Entrepreneurship

Captive

I was catching a quick nap on a recent flight.

All the sudden, our flight attendant broke the peaceful silence. Not to share a friendly update for passengers, but to rattle off a forced sales pitch for their branded credit card. Ouch.

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Attention is hard to earn.
If you have it, don’t waste it.

Now, let’s imagine an alternate scenario. Instead of an unwanted interruption followed by an impersonal script that makes most think less of the brand treating us like prisoners instead of customers, what if the same offer felt more like a gift? Like a special surprise? Something that makes you feel appreciated!

For example, how would you feel if you were told that you were selected to receive a free adult beverage or tasty snack, paired with the exact same credit card application?

Whether you decided to apply or not, the complementary surprise was just to say thanks for being a valued customer! This personalized presentation would naturally snag the attention of nearby passengers. As word of mouth amplifies interest, similar offers could be made for those willing to complete a credit card application.

That’s just a thought exercise, but we’ve all sat in situations where we were part of a captive audience. Whether by choice or not, there’s a fine line and a big difference between an experience that adds or detracts from an experience after the sale.

How do you treat your existing customers? Do they only get attention when there’s issues or you have more to sell? Perhaps there’s untapped creativity that could inspire more lasting joy by letting go?

To spark fresh creativity, consider a quest to delight customers in unexpected ways. Giveaways (without obligation) are an easy way to see how existing customers may react. Impromptu phone calls, handwritten notes, and basically any gesture that shows you care, will naturally retains better customers as well.

As this thoughtfulness is felt within your customer’s experience, more true fans will stick with your team because they care as much as you do. This translates into customer retention, because true fans take pride in staying connected. They have more patience when issues arise and get excited to share your charming work with others.

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“Once you wow an audience, the same trick may not work anymore.” -Seth Godin, Free Prize Inside

By Ben McDougal, ago

Landing

The energy around anything new is easy to like. Along the way, while momentum creates ease, attention can slip.

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In the midst of a transition? Stay golden!

Arriving at your destination took work, but the task is not complete until we stick the landing. To see this in nature, watch how birds are quick to take off and fly around with ease. As they land, a final moment of attention is required. Another example is how climbers most often get injured on the way down a mountain. Fatigue and reduced focus make an impact, but beyond physical factors, accomplishments invite complacency. Whether it’s a tiny task or epic exit, a strong finish may take more than everything leading to it.

When it’s time to finish strong, make no assumptions. Stay detail oriented to complete the sequence. Once the landing is executed, let the experience inspire renewed vitality as we shift gears and remain open to next.

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Every moment is the end of something.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Allergy Shots

I’ve embarked on a campaign to cure my seasonal allergies. Trying to understand the details of this immunotherapy reminds me how clarity effects confidence.

With allergy shots that require weekly visits for the first several months, then monthly visits for 2-5 years, you’d think there would be a sharp collection of resources to highlight treatment options, insurance codes linked to cost of care, and benefits/risk comparisons.

Proactively investing in your health is hard enough. Feeling like you’re taking a gamble without clarity on how a long-term effort may (or may not) come together, makes it way harder. I understand that healthcare is complex because everyone’s body and health habits are different, but there’s seemingly enough commonality to allow for a solid base of standardization, paired with different options and disclaimers to keep the variables in focus. Wish me luck, but this decision-making process has been cloaked in fog.

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“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. Work, family, health, friends, and spirit. And you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends, and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same.” –Bryan Dyson

As we look through the lens of entrepreneurship, delivering fearless clarity may put you on the hook and will turn some prospects away, but it adds efficiency to the sales process and leads to more satisfaction from better customers.

This does not mean we simplify everything. Simplification is polarizing, so delivering confidence through clarity is more about sequencing. Try delivering less information to ensure clarity, then support a well communicated slowness with connected resources to meet a prospect’s specific needs. This sequenced effort gives people what they need, when they need it. When everyone feels informed, confidence increases and the opportunity for more lasting collaboration is refined.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Attention Traps

We’ve spent all month exploring early moves to evolve business ideas into reality. Using your time dedicated to no-code wireframing, actively listening to others, telling customer stories with a colorful business model canvas, and escorting execution with business plans, let’s translate emerging insight into snapshots of your business. The one pager, pitch deck, and investor memo are different types of attention traps entrepreneurs can use to connect with those who care.

One Pagers

The one pager is a punchy asset built to describe the most important elements of your business. Concise is nice, as the goal is to create immediate intrigue from everyone who receives it. Speaking of everyone, a one pager should be ready for anyone. This means you must find a balance between enough details to show substance and realistic potential, without giving away the secret sauce.

While you know a lot about your business, the goal is simple. Create enough curiosity to keep the conversation flowing. For more on how to sequentially guide people through the layers of understanding, scrub to minute 10:45 in this talk I shared at a 2022 raising capital seminar.

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Here’s my guest column on consistency in the Business Record!

As you consider what content to include and how to format so much goodness into such a tight document, here is the FliteBrite one pager from 2015 and there are many other sharp templates online. Once you have a one pager ready to share, let’s connect! I’d love to look it over and can provide feedback if you’d like, but can also feed momentum by sharing your new one pager with strategic investors.

Pitch Decks

The pitch deck is like a slide deck used in a verbal pitch, but with more information to help recipients (often investors) learn about your venture. Within 10-15 slides, present the story of your business with eye-catching visuals, data-driven details, and links to more supportive content. A concise pitch deck showcases your storytelling skills while entertaining an audience who is about to learn more about the market, problem, your solution, traction, moat-digging differentiators, the team, vision, and how to contact you.

Knowing this attention trap is most often needed by founders raising financial capital, even if it’s in a closing appendix, it’s good to include more data-driven details in a pitch deck. Like handy back slides during the Q&A portion of a pitch, clear financial projections, existing market research, how money will be spent, and customer discovery results are all good ways to prove you understand your business plan and how the numbers work.

That said, don’t numb readers. Avoid small font and word salads. Incorporate imagery that supports a captivating story. Translate your mission while making it clear how this venture will deliver serious returns. Like the one pager, pitch decks are not crafted to secure an investment. They are designed to fuel curiosity and more conversation.

Investor Memos

Commanding a dynamic investor memo keeps people informed with the ongoing progress of your company. Along with sections you include in a pitch deck, investor memos create space to highlight the evolving details of your fundraising campaign, key performance metrics (KPIs), data visualizations, recent milestones, multimedia, current needs of the team, and future goals for the company. Platforms like Carta, Build Memo, Visible, Paperstreet, and Notion make it easy to manage accurate, updated, and communicated investor memos. The quick-to-digest, but also real-time information is why investor memos are popular among well-articulated founders raising venture capital.

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If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. -Albert Einstein

As we finish sipping on these three different types of attention traps, let’s commemorate how alternate versions of each document may help you share the most impactful details with the right audience. For example, a pitch deck for local angel investors may be different than a pitch deck for a global venture capital firm. Connecting everything can also add efficiency, but maintaining a well-organized data room is not for the faint of heart. As any company evolves, so will the need to update documents that tell its story.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Escorting Execution

After a few early moves, developing a business plan is a hearty exercise. Business plans are less pivotal than scholars may preach, but developing a business plan does force you to pick through the specifics of any business. The detailed planning can pave a path toward sustainability and help you articulate opportunities to potential co-founders, new hires, outsourced talent, investors, and early adopters.

The first version of a business plan does not need to be long, but it should include a handful of key elements:

    1. Executive Summary
    2. Company Description
    3. Market Analysis
    4. Products & Services
    5. Marketing & Sales
    6. Operations
    7. Financials
    8. Appendix

One size does not fit all, and earlier moves like canvasing and wireframing will lighten the load as you flesh out details. To determine how particularized your business plan needs to be, consider who will be reviewing this dynamic document. Learn more and explore different templates online, then craft something you’re proud of.

Even without an audience, creating a business plan is rarely a waste of time. They can also become a required asset when you’re raising financial capital. Situations where you’ll likely need a business plan include grant applications, bank loans, and pitch competitions. Entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) may request a business plan to warrant professional services as well.

As you build a business plan, use clarifying frameworks, concise content, and mark areas that may need to more frequent updates. This makes the document interesting, more digestible, and easier to maintain.

As you update this dynamic document, consider how your business plan supports other related resources that collectively paint the picture of your company. Sharp business plans integrate with a cool one-pager, slide decks that ignite verbal presentations, a pitch deck with similar content brought to life with enhanced visuals, and ongoing investor updates. This shapes a forwardable investor pack geared to keep your ideas from slipping toward someday.

By Ben McDougal, ago