This week I had the pleasure to tour the El Camp space, a collaborative building in El Segundo, CA. My classmates and I had the opportunity to walk through the whole space, seeing the studios, conference rooms, work areas, different companies, teams, and their wide array of client and current projects. Following the tour, we sat down with Eric Johnson, the president of Ignited, founder of El Camp, and current M-School mentor.
Eric Johnson gave us his own presentation that he put together, including material that he has been working on himself for a future pitch, as well as advice for my classmates and I as we head to TOMS next week to give our pitches for our Marketing For Good projects. The main thing Eric got across to us: think of this pitch like the show Shark Tank. He began throwing out questions like "How am I going to get my money back? What is the cost of your goods sold? What does the next 12 months look like?" These questions were obviously things that we were going to have to have burned in the back of our brains, but shooting questions at us like this really gave my team and I a good perspective on what's to come. It was a great wake-up for us. So how are we going to have an answer to any and every question the panel throws at us. Knowing our business model front and back, and practice, practice, and practice some more.
Following Eric's Shark Tank idea, we were given an amazing presentation on "Presentation Elevation" by Michael Weiss, a Tedx Presenter. I learned a lot of knew things about presenting from Michael, like how people are terrible listeners, we must be respectful of their time and their brain space, people automatically filter what they want to hear, and that you have to truly believe in what you are talking about. Another thing Michael told us that I thought was very interesting, is that when you tell a story, 7 parts of the brain are engaged, and when you speak facts, only 2 parts of the brain are engaged. My team and I really began to understand how we can make the audience care the way we do about our idea. The most important information I left his presentation with: 1) It's not about your, it's about the audience, and 2) PAUSE. It never hurts to take a second for you and everyone else to slow down and collect themselves, or to catch up. Michael's presentation gave myself and my whole Marketing For Good team a great load of information to begin practicing for our pitch to TOMS, and I am excited to deliver my best pitch so far!
Comments