Lessons From Guria - Part Four

We recently concluded our first Guria program; twelve incredible women who are committed to doubling their revenues and doubling their profits – without doubling their workloads.
We covered a lot of ground in just a week, from rusty pitches to a polished showcase all the way to some teary farewells (for now).
Here are some of the lessons that stuck with me…

Networking events follow the 80/20 rule (and maybe 80/20 of the 80/20)
The 80/20 Rule is a well-documented phenomena that explains how things tend to be unevenly distributed:
·      20% of the people have 80% of the wealth
·      20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your profits
·      20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your headaches, etc.

In this case, 20% of the people in the room at a networking event are going to make up 80% of your valuable conversations.
That means you don’t need to try and speak with everybody, since the other 80% of the room can only give you 20% of what you’re looking for.
Better yet, the 80/20 rule also applies to the 20% of valuable people.
4% of the room are responsible for 64% of the value.
In a room of 50 guests, that might be just two people.
The aim of a networking event isn’t to meet everybody, but rather to position yourself in a way that gets you talking to those 4%.

Networking is a reminder that you aren’t for everyone and that’s ok
You are not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s ok.
Just because you sat at a table with four strangers doesn’t mean that they’re all going to understand what you do, let alone appreciate it.
That’s why we suggest moving frequently and gracefully, so that people who find your work and your passions interesting can introduce themselves to you.
If you get stuck next to someone who doesn’t get it, or doesn’t like it, that’s totally fine.
You are not responsible for converting them, you are responsible for making a quick and gracious exit.

Ads are worth what you make them worth
One of the guests at our showcase event was so impressed with the cohort that they’ve offered K18,000 worth of advertising in their trade magazine to each participant for free.
That’s about $8,000 Australian or $6,000 American – a very generous gift.
Except… it’s almost certainly not worth $8,000.
It’s worth either $0 or $20,000 depending on how well you design your ad.
Dave Trott reminds us that 4% of advertising is remembered positively, 7% is remembered negatively, 89% is not remembered at all.
Our cohort have been given a platform, but it’s their responsibility to use that platform to make a compelling offer to the reader.
Landing in that 4% isn’t easy, but it’s the only way the ad can boost their sales.
I highly recommend reading the work of David Ogilvy, John Hegarty, George Lois, or anyone who has run an advertising agency.
They’ll have books that are full of gold, timeless principles and examples that will spark your creativity.

Leading like Dorothy
Our CEO Annie Smits was in town, and hosted a Q&A session on the final day.She spoke about leadership, and how her model has been based on Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
Leaders tend to look more like a person leading a quest while supporting the whole group, rather than a knight in shining armour.
Dorothy understands the needs of her companions and helps them along the way, not 100% sure of where she is going, but 100% sure of her goal – in this case, getting home.
She managed to work with the brainless, the heartless and the scared, and get the result they each wanted.
This is a really interesting role model for leadership, and one that resonated with the group.

The power of editing
Over a 36 hour period, each entrepreneur’s pitch improved dramatically.
That’s off the back of four or five practice pitches, lost sleep, group feedback and a lot of courage, but the improvements were remarkable.
Interestingly, the change came from editing, not just a mindset shift.
More specifically, it came from removing 60% of the details, and doubling down on the most valuable and compelling parts of the talk.
e.g. “I’m going to be super honest with you, I’d delete everything on the slides except the photos. The photos are amazing, the text gets in your way.”
Removing the weakest sections made everything else come to life, and creates the feeling of professionalism.
This is the power of editing, several rounds of changes and subtractions that make you seem polished.
How might you use the power of editing to enhance other parts of your business?
Your website?
Your photos?
Your signup processes?
Your offer to your customers?

Personal monopolies
It can be easy to overlook the strengths of your business, especially when you do something that can be mostly replicated by others.
This can be disheartening to think about, particularly when it gets pointed out by other people, so it’s helpful to think about your comparative advantage.
For example, one entrepreneur runs business development tours of Indonesia, thanks to her extensive networks and decades of experience working in this region.
Technically, someone can hear our entrepreneur’s pitch and decide to set up their own business trip to Indonesia, bypassing her fees.
Except they can’t have HER.
Our founder has a monopoly on herself.
There is only one of her, and nobody can force her to help rival operators.
If a customer wants a piece of her, they have to approach her directly, and she doesn’t need to prove that she’s the cheapest.
It’s strange to think about yourself as a monopoly, but it’s important.
If you are the business’s most valuable asset, don’t feel pressured to drop your prices.
Competitors can set up their own versions of what you sell, but if you are genuinely the difference maker in the equation, customers will keep choosing you.

Let us march against Philip
My favourite quote on pitching comes from a long time ago:
“When Aeschines spoke they said ‘how well he speaks’.
But when Demosthenes spoke they said ‘let us march against Philip.’”
Essentially, do you want to be complimented on being a good speaker, or do you want the audience to take action?
There is a distinct difference in how you prepare – one focuses on polish, the other on persuasion.
It helps to determine what action you hope your audience will take once you’ve spoken, and use that as the basis for refining and improving your presentation.
In this case, sales are more valuable than praise, as nice as praise feels in the moment.

The Guria Effect
Some simple stats on the program that we’re really proud of:
Our 12 entrepreneurs are currently generating revenue of K2.5m
Without this program, they were on track to earn K3.3m
After this program, they are on track to earn K7.7m
That K4.4m increase is what we’re calling The Guria Effect, and it demonstrates the power of a good accelerator program.

You no longer need to buy single-ply
I saw this question in a Tim Ferriss article “Why are you still buying single-ply?” and it made me laugh out loud.
Tim argues that single ply toilet paper is “a fool’s economy”, you use twice as much so it doesn’t really save you much money, as well as being unpleasant to use.
When starting your business, every cent counts and so we make lots of compromises.
However as the business starts to grow, these savings become unnecessary and unhelpful.
For example, running your own social media pages or cleaning you own office might not be great uses of the founder’s time.
Tim asks the question; where can you spend extra dollars that lead to increased revenues and profits?
As a starting point, I’d look at the fields of sales, marketing and partnerships…

The courage to abandon the past
Another gem from The Book Of Beautiful Questions by Warren Berger:
Do I have the courage to abandon the past?
This is a confronting subject but a liberating one – the decision to separate your future from your past struggles, failures and insecurities.
It means dropping the old labels you attached to yourself and your business, no longer calling it “a new project” or a pretend business.
This takes serious courage.
Your brain will hold you back, telling you that it’s somehow dishonest to not show people how badly things started, using your past as a way of avoiding new risks in the future.
Instead we need the courage to make a statement about where our business is going next, then shut up and let the products and services do the talking.
No excessive modesty.
No rehashing old traumas.
No picking at your scars.

Painting mental pictures
A pitch can’t be persuasive if the audience doesn’t have a clear mental picture of what you’re on about.
A clear mental picture that’s wrong is still more useful than an accurate description that confuses the listener, so it’s better to over-simplify things than to lose people with detail.
The easiest ways to create mental pictures are with stories, props, photos and videos.
These are exceptionally clear and therefore compelling, and are hard to misinterpret.
If your pitch does not use props, photos or videos, then it’s time to work on a story or case study – preferably one with before/after figures or emotive language.
The audience’s mental picture is your responsibility.

Turning the knife
One of the best ways to start a pitch is with a good description of the problem faced today.
You get to set the scene, describing the type of issue, who it affects and why it’s a problem worth solving.
The temptation here is to use facts, but it’s more effective to use emotions.
After describing the problem, it’s worth adding in an extra 1-2 lines that “turn the knife”, making the pain faced by customers impossible to ignore.
Why is the problem a problem?
What are the effects of the problem?
How does it make people feel?

This should leave the audience thinking “Something has to change!”, at which point you swoop in with your solution.
Think of it the other way – if we don’t understand what makes the problem so urgent or painful, why should we be excited to learn of your new solution?

Talk like a person
A lot of founders speak with conviction in conversation, but turn into boring bureaucrats when they have to write anything down.
The best pitches use conversational language, rather than the jargon you use when writing government tender submission.
If you wouldn’t use a particular phrase over dinner or in everyday life, it might need to disappear from your pitch.
Speaking in corporate code makes people switch off, whereas we find straight talk to be a refreshing change.
If all else fails, remember this: don’t use two business words in a row.
You can say “collaboration”, you can say “innovative”, you can say “platform”.
If you start talking about your “Innovation collaboration platform”, I’m going to sleep.

Presentation tips
Three quick ones:
1. If someone offers you a microphone, use it.
2. It’s easier to use your slides as notes than actual notes.
3. If you do use note cards, print them in a large font.

No negative talk as you walk up to speak
I put a quick stop to the negative self-talk whenever someone got up to rehearse their pitch.
The little comments like “oh this won’t be very good” don’t generate much sympathy if the pitch is bad and sound silly if the pitch is decent.
This mindset is contagious and unhelpful.
I believe in walking up, delivering the pitch and letting the room decide how it went.
Forecasting an underwhelming pitch in advance helps nobody.

No videos unless you’re a pro
Incorporating a video into your pitch is like bringing a dog onto the stage with you:
It had better do what you expect it to do, or else it quickly becomes a calamity.
We had one entrepreneur use a video really effectively, but she runs a videography business so it made perfect sense.
If you haven’t used videos before, or it’s not your AV setup, or you can’t troubleshoot and talk at the same time, don’t use a video in your pitch.

Can you take smaller bites?
When planning your next steps, it’s easy to be intimidated or stifled by what feel like large decisions.
My sense is that I have the willpower and patience to try something new for about two hours at a time, e.g. watching a few videos on a subject, reading the first third of a book, but not registering for a full day seminar.
If you wanted me to start filming video content, I’d probably need to be able to break the task into two-hour chunks.
i.e. Learn how to use my phone camera, set up a filming location, choose what to include in the first video, pick an outfit, rehearse, learn how to use editing software, edit the video, upload it, write a description for it, promote it online, etc.
If I am considering something new and I can’t work out what those chunks look like (e.g. make and promote a video), it’s highly unlikely that I’ll start working on it.
There’s never a day when I feel like doing all of that work at once, so it won’t happen.
Therefore, the valuable question becomes “How can I take smaller bites?”.
This mindset helps divide big goals into little pieces, which in turn makes it more likely that I end up achieving a result.
Can you use this question for your own business improvements?

Success does not create an obligation to run yourself into the ground
There’s an unhealthy expectation that any successful project or intervention must be immediately spread far and wide, even if it means running the team and business model into the ground.
If you manage to build a strong business in one market, you are not obliged to expand.
You don’t have to go global, you don’t have to replicate immediately.
You don’t have to train others and give away your intellectual property.
You don’t have to spend most of your month travelling between cities.
You don’t have to be bigger in order to be great.

Scale is a lousy measure of success
Similarly, scale is not the only measure of success.
You are allowed to take your time, and you are allowed to stay in your current market if you so desire.
There’s a really good book by Bo Burlingham called Small Giants on this topic – companies who choose to be great instead of huge, which covers this in-depth.
Therefore, someone telling you that “your idea doesn’t scale” isn’t a terrifying criticism.
Lots of good things don’t scale, and that’s totally fine.
Please don’t pretend to want to scale just to impress these critics – the people who say these things won’t be impressed no matter what you build.
They want to feel smarter than you.

Audience questions can be misguided attempts at coaching
Imagine you’re a CEO or consultant and you’re invited to a showcase or pitch night.
The event goes for two hours, and the first 90 minutes involve you sitting at a round table, not saying much.
Twelve people pitch their businesses, and you then have the chance to talk to four of them.
You’re going to want to help them, and prove that you’re a valuable person to have in the room.
You see something risky in their business model or their growth plans, so you feel compelled to let the entrepreneur know about the issue.

Every single showcase, I get 2-3 of these scenarios.
Smart people saying unhelpful things to our entrepreneurs, in the name of “helping” them.
I get where it comes from, so now I warn the entrepreneurs in advance:
Some people will ask you rude questions or make rude comments, and it’s generally a misguided attempt at coaching you.
It comes from a good place, but it’s best that you decide to ignore it.
They’re trying to help, but they haven’t yet earned the right to offer constructive criticisms.
These are the 80% of the room who can offer 20% of the support.

End with a genuine ask
A pitch should end with a request of the audience, or else it feels flat.
The request can be a sale, an introduction, mentoring, investment, etc, but please don’t ask for something you don’t actually want.
If you can’t think of anything you want from the audience, perhaps the pitch event isn’t for you?
Alternatively, it might be time to research who’s going to be in the room, so that you can work out how you might help each other.

Assume all offers are genuine
I love seeing our entrepreneurs receive generous offers from other business leaders (e.g. the K18,000 of free advertising).
I hate seeing the entrepreneurs then not follow up because they retroactively label the offer as being disingenuous.
Yes, some offers won’t pan out, but please start by assuming that all are genuine by default.
Even if they don’t eventuate, you’ve done the right thing by taking the offer at face value and following up the next day.

Becoming a player-manager
Dave Trott has this great article from 2011 called “The secret to being a creative director”.
Here’s my favourite excerpt:
The best advice I ever heard about being a creative director was from Kenny Dalglish.
He was Liverpool’s all-time greatest player.
Eventually, he became interested in the next step in his career.
Being a manager.
He thought he’d have to stop playing to learn this new trade.
But Liverpool wanted to hang onto him for as long as they could.
So they suggested a compromise.
He could be ‘player-manager’.
He could play for Liverpool and, at the same time, be their manager.
So that’s what Dalglish did.
He played regularly for Liverpool while learning how to put together, and run, a team.
One day he was being interviewed by the press.
A journalist asked him “How are you finding the transition to management Kenny?”In a heavy Scottish accent Dalglish said “Well, I’ll know I’ve got the team right when I can’t get on it.”And there it is.
IMHO the best piece of advice about being a creative director.

While none of our cohort are coaching soccer teams, this principle is incredibly relevant for their next stage of growth.
The founder knows how to do each job in the business, but by stepping in to do the work, they make themselves a limiting linchpin within the organisation.
Instead, the goal is to find someone who’s better than you in each area; a better baker, salesperson, administrator, etc.
Eventually you won’t be the best person for anything, and that’s how you know you’ve got the right team.
This means treating the next few years as a “player-manager transition”, stepping in where necessary, but less and less over time.
It means learning to recognise when someone is better than you, and treating this as a win for the business rather than a bruise to your ego.
(As it happens, Kenny Dalglish the manager went on to win the league three times in a row along with two FA cups – his approach works.)

How might we become the company that would put us out of business?
Every business is vulnerable to a new, well designed competitor.
The question is, do you want to wait for that competitor to appear, or do you want to pre-empt them and become that fearsome business yourself?
If your brain can imagine the type of company that would put you out of business, why not become that company?
If an idea is good enough to scare you, surely it’s worth testing?

Building your canoe
Anna and I received an incredible three-piece artwork of a canoe along a riverbank in PNG.
Our cohort explained that they felt the Guria program felt like they were building their own canoes, which can now be used to trade, explore and grow their businesses.
I love the analogy, and I love the picture.
It’s getting pride of place in our little office in Melbourne, a great reminder of one of our all-time favourite cohorts.
Thank you for trusting us along this journey, and keep us posted with where you take your canoes over the next few years.
We’ll be back in Port Moresby throughout the year, and look forward to involving our alumni in the next round of the Guria program.