Table of Contents
1# Nowadays Less is More
Steve Jobs was the quintessential communicator and entrepreneur. He firmly believed that for a product or idea to be widely adopted, it needed to have a simplistic design. The iPhone and iPad have only one button. His presentations usually have 3 bullet points or 3 images per slide and that’s all.
In this day and age, we are so inundated with information that 144 character bottom-line summaries are more relevant than lengthy write-ups. This is why Twitter has been so incredibly successful. The best business model presentations that I see as a venture capitalist have a maximum of 10 slides with only 3 bullet points per slide; less is more works.
Executives and potential investors have extraordinarily short attention spans in this day and age are given the many screens that we are addicted to like smartphones, tablets, laptops, watches, etc. You need to get your point across in as few words as possible. Pretend that each message that you send costs you $100 per word. With this in mind, you will definitely embrace the winning methodology of less is more.
2# Present with Passion & Enjoy Public Speaking
One of the most important skill sets that most business schools don’t teach is how to give effective presentations. Effective presentations are ones where the presenter is speaking from the heart, with high energy, and with a lot of passion! Watch Ted Talks or YouTube presentations by Steve Jobs or Marc Benioff or Ronald Reagan or Barrack Obama for superb examples of how to present.
Each slide needs to have as little information as possible on it. Remember that less is always more. You also need to use your hands a lot, make eye contact with everyone in the audience and use long pregnant pauses after you say something that is important.
Don’t ever present for more than 10 minutes without a video, a funny image, or a break as we can’t pay attention for long periods of time; there is a reason that Ted Talks are less than 15 minutes. Don’t read a script. Rather, go off script and speak right from the heart. Storytelling works, especially ones where you have a hero (your product) and a villain (the competitor’s products).
3# Shut Up if You Think You Closed the Sale
One of the biggest mistakes people make in sales is that they oversell. If you do this, your buyer will think that there is something wrong with your product or that you are desperate to make the sale. Once you think that the buyer wants the product then stop talking.
If you oversell then the buyer might see blood in the water and talk your pricing point down and destroy your margins or commissions. More than often they will simply not buy your product. Remember that your product or service is so awesome that you don’t need this sale anyway as you are selling a premium product that commands higher prices than the competition. Your customer needs your product and you are helping them by giving them the opportunity to purchase the product. Don’t ever oversell. Once you sense that they are committed to purchasing your product, simply shut up.
4# Small Clients are Just as Much Work as Big Clients
Don’t waste your time trying to get small clients. Elephant hunt. You will find those small customers are just as much work and often more work than large customers!
Why is this the case? Smaller customers usually have less disposable income and, as a result, are more likely to want to return the product or pester you with too many customer support questions. Larger clients, by contrast, can be more sophisticated so they require less customer support, and they also likely have less of their net worth invested in your product.
Don’t get it in the wrong way as you need to respect and appreciate all customers in business, but your time is valuable and it would be nice to spend less time servicing smaller customers and more time working on new leads or more time with your family. Life is too short.
5# Talk Business Later
Your best customers can become great friends of yours. Get to know them well before conducting business. Ask them where they are from, what they love in life. Create a personal bond with them. You will get to a point in your career when you can choose your customers and enjoy their company.
Don’t talk business until you get to know your customer or business partners. Once you understand who your customers are and what their needs are, you can tailor your product or service to fit their needs and help them with their goals. You need to genuinely believe that your product or service will help them achieve their goals by either helping them make more money or helping them to save money.
6# Dress for Success
Be the woman or man you want to become. The way you carry yourself is the way others will treat you. People will respect you if take the time to dress well. Dress the way a person would one level above you in your job. If you take time to look good, people will think you are confident and hence competent. There is no excuse for looking like a slob; you do have time to get ready or find the right clothes to wear.
An executive or salesperson that dresses like a slob is perceived to be less reliable, dependable, and less successful. If you don’t know what to wear for a job interview, go to the company’s website and look at pictures of what they are wearing. Alternatively, go to LinkedIn and look at the profile pictures of the people that are going to interview you and dress in line with their style. Dress well and excel.
(Excerpt is from one of my all-time favorite ‘101 Crucial Lessons They Don’t Teach You in Business School’ by Chris Haroun)
“I never lose. I either win or learn.”- Nelson Mandela
