Bill Joos' Tips from the Trenches

                           

                    Bill Joos

              Go To Market Consulting

                      +1 650 799-5980

           bill@gotomarketconsulting.com

Welcome to "Tips from the Trenches"

I have often felt like the proverbial cobbler with holes in his own shoes. 

Here I am a Silicon Valley sales, marketing and equity fundraising consultant to early-to-mid stage start-ups, and a frequent speaker on all things entrepreneurial, yet I haven't gotten around to doing my own web page or blog.

Following multiple requests for additional information from a recent flurry of speeches and lectures at various entrepreneurial events from Edinburgh, Scotland to Montreal, Canada to Cal/Berkeley and numerous other Silicon Valley venues, I decided to fix my "shoes" and start this blog. Better late than never . . .

Tips from the Trenches will be just that: lessons learned -- from outstanding sucesses as well as painful mistakes -- and insights gained from working with hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs over the past decade.

The direction this blog takes will, to a large part, be determined by you, the reader. Please click on this email link and send me your thoughts, suggestions, questions and requests. Thanks in advance for your guidance! 

I hope you'll enjoy Tips from the Trenches . . .

        Bill

The Elephant and the Invisible Man

A friend’s daughter is attending the University of San Diego. As a part time job, Karen got an interesting position at the world famous San Diego Zoo where she was helping with the elephants, a great job for a biology major.

You could fill the Grand Canyon with what I don’t know about pachyderms, so when I was invited down to get a private, after hours tour to meet the elephants up close and personal, I knew I just had to go. 

As it happened, one of my San Diego clients needed me at their office for a prep and polish session for an upcoming VC meeting -- a typical consulting assignment for me -- so the timing was set.

At this point you might well ask what elephants -- or an invisible man for that matter -- have to do with marketing, sales and fundraising. Read on . . .

After my arrival at the zoo, before we went out to the elephant pens, we were having a cup of coffee while Karen and a fellow employee were giving me the run-down on this unusual job. It was an entry level job involving -- among other things -- gloves, shovels, pitchforks, buckets and wheelbarrows, but interesting nevertheless.

You could tell that Karen had fallen in love with the job and with Molly, “her” elephant. With every sentence her excitement grew. She talked about how Molly weighed about 200 pounds and stood over 2 feet tall at birth and then loudly exclaimed, “Molly is now three years old and weighs 3,000 pounds!”

She and her colleague almost high-fived each other with this statement. It obviously meant something important to both of them, but to me it didn’t mean a darn thing.

As I hadn't actually met Molly yet, I didn’t know if she was anorexic and as thin-as-a-rail as elephants ever get. Or was this toddler a giant in the making?

For a three-year-old did she only weigh 3,000 pounds, or did she already weigh 3,000 pounds? For lack of a few extra words I was left to draw my own conclusions, and they were 180 degrees out of phase. Svelte Molly, or corpulent Molly?

This parable’s punch line is that in every VC fund raising presentation I have sat through -- and I have sat through hundreds when I was the VP of Entrepreneurial Development at Garage Technology Ventures -- there are usually more than just a few “Molly statements” made . . . statements meaningful to the presenter but not necessarily to the audience.

    “Our RAID disk drives have a 5 millisecond seek time.”

    “We are using Java.”

    “We are Wi-Fi and WiMAX agnostic.”

When I hear “Molly statements” like these I am left with several options. I can smile and nod knowingly, hoping that later statements will clarify any confusion. I can ask a question, perhaps showing my ignorance of the topic. Or, I can draw my own conclusions; and in Molly's case it probably would have been a 50/50 coin flip . . . svelte or corpulent?

Flash back several decades. When I was working for IBM as a sales rep I attended an intensive six week advanced sales training course. 

There, I was given a special gift by a seasoned sales professional whose name I have long forgotten: a 2” high invisible man (see photo).

He lives to this day unobtrusively sitting on my right shoulder. Naturally if I talked directly to him, well . . . you can imagine the consequences; I would be carted away.

But there he sits, listening to everything I say. If he ever hears me say “Molly is now three years old and weighs 3,000 pounds!” he leans over, tugs on my earlobe to get my attention, and whispers in my ear two magical words: “so what?”

The answer to “so what?” almost always points directly to benefits, clarifiers or differentiators which help the listener draw the right conclusions and in the best possible light.

So, through the magic of cloning and the internet, I'm now giving you your own invisible man. Listen to him when he says "so what?"

    “Our RAID disk drives have a 5 millisecond seek time (so what?)
        . . . so they’ll outperform all competitive solutions by at least 40%.”

    “We are using Java (so what?)
        . . . which allows for rapid development and device independence.”

    “We are Wi-Fi and WiMAX agnostic (so what?)
        . . . so our service will work both now and in the future as new standards emerge."

“So what?” is a powerful mindset -- an attitude really -- that should be part of your mental toolkit anytime you are trying to communicate who you are or what you, your product or company does.

    P.S.  Take a close look at Molly’s small ears. That, I learned, is a dead giveaway that she is an Asian elephant. Her larger African counterparts have huge floppy ears that help lower their body temperature by 10 degrees, since the blood circulating in their ears acts exactly like a car’s radiator.  Molly is, in fact, three years old and weighs 3,000 pounds. So what? She is on the right growth path and probably will measure about 9 feet at the shoulder and weigh about 8,500 pounds when fully grown. This was the unspoken third possibility, not svelte or corpulent, but normal and fit!

Finally: a Sales Hot Button Detector!

For all you sales professionals or entrepreneurs on a fundraising hunt, it is finally available! And you've waited your whole sales life for it! 

Introducing the:

   "DETECTRON" SALES HOT BUTTON DETECTOR!

Deep in the hills of North Hollywood there is a new, venture-backed company staffed by the finest scientists that California universities can muster. 

In their secret laboratory, they reuse 1950, cold-war vintage Geiger counters purchased on eBay and retrofit them with the latest technologies, including proprietary, patent-pending, artificial-intelligence algorithms with some super-secret nano stuff thrown in for good measure.

After the comfortable headset -- with its hidden, embedded electroencephalogram sensors -- is placed firmly on your prospect’s head, iPod music is played mixed with subliminal audio questions. Using the convenient Probe-Master hand controller, you can secretly explore your prospect's subconscious looking for faint traces of sales hot buttons. When the top three sales hot buttons are found and prioritized -- usually in well under ten minutes -- they are displayed on the easy-to-read display located on the unit.

Now, for only three easy payments of $169.95 each (plus S+H) you can master the complexities of knowing exactly what to emphasize when you present to each and every sales prospect or venture capitalist.

But Wait! There’s More! . . . Did I mention the no-risk, money back guarantee? . . . or the set of never-dull, Ginsu knives that you are free to keep as a gift?

This might work, but there is actually a better way. And it's FREE!

I call my own sales technique “The School of Healthy Curiosity.” In my experience people will actually tell you how to sell to them -- and find their sales hot buttons -- if you only ask! Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat, it helps close the deal.

An example: You are about to start your fundraising presentation to a VC. You have your slides all set and you know the approximate time you’ll be spending on each topic to make everything fit, allowing adequate time for discussions and questions. 

At the start of the meeting, looking thoughtful, you ask, “To make our meeting today as effective as possible,” -- and who wouldn’t want that? -- “what are the three most important things that you would like to learn about my company in the next hour?”

Bingo: hot buttons!

Realizing that there is no wrong answer to your question, you'll be wiser with any answer you receive, as long as you listen carefully to the responses.

Pretend that the VC replies,  “ . . . team, intellectual property, and launch plans.” Do you think that the amount of time and emphasis you were planning on spending on these areas during your presentation just changed? Duh.

Now reflect on how your presentation would have gone if you hadn't asked that question. You would probably have short-changed those topics and missed an opportunity to better focus on what really mattered to your listener.

Now that you know this tip, can you ever imagine doing a future sales presentation without first asking this question?   

I am so fanatical about this that many of my VC prep clients have jokingly started to refer to this as The Question.

They know that one of the first things I’ll ask them following their VC meeting is, “When you asked The Question, what did you learn and how did you subsequently modify and refocus your presentation?”

Of course you can also ask The Question days before the meeting when you are confirming the schedule via email or phone.

So, in summary, forced rank questions ("three most important things") are very powerful. Properly and judiciously used, they yield valuable insights that can greatly improve the effectiveness of your sales or fundraising presentations. 

The Question beats the "DETECTRON" hands down; but then of course, you don't get the knives.

    P.S. Have you ever yearned to own -- or actually own? -- a Popeil Pocket Fisherman? Veg-O-Matic? Mr. Microphone? Then read Timothy Samuelson’s book on the famous TV pitch commercials of yore:  “But Wait! There's More! : The Irresistible Appeal And Spiel Of Ronco And Popeil.”

Avoiding the Great PowerPoint Slide Hunt

This PowerPoint tip takes just 120 seconds to learn and can make you look like a real pro.

This may seem like "PowerPoint 101," but fewer than 10% of the CXO presenters I have coached knew this trick before I shared it with them. 

Try it; it's very cool!

One of the things that drives me crazy when I am an attendee at a presentation is when someone in the audience asks a question and the presenter says, "I have a slide here somewhere that addresses that," and then proceeds to flip forward and backward through the slides, flashing them all on the screen and looking like a rank amateur while appearing flustered on the Great PowerPoint Slide Hunt.

When they finally do find the elusive slide, they talk to it, and then they have to click madly back to where they were, flashing on screen all intermediate slides as they go. Any pretext of "presenter cool" has just vanished, usually taking some -- or all -- of the presenter's self-confidence with it.

Never let that happen to you, or at least not while I am in the audience!

Before your presentation, make a simple, small discreet list maybe on a 3 X 5 card, of all of your slide titles with their respective slide numbers; like this example:

    1-   Welcome
    2-   Company overview
    3-   Players, problem & pain
    4-   Pain killer
    5-   Our magic technologies
    6-   Competition
    7-   Business model
    8-   Go to market plans
    9-   Revenue summary
    10- Team
    11- Timeline & status   
    12- Why Us Summary

  Backups (to be used only as needed*)
    13- Expanded market data
    14- Technical details, expanded view
    15- Financial details
    16- Revenue details
    17- Etc.
    18- Etc.

Now you are all set to look like a professional, perhaps even a genius with ESP.

Example 1: You are just finishing talking about slide 9 (revenue summary) and someone asks for more revenue details. Without missing a beat you glance at your list, and press 16 and Enter - - you are instantly seeing that slide (revenue details). When you're done, you simply do a 10 and Enter and you're back to your original flow. 

To the audience it looked like the revenue details slide was always immediately after the revenue summary.  Only you know that this is what really happened: . . . 7, 8, 9, 16, 10, 11, etc.

Example 2: You are on the summary slide 12 and a question comes up about your patent-pending technologies. With a simple 5 and Enter you can return to the slide where that was discussed, or jump ahead to a more detailed explaination with a 14 and Enter. After that discussion, a 12 and Enter will return you directly to the summary slide.

You can totally avoid the Great PowerPoint Slide Hunt and jump to any slide at any time, if you just know what slide number you want. Referring to your discreet slide list, simply press the desired slide number and Enter. You can hop-scotch all around your presentation at will.

   * CAUTION: backup slides seem to have a magical, hyponotic power over the presenter, as though part of the presenter's brain says "I went to all the work to make these, so darn it, I am going to show them whether they are needed or not!" Only use the backup slides if they are really needed. Now you know how to make them appear seamlessly in the right place at the right time.

 

Q: "How Do I Know If My Company is Venture Capital Fundable?"

What a great question! I can't keep track of how many times I've been asked this over the years.

Bill Reichert, a colleague of mine at Garage Technology Ventures, has a self-assessment test that really nails the key areas VCs focus on.

Will your company:

        1.  Have rapid, sustainable growth?
        2.  Obtain significant size and scale?
        3.  Be disproportionately profitable?

Your company must pass all three of these criteria to have the best chance of obtaining instutional equity funding. If you can't pass this triology, think about how your idea or business plan can be modified to change your answers.

Sadly, especially here in Silicon Valley, not being able to attract venture capital has taken on the unfair stigma of failure. Go outside Silicon Valley and you'll hear more entrepreneurs talking about and exploring bootstrapping, angels, SBA loans and grants as an alternative -- or precursor -- to VC funding.

With obtaining VC funding being about a 1000:1 shot, consider all of your options and, as it pertains to your dream, remember Winston Churchill's most famous quote: "never, never, never give up!"
                                 

    P.S. This is the first posting as a direct result of a question or topic submitted by a reader. What would you like me to address in future postings?  Please just send me an email.

Pre-Application Recruiting Tests; Part I

Check out this now-famous billboard that was on Highway 101 in the heart of Silicon Valley:

     {First 10-digit prime found
       in consecutive digits of e} .com

No company name, no logo, no stated purpose. Nothing but this mathematical puzzle in big bold type.

What curious, high-IQ math geek could resist this challenge? There was even a rear-end collision or two by this sign. Coincidence? You decide. (Maybe there is a small market for bumper stickers that say "Warning: I brake for number theory".)

If you figured out this equation-driven URL, it would lead you to yet another URL that had an even harder problem, still without any company identification or stated purpose.

Getting past this second challenge landed those with obviously big brains at a special web page at Google Labs, the company's research and development arm.
       "What we're looking for are the best engineers in the world. And here you are.
        As you can imagine, we get many, many resumes every day, so we developed
        this little process to increase the signal-to-noise ratio." 

Naturally, it went on to talk about the benefits of considering a career at Google and how to submit your resume at a special puzzle-solvers email address.

Like this concept but don't have Google's budget? Here is a small company story that pre-dates this billboard by over a decade.

Mike Scanlin, now a Venture Partner at Sierra Ventures, was a senior engineering manager at now-defunct T/Maker Company in the early '90s. He was looking for a few really smart engineers to optimize 68000 assembly language code for their WriteNow word processor running on early memory-starved Macintosh computers.

Mike's solution? He ran a small 1.5 x 3" (ain't no billboard!) display ad in the hard-core programming magazine MacTech that listed twelve lines of assembly language code with this challenge: "Remove at least 12 bytes and 38 cycles from this code and send your solution and resume to T/Maker."

The results? Out of 200 submissions only about 10% did it the most efficient way, but from that smaller pool of highly-qualified candidates with the right stuff, Scanlin filled the open engineering slots. One guy submitted two different correct answers -- and was, of course, hired! An East Coast math PhD was so excited to work with other efficient programmers that he changed careers and moved across the country to work at T/Maker.

Mike even got replies from several engineers with notes saying, "I am not looking to change jobs now, but I just wanted to know if I got the right answer!"

The total cost of his pre-application test? Just $200. And no rear-end collisions.

The big message: Get creative in your hiring process! It's easier to find what you're looking for if it comes looking for you.

     P.S.  The Google answer is 7427466391.com.  The URL is no longer active. This classic billboard was up in July of 2004 for a very limited period of time, but that was long enough to be featured in several local newspaper articles and on Bay Area TV news.

Look Ma! No Tires!

 

This posting has absolutely nothing to do with sales, marketing, business plans and equity fundraising insights . . . or does it? 

It sure involves thinking outside the box, and that is a entrepreneurial virtue!

Imagine you are part of a tire company design team and your team is challenged by the CEO to literally reinvent the tire. 

Say what?  Hasn't everything  already been done to tires that can be?  Sure, you can tweak tread patterns, rubber compounds and advertising campaigns, but totally reinvent the tire?

Click on the big picture of the car above to enlarge it.  How cool is that!  Want a set for your car? 

So, how did they do that?  After you think about it for awhile, click on the four smaller pictures below to enlarge them to see the secret. 

 

Did you notice the name?  They are called "tweels" - is that a great name or what?

Now, how can YOU think outside the box in YOUR company? If the tire and wheel can be reinvented, anything is possible. 

If this didn't get your creative juices flowing, please seek professional help.

    P.S. If humans are so smart about wheels, how come it took us 5,000 years to put them on our luggage?

Pre-Application Recruiting Tests; Part II

Picking up on a theme from an earlier posting, here is an even cheaper method for screening applicants.  This was suppose to have been posted on a bulletin board in the computer science building at a university.

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

     P.S.  As I am neither a computer scientist or a math whiz, would one of my sharp eye readers please send me the solution?