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16 Dec DO I NEED HELP WITH PITCHING TO VC’S???
The short answer is yes. In a recent conversation with a VC, they said they would not fund based on the presentation they saw because:
- The message was lost
- The team didn’t seem on the same page
- They didn’t present what the VC wanted to hear
- It just wasn’t right
10 Dec If you don’t put in the work, your communication cannot improve
Have you ever heard of the often-quoted business statement “anything worth doing is worth doing badly”? Whether you have or have not, the question you should ask is, what is this quotation saying to us as professional.
The quote is urging us to do. Very inspirational and successful people generally speak statements like this. People, we want to emulate. The problem is that statements like this don’t reflect the years of work that went into developing the authenticity to say these statements. If Steve Jobs took a risk, it’s genius. If a middle manager with little to no experience or history at Apple takes that same risk, what a mistake! My concern for businesspeople everywhere – if we follow statements like that, we assume success.
Let us listen to Thomas Edison when he said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This especially applies to our communication skills. It is not something people are just good at, it’s not impossible to improve, and it’s not something that is a soft skill.
Everyone needs communication today to advance in business. You must establish relationships, be persuasive and motivational, be situational in leadership, show initiative, and acknowledge that communication is the cornerstone of your job. Essentially, to be successful at communication, also known as the cornerstone of your job, you must put in the effort to develop the skill, practice it, and nurture it to see success. Don’t just do it badly and expect results.
7 Dec YOUR BIOTECH IDEA ALONE WILL NOT GET YOU FUNDED
When biotech start-ups go to present, the common belief is that the technology, biologic, assay, or molecule will be the catalyst for awarding funding.
No, it won’t. The fact that you have something that might work and be beneficial to some subset of people worldwide who suffer from a specific condition is how you got in the room. Whether you leave the room with funding is based entirely on what you focus on for the investors.
Today I will share with you the three things to focus on in VC meetings to get funding. There is one overarching factor in every one of these – you MUST provide value for the investor. (more…)
4 Dec Complimentary webinar for biotech executives going to the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference Week
Strategies to Quickly Connect and Create Relationships at JPM Week
This webinar was held on December 11, 2019. View the recoding here: https://www.speechimprovement.com/relationships-at-jpm/
Maximize your opportunities. In this timely and informative webinar, learn strategies to connect and create valuable relationships throughout the upcoming JP Morgan Healthcare Conference Week. Our experienced speech coaches will cover important topics including:
- Organize your thoughts for clarity and maximum impact
- Share a compelling value proposition in under 30 seconds
- Network with mastery to meet and build rapport with top priority people
Included for all webinar attendees will be exclusive discounts on JPM week events and executive coaching services.
This JPM-preparation webinar is being brought to you by Big4Bio and The Speech Improvement Company.
3 Dec Three Lawyers and an Actuary
This week I had the privilege of coaching three lawyers and one actuary — bright people indeed who were preparing to speak at various conferences.
Three of them needed help structuring their presentations. One executive was having trouble relating to his listeners. Yet they all expressed concern over the thing that holds so many people back.
If you guessed they all suffer from the fear of speaking, you’re right.
There are two types of comments I heard:
Physiological: They mentioned faces turning red, shaky hands, and the fact that they struggled to focus. (more…)
25 Nov PERFECT BIOTECH INVESTMENT PRESENTATIONS ARE IMPERFECT
The concept of perfection in science is prolific. You want your research to suggest that your drug, therapy, etc. will work 100% of the time. That is impossible, but the goal is to get it as close as possible to every time on every patient with the fewest side effects. Most scientists in startups began as highly successful students who experienced some success at larger biotech companies or post-doc labs and then ventured out on their own. It’s in your makeup to win, to be successful in research, and to strive for perfection. Unfortunately, you are in business, where perfection is unattainable and often stands in the way of success. In a Huffington Post article published in 2013 by Carolyn Gregoire, she explains that the research on success shows that a focus on perfection correlates to a high amount of failure.
Since failure is not an option when it comes to funding, the goal is to mediate the anxiety that surrounds this contradiction between scientific training/success and business expectation. This anxiety correlates to a fear of speaking. I am not suggesting that anyone is afraid to talk to people, but that this speaking environment creates a fear response in us. This response can make us put off practice, focus on content and structure rather than delivery, and exhibit physical reactions – physically shaking, not breathing effectively, and potentially changing how we would normally speak.
We can help. First, don’t worry. Many people have this same fear. We recommend that you approach it both psychologically and physiologically.
- The Psychology – When dealing with this fear response, it is important to physically write down the irrational beliefs you are dealing with and the corresponding rational reality you know to be true.
- The Physiology – When you are dealing with the physical responses to fear, the best response is to relax. Our most effective relaxation tool at the moment is Diaphragmatic Breathing. When you breathe in, make sure your shoulders are relaxed, and your stomach moves out when you breathe. That means you are using the diaphragm. Each time you practice take one deep breath and try to count to 20 by saying “one by one and two by two and three by three” and so on until you reach 20. Practice this technique 10 minutes at a time, three times a week.
You cannot have a perfect presentation that will always get you the outcome you want. This is why you have a fear response. Using these tools, and many others will help you deal with the imperfection and present significantly better.
19 Nov Is Conversation Dead?
By no means is it shocking to say that teenagers live on their cell phones. As a GenXer, I grew up as a teen that spent hours talking on the telephone. (The thing attached to the wall that had a cord.) I can still hear my mother yelling, “GET OFF THE PHONE NOW! Someone may be trying to call.” Yes, I used a phone to talk. That is no longer the case today. I find my teens watching videos and movies, playing video games, checking the weather, checking social media, and texting. I am the ONLY one that actually calls them to talk. As a parent and a communications coach, I have asked myself, “What has happened to the art of conversation?”
18 Nov How your team’s non-verbal communication can destroy all of your progress
I have helped many teams become more effective at presenting as a team. Because humans are SO different and have SO many variables, it can be quite challenging to coach a team. Most teams preparing on their focus on:
- who will say what during which slides
- the order of presenters
- making the time fair/equal, etc.
Often teams are presenting because the stakes are high, and the consequences are critical. And, of course, money is frequently involved either as part of a department budget, a start-up trying to get funding, and many other situations in which the listeners must hear from the entire team.
The people listening to the team present will be acutely aware of all of the non-verbal communication of the team. Whatever this communication reveals will carry more substantial weight than the words were spoken. A well-known architectural firm who brought me in because they started losing projects that they should have won. After assessing the team, I realized that one of the members did not get along with the others. Despite well-planned, streamlined presentations they still lost, and they were dumbfounded. What were they missing? Their subtle nonverbal behaviors communicated the discontent within the team. Despite the polite and professional words, the facial expressions, the lack of eye contact, the dismissive exchanging of documents, etc. were all indicators of discord within the team. People believe what they feel energetical and what they see over what they hear. It is SO SUBTLE. These nonverbal behaviors are the kind of things that only human beings can detect . This client of mine needed a new type of coaching to get past the issues that plagued the team. (more…)
12 Nov Your Spoken Word Is Not Enough
When preparing for a presentation, you start by thinking “What do I want to say?” The focus is on ourselves. How will it go? What is best?
Think bigger. As a communication coach, I tell my clients all the time “I’m going to tell you something important: it’s not about you.”
It’s about your listener. How one successfully reaches a communication goal is by thinking about what tools will help you effectively get your message across. That means choosing the method that best resonates with your listener. Ask yourself “What tools will help us get from here to there?”