It’s all in the Presentation…
This is probably one of the MOST important things you will see in this guide. P-R-E-S-E-N-T-A-T-I-O-N! The picture is another kind of presentation which is also important but I##Q##m talking about how you present your idea before you get to this point as well.
I don’t care what kind of business you have if you don’t present it, yourself or your documents right, you are almost DESTINED to fail. The first line of presentation is your idea. Just the other day a gentleman called me with an idea he had for a magazine. He was all over the place. I kept asking him if he had a business plan, you really don’t nee a FULL plan but just some idea of what you want to do. I also asked him about start up capitol. He kept skirting around the questions. I asked him about investors and he didn’t trust anyone. As he went on and on about how he was going to get his business off the ground and the team he had in place, I lost interest. His lack of direction just sounded like someone mumbling after a while. It sounded like he was confused…. and if he sounds that way to me, how will he handle the business and how will he sound to anyone else that he presents this idea to? He made several common mistakes potential black business owners make they are as follows:
- Disclosed his idea to me without the pieces in place.
- Refused to listen to or even act like he was interested in hearing my advice based on my experience in already DOING what he is trying to do.
- Shot down every idea I had for him to get his venture off the ground because he already has it all mapped out. (Then why is he talking to me?)
- Expressed his lack of trust for everyone which makes me wonder if he trusts me or MORE important…. if HE can be trusted.
- He already knows it all so I already know this is going to be a difficult situation to work in and usually the way you start out is the best indicator of how you will end up. If he won’t listen to me now, he never will.
- This is his idea, he doesn’t trust anyone, he wants it done a certain way, he needs my help and/or advice and he has no money? This, mind you, is something that it has taken me almost 15 years to learn.. If you put yourself in my shoes, even for two minutes, you can see how this is not going to work for me. What is the chance that you think I will do business with someone like this? If you guessed never, you are right.