schultz teaching entrepreneurial airmen how to pitch their ...€¦ · • problem: my fingers get...

Teaching Entrepreneurial Airmen How to Pitch Their Innovative Ideas Successfully

Heidi Schultz, Ph.D.

Clinical Professor, Management

and Corporate Communication

Kenan-Flagler Business School

UNC-Chapel Hill

[email protected]

© Heidi Schultz

mailto:[email protected]

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Innovative ideas Implementation

Effective Communication

GAP

Cultivate Confidence and Polish Professional Presence

Structure a successful pitch

Our Route

Application with Deliverables

Pitching Best Practices: Brainstorm

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Prime the Pump

• Know Your audience

• Know Your Purpose

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Know Your Audience

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Know Your Purpose

• The purpose for ALL pitches

• As a result of this pitch, I want my audience to:• Understand the problem I’ve identified• Understand my solution for fixing/addressing the problem• Give me the green light to implement my idea

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Pitch Map

Opening

• Purpose: short statement that embodies the problem and solution

• Importance: To the audience; the hook

• [Agenda: A roadmap]

• [Clarification: Background]

Closing

• Next Steps: Call to action

Problem•Specific and focused

Solution•What's your fix?

Market•Who is this solution for?

Compet-ition

•Who else is in this space?

Team•Who are the essential people involved with design and implementation?

Financial Summary

•What's it going to cost? What money is already in it?

Mile-stones

•What goals have you achieved? What goals do you plan to achieve? And when?

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Opening

• Purpose: Twitter Headline that embodies the problem and solution


• Agenda: A roadmap• Clarification: Background

11https://www.dvidshub.net/video/644351/spark-tank-video

Question for you: What is the problem that Cadet Bamieh is trying to solve?

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/644351/spark-tank-video

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https://www.dvidshub.net/video/659456/spark-tank-winner

Question for you: Why is the innovative idea in Master Sgt. Neighbor’s pitch important? Why might the intended audience care?


Your Turn

• Task 1: Write a short purpose statement that embodies the problem and solution for this scenario:• Problem: my fingers get messy dipping oreo cookies in milk.• Solution: use a fork stuck in between the cookies.

• Task 2: Based on our examples and discussion of ‘best practices’ for opening a successful pitch, capture some notes about how and what you plan to communicate to the entrepreneurial airmen whom you’ll be training on the topic of

How to Launch a Pitch

Pitch Map

Opening

• Purpose: Short statement that embodies the problem and solution




Closing

• Next steps: Call to Action




Compet-ition



Financial Summary


Mile-stones


Explain the Problem

16Problem Solution Market Competition Team Financial Summary Milestones

We experience a 2% failure rate for air drops

Explain the Solution


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUVtA9lGl_s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUVtA9lGl_s

Explain the Market


https://www.dvidshub.net/video/645420/adaptive-basing

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/645420/adaptive-basing

Address the Competition

• Question for you: who or what might be the competition for innovative ideas put forth in a pitch?


Include the Team

Tech. Sgt. Matthew Steht and Tech. Sgt. Cory Snyder, 144th Maintenance GroupFresno Air National Guard Base, California, Air National Guard

[From Airforce Website – www.af.mil]

20Problem Solution Market Competition TeamFinancial Summary Milestones

http://www.af.mil/

Explain the money part

21Problem Solution Market Competition Team Financial Summary

Milestones

Understanding the Milestones


Remember . . .

An effective conclusion propels your audience to action in a way that furthers your goals.

Pitch Map

Opening





Closing

• Next Steps: Call to action




Compet-ition



Financial Summary


Mile-stones


Your Turn

• Keeping ”conclusion” best practices in mind, what content will you use to teach entrepreneurial airmen

How to end a successful pitch?

• Capture your notes

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Opening





https://www.ted.com/talks

https://www.ted.com/talks

Your Turn

•Based on our MOST RECENT examples and discussion of ‘best practices’ for opening a successful pitch, how will you refine ‘how and what’ you plan to communicate to the entrepreneurial airmen whom you’ll be training on the following topic:

How to launch a pitch that people want to hear

•Write down your thoughts. Be specific.

Let’s Talk some more about audiences ‘engagement’ and ‘re-engagement’ strategies

• Storytelling

• Showing Concepts and Ideas

• Drawing

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Considerations and Best Practices

• ‘One’ represents something bigger• Micro to Macro

Micro to Macro/Me to You

Ric Elias



• Story length and element length

Element Length Informs Story Length

• _________________• _________________• _________________• _________________

• _________________

30 to 90 seconds




• Conviction


• �One� represents something bigger• Micro to Macro


• Conviction

• Getting stories

Corporate Story Framework

§Overarching point.

§Situation about a specific person, place, thing, or event.

§Challenge to the situation. That is, what rocked the �status quo�?

§Results. That is, what happened?

§So what? So how does this story relate back to your overarching business point?

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and thatI should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.

I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started cryingbecause it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.

I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve JobsCommencement

AddressStanford University

12 June 2005

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https://www.dvidshub.net/video/637118/msgt-maas-spark-tank-2019-submission

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/637118/msgt-maas-spark-tank-2019-submission

Your Turn

• Keeping storytelling best practices in mind, what content will you use to teach young airmen

How to tell a compelling story as part of a pitch?


Show … Don’t Just Tell

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Your Turn

• Keeping “show … don’t just tell” best practices in mind, what content will you use to teach entrepreneurial airmen

How to show their innovative ideas as part of a pitch?


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Communicating with whiteboards: 8 Best practices

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Best Practice #1

• Write legibly

• Exercise 1: print the upper-case and lower-case letters of the alphabet

• Exercise 2: Print this sentence: • Silence is golden, but duck tape is silver.

Best Practice #2

• Know how to draw basic shapes

• Exercise 3: Draw as many simple basic shapes as you can think of … shapes like ‘squares’ and ‘circles’

• Exercise 4: draw the shapes again with confidence and fluidity

Best Practice #3

• Know how to mash up basic shapes to create everyday things

• Exercise 5. Using some basic shapes, create three everyday things

• Exercise 6. Draw the objects again with confidence and fluidity

Best Practice #4

• Know how to draw general concepts important to business. These include• Time• Organization

• Goals• Challenges or Obstacles

• Options• Growth

• Internet

• Network• Bright Ideas

• Visions

• Exercise 7. draw three of the concepts on the list

• Exercise 8. Draw these concepts again with confidence and fluidity

Best Practice #5

• Know the key ‘nouns’ in your industry and how to draw them. For example, you might list ”diversification” and “asset allocation” in finance; you might list “products” and “services” in marketing.

• Exercise 9. List 3 ‘nouns’ in your industry

• Exercise 10: go to the internet and look at how others have created SIMPLE drawings of those nouns. Draw 1

• Exercise 11: Draw the noun again with confidence and fluidity

Best Practice #6

• Storyboard the thing• Know the specific outcome you want• Use sticky notes to prepare the flow of content and visuals

• Pick your images/practice them• Organize the whiteboard space into ‘photo-ready’ panes

based on your storyboard

Best Practice #7

• Mechanics

Best Practice #8

• Before you begin• Pre-write limited text or Pre-draw elements (For example,

you might create a simple timeline or divide the whiteboard space into grids)

• Tell participants the outcome you want• Do it

Your Turn

• Keeping “Drawing” best practices in mind, what content will you use to teach entrepreneurial airmen

How, when, and why to draw their

innovative ideas as part of a pitch?


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Why Talk about Slide Design?

“PowerPoint presentations have become as essential as coffee and Post-It Notes. They help lay out thoughts in a coherent manner, but they breed a dependency the likes of which I've only seen in heroin users and Starbucks coffee drinkers.”

Mike Campbell USA Today

Agenda

• Topic 1

• Topic 2

• Topic 3

• And so on …

Glance-Worthy Slides

Two concepts

Slide Make-Over: Circle Key Words and Revise

Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/10/do-your-slides-pass-the-glance-test/

Slide Make-Over: Extract Limited Content and Revise

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/carminegallo/files/2012/09/MEDICAL-SAMPLE-BEFORE1.jpg

Falling seniors

$7,168in average hospital costs

The Slide Tracker

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Glance-WorthinessAgendas Data Viz

Glance-WorthinessAgendas Data Viz

General Slide Design Best Practices

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Your Turn

• Keeping ”slide design” best practices in mind, what content will you use to teach entrepreneurial airmen

How to incorporate effective slides into

a successful pitch?


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Exercise

• In teams, mock up a Spark Tank/Shark Tank pitch for this innovative idea:

THE CHILD SAFETY CONE

Problem: children get hurt

Solution: a wearable safety cone

NOTE: make up any useful content

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Grab Listeners and Keep Them Engaged

Our Route


7%

38%55%

Contribution to Believability

Mehrabian, Albert, “Silent Messages – A Wealth of Information About Nonverbal Communication (Body Language).” Personality & Emotion Tests & Software:

Psychological Books & Articles of Popular Interest. Los Angeles, CA: self-published. http://www.kaaj.com/psych/smorder.html.

Likability Provides a Short Path to Believability

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Belie

vabil

ity

Likability

Confidence Boosters Before a Presentation

Source: Hanna, J. “Power Posing: Fake it Until You Make it” Harvard Business Review, 20 September 2010.

Results

Confidence Boosters During a Presentation

Body Language


Grab Listeners and Keep Them Engaged

Our Route


Your Turn

• What best practices will you teach related to professional presence? Why does professional presence matter when pitching?

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application and deliverables information

• In your team as “Innovation Coaches,” you will develop a specific and implemental coaching plan targeted to airmen with entrepreneurial ideas that teaches those airmen how to develop and deliver successful pitches to senior leaders for resourcing decisions.

• On the last day of class, you will present the details of this coaching plan to a team of content and communication experts for feedback. As you put together your coaching plan and the ensuing presentation about that plan, consider the following questions.

1. How will you teach airmen to deliver compelling, persuasive content in a 2-minute presentation? That is, what does your coaching program look like? Will it include best practices related to message structure? If so, what are those best practices? Will it include best practices related to delivery? If so, what are those best practices? Will it include best practices related to slide design? Is so, what are those best practices? Will it include best practices related to ‘showing’ concepts? If so, what are those best practices. In other words, what will your coaching program look like and include?

2. What materials will you develop (include prototype slides, handouts, framework, exercises) to support your coaching program?

• Audience: Your audience will be made up of content and communication experts who will be listening to your teaching materials through this filter: will this team’s coaching plan result in successful pitches after airmen go through it?

• Deliverables: Up to you. You might include a slide deck, frameworks, handouts, and other supplemental materials

• Time limit: 10 minutes plus 10 minutes for debrief.

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Work in Your Groups

• Using your notes and insights from today’s class, create your coaching process/plan that details how you’ll teach airmen to develop and deliver successful entrepreneurial pitches to senior leaders for resourcing decisions.

• Your team will brief us tomorrow morning.

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Wrap Up

Questions, Comments, and Observations

Heidi Schultz, Ph.D.

Professor, Management and Corporate Communication

Kenan-Flagler Business School

UNC-Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27517

[email protected]

MARKET DIRECTOR DEVELOPMENT

mailto:[email protected]

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