Small Business Summit Recap

It was the bright orange suede vest that first caught my eye, among a sea of entrepreneurs in corporate attire at the recent Small Business Summit in New York. Then came the bright blue striped bell bottomed pants. Who was the funky mama among all the "suits"? When I finally saw her face I felt a tinge of recognition. It was Laurel Touby - one of my role models, a huge inspiration to me, the type of fempreneur that I aspire to be (for more on Laurel see my post: "Mediabistro: Timeline to Success"). She looked like a hippie bohemian artist that somehow got lost on her way to Soho or the West Village and mistakenly landed instead at a conference for entrepreneurs.

There was no question - I had to go up to her and say "hi". Any shyness that I might have felt went completely out the window as I stretched out my hand and introduced myself. She was very friendly and approachable, listening as I told her about my blog, among expressive gushes of admiration. The petite blond multi-millionaire later spoke at one of the panel presentations (she's the one that stands out with the funky, boho-chic outfit above on the right) about her company's rise to success and gave a few insights as to how she made her business grow.

"Listen to your clients", was one of the first things Laurel said, which was made easier for her since she started out by giving cocktail parties for journalists. Every month she had a steady stream of followers that were very willing to tell her what they needed. They were the ones she listened to when she received her first infusion of venture capital money and was deciding how to spend it. And it worked - she sold her company for a cool $23 mil last year. That's one piece of advice I definitely will follow.

Among the familiar faces I bumped into at the show were Laura Allen from 15secondpitch who participated at one of the panels, Lena West, who writes the TechForward blog I mentioned on my last post, Stephanie Cockerl who does wonderful things to optimize blogs (www.nextsteph.com), Kevin Kennedy of Webgrrls and of Ulas Neftci of Baruch's Small Business Development Center. All in all it was a fabulous day of schmoozing, networking, meeting fantastic people and picking up a few new best practices. I was even able to get a picture with my idol!

Update: Nelly Yusupova of Webgrrls wrote a great summary of the panel entitled: “How to transform your business in 40 minutes”. Visit her blog to get all the details.

Recap of the NY XPO for Business

One of the things I admire about multi-millionaires like Donny Deutsch, the advertising tycoon turned TV personality, is that they may have pot loads of money in the bank (he sold his advertising company for close to $300 million bucks) but yet they still go to work every day. As host of The Big Idea on CNBC, Donny helps others make millions too. It's "must see TV" for budding Mogulettes.

Donny was keynote speaker at the NY XPO for Business luncheon at the Jacob Javits Center this week and he stood in front of a dining room the size of a football field to give the audience a few golden nuggets of wisdom in his own charming, irreverent way.

One of the first things he said was make failure your friend, which I loved to hear because I have such fear of not doing things perfectly with my business. The biggest growth, he added, comes when we fail - we grow from the stupid things we do - it's a mathematical certainty. If you're afraid to fail you can't be great. You have to know that your product or service may bomb...but if it does, so what? He likened it to dating - if you get shot down once you go on to the next. (This month's Entrepreneur Magazine has two stories on finding success after failure: click here for more)

More of Donny's tips:
Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you are. Many entrepreneurs hire people that maybe have 5% of their own qualities. He suggests finding partners and giving them a portion of your business - as long as you keep 51% of it. Small business owners usually hang on tight to their companies - we need to let go!

About success he says do what you love. If you're passionate about what you do then it's not work. If you're not passionate about your work, then find something else!

Do it differently - if your product or service isn't unique, you can't win.

Put your money where your mouth is - show customers that you believe in yourself. People love underdogs.

Show your employees you care for them, for their success. If you root for them they'll root for you!

And finally, hate is good. You need an enemy. When you pitch to a client, tell them how you hate their competitors!

When he finished his speech I made a b-line to the front of the room to get a chance to introduce myself. Dressed in blue jeans and a sweater, Donny looked like the average (but really cute!) guy next door as he graciously listened to a long line of fans wanting to shake his hand. I literally had about 15 seconds to tell him who I was and what I did in a compelling way, and I think I did an o-k good job but there's definitely room for improvement. That's when I wished I had rehearsed Laura Allen's 15secondpitch a little more.

Laura was also at the conference (check out her batch of pictures here) giving a talk on how you can use her pitching methodology not only to introduce yourself but also when you develop your web copy. The same principles apply there as well: don't give them a laundry list - be short and to the point!

On my way out I bumped into an old colleague from my days at CNNfn, Pat Kiernan. He was making a special appearance for NY1, our local cable all-news station, where he is a familiar face every morning, delivering the morning news in his signature deadpan way. It was a thrill to see him and catch up on what some of our co-workers are doing since CNN's financial network shut down 3 years ago. (That's me next to Pat, and behind us, no - you're not seeing double - it's his life sized replica!)

Laura Allen and the 15 Second Pitch

Inspiration for a business can come from very unusual places. For Laura Allen (that's her below on the right) , co-founder of "The 15secondpitch", it came from a friend looking to meet date-worthy women. She turned her knack for connecting people into a profession. How'd she do it? Read on!

During the dot-com boom Laura worked at Cheetahmail.com, which somehow managed to survive the bust and was acquired by Experian in 2004. She'd been the first hire there so she was given a lot of freedom at the company, but eventually she got bored with the corporate structure and the rules, so in 2000 she left. Just as Laura was figuring out what to do next with her life, 9/11 happened. The internet industry was devastated, leaving behind a trail of laid-off techies. Looking for ideas on what to do next, Laura and her partner, Jim, who is a database programmer, attended a networking event in Los Angeles. It was there that they met their friend David, a good looking, single, MBA grad and fellow job seeker, who asked Laura to give him a hand meeting cute, single women at the conference. He found he got a much better response when Laura introduced him, and Laura had a ball "pitching" him to the ladies.

Jim, on the other hand, was not having much luck at networking and was thinking there had to be a better way to make connections, and when the two exchanged stories, they stumbled upon the idea for a 15-second pitch.

When they got back home they immediately checked the domain name, and finding it still available, they registered it that night.

Another problem with networking events is that you end up with a bunch of business cards, and afterwards you can't remember who most of those people are. So, they thought, why not create a card that contains a pitch which explains what their company is about? They went to work to turn the idea into a business, and spent the first two years building a website where people could create 15secondpitch cards.

Then in 2003 they decided Laura would teach a workshop on how to create a 15secondpitch. A friend in New York let her use her conference room, and she advertised her 2-hour course on a forum she found in Fast Company called "Company of Friends", that reached a few thousand people just in NY and NJ.

The event was free and about 15-20 people showed up. They each told their story and one guy shared that he'd been trying to get in touch with a VP of Coca-Cola for the past two years. Then another guy said his uncle worked there, and that he'd connect him. That's when Laura saw the power of what she calls the "third party pitch."

Heather is another of Laura's "third party pitch" success stories. She was a reporter who had perfected her "I'm a journalist" pitch, but there was only one problem - she no longer wanted to be a reporter. Her dream was to become a wedding planner. Laura advised her to keep her day job and start moonlighting on the side. They created a wedding planner pitch that same day, which she later shared with her husband. He in turn started telling his colleagues about her, and one of them had just gotten engaged, so he asked Heather to plan his wedding. Three weeks after creating the 15-second pitch Heather landed her first job through a "third party pitch"!

The other thing that worked for Heather was creating an image when describing her services. She went from saying "I'm a reporter but I want to be a wedding planner", to "I have an eye for detail so I'm starting a wedding planning business." Painting a picture in people's minds helps them understand what you do, especially with tech jobs - it's easier for people to buy into an idea if you make your pitch descriptive, giving examples, telling stories, making it rich with details.

Anyway, back to the workshops. In 2005 Laura decided to start charging for her seminars, but she needed money for marketing, so she went back into the corporate world, saving the money coming in from her day job and from teaching the seminars at night. After about a year she got laid off, with 2 weeks severance pay, plus unemployment benefits. Laura was thrilled. With the money she had put away she started marketing her monthly workshop, and shifted her business model more towards corporate clients like Merrill Lynch and non-profits like Cine Women.

The website has now gone through three major revisions, and they added a pitch wizard a year ago to automate the process of printing the pitch cards. Laura just re-launched her blog last week to focus on how to put together a killer 15secondpitch, and how to use it after you create it. In January they'll be unveiling their latest product (you heard it here first!), an e-learning platform that allows people to sign up for classes and follow at their own pace. Users will be able to create a 15secondpitch plus other related content using a tool that's partly automated and partly customized by Laura.

The 15secondpitch is used by lawyers, VC's , real estate brokers, freelancers - it's especially good for freelancers because their existence hinges on how well they can pitch, and they need to be constantly pitching new business. Marketing consultants, career coaches, college grads, financial planners - they can all benefit from it.

Here are 4 things Laura says an effective 15secondpitch should include:

1. Who you are - Tell then your name AND the name of your company!
   
   
2. What you do - avoid the "kitchen sink" pitch - don't tell your entire career history - focus on one thing and be specific. She's suggests preparing a separate pitch for everything you do.
   
   
3. Why you're the best at what you do.
   
   
4. A call to action - the crown jewel.

Ready to give it a try? Visit www.15secondpitch.com to compose your perfect pitch!