy week, I was lucky to be able to work on my own business concept for both the Marketing and Strategy assignments. This helped me refine my thinking, and the results have been encouraging (though I’ll have to hear what the prof’s think). It also helped us to put into practice a lot of what we’d been taught during the term.

Anyway, MBET is 1/3rd complete! WOOT WOOT!!

A few weeks ago, I went to a session called “Do You Have a Personal Brand”, put on by the Greater KW Chamber of Commerce, with Shirley Lichti from Marketing Magic. This was something I was interested in, and kind of had in mind when I launched my dandonovan.ca website.

There were a number of great takeaways from this session. One great example Shirley used was showing a slide full of images each containing a tiny slice of famous brands. The room full of people were able to identify all of them, even the Texaco brand, which hasn’t been around in Canada for over 15 years. The point there was that even from a small piece of these famous brands, you can identify them. The question was then asked: If someone took a small portion of your brand, would they know it was you? I this was a great way to think about things – how can you differentiate yourself from everyone else out there?

When we interact with people, we leave an impression, whether we are conscious of it or not. From these impressions, people form a perception of us! A great way to know what people’s perceptions of you are is to listen to how you are described when they introduct you to someone. This will allow you to see how your “brand” is perceived.

Most people do not consciously manage their “brand.” When you develop a personal brand, you take control of how people might view you. What I learned was that to develop a brand, you need to do three things:

1. Understand Your Unique Attributes
   Who am I? What do I do really well? How do I add value?
   “Always be a first rate version of yourself instead of a second rate version of someone else.” — Judy Garland
2. Develop Your Position
   What do I stand for? Position happens, whether you plan it or not. Differentiate yourself!!
3. Communicate!
   You have to tell people about your brand and what your position. You must constantly and consistently communicate this message, over and over and over.

   To get the message across, you need to live and breathe your brand!!

Overall, it was a very worthwhile session, and I’m going to try to apply some of these lessons as I develop my own “personal brand”.

Check out this happy bunch!! Do we look relieved to have the pitch finished?

To follow up on Tuesday’s post, our team didn’t win the pitch contest. We actually didn’t even make the top three. It’s too bad, because despite the grilling the teams took from the panel (made up of a couple real-life VC’s), it would have been a good experience.

The presentation’s today were fairly well done, though all were weak handling the financials and proposed deal. Here’s a few comments the panel made when it was all said and done – mostly things to improve on!

• What’s the deal? Tell them what you are asking for and what they will get right up front.
• Show your financing strategy. This includes first round, second round, through to exit.
• What are the risks? Do you have a risk mitigation strategy?
• How will the investor’s be involved?
• Show that you are excited to build a great company!! What’s you vision?
• Don’t be afraid to price aggressively. Most of the panel looked for higher margins than the groups proposed.
• To communicate return on investment, come up with a simple way of valuing the company. An example could be a multiple of earnings. Then show the company’s value as it grows.
• Make sure you see the investors as people, not just piggy banks!
• Know your customer and your value proposition!!
• Investors want to see contracts in place with customers, and need prototypes to touch!
• Be careful with broad statements, and balance confidence with arrogance.

Finally, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!! The more you pitch, the better you’ll get. Overall, it was a great experience, and I’m looking forward to the next one. Hopefully we’ll be able to put more time into it!

Well, we just finished our last group presentation. This one was actually pretty cool, we had an opportunity to pitch a fictional product to some real venture capitalist’s. Despite the fact that no one really loved the product, MBET brought in a couple angel investor’s from Toronto to be part of the judging panel. It has also been set up as a contest, with the winners getting bonus marks on their Integrated Case, which makes up a portion of the mark for every class. So there was some incentive to do well!!

It’s been a busy couple weeks, so everyone was here late last night working on their pitches. We did a fairly heavy re-write starting at about 8pm last night, and didn’t get out of here until after midnight. We were first up at 9:30am this morning, so needless to say there wasn’t a lot of sleep!! I think it went alright, though it’s hard to compare because we don’t get to see the other groups. I guess we’ll find out in an hour.

Overall, this term has definitely given us a chance to work on our presentation skills. We had a 90-second pitch earlier, quite a few presentations, and our big investment pitch today. I was fairly comfortable giving presentations coming in, but looking back, I think I’ve got better even through this term. I think I’ve still got more room to improve, so hopefully by the end of MBET, I’ll be really comfortable in front of an audience!!!

Check back shortly for the morning’s results!

Back while I was still working, I came across a great website, ChangeThis. I have found this site to be the source of some great reading, including:

1) The Bootstrapper’s Bible, by Seth Godin
2) The Art of the Start (Chapter 1 only) by Guy Kawasaki
3) 100 Ways to Help You Succeed by Tom Peters

Anyway, I checked in on that site (I still have not integrated RSS feeds into my life), and found a good article today on Accountability Managers. The idea is that as a manager, YOU have to look at yourself, determine what you need to be good at, then find ways to get accurate feedback of how you are doing – from across the organization.You then need to act on that feedback and work on improving.

These actions not only make you more effective as a manager, but you will also be leading by example, hopefully motivating your employees to be more accountable as well. Interesting reading for anyone in a management position.

PS – The Art of the Start is excellent. I highly recommend buying the book.

PPS – I find Tom Peters fun and inspirational to read. He’s got a lot of stuff on ChangeThis. Check it out here.