On These Three Things

1. People want what they can't have ??
2. They chase what runs away ??
3. And only value what they pay for ??

If you're not familiar with Oren Klaff, then take a moment and acquaint yourself. He's the author of Pitch Anything and Flip the Script, the masterclass on high-stakes, business-to-business pitching.

Need to absolutely raise that money before midnight on the 30th? Oren's your guy.

For me, those are two of the most formative books I've read and I've re-read them multiple times because Oren is the type of author and orator that lands monster knowledge bombs and mini-missiles along the way. The content stream is steady and all killer, no filler.

And it's those three rules that have stuck with me the most out of all of it.

Why they matter

When it comes to the zero-moment-of-truth in the pitch, where the rubber meets the road and the big ask is in...will you show up?

Mastering the art of the pitch is like mastering the art of anything - ongoing.

It's never mastered, it's always evolving. And it's the willingness to allow yourself to evolve that is the real secret to getting closer to nirvana - the perfect pitch.

So then, how do those three rules factor in? Why do they matter so much?

Because they are your posture and placement in the dominance hierarchy.

When you embody the three core concepts that:

1. People want what they can't have ??
2. They chase what runs away ??
3. And only value what they pay for ??

Then you can not help but to:

1. Feel valued
2. In the position of choice (do I want to work with you?)
3. For you to feel as though you received value, and for me to be able to provide that value to you sustainably, there must be a commensurate exchange of remuneration.

That's a position of power. And that's really what your customers want - they want you to be the guide.

Alchemy

Half-Art & Half-Science, if you've ever read StoryBrand by Donald Miller then you're familiar with the concept of "the hero's journey" and the role of the guide.

[If you haven't read it, it's another book that really impacted the way I think about building stories, though not a cornerstone book for my personal craft...sorry, Don. It's still a b@d@$$ book and you should definitely read it, just offering in transparency in case anyone is following along.]

Note to self: Future newsletter reading list

Okay, I digress...

Your customers want you to be the guide. They want to be the hero. It's that simple. Make them the hero of their own story.

In every hero's journey story, there's a moment between the guide and the hero when they experience conflict. Queue dramatic music.

It's when the hero throws down the mop, or drops the weights, and says they "just can't go on anymore". At that moment, the zero-moment-of-truth, they're being forced to answer three questions to the guide (really a subconscious reflection of themselves in that moment of extreme doubt).

Those three questions are:

1. Do I really want this bad enough?
2. I think I do, but why does it always seem to slip away?
3. How much more am I willing to give to get the thing I want?

And that's because...

1. People want what they can't have ??
2. They chase what runs away ??
3. And only value what they pay for ??

Seeing the theme here?

Fighting Cobra Kai for The Valley Championship Isn't High-Stakes Pitching

And high-stakes pitching isn't war. I get it. Yet if it's something you're passionate about, then you prepare for it like you're going to war.

You check and recheck the gear. You train, and you train often. You evolve.

You're constantly testing, refining, polishing, and sharpening.

Because at the end of the day, your objective is to solve problems for someone. That's what they pay you for, to solve problems. From a pair of sunglasses that will save me from the headache of having squinted all day, to the million-dollar ad campaign for your next product launch - the objective of the seller is to make it easy for the buyer to decide if the solution is right for them or not.

By failing to make it simple, we violate a basic element of trust...not to mention - it's just kinda lazy to not have a tight pitch.

Einstein Said It...I Think

Okay, I went back and checked, because I wanted to make sure. Since this is "published work" and all.

Yup, that's the one. ??

Rumor has it that in 1962, when James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine?for their discovery of the molecular structure of DNA, that their presentation was only 5 minutes long.

I don't know that to be true, I feel like I read it in another book, but it's entirely possible I made that up. Regardless of whether it's made up or not, it's really just the elevator pitch, expanded...to 5 minutes.

For context, 5 minutes is also the length of one round of a UFC Title Match. That's to say that you can do A LOT OF DAMAGE in 5 minutes or less, so stop with the excuse of "you don't understand, my thing just takes more time to explain than that".

No, you just haven't pitched enough.

Or worse, the kiss of death, you're not optimizing to the feedback.

L????M...the free version

I love the free version of Loom for a million reasons. Though I loved it more "back in the day" when I could have infinite videos saved fo' free.

Yet, Loom is still one of the most important tools in my tool kit for distilling ideas down to their core parts because in the free version of Loom - you've only got 5 minutes.

It's like a race against the clock. I mean, it's not 'like' it 'is'. So you've gotta be sharp.

You've gotta be prepped, and paced. You've gotta throw out all of the extra weight and get down to "what is needed to fly the plane?".

And that, as it turns out, is really what is typically most useful.

I've sent 5-minute videos ahead of meetings to get alignment. I've sent pitches with 5-minute videos. I've sent personalized outreach and thank you's and all sorts of things, all via that awesome little free version of Loom.

In fact, I taught a college class in Spring of '21 and we had a class "tech stack" that consisted of:

1. Free Zoom
2. Free Calendly
3. Free Loom
4. Free Slack

We modernized the classroom via the tech stack, but the Loom videos turned out to be a great classroom deliverable in that the students would condense their ideas/learnings/thoughts into punchy 5-minute videos.

It's an important skill to have, to be brief. Because we're all pressed for time and while as much as I'd "love to give you 15 minutes" to see your demo, I just don't have 15 minutes to give away like that and your email made no sense..but that's a different newsletter for a different day.

Okay, that was a little bit of a jungle safari adventure of an installment, but let's write it off as a stream of consciousness. It's Sunday after all.