Pitching: The Elevator Pitch and 6 Successor for E-Pitch

Elevator Pitch - was originally introduced in this world in 1853 by Elisha Otis. The designed of elevator back then is not much different from the theory of Archimedes which using pulley. The problem with this design is when the rope got cut-off which might cause in fatal or the damage of whatever inside the elevator. Otis invented a patent to safeguard the elevator when the rope fails, a brake activate to prevent it from falling down.

Have you ever seen deals secured
in an elevator these days?

But the problem during that time, people are still skeptical about it. So Otis decided to conduct a demo in one conference. He demonstrated the elevator going down from top. While explaining (or pitching) in the elevator, he cut-down the rope. Everyone is panic - but the magic happened. The elevator did not fall down. There it goes the first elevator pitch in the world.

Elevator Pitch

In many sales courses, the instructor will introduce to you the elevator pitch. The idea of elevator pitch is when you came across someone, how are you going to promote your product and services within a very short period of time. Maybe 1 minute or 2.

In one of the course that I attended, Sales and Leadership Mastery (back in 2010), Blair Singer who is also Kiyosaki's Rich Dad's advisor shared with us the e-pitch technique. What do we need to do in our e-pitch?
We need to establish our credibility.
How?

Tony Fernandes Dreaming Big doing the impossible at Global Malaysia Series

Tan Sri Tony Fernandes is the man who need no introduction. Everyone knows him for the success of the budget airline Airasia. Not just Airasia, he also has so many businesses from telecommunication, insurance, budget hotels, Formula 1, football and recently the reality TV show the Apprentice. Last week I was inspired when I saw him live at Global Malaysia Series (GMS). Being a great entrepreneur, he is the perfect person to talk about how to bring you business to global. He is indeed a Blue Brain that has made it big. His speech is clearly blue and so much people oriented.

Here I would like to share some of the points that I jotted down:

- You must be good at your own country first.
You should be good at your product and business model - at merit. Not because of you know somebody in the government or have cable. Or have sugar daddy to support your business. If you are good at your country, you are good everywhere (with some finetune of course).

- There is no recipe. But if you don't try, you don't know.
Most people have good idea. But most people don't even try their ideas.

- Malaysian parents try to push their kids at one direction.
Tony explains that when he was a baby, his grand parent already set him to be a doctor. It was the culture in Malaysia that parents want their kids to follow the traditional "go to school, get a good grade, get a good job." Become a doctor, engineer, lawyer or accountant.

- Don't listen to people's advice
Previously, Tony was running a music business. Before he started Airasia, people advice him not to jump into this business. Stick to his forte which is music industry. He don't have any experience in aviation industry. But if he listen to people's advice, now he might be in Petaling Street fighting on the piracy issue.

The Enemy of the Great is the Good!

Three key take away from Steve Jobs commencement speech was:

1. Connecting the dots - you got to trust that the dots will somehow connected in the future.

2. You got to follow your heart. They somehow already know what you want to become.

3. Your time is limited. Don't waste it living someone else's life.

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You might be wondering what your heart is craving for. But for some of you already know what you want to become because your heart already whispered to you. At one time you might be wanting to pursue your dream, however, the circumstances does not allow.

There will be another opportunity comes. Opportunity that looks good. It pays good. And it add certainty into it. And you said you are going to settle. Looking to that good opportunity and you live with that good opportunity. 

But sometime not long after that, you become unsettle again. It's your dream calling you again. It appear right in front of you and you do whatever you can to pretend that it is not there. But that dream is big enough. And no matter how much you tell it to shut-up, it will never-ever-ever shut-up.

Copycat: Shortcut to Success - Why should we re-invent the wheel?

We Live in a World of Copycats.

As part of human being, we are naturally the creature of copycat. We copy from the Cradle to the Grave! Copycatting starts the day we were born. We copy the language we speak, the food we eat, the way we walk and the way we dress. When we were in primary school, we were taught to copy alphabets. When we grew older, we copy how others drive a car.

James Baldwin once said:

 "Children have never been very good at listening to their elders. But they have never failed to imitate them."

If copycat is part of our nature, then,

Why we are not good at Copying? 

Steve Vai's advice on How to Become Successful

Steve Vai is one of my master idol in playing guitar. For those who know me during my Uni time, I am so much crazy about Vai. Why I like Steve compared to others such as Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen or John Petrucci? Owh... maybe about his Green Brained is more compatible with my Green Processor and the melody match. To me, his music has a story-line behind it and he is a great story teller. Not the technical part of playing the music or how structured the music should be.

Steve talks about Success

It's like the Law of Attraction - like-attract-like - Steve is now talking about success. He really sounds like a success guru motivating people to become successful - in his area. This video shows his advice on how you can become successful. Not only you can apply in playing guitar, but also in your life.

"Because the only thing that holding you back is the way you're thinking"

- Steve Vai

The summary of the video:

With the background song 'Whispering a Prayer', there are 5 things that I identified lessons that we can share together:

1. Identify What You Really Want - Like any successful people, Steve started with "We need to identify what it is that we really want! Because what ever it is we really want, that's gonna come out!" "Because that what you gonna do the best!" Do what you enjoy to do and you'll be doing the best!

You Don't Need Money, You Need A Better Strategy

One of the key take-away during the recent National Achievers' Congress 2013 is from Peter Sage. The concept that he introduced was 'Capital vs Initiatives'
How you can get what you want without paying for it!

I  don't need money. I NEED A BETTER STRATEGY!

What does he mean by that?

First of all, the question that we need to ask is:
"How can I add value?"
And we need to ensure the value is really what others wanted.

To illustrate this, he gave a few example:

1. The Flower Shop
One day there was a flower shop to be sold. They are selling at $50,000 and the buyer who wanted to buy doesn't have the money. He went and asked for loan but no one wanted to lend the money. (familiar with this situation?)

Tony Robbins on Solving the Problems Using the Resources We Already Have

Tony Robbins has always been my idols because his unique ability to apply the psychology in solving problems that human are facing.

In this short video - it's about 7 minutes on what Tony did to change the limitation belief that Shane had and the rest 7 minutes is about explaining what was happened.

What can we learn?

Most of the problem happens because we are the one who created the problem. And the truth is, we have all the resources to solve our problems. We just need to ask the right question to ourselves. And we need some skills and knowledge on how to ask the right questions.
In this case, the de-brief tells us the 3 steps of doing this: