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1. Set the theme - Create a headline that sets the direction for the rest of your presentation. Make it clear and consistent throughout the entire presentation.
2. Provide the outline
3. Open and close each section with a clear transition
4. Demonstrate enthusiam - wow your audience- use words like extraordinary, amazing, cool, awesome, incredible, unbelievable, etc.
5. Sell an experience 
6. Make numbers and statistics meaningful - use analogies (12 GBs, that's enough memory to listen to your music while traveling to the Moon and back!)
7. Make it visual and simple (include video clips, demonstrations and guests)
8. Give them a show - use dramatic flair - create a memorable moment and build up to it
9. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse
10. "One more thing..." - give your audience an added bonus --- introduce a new product or feature 

Selling from stage, speaker training, closing from stage, group selling, techniques to close more sales. Tactics to control an audience.
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Bodybuilding legend Arnold Schwarzenegger shares his six rules to a successful life in this short yet incredibly inspirational speech. A little known fact about Arnold Schwarzenegger is that, upon arriving in the USA to compete in professional bodybuilding, he professed to coach Joe Weider that he would one day like to move from bodybuidling into acting, then property and finally politics. While many could have forgiven Weider for not paying too much attention to those pipe dreams, Arnold then went onto accomplish every single one in the exact order he planned to.
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I love entrepreneurship and I love living in Tampa Bay. I'm on a mission to marry the two.
 
It seems that entrepreneurship is still a mystery to many people. It's a toss of the dice or a "lucky hand". I think my friend Brent Britton (co-founder of Gazelle Lab) sums it up nicely when he says, "When entrepreneurs finish talking about their dreams, the very next thing about 99 percent of them go on to say is, “What do I do next?”  They don’t know how to turn their good idea into a company.  You would think "Entrepreneurship 101" would be part of the common knowledge by now, something everyone in the developed world just sort of grows up knowing how to do.  But it’s not.  To most people, getting from idea to company constitutes a complete mystery. Starting a company is a solved problem, but it seems to be one whose solution you either stumble upon by chance, or obtain from moving in the right circles and knowing the right people."
 
Part of the reason why we are opening CoCreativ Entrepreneurial Cafe is to create a space filled with people who "know how to do entrepreneurship", similar to many places in Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin where Entrepreneurship 101 is common place --- a place where you can elbow the guy next to you and get his advice on building a successful company because chances are he's probably done it more than once. 
 
I would like to see our tolerance for failure improve. Other cities with strong entrepreneurial ecosystems have a high tolerance for failure. They almost encourage it. It's how you prove yourself as an entrepreneur. The bigger you've failed in the past, the more investors want to fund you. Imagine that. As Brent says, "Failure, especially fast failure is a valuable part of entrepreneurship."

Growing a startup in Tampa has it's advantages. Here's how Charles Armstrong (CEO of TourWrist) puts it, "Your startup can get noticed much faster in Tampa Bay than it can in Silicon Valley."  It seems TB is building a successful track record of growing successful startups... companies such as Craigslist, Wikipedia, RentACoder (now Vworker) and Woofoo, as well as, non-tech ventures such as Hooters, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Melting Pot and many more.
 
Could TB be a great place to launch a company before it matures and is ready to relocate to a larger entrepreneurial hotspot? Could we put Tampa Bay’s name on the map as a birthplace for acquisition targets? Could TB become a "feeder pool" of innovation for the rest of the country? Could TB become the entrepreneurial womb of America?!?!

I think we are on track to find out.

In this intimate interview on his private island, Richard Branson talks about his early days, the reasons behind his incredible entrepreneurial success with the Virgin Brand and his vision for the future.
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Tags: richard branson, joe polish, virgin brand, entrepreneur, start a business, startup, startup coach, joseph warren

I was recently invited to be a speaker and judge at Startup Weekend Tampa’s inaugural event, hosted by Microsoft (7/8/11-7/10/11).

The idea behind the weekend is for participants to pick their favorite concept, form teams and then build a beta product and viable business model… all within 54 hours!

Overall the experience was AWESOME! I was simply amazed at the amount of talent, great products and viable business models that were revealed by the end of the weekend.

However, in order to create meaningful value for all you emerging entrepreneurs out there in the trenches, I’d like to take a minute to address some of the key challenges that came up throughout the weekend…

I had the opportunity to visit with many of the teams as they hammered away on their projects. Essentially, I witnessed two types of team dynamics:

Team "DISRUPTION" - These teams had one or more personalities who seemed to be disruptive to other members of the team, saying things like “I have nothing to do”… “I think we should be working on this or that”… Let’s discuss how much equity we each are getting out of this because I have bills to pay.”
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Team "SYNERGY" – These people seemed more focused on the job at hand… building a great product and working together in perfect synergy liked a well-oiled machine. They didn’t seem to have the time to focus on anything other than overcoming obstacles and building a product that would WOW the judges… and that’s exactly what they did! As judges, it was extremely difficult for us to pick the Top 3 projects because they all were so good!
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Startup Coaching Tip:
Choose your team slowly and carefully based on the talent that you truly need to achieve your vision. Ideally, your core team should be made up of 3-4 dedicated people but never more than 5 (too many chefs in the kitchen).

If you find you have someone who no longer seems to fit in with the team and its goals, request to speak with them in private and then say something like, “You seem frustrated. Maybe this project is no longer a fit for you.”

If they don’t immediately make you believe that their actions are going to change, do NOT let them come back in because their negativity will be like a cancer to the rest of your team.

Remember, as an entrepreneurial leader, your #1 priority is to motivate, inspire and keep your team focused on the VISION and next steps!  
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Prior to giving my talk on business model generation, I asked a few of the startup teams where they were headed with their revenue models. The common answer I got back was, “Our revenue will come from advertising”. Hmmm… I agree that advertising could be a viable source of revenue for your startup (down the road) but it should NOT be your primary revenue model right out the gate. Here’s why…

If you make advertising your primary business model than consider that you and the other 500,000 startups that launch this year are all competing for the same advertising dollars. Seriously, do you really want 499,999 new competitors before you launch?

Besides your "fantastic business idea”, what differentiates your startup from all your competitors?

What is going to make your startup standout in all the noise?

Startup Coaching Tip:
Grab a copy of Business Model Generation from Amazon.com and learn how to
create a viable business model for your startup that will become a sustainable
foundation for your entrepreneurial empire.

Here’s the talk I gave at Startup Weekend Tampa, “Finding the Right Business Model for Your Startup”... (video coming soon!)
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Let’s be honest. Your NEW business idea is your “baby”, right? Fair enough. Well like any new parent, you feel like you have to protect it, right? Of course you do, that’s normal. However, protecting your baby is not enough. You have to feed it too. So what does a “baby startup” eat anyway?

The best baby formula you can give your baby startup is asking it the right questions. Questions like, “Who really needs my idea anyway? What is the REAL pain point that I’m solving? Are there enough people out there with this pain point that we can build a profitable and scalable business around? How can we stand out from all the noise in our marketplace?” Etc…

These are the type of challenging questions that nourish baby startups and help them mature. This is where many startup founders go wrong. They spend so much energy and emotion on defending and protecting their idea that they completely forget to feed it and allow it to grow.

Startup Coaching Tip:
Step back and look at your startup from a completely different perspective. Remove ALL emotions. Try your best NOT to care so much about the outcome. Be at peace with any result and any length of time. A funny thing happens when you stop trying to control success on your terms… it stops running away from you ;) Just try to listen to what your advisors and future customers are telling you about your idea. If more than three of them are telling you the same thing, you should listen to them and make changes.
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Everyone knows that if you keep asking yourself the same questions, you'll keep coming up with the same answers. With that in mind, I thought I'd give you ten NEW questions that will stretch your mind outside its 'normal' box. As you read each question below, explore and get really creative with your answers ;)

    1. If nothing was impossible, what could you do right now to create instant 
        exposure for your business? Think BIG!
    2. What can you do to gain attention or customers that nobody else has 
        done?
    3. What could you offer customers that nobody else can? Be creative with 
        this one...
    4. You only have $25 to reach 2,500 new customers. How do you spend your 
        money?
    5. Do the following words spark any marketing ideas for your business: 
        Water? Flying? Colorful? Animals? Children?
    6. How could you create such a buzz that customers couldn't help but hear 
        about you?
    7. What would get YOU excited to check out a new business, venue, service, 
        or storefront?
    8. Who would NEVER be a client or customer of yours? (Now, think of a way to 
        make them one!) How could you persuade them?
    9. Think of an unusual promotional piece or creative "toy" that you could 
        give away to win over customers?
   10. Think of a type of business, profession, or company that you would NEVER 
        have thought is a logical partner? Now, find a connection to do so!

As entrepreneurs, many of us get "stuck" coming up with creative and original solutions to nagging problems. In the book Made to Stick, the Heath brothers reference a study of brainstorming. Groups were supposed to create the marketing ideas for a product.

    Group 1... just started creating ideas 
    Group 2... was given two hours of training in brainstorming methods 
    Group 3... was given two hours of training in the six most successful 
                   templates for ads.

All ads were evaluated by a marketing director and tested on customers.

    Group 1 results: ads were considered annoying by customers. 
    Group 2 results: ads were considered less annoying but no more creative. 
    Group 3 results: ads were considered 50% more creative and generated a 
                           55% better response from customers.

In other words, brainstorming is useless unless you know what you're looking for or already have a template for success. Now, go ideate correctly because the world needs your breakthrough ideas ;)