3 essential skills all entrepreneurs must master

Three Essential Skills All Entrepreneurs Must Master Naeem Zafar Charter Member TIE SV University of California Berkeley-Haas www.NaeemZafar.com Twitter: @naeem [email_address]

Personal Background
Faculty at Univ of Calif Berkeley Haas business school
Founder Concordia Ventures – advisory to entrepreneurs
CEO of three companies (semiconductor & software)
Worked in engineering, research, marketing & sales
Experience at one large multinational & 6 startups
One IPO (Initial Public Offering)
Wrote six eBooks on entrepreneurship
Raised over $70M in multiple ways (VC, asset sale, debt, angel)
Traveled to 73 countries, lived in 3
Brown University ‘81, Univ of Minnesota MSEE
Charter member of TiE Silicon Valley
President of OPEN Silicon Valley
Advised or mentors over 700 entrepreneurs
All rights reserved © Naeem Zafar Startup Workshop

Three Essential Skills
Networking skills
Communication skills
“ Selling” skills
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Networking Skills [email_address]

Why Entrepreneurs Network
People do business with you because they like you
Find co-founders, advisors, investors
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Networking
How do you network?
Physical world
Online world
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Networking in Real World
How do you know you are networking at a party or professional gathering
What is equivalent to hello in US?
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Get to Know Others
Carry your business card
Have a single tag line that defines your
Where should people put you in their brain
Always carry a pen
Ask people about themselves
People love to talk about themselves
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Focused Networking
Focus on your audience
Devote 2-5 minutes just on one person
Do not look over their shoulder
They can tell!
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What to Do
Ask them about their work, their interests
Deliver your 3 key lines
Positioning tag
Your “ask”
Your follow up angle
Write something on the back of their business card that is not about what is on the front of their card
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When Are You Done Networking?
Collect at least five business cards before you are allowed to leave the party
This will force you to have a few conversations
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What to Do After?
You have only done 20% of the work of networking
Send an email to that person within 3 weeks
The email is NOT about you or any business
Then send a LinkedIn request within 1 week
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Building Networked Relationship
Networking takes effort
You have to make several “ emotional deposits ” into your account before you can make a withdrawal
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Communications Skills [email_address]

Communications Skills
Essential to your professional success
& personal relationship success as well
Leaning to present well will help throughout your career
Be open!
& true
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Forms of Communication
Presentation
Emails
Meetings
Phone calls
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You Are The Message!
It is not about PowerPoint
You are the message
Use aids only as needed
Have your message ready & crisp
Clarity must exist in your mind
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Say it with Conviction [email_address]

Most Important Aspect
Clarity
Clarity of thought: you need fewer words to express it if you are clear yourself!
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Favorite Quote
Perfection is not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take out!
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Pitching
Explain yourself in first minute (slide zero™)
Explain the relevance of what you do
Don’t dive into details until you get signal!
Listen for audience reaction …
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Pitching
People listen to 7% of words that you say
They listen to 52% of your body language
Connect with your audience
Make it relevant to them
Be clear (first in your own head)
Pause & let the message sink in!
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Simplify Slides
Unclutter your slides
Minimize font, style, emphasis overload
These detract from your message
Write & insist what words can be deleted
All articles can & should be deleted
Use “builds” only with busy slides
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One Main Point Per Slide
Do not read your slides
Supplement wordings on the slides with words coming out of your mouth
No more than one (or two) messages per slide
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Most Important Slide
What is the most important slide in your presentation?
Why?
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Emotionally Engage!
Be attentive, energetic, in front!
Know your message!
Do not read your own slides
Engage with audience
Uses pauses effectively
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Emails
Pay attention to title of email
Will it grab attention, will they open it
State purpose
Need an action, need approval, FYI
Then provide supporting material
Salutation sets the right tone
Pay attention to cc list
The curse of reply all!
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Email Communication
Use email to deliver good news, ask questions, summarize
Never deliver bad news on email
Keep it succinct (1-2 blackberry screens)
Carefully examine title, recipients on each reply
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Face to Face Communication
Practice active listening
People want to feel heard
People feel good about a meeting if they felt heard (even if this way was not accepted)
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Selling Skills [email_address]

Art of Sales
Networking skills
Communication skills
Selling skills
Sales redefined
The process
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You Are Always Selling!
Selling your idea
Selling a “job offer”
Selling an idea for vacation to spouse
Selling a trip to dentist to your child
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Sales in Not Evil
Sales is noble
Most engineers hate selling
Selling is considered “deceitful”
Good selling never is
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Selling is Not What You Think!
American hate to be sold!
But Americans love to buy!
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Demystify Selling
Selling is not “tricking” them to buy
Is not “coercing” them to buy
Just lay out the facts and educate them
Let the customer come to conclusion they want to select your option once they feel educated
Be their advisor- earn their trust!
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Selling! [email_address]

The B2B Sales Process
Create a comfortable environment by asking permission to ask questions
Ask questions to understand their pain
Shut up and listen to answers, take notes
Explain how your product or service fills their needs – but only if it does
Naeem Zafar (all rights reserved 2005)

Sales Different from Marketing?
Sales is “listening”
It is putting your knowledge to solve other’s problem
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Sales 101
Tell prospects about benefits of your offering
Ask if any of these resonate with them
If not, then ask what would
Then listen as they just told you how to sell to them
All rights reserved © Naeem Zafar

The Ask!
Ask is a statement that tells others what you want them to do
You have to know to “ask”
Clarity of mind before meeting
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B2B Sales Process
Create a system
Agree on what 2 or 3 metrics you must measure
Develop common vocabulary
Track  measure  optimize
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Common Vocabulary for Sales Stages
Prospects
I know their names, have contact info, have need
Qualified prospects
They have a pain that we can solve
The have budget
Met our champion
Feasibility
Proof that we can solve the pain scheduled
(demo, benchmark, test drive)
Internal champion convinced, propagating
Closing
Meeting with people who have budget
Financial proposals in approval
Met objections, tech hurdles
Closed (PO in hand!)
All rights reserved © Naeem Zafar

Reporting on Sales Funnel Prospect Contact Target amount Prob. % this Qtr % closing next Q Long term potential Sales person Arcadia Technology Arnold Wiener $45,000 60% 80% $500K Jenny K. Diebold Sheila Hanks $67,000 40% 75% $1.2M Larry Cassidy

B2C Sales Process
You can buy attention (Advertising)
You can beg for attention from Media (PR)
You can bug people on at a time (sales)
You can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable & then publishing it online for free
David Meerman Scott’s (@dmscott)
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Doing Online Sales
Email marketing
Startup Workshop All rights reserved © Naeem Zafar Drive traffic to landing page Landing Page Start a conversation Suggest things (some for $$) www.constantContact.com www.aweber.com Sites.Google.com Tell them Value Prop & Give something for free Earn trust
Google Adwords
Facebook Ads
Emails to targets
www.Clickbank.com EBooks, blogs, affiliate model

Building Trust
Facebook
Blogs
Twitter
Insights
Aggregation
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Common Mistakes
Don’t ask good questions
Afraid of asking questions – think they already know the answers
They can’t shut up
They don’t listen
They don’t take notes
Lazy or don’t consider information important
They don’t know enough about their product or service to effectively apply it to the needs of prospects
Naeem Zafar (all rights reserved 2005)

Summary
Learning how to think clearly & present in a way that people will “get it” is probably THE most important business skill
Make emotional deposits before attempting withdrawal
Hearing is voluntary, listening is not!
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3 essential skills all entrepreneurs must master

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