Author: jeanneleez

Why Project Managers Rule the World

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We are the executioners. ? We execute projects, establishing milestones, estimating days of work per resource, scheduling, estimating costs and expenditures and establishing return on investment. Great project managers create immense value for any company they work for. It is in their nature to complete projects and watch them launch. Some people have different titles like Producer, Show Runner, etc., but essentially they are all project managers. Many product managers are actually project managers, too, even though I personally consider them two very different things.

How do you become a great project manager?

There are numerous online courses and certifications one can complete that will teach you the nuts and bolts of project planning, but one skill is never really addressed — communication. A great project manager is an excellent communicator. They need to work across numerous departments to execute a project and keep people informed about progress (or lack thereof). Providing a rhythm of communications to inform, advise, escalate and seek approvals from all stakeholder groups is a primary key to a great project manager’s success.

Great project managers are creative AND analytical and that is asking a lot from any employee. The creativity usually comes from the experience of working on many projects and dealing with conflict, missed deadlines, and underperforming departments creating junk. Project managers need to learn how to “put lipstick on that pig” at least until launch, then clean out the junk. Creative problem solving is an aspect that is critical to innovation and good project managers always seek out the less obvious solutions because that’s where a lot of the magic happens.

At a firm I co-founded, we couldn’t afford to hire a team of ten programmers to build out our custom content management software for web sites. The founder and I left after lunch on a Friday afternoon, bought a big bottle of wine and worked through the night to figure out how we could accomplish the project. There were two “aha!” moments — one, when we realized that most of our components needed only three web pages: to show a list, a detail page, and a back end moderation page. Two, was once we realized that we only needed to code three pages instead of looking at all the components separately, we realized we could still ship in six months with two programmers. We still did not have money to pay even two programmers, so we decided to go for unpaid interns from masters programs in the Chicago area. They loved the idea of working on live products and were willing to work for free. We gave them great feedback and helped them find paid work after we completed the initial launch. We shipped in six months on schedule with nine different components.

The analytical side plays with spreadsheets and calendars, establishing dependencies and milestones, and reviewing the costs of the project to keep it within budget. The analytical side understands the importance to the following quote:

Price. Quality. Time. Pick any two.

As you get more experienced, you will realize that this axiom is very true. You cannot get a great quality project completed quickly without paying dearly for it. You cannot get good quality if you have no money and no time to get it done. You can get good quality at a decent price if you are willing to wait for it.

At one company I worked at early in my career, the local printer was quoting a price of around $3.75 each for a four-color coated stock 32-page full bleed brochure. A company out of Hong Kong could print the same exact document for 36 cents each. The issue? The brochures would need to be shipped by sea, meaning we would have them in 90 days, not next week like our local printer could. The company was practically broke, so we waited the 90 days. It was worth it. The catalogs were a smash and the number of orders doubled and the quantities in those orders tripled after we started using them.

How do you supervise a great project manager?

Get out of their way. Clear obstructions for them. Enable them to focus on the project and facilitate an open door policy for them to vent, rant, or escalate issues that are affecting their project. If the project is being shut down (could be a change in corporate strategy, a buyout, a new competitor in the landscape, perhaps a pet project of the CEO who is now bored and off onto something shinier; many things can happen to projects), listen to their concerns and seek to understand their point of view, then explain the situation as best you can. If you don’t have clarity, seek it out for them. They need to feel safe in discussing difficult topics and be able to depend on you to address their issues. Especially when the shutdown is out of their control (maybe the CEO decided you had to use his vendor who did a terrible job and now your project manager is being blamed for it), they will need support and some sort of idea about the safety of their position in the company and vision of where they go from here.

Whenever I hear a CEO or other executive talk about a project “being on autopilot”, it will inevitably insult the project manager. Great project managers make it look easy. When it looks easy from the outside, people think there’s not much to the work, but that is hardly the case. So give your project manager the recognition and support they need to carry on. The job is far more difficult than it looks.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Launching Online Services in the Developing World

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There are at least one billion people on this planet with no access to electricity or telecommunications. There are at least 1.5 billion more that have either unreliable or unstable connectivity, most of which is powered by diesel generators that contribute to global warming. This large and untapped market does not have the spending power of those in urban centers, but they want connectivity due to the increases in productivity and economic opportunity that this access provides. Once connectivity arrives, marketers need to be ready with services to address these unique users. Here are a few questions to ponder as you build your ideas into something for the developing world.

How many native languages are spoken in the region?

Depending on the country, you could be looking at several different languages to support and localization of your web site involves more than just a web site translation. You need to support the language holistically, throughout your company. Any touch point, from calling customer service, instruction manuals, packing slips, etc. all must support each language. Prioritize your language translations based on market share and potential opportunity, then roll out other languages in phases.

What is the typical connectivity available in the region?

Electricity usually shows up first, then telecom, but not always. Regardless, much of the developing world survives on unstable grids, many supported by diesel generators, even in urban centers. India alone used 4 billion liters of diesel to power its existing telecom networks in 2012.

With no electricity, people cannot charge their phones. In some villages, small entrepreneurs invest in a small generator (even a car battery) and charge people for access to charge their phones. Reports from the ITU indicate that many rural markets rely mainly on local calls in and around their village. Once internet and data services are made available, customers in these areas may not be able to afford high speed broadband, but those that can afford slower connections, will download what they want from the internet for later reading or watching. Most phones in rural areas are not internet-enabled, simply voice, which means getting the right kind of devices into consumer hands at a price point they can afford in order to use your online product or service. Smart phones and data-enabled tablets shouldn’t be a problem in urban areas, but the percentage of users with access to these devices may still be low depending on the country.

What percentage of the community owns devices capable of accessing your services?

There are a few studies out there that indicate that once the internet shows up in a village, economic opportunities increase by up to 11%. Local entrepreneurs open phone shops to cater to the rural consumer (just because someone lives in a rural area does not mean they are below the poverty line, but for the majority worldwide, this is still true). Adoption of smartphones capable of connecting to the internet are much more expensive and consumers need to see them in action to be compelled to purchase them. If you cannot source a reputable report on the data for the country in which you are planning to introduce your services, you may need to do some field surveys in these areas to understand the proportion of internet-enabled devices and the speed of the typical connections in the area before you begin building your product or service. Coming from the West, internet speeds in many parts of the world are not nearly as fast as they are in the developed world, so your online service needs to address this, even in urban areas.

Does your service require delivery of actual products or services to the customer?

Logistics of delivery can be mind boggling in developing countries. This is where a lot of companies fail — getting products and services ordered online to the customer. In some organizations, they may use temp workers on motorcycles driving individual orders out into the hinterlands or they restrict their orders to urban areas only. They may send trucks out once a week (or month!) to address rural areas. If you need to deliver, solving this issue should be a primary focus before launching anything online.

Who else is doing what you are considering doing?

Has it been done elsewhere? Are there existing competitors in this space? How are they addressing issues like pricing, support, languages, etc.? Mobile-first application interface development is most likely the best way to move forward since most consumers in developing countries access the internet over a smartphone much more than through other devices. Understanding how other companies in the developing world have solved similar challenges in other countries could keep you from reinventing the wheel and save you considerable time.

How much would a typical user be able to pay for your product or service?

Here’s where developing robust financial models are required. If there is already competition in the space, understanding their business model and how they are monetizing their services will help you understand the feasibility of launching your own product. Developing target personas, e.g. “rural user”, “young urban professional”, and estimating the potential in each market will enable you to create your online presence, messaging, and set of products/service offerings that would be attractive to each persona who could use your product.

The developing world is largely untapped and ignored. It is a good time to be looking at fast growing economies in the East, South America and Africa where demand is huge, but the infrastructure is poor. Making services mobile first will enable you to build stable and robust products that can be enhanced as more sophisticated internet-enabled devices come into the market and are adopted by local consumers.

How are you managing your product development projects in the developing world? Any insights to share? Please add them to the comments below.

Is Job Hopping Such a Bad Thing?

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Millennials have been charged with the crime of serial job hopping, never staying anywhere more than a few years. I counter that it’s not necessarily a bad thing. As employers, we’d love people to be happy doing the work they do today for the next decade, but most humans need challenges and ways to learn new skills to maintain their enthusiasm for their role. Most jobs change anyway with advances in technology and new channels to do business, which require training and new skills development. The company may not have growth opportunities. Some companies don’t need a 25-person marketing team. The top job may only be Marketing Coordinator or part of the receptionist’s duties. Turning that into a full-time job may be a huge risk for the organization. Employees want to feel part of something and work for people who share common values.

When a new employee is on-boarded, they’ll know quickly if the work environment and the interactions with fellow employees are conducive for them to accomplish their goals. When I joined a large online search engine, I knew that first week that this company was completely wrong for me. I accomplished my professional goals, but it was fraught with insider cliques which got preferential treatment. I constantly brought up revenue, which was not a priority for anyone else. I was essentially ostracized and left nine months later. Was this bad? No. It was the right decision for me and the company. There was a misalignment in our core values; there was a lack of respect for my experience (I was once told, “Great that you have 15 years of experience, but we consider every year of online marketing equal to five years of brick and mortar marketing. No disrespect.” Yeah. None taken. Have you ever even seen a P&L statement?).

I don’t think job hopping is necessarily a bad thing. I think hiring managers don’t like it because it means the person has no loyalty. I see it very differently. I think hiring manager subconsciously know that people who job hop demand more accountability from their managers. They have higher standards, better skills, which make it easier for them to say, “I don’t need this. I’m outta here.” And they are very qualified and typically find work quickly. As many management books say, “Hire slowly, fire fast.” In this case, it’s the employee doing this and that can be viewed very negatively by the company as the employee has, essentially, fired them. Most companies don’t handle that well.

Job hopping CAN be a red flag, so it is important to follow up with your background check. They may be arrogant individual contributors that don’t play well with teams. They may have erratic personalities, substance abuse issues, or other negative character traits that cause them to frequently change jobs. It may also be because of lifestyle choices, such as starting a family, being a caregiver for an elderly parent, writing a book, or other personal choices, so give them a chance to discuss their reasons.

I’ve worked in 13 companies since 1993. Only three lasted longer than three years. Part of that has to do with the nature of what I do — taking companies to the next level. Usually that means working towards a founder’s exit strategy, typically buyout, merger or IPO. When these activities occur, two people are usually the first to be let go — the person in charge of finance and the person in charge of marketing (for some reason, incoming investors seem to think they can always cut the budget, change strategy, and create new programs better than someone that has been immersed in it for the past few years). Years ago, I was shocked to be let go the day that it was announced that the company was purchased by Nokia. At the time I did not understand. I knew I launched our products flawlessly and engaged an entirely new sales channel. I grew that business and earned it. What I learned later was that Nokia was more interested in hiring our R&D department and our development staff and were planning to put our entire project in a closet, never to be seen again. It clearly threatened software products they were going to be introducing the following year.

So lots of people look at my profile and see short stints at one or two companies, followed by longer stints at others. I view my entire career differently. I work WITH companies. I have never felt like an employee and perhaps that shows in the way I follow through with other departments as if they were my clients. I work under the radar a lot, with the smallest teams possible, to get stuff done. I cannot stand office politics and dealing with “seeking buy-in from stakeholders”. The best advice I ever got was from the superintendent of a large school district who told me, “What you are planning to do is going to be very, very hard to do. I recommend that you seek forgiveness rather than permission.” When I succeeded, not only was the district delighted, I won a Webby Award for it.

So what’s a company to do? Understand that job hoppers can be great people with incredible skills that only need a few years to dramatically change your business. After that, they’re on to new challenges. Think of them as more economical consultants. In fact, treat all your employees as if they were full-time in-house consultants. You have a employment agreement with them. As they join, learn about their past experience and how they could put it to use in your firm. Learn about the processes other companies in their backgrounds have used to streamline their businesses. Ask about their past incentive plans and benefits to compare to what you offer. Their experience in a number of companies can be valuable information to a first-time entrepreneur who keeps trying to reinvent the wheel again and again with each new product, venture, business line, sales channel, etc.

And leaders need to understand that job hoppers need to be heard. The primary reason people leave companies in the first year is due to poor communication with management. When people are engaged, feel supported, recognized for their work, they will stay longer, even when the systemic problems cannot be solved. Give the space to expand outside of their current roles. Give them stretch tasks or projects to allow them to experiment. I highly recommend conducting regular Stay Interviews. We have implemented them in our current workplace and our attrition rate, once 6% a month is now down to less than 1% (granted, we are a 24-hour workforce and most people leave due to reluctance to work night shifts). It’s still dramatic.

Give a job hopper a chance. You may be one of those companies they stay a few years at because you made it worthwhile for them. The employer-employee contract is not what it used to be. Employers don’t take care of you after 30 years of working at their firm any more. No more gold watches, no pensions, nothing. White collar employees have never even had the support enjoyed by blue collar union employees. (I remember a company where as the Marketing Manager, I was making less than the janitor who was in a union.) The only way employers can generate that undying loyalty is through alignment of values, goals and mission. People want to be part of something special and employers need to communicate effectively about what makes you special. Be that. Be special. Make your people feel special. You may find a lot of talented job hoppers lining up to work for you.

Five Tips for Finding Jobs as an International Worker

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International workers are candidates with experience in more than one country, some having experience in many different countries. They may work in the oil and gas industry, telecom, even global FMCG companies where their work changes location every few years. Some folks may work in an MNC (Multinational Corporation) and may move from country to country as they enter new markets. Others may never leave their country of origin, but work in an MNC where the work culture is based on the foreign parent company. I get lots of connection requests on LinkedIn, many looking for work overseas or in MNCs here in Myanmar. Many are looking for advice on what to do and where to start. I can only speak to those interested in working abroad about the realities of finding those jobs. Here are a few tips to help you on your journey to the job you’ve always dreamed of.

1. Do Your Research On Foreign Worker Laws in Your Country of Choice.

If looking for work overseas, it is your responsibility to completely understand what visas you will need, what companies you can work for and for what duration. Understand that any extra work or costs a company has to pay to hire you will go against you. A hiring manager wants someone hired NOW, not after a lengthy and expensive H-1B Visa process. He will hire the local candidate before you. Lessen the impact on this by highlighting in your cover letter anything you can offer above an beyond the other potential candidates. Most companies will hire a foreign worker under two conditions:

  1. You are such a proven, valuable contributor to their organization that they want to make you a permanent offer, or feature unique and valuable experience they cannot identify in local talent;
  2. They can’t find anyone local who will work for them (their pay is less than industry norms, poor work environment or reputation, limited potential for growth, or location issues).

If #1, you may have done freelance work for them or perhaps a remote project for the company. You may have previous experience that is hard to find or you have demonstrated experience they cannot find in their local talent pool. If B, they’re desperate to solve their hiring challenge and willing to spend money to get a body in a seat. Either way, unless you have U.S. citizenship or a Green Card (Residency Status), you will always be Plan B. This is a reality many potential applicants make and “sucking up” and begging an HR person for a job won’t help you. You will cost more upfront and it will take longer to get you on board. You are a higher risk than a local candidate.

As an expat myself, most of the companies I have worked for had never hired a foreign worker. The country I live in requires sponsorship from a company registered in the country. I can only work for that one company and must leave the country within 30 days should I quit my job. When I worked in India, I had to reapply for a work permit every year (sometimes an 8-month process!!!). In Myanmar, it is every six months. I had to completely understand the process and advise the companies I have worked for that I will handle the process and give them the documentation for labor compliance. While I most likely missed out on some great opportunities because I am a foreign worker, I completely understand their views and try to mitigate their risk as much as possible.

2. Research the Companies You Are Interested in Working In.

Most MNCs are recognizable global brands. Myanmar’s market is highly attractive to marketers, with its burgeoning middle class and growing economy (estimated to grow at 7.7% this year). MNCs need people with in-country knowledge to set strategy and communications appropriate to the market. There are famous business cases, such as the McDonald’s debacle of bringing over an American menu without understanding the sensitivity of India’s Hindu population. There are also very successful cases like Unilever, whose Hindustan Unilever division managed to expand into rural markets through small unit packaging of personal care products and enabling village entrepreneurs with minimal investment to sell their line of products. Because of your understanding of the culture you grew up in, your voice matters when an MNC enters a new market. Unilever would not have been successful if not for the village-to-village research they did in-country before launch. Keep tabs on fast growing companies in expansion that may be entering your market. Follow their careers page and watch for signs they are gearing up to move into your market. Be there when they are ready to move.

3. Align Yourself to the Foreign Work Culture

Become that in-country specialist, but also invest time in understanding how the parent company operates. You want to operate in the same work culture as the parent company in order to make yourself more visible. For example, an American tech firm will operate far more casually than a German one, but you will probably be expected to work far more hours with the American firm. Adherence to process, perfection and precision may be highly valued by the German firm, while innovation may be more prized in an American firm. An American firm will want you to participate in brainstorming ideas, execute on commitments, and learn from your failures. Many traditional Indian firms don’t work that way and are far more bureaucratic with only the CEO making decisions. You will need to feel comfortable with ambiguity and tolerate risk with far less support in MNCs.

When I first went looking for companies in India and Myanmar that might be able to leverage my experience, I focused on marketing myself to companies that relied heavily on American revenue. I positioned myself as someone with familiarity (not understanding) with the local culture who could invest time in developing teams in the American business mindset, generating more traffic and revenue from American sources. I also positioned myself as someone with contacts in American venture capital. These two points made me attractive for the organization that hired me. Your cover letter is key.

Ensure you market your strengths and unique experiences that would make you interesting and memorable enough for the hiring manager to want to meet you.

4. Authenticity is Key

Never lie on your resume/CV. Do not cut and paste someone else’s resume as your own, even if they do the same work. I’ve received resumes from people with several different fonts and writing styles. Simply copying a line and googling it, I found where the original resume came from; this has caused many people from never getting an interview with me. I’ve received designer samples that were pulled down from web sites WITH THE WATERMARKS STILL ON THEM. I’ve interviewed job hoppers and when questioned, responded with, “How do you think I got to 1.5 lakh rupees a month?”. Why would I hire these people? Why would anybody?

MNCs will do proper background checks, calling previous employers and your schools. They may do credit checks and drug tests. MNCs expect your ethics to match theirs, which means being honest. Use your honesty, especially in a situation like seeking advice. In your cover letter, explain your ambitions and how your background meets company goals. Show how you have created value at other organizations and explain how that experience can translate to their company.

Another critical point — PROOFREAD your resume carefully. Have two other people review and provide you with feedback. Simplify to one font — Arial or Times Roman will be fine for anyone other than a designer. Test the English. Is it written in British or American English? If you spell words in British English, an American hiring manager will view it as a mistake and assume you are uneducated. For realz. Unprofessionally designed and written resumes will never see a hiring manager and you will never see a job offer. Be safe and create one with both sets of spellings for British and American firms.

5. Develop Quality Connections Online

If you have no such experience or just starting out, try identifying hiring managers within the organization and ask them for advice, not jobs. People aren’t going to give perfect strangers a job, but they may be much more open to giving you advice and perhaps share the contact information of a person who can actually help you within the organization. They may be able to refer you to alternative organizations, professional groups, and industry news and job web sites where you can network. Consider every online contact you make as a job interview and conduct yourself accordingly. An ex-colleague once told me:

Don’t post anything online that you would not say in front of your grandmother in a court of law.

This is true in the case of hiring managers as well. As part of their due diligence on you, they may google your name and see what comes up. Carefully check the top 100 responses. There are web sites out there that can help you manage your online reputation to ensure what shows up is the professional you, and not the sex offender with the same name. Those pictures of you doing keg stands with your bros probably won’t help either. Ladies (and some gents), selfies in your underwear only work if your last name is Kardashian. Bad mouthing your current boss or company will significantly count against you. No one wants to hire someone who publicly badmouths the company they work for.

Authenticity works both ways. Companies spend fortunes defending their brand but there are plenty of ways to find out more about the inner workings of these companies online. Glassdoor and Indeed are two sites that showcase employee reviews, questions asked at interviews, etc. They can tell you whether the company in your sights is worth your time and effort. It could indicate that your dream could actually be a toxic workplace nightmare.

Using sites like LinkedIn are great for professional networking, but look also to more niche sites in your area of interest, say, Marketing or Software Development. Connect with speakers at conferences and other thought leaders. Be aware that their time is precious, so don’t spam them with pleas for jobs. Connecting with lower level employees can give you insight into how they got their jobs, what the interview process was like and what they think they did differently that got them the job. They may call you up or email you when they hear of an opening if you consistently stay in contact and develop a relationship. Make quality connections and treat them as such. Quality connections will be there for you throughout your career.

Finding the job of your dreams takes a lot more work than people think. Persistence is key. How have you managed to accomplish this? Please share your experiences in the comments below.

Deciphering a Term Sheet

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A term sheet is the document that lays out the terms of an investment and the collateral, be it a patent, licensing deal, a company, or a single product or service. It details what you are giving, and what you are getting in return from the investor. Then it lays out the guidelines of how both parties will act to protect the investment.

Term sheets can vary depending on what type of funding round you are in, and how much is at stake, as well as who is involved. Generally term sheets for seed rounds are going to be much lower and shorter in scope than for series A or beyond. The less at stake, the less complex it should be.

Term sheets can be really scary for new start-up founders. More than anything, it’s the fear of making a mistake that you might regret later as the business grows. Investors are savvy and experienced negotiators, and all the language included in the term sheet is there because it is important to them. Every benefit and protection an investor gets into a term sheet comes with some sort of loss or sacrifice on your part – either in transferring control away from you to the investor or shifting risk from the investor to you. 

You probably have more leverage to get better terms than you think. More and more firms are targeting seed stage companies. This competition makes it harder for investors to dictate terms the way they used to. The key is knowing what to expect, knowing what you want out of the term sheet, knowing what your dealbreakers are, and of course having good representation to review all of the fine print.

Valuation

Having a minimally viable product and perhaps a few paying customers can dramatically change your valuation. Valuation is the most critical component of the term sheet and there are two significant parts: pre- and post investment valuations. For example, if the investors believe the company is worth $2M, and they want to invest $1M, your pre-money valuation is $2M and your post-money valuation is $3M:

Post-money = $2M pre-money + $1M investment

The $1M investment gives investors 33.3% of the company

A poor valuation can ruin a deal even if all other terms are in your favor. However, the inverse isn’t necessarily true. A great valuation doesn’t always outweigh unfavorable terms elsewhere on the term sheet.

But many founders don’t know this. They naively assume that a great valuation equates to a great term sheet. Don’t make that assumption. Investors can extract more value than the valuation would imply, so the best deal may not always be the one with the highest valuation. Plus, you set a bar for yourself with every future term sheet valuation and if you haven’t cleared that bar the next time you need to raise money, you put yourself in a very bad position.

Option Pools

Option pools are the second most critical component. Preferred and common stock are different as well. Preferred stock is typically held by the investors while common stock is held by founders and employees. Option pools are the shares reserved to attract and retain future hires, directors, etc. The most founder friendly approach would be to calculate the option pool post-money and force the new investors to share in the dilution. But in reality, the standard for most term sheets is to calculate it pre-investment.

Option pools are also a way to lower the company’s effective price since an option pool will typically require you to place a certain amount such as 15% into future options. This effectively brings down the owners’ amount down to 51.7% since 33.3% + 15% = 48.3%. You may want to do a headcount hiring list plan with options along with a list of current employees and a retention plan of their forecasted options to ensure the percentage makes sense to both you and the investor. Then negotiate with the investor to add more money to the pre-money valuation to cover the option pool.

Participation Rights

Participation rights are another huge issue that most founders don’t understand. Participation rights are also known in the industry as “double dipping”. Since investors get preferred stock and not common stock, they get paid first, and the preferred stockholders would be entitled to the return of their entire investment (plus any accrued dividends) prior to the distribution of any proceeds to the common stockholders.

However, the preferred stockholders would then also be treated like common stockholders and would share proportionally in the remaining proceeds –in effect, being paid twice. Issuing participating preferred rights has the same effect as issuing a promissory note and shares of common stock to the investor.

I remember a group of people who were planning to start a firm arguing over who should get what percentage of the firm pre-investment. The most vocal co-founder thought he should get 45% of the company, with the other three cofounders getting between 10 to 15% each. He wasn’t even counting the potential investor percentages, option pools, anything. What he didn’t realize was that most investors will add a clause typically paying them back their investment first before anyone else sees a dime during a bankruptcy. liquidation or sale, sometimes more. You’re still responsible for the debt. You still have to pay your creditors.

Find yourself a good lawyer who has a lot of experience with these types of deals to review your term sheet for your own protection.

Do you want to outsource this type of work so that you can focus on higher level activities? Subscribe today to learn more about building your business and receive a free PDF “Process Plan for Creating Your Own Innovation Program”. Feel free to email us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business.

Practice Those Pitch Decks, Please!

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Business plans don’t always require you to go outside and pitch for money, but having a solid business plan makes the pitching process easier. What you’ll need to do is create a simple, easy to follow twenty minute presentation based on your plan and how much money it will take to get you to the next level in your plan.

Investors want to know what you plan to do with their money. Take your minimally viable product to the next level. Hire developers and marketers. Design your brand. Launch to potential clients. Hire a sales team. Expand nationally. Globally. Add new products and services.

It’s not easy to get up in the front of the room and ask people for money. Especially a lot of money. I’ve been there. It can be quite daunting to present your idea to a group of people typing on their phones, looking at their watches and updating their social media on their laptop while you’re up there. I’ve been there. It’s like being a standup comedian and no one is laughing. You can’t wait to get to the last slide because you can already tell they’re not interested.

It’s also not easy be at that table feeling like I’m wasting my time, either. I’ve been there, too, and watched people flame out, freeze, and literally cry as they were presenting. They had no answers to simple questions. Their business model was entirely based on banner ads. They had no Plan B. They did not do their due diligence on the market, the competition, whether there were customers that wanted their product or service and how much they were willing to pay for it. Other people in the room would sometimes laugh and shake their heads mid-way through and tell them we’re not interested.

Start by pitching to family and friends and get their advice. Then, if you have people who can are in the business who can play “devil’s advocate”, you can practice dealing with difficult people and questions. Anticipate all the hardball questions and have good, well thought out answers. You probably still won’t get the money from the first few real pitches you do, but you never know. The more pitches you do, the better you will get.

Guy Kawasaki, a serial entrepreneur, evangelist and investor has some great tips for building a pitch. He also features an infographic which really shows how succinct and focused you should be in pitching your business plan. I highly advise anyone looking to pitch to simplify, simplify, simplify. Tell a story. Make impact.

You can always provide a booklet with additional details about your project for those at the meeting that provides a lot more detail about your market, financials, forecasts, team bios, etc. In fact, I recommend it. People may thumb through it instead of reading their emails. People may ask questions based on the content. It also gives them something to take back to their office which may keep you top of mind for a few days. You never know. If they all leave them on the table, better luck next time.

Take every advantage to practice your presentation skills so that when important pitches arise, you will have the story, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect the people in the room and hopefully get that term sheet.

Do you want to outsource this type of work so that you can focus on higher level activities? Subscribe today to learn more about building your business and receive a free PDF “Process Plan for Creating Your Own Innovation Program”. Feel free to email us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business.

Bootstrapping Your Business

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Financing your business idea can come from many options depending on the amount you need to start, from microfinance, bank loans, seed or angel investors, private equity or your personal savings.

Bootstrapping is typically using your own savings and perhaps borrowing money from friends and family to start up your venture. It makes you focus on revenue from day one and forces you to be disciplined in your spending. Because it’s personal. It’s your money. It’s your family and friend’s money. It makes you creative in how you market your company. I fully and completely recommending bootstrapping for as long as you possibly can. 

Bootstrapping enables you to keep full control over where your company is going. Investors can pressure you into other options, such as ramping up quickly when the sales aren’t there to support it, significantly increasing your burn rate (amount of money you spend each month). This can lead to being forced to start pitching earlier than expected for additional funding and diluting your shares even more. The investors may want you to pivot or agree to be acquired, when you’re not ready or don’t want to. Only go to investors when you have the track record and have a significant need for funding to grow to the next level (it is never a good idea to seek funding when your company is about to close and you’re desperate to keep the doors open). Making the decision to seek funding should not be taken lightly, and only when you see no other alternatives. 

The caveat to this is “time”. If you need to ramp up quickly to get ahead of competition with a similar product/service, you’ll need a lot of money and as fast as possible, like the turf war in San Francisco between Uber and Lyft. This is especially true of certain business models, such as jobs, travel, auctions, real estate, and other industries that require marketing for both buyers and sellers in a crowded market with established competition with deep pockets. Carefully consider whether your solution is radically different enough to engage industry media and disrupt the status quo. Your pitch to investors needs to demonstrate this very effectively or investors will pass.

What do you think? I’ve heard founders say that it doesn’t matter how much dilution happens; there will still be plenty of money for everyone on the back end. They may also want investors due to their access to potential customers or other funders. They may need mentoring or talent acquisition that investors can help provide. Would you bootstrap or seek other funding? Would love to hear about your experience.

Do you want to outsource this type of work so that you can focus on higher level activities? Subscribe today to learn more about building your business and receive a free PDF “Process Plan for Creating Your Own Innovation Program”. Feel free to email us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business.

Automating Your Marketing Processes for Free

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Set Up Your Web Site

The first thing most startups do after branding is build a brochure web site, then move either towards building a sales funnel through landing pages or they build out an e-commerce site. There is a cost for your domain name registration and web hosting. I use dreamhost.com for both. They’re cheap and dependable. WordPress and Shopify are open source and free to use to start, but there are costs as you move forward, especially into e-commerce. If you know how to code, you may want to experiment with Drupal and other old school Content Management Systems (CMS) software or go straight to HTML-5, bootstrap and more. After you have that process completed, search for suitable themes for your web site. Many are free, other can cost a few hundred dollars. There are several web sites on the web offering themes for WordPress and Shopify, so simply google “free WordPress themes” and there are no limit of links to good, free stuff.

SEO is important and getting your self “found” by the search engines and your target audience. When writing posts, tag and use categories generously. They will automatically create pages based on those tags and categories which will enable you to get more content out there with a different format. Go out and find a free xml site map generator for your site to scan your site after all that is done and submit the site map to google.

Automating Social Media

First I use a free plugin on my web site that automatically sends a post to my LinkedIn corporate page whenever I upload a blog post. I use ifttt.com which has free “recipes” to automate posts, so once the post shows up on LinkedIn, it also shows up on Twitter and Facebook.

Automate Your Email Campaigns

I then use a free MailChimp template to automatically send out snippets of any new blog posts that get posted that week. (You will need to add a new email campaign, click on automated and then click on “Share blog Updates” to get started. )

I also write a bunch of blog posts at a time, so I devote a whole day or so to getting them done and scheduled, so it’s basically on autopilot for 90 days.

NOTE: I’m not getting paid for any of these links. If you need this done for you, this is how I would recommend you do it. Once you get this far, this link lists all sorts of cool web stuff like UI/UX tools, debugging software, etc.

I’m always looking for free tools to automate these types of mindless tasks, but this process was a huge time saver! What tools do you use to automate your marketing for free or at a low cost (remember, your time is money, too!)? If you have better tools that you’ve found, please share them in the comments.

Do you want to outsource this type of work so that you can focus on higher level activities? Subscribe today to learn more about building your business and receive a free PDF “Process Plan for Creating Your Own Innovation Program”. Feel free to email us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business.

Women in the Workplace

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I have found in my experience that it is far easier as a woman to bootstrap a company than pitch for funding because so few investors put money into women-led companies. You are also seeing very few women working in the VC sector, citing toxic working environments, essentially being a boys club. While this is changing at a glacier’s pace, women are still starting more companies than men today, especially in rural areas with microfinance programs and more affordable telecom and internet.

People say that gender equality is the ideal here. But many people have different ideas as to what that means. It doesn’t just mean you get EXACTLY the same salary and benefits as a man in the same position. Here’s where I’m going to get some haters because this means you have to show up and work during your menstrual cycles or cite “women’s issues” as a reason to take a few days off. You’ll need to share child care pickups with your partner if you have one or pay extra for someone else to do it for you. You need to do your job and not use your gender as a way to underperform. Women need to work twice as hard to get equal respect from the men in their team. That is the reality. Because I’m a white American woman who worked in India for ten years, I was the only woman in the boardroom other than sometimes a relative of the owner of the company. I never saw women move beyond manager in traditional Indian firms. I experienced the same thing in Myanmar.

So your challenge is to be twice as good as the best dude in the room. You have to be smarter, faster, more analytical AND also not be too direct or act too ambitious. Your soft skills (interpersonal interactions) can’t be the same as the way men interact with each other because you’ll be considered a “b*tch” and reported as “not a team player”. Your challenge is to find the fine line between showcasing your skills without challenging the fragile male egos who have a different expectation as how women should work in the work place. 

In my experience managing large male sales groups, it can be very tough to do, but you need to model the right behaviors, set proper professional boundaries, call them out when they say or do something sexist (I try to make a joke about it, but sometimes being direct is only way for people to understand their behavior won’t be tolerated), and be a role model for other women on the team. The more women stand up for each other, mentor each other, the sooner we won’t have to have this conversation again.

Do you want to outsource this type of work so that you can focus on higher level activities? Subscribe today to learn more about building your business and receive a free PDF “Process Plan for Creating Your Own Innovation Program”. Feel free to email us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business.

Always Be Mentoring

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Whenever I join a team, I typically meet everyone for one-on-one conversations. I’ll ask them about their work, what they would really like to be doing and where their interests lie outside of work (some of the most boring people you know at work have the most interesting lives outside the office!). As part of these conversations, I can begin to understand the skill sets people have and who has that hunger in their belly to learn more, be more, do more.

Since I have been doing this a while, I have learned a few things. I’ve seen a lot of stupid stuff happen and bad decisions being made. I’ve also seen brilliance and had surprise encounters that created things that changed the world. As I’ve aged, I have become more and more determined to make my legacy about the next generation of leaders. There are some really, really “bad hombres” out there, but there are plenty of human beings out there determined to make this planet a better place as well. I want to leave this place better than when I first got here and the only way I can do that is through building true leaders.

Leadership comes naturally to some people and you can recognize those people regardless of what position they’re in. They may be a janitor, or a security guard, or the waitress, and not necessarily in the C-level suite. I used to work with a lot of younger Indian executives who constantly came in wearing suits and ties to work the night shift at a call center focused on calling the United States. Even though I was the head of the entire India center, I came in in jeans and simple shirts.

The power doesn’t come from the suit; it comes from within.

Once you find these potential leaders, find out for yourself if they are willing to transform, do the work involved to get that next promotion, get down in the trenches with the workers and ensure the work is done properly on time. People who insist upon respect simply due to having a particular title need to earn that respect, and you can only get that by sharing your knowledge, being there for them, teaching them. I have a four part plan that always works:

1. WATCH ME DO.

2. HELP ME DO.

3. NOW YOU DO.

4. SHOW SOMEONE ELSE HOW YOU DO.

Mentoring is simple enough with these rules in place for just about any hard or soft skill requirement.