How you pitch your company determines whether you get the right partners, favorable financing terms, super executives, and best shot at success. Your business plan should be about 20 pages, covering all aspects of your business. And yes, put in the hours to make it perfect, because you’ll be repurposing the business plan’s content in sales presentations, marketing collateral and white papers, recruiting pitches and your Web site. When presenting your business plan to financiers, your pitch needs to be concise, compelling, and complete.

BE CONCISE: Provide a simple explanation for why your business or project is a great idea, and how you’ll execute the steps to pull it off. You must be able to convince the money contingent that you have a sound execution strategy and pragmatic tactics for making your vision a reality.

The key questions you need to answer are:
-       Have you hired the right people?
-       Can you build/deliver your product or service? Will it fly?
-       Are you chasing big enough markets and can you reach them?
-       How much will it cost to build this business?

BE COMPELLING: Your opportunity should have the right deal, with the right price, at the right time, with the right product/service, and the right team.

The key questions you need to answer are:
-  What, exactly, is compelling about your business (your products/services, team, unique approach, intellectual property, etc.)?
-  Do you have high-profile advisory board members?
-  Have you already attracted customers (even those who’ve signed on for a free trial)?
-  Are your target markets tangible and accessible?
-  Could your product or service lead to an expanded line of additional offerings?

BE COMPLETE: You must have a trusted third-party review your pitch to ensure it addresses the high-level issues a financier might have. Ask anyone who can help – your startup-savvy attorney, advisory board, mentors, friends who have expertise in the specific market you are addressing or in business overall – to punch holes in your pitch. Be complete – it will help you gain the trust of all you pitch to.

By following the 3C’s, you’ll be well on the way to roping them in with those first pages. You will also establish that you’re a trustworthy person with a substantial idea as you make your financing pitch.

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc. and Business Accelerator
http://www.BusinessAccelerationIntensive.com

PS:  If you’re NOT at this point in your business and would like to be, you can attend one of my Business Acceleration weekends.  You can find these events all over the country – the schedule is up at http://BusinessAccelerationIntensive.com – and if you’re DEFINITELY ready, you might want to work with me one-on-one to nail your pitch. Reach out at http://ChristineComaford.com/contact.

It is essential to assess where you are in your life; otherwise one or both of the following will happen. First, you could wake up years later, miles downstream from where you planned, or worse, buried alive in one of those tunnels. Second? You won’t get the hang of letting go, which is essential in order to avoid burnout and redefine your vision as things change (like the market, the competition, your client base, etc.).

I do separate my personal life from my work life, but I’m an integrated human being, and I need an integrated approach to leading my life, I think we all do. So start with this exercise – later in the week I’ll send you some tools to assess your VISION.  Remember that your vision and your actions SHOULD align for the most part.  For me, MY success vision means I share the tools that make me one of the most successful Executive Mentors with my best clients.  Sometimes that’s the top CEOs of fortune 100 companies, and sometimes that’s an entrepreneur who’s just breaking their first million. Wherever you fall on that journey, learning everything you can and assessing your path is the FIRST step you should take today.

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Times Best Selling Author http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

PS: Remember, we ALL have blocks on our path – from the top CEOs to the newest entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to bust through yours, then the right executive coach is key. I will MAKE room in my BAI program, IF you are serious. (I’ve added new dates all over the country too!) Teaching my Mighty Formula for Executive Evolution is my personal passion to turn this economy around, one success story at a time.
http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

Regardless of where you are in your career, self-discovery is a key step to check in with yourself and see if you’ve drifted away from your unshakeable core or lost sight of your most important goals. Maybe, when you read this, you think, “No way, I’m working SO hard toward my goals.” Think of it this way, you’re tunneling toward your destination – your start point was CEO prison – the end point? Shangri La – a great team that carries out your most profitable visions and sells your product path to a client funnel that is wholly in tune with you, your company and your vision. (Does that sound like what you’re building?)

As an Executive Mentor what I see a LOT of the time is a CEO who’s tunneling toward that goal, working super hard, but their tunnel goes off track. They get wrapped up in the day-to-day, or they forget to implement a key part of their revenue strategy – or worse, they get “married” to their vision of success and refuse to throw out the ideas that just don’t work. And trust me, there’s NO way to create business acceleration if we’re tied down to ideas, products and people that just don’t work for our TRUE success story.

An assessment is about sticking your head OUT of the tunnel to see where your goal is and redirect your efforts. (And remember, the best path is NOT always a straight one – often there are things in your way that The RIGHT Executive Mentor will see – like bombs laid by your competition, or bottomless shafts of “administrivia” that will detour you forever.)

Begin your assessment with YOU. Ask some key questions about your own body, mind, spirit and successful vision. Here are a few to get you started.

- Am I learning, stretching, challenging myself?
- Am I building my network of fascinating people by at least five people per month?
- Am I being honest with myself and others – authentic and not fake or defensive?
- What am I still afraid of?
- Where can I go and what can I do to get to the next level?
- Am I aligned – meaning is my VISION aligned with my ACTIONS?

Once you’ve DONE this, for real, you can begin to assess your vision, your actions and where you are on your path. THAT is why a reassessment is so vital. Tune in for part two later this week!

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Times Best Selling Author http://businessaccelerationintensive.com
PS: Remember, we ALL have blocks on our path – from the top CEOs to the newest entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to bust through yours, then the right executive coach is key. I will MAKE room in my BAI program, IF you are serious. (I’ve added new dates all over the country too!) Teaching my Mighty Formula for Executive Evolution is my personal passion to turn this economy around, one success story at a time.

http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

As The Executive Coach to hundreds of businesses — some in the multi-millions — I know that there are common denominators for ALL would-be success stories.  One of those is product path.  Today’s blog is simply a tool — one to get you thinking and creating a product path in a MEANINGFUL and effective way.

Go to http://bit.ly/ExecCoach-ProductPath and get started.  If you’re like MOST business builders, however, you might find that without a great coach to help you find your benchmarks and HIT them, you may not manifest much of what you outline. I have 8 seats left at the September 24th Business Acceleration Intensive Weekend. It sounds far away, right? But it’s 2/3 sold out already.  Claim one of those 8 seats and get a personal hot seat with me. I will listen to your business model and offer my personal coaching to help you make YOUR product path and your success story a reality.

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc. and Business Accelerator
http://www.BusinessAccelerationIntensive.com

As an Executive Coach – and the founder of BAI, I get to work with clients on infinite levels. One question I work from every day is, “How do we access the BIG picture of what we really CAN ACHIEVE?”

In other words: How do I mentor clients to release EVERYTHING that blocks them? One way is to teach them to STOP their thoughts. Why?  Because your thoughts are the voice of your ego, and your ego is primarily driven by fear. According to the research of Dr. Fred Luskin of Stanford University, a human being has approximately 60,000 thoughts per day—and 90% of these are repetitive! (You know what that says to me, as an Executive Coach? It says OPPORTUNITY.)

Just how much value can a repetitive thought add? Simple answer: most of us haven’t trained our minds to be still. That is the first opportunity. Our minds and thoughts can be trained. It is in stillness that you will find all of the answers you seek – in business building and life. Here are 3 practices I’ve shared with countless people over the past few decades. To date, at least one of them has resonated with every person. If you are the exception, let me know, and I’ll teach you 3 more practices!!! J  (All of these practices are helpful for insomnia too. Simply do them in bed, as you are lying awake.) Be sure to turn off all phones and noise makers. Ensure that your family / colleagues / etc. cannot disturb you, and sit up straight, whether in a chair or cross-legged.

Practice: Heart Opening: Say “me” and touch your chest. If you do this a few times you’ll notice you always touch the same area. This is the position of your spiritual heart, or your heart center (or chakra). Close your eyes. Place your inner focus on your heart center. See a rose bud there, choose whatever color you like. Now see the petals slowly unfolding in your heart center. This rose bud has an infinite amount of petals. See them unfolding as the rose gets bigger and bigger, filling up your chest. Keep focusing on the rose unfolding. When thoughts arise, let them pass, do not cling to them or reject them. Simply focus on the rose unfolding.

Practice: News Feed: Imagine a news feed across the bottom of a TV screen. There’s a bit of news, then some white space, then more news, and so on. Your thoughts are like the news. There’s always more! Now consider the white space between the thoughts. In Japanese, the word ma is loosely translated to mean pause–the pause between notes, the pause between breaths, the pause between sentences, the pause between thoughts.

Close your eyes. Place your inner focus on the constant stream of thoughts scrolling across the TV of your mind. See the scrolling thoughts floating in space or actually across a screen, whatever image works for you. Don’t pay attention to the thoughts in detail. Them scroll by, do not cling to them or reject them. Now focus on the space between the thoughts, the ma, the pause. As you focus on the white space between the thoughts you’ll find it getting wider, longer, bigger. In time you’ll see mostly emptiness, with few if any thoughts. Stop and notice open space as conversations pause, as music pauses. We are surrounded by pauses. That’s where some of the best stuff is. We often fill our minds and schedules out of fear of emptiness. Yet emptiness is where true peace and connectedness and love can always be found.

Practice: Light Shower: Close your eyes. See yourself with your inner vision. You’re sitting exactly where you are, dressed as you are. You are watching yourself. Move your focus to the top of your head. See a shower of white light pouring down over your head, covering your body gradually. Keep watching it pour over you as it covers you entirely, covers your outfit, your fingers, your face, your shoes or toes. It covers your front and back sides. You can no longer distinguish your features, you simply see an image of you made of white light. This is the light of God, the Universe, whatever resonates with you. This light is always available to you, all you need to do is remember to tune in to the light shower. When thoughts arise, let them pass, do not cling to them or reject them. Simply focus on the light shower covering you completely. This is a terrific technique to do midday if you feel tired or upset.

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc. and Business Accelerator
http://www.BusinessAccelerationIntensive.com

PS:  Are you ready for November 8^th?  Tune in for my presentation with TED http://www.tedx-sandiego.com/speakers

When you think about your self-image – do you have to drag yourself from the mud of self doubt back into the light every time? While that may BE true, I want you to work on becoming a quick-change artist! Do any of these sound familiar? I don’t have what it takes; I don’t know the right people; I’m poor; I don’t know enough. Believe me, these thoughts foster destructive illusions.  If you’re going to REALLY be successful, it’s time for you to drop all of that emotional baggage. It is hard work, but if you want to race toward your dreams, it helps to travel light.

The best part about picking an illusion (which could be called a self-image) is that you can change it if it doesn’t work. Some illusions didn’t empower me, so I moved on. Don’t like what you see? Reinvent yourself!

Remember: an illusion is something you use to change the reality around you. A delusion is something that prevents you from seeing the reality around you. And, sometimes you’ll need to be a quick-change artist several times before you get it right; it takes courage and vision to change direction.

Remember that we ALL have blocks – from the top CEOs to the newest entrepreneurs. If you ARE ready 100% ready to bust through yours, then having the right coach is key. I will MAKE room in my BAI program for you, IF you are serious. (I’ve added new dates all over the country if the West Coast isn’t your thing!) Teaching my Mighty Formula for Executive Evolution is my personal passion to turn this economy around, one success story at a time.

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Times Best Selling Author http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

PS: Business Acceleration and an experienced Coach are always the key.
http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

I recently shared about how we ALL fail at times, and how getting stronger must be part of your story when you fall down – and that stumbling means getting wiser and better suited to take on the next challenge every time you stand back up. This week, I want all of the executives and entrepreneurs out there to hold onto the tenet that the fear of failure can hold us back from our goals MUCH more than anything else.  You should have a healthy number of failures in your life. Being paralyzed waiting for them, however, is to stagnate – and we all know the REAL competitor out there – it’s inertia.

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you’ll need to learn to embrace risk and reach for opportunity, even when you’re discouraged or afraid. You won’t always measure up - I sure haven’t – but that doesn’t mean you have to walk away from the game. Remember, you’re playing to win, not to avoid losing.

I like making a list of my fears. Then, I tackle one a week or one a month – its fun. I’ll give you an example. I’ve always had a fear of rattlesnakes. So, I went to Gatorland, in Florida, where there is a pit of rattlesnakes. I thought it would be great to tackle my fear of rattlesnakes. I asked one of the snake handlers if I could walk around in the pit and they said, “Definitely not!” I got a ringside seat instead, and what I saw changed my entire perspective.

At the show, the handlers provoked the rattlesnakes so that they lunged forward and then jumped back. I was, initially, frozen with fear, but after about 15 minutes, I started feeling really sorry for the snakes because they definitely more frightened than the snake handlers around them. And, that’s when I realized the snakes are more scared of you then you are of them. So, what did I have to be afraid of? Some “perceived” snakes around me? And what about the would-be million-dollar executives I coach? Should they be afraid of THEIR perceived snakes?  Competitors, the recession, their own team, slow revenue, undeveloped product paths?  Nope.

Your fears may or may not be related to your entrepreneurial aspirations. For each fear that you list this week, attach a goal around when you want to tackle it (about one a month). By examining your fears, writing them down and tackling them one at a time, you will take an enormous step that will enable you to embrace risk and reach for opportunity.

If you’re ready to do MORE than one a month and accelerate your success story, then a mentor who’s been through that process with successful business accelerators is a must.

Tomorrow, I’m holding an incredibly focused Q&A with specific, mind-blowing training around HOW to build a 7-figure business and create huge ROI on everything you do for your company. This event is a PHENOMENAL opportunity – it’s a ridiculously small investment to get my personal coaching on your toughest questions.

Go to http://bit.ly/SMask811 and reserve YOUR spot and get YOUR questions answered by me. 

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach

CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc. and Business Accelerator

http://www.BusinessAccelerationIntensive.com

IRS = ROI

Today I want to write you guys just a few sentences on team building.  HOW do we keep our team motivated?  Recognition is a HUGE piece of that puzzle.  In fact, even when team members hear us praise someone ELSE on the team, it’s a proven fact that they’re all inspired to try harder.  So this week, keep in mind the two IRS factors:

1. Initiative – Responsibility – Speed. When you have a team member who takes the initiative to always move you and your business forward in creative, effective ways, and they take responsibility for projects and new endeavors, and on top of it all, they understand the URGENCY of SPEED and always being focused on the end game, THAT is a team member to work with as closely as you can and to praise publicly.

2. And remember when praising to use the other IRS: Identify – Recognize – Seize the Opportunity!

Identify specifically what they did for you / your company.

Recognize their efforts with some sort of reward – your words are great, but a tangible thank you rocks the house, even if it’s just a wonderful meal with you to celebrate.

Seize the opportunity! Great team members don’t come along every day.  Find out what inspires this person about working with you and your business and put them in charge of it!  If it’s sales, give them a great product to launch, if it’s marketing, ask them for a new look at your old list or marketing plan.

You get the picture.  Whatever you do with your team, just don’t do NOTHING.  Remember, your biggest competitor is INERTIA.

Next Wednesday, I’m going to hold an incredibly focused Q&A call with some mind-blowing training around how to build a 7-figure business and create huge ROI on everything you do for your company.  I’ll send you all an event invite – it’s not a free event, but it is affordable – and a GREAT investment to get my personal coaching on your toughest questions.

I’ll send you the details by the end of Tuesday, and I want each and every one of you to know that YOUR success matters.  It matters to me, to the people you will touch in your life, an it matters to our NATION.  That is not a joke.  So take your next steps seriously and practice IRS on yourself!  Have initiative, 100% responsibility, and speed in all you do.

Until next week’s call,

Christine Comaford, Executive Coach

CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc. and Business Accelerator

http://www.BusinessAccelerationIntensive.com

Hi everyone – as an Executive Coach in the Fortune 100 for many years, I know that we’ve all had time when we hit a creative roadblock or had a solution in search of a problem. When I want to develop ideas for a product or service for one of my executive coaching clients, or help them to plan a particular goal, I create a mind map. A mind map is a great way to prime your idea pump. Here’s how to make one:

1. Get a poster-sized piece of paper or a whiteboard and draw a circle the size of a Peppermint Pattie in the middle. Write what you want to achieve with your product/service in the middle, for example, “launch widget product.” This is your primary goal.

2. Draw spokes around your primary goal circle, and attach a circle to each spoke. Label these circles with activities that will help you achieve your primary goal, for instance, “create marketing plan,” “build sales pipeline,” “manage fulfillment.”

3. For each activity, again draw spokes from the circle and attach additional circles to the spokes, labeling them with activities/ideas that would support them. For example, for “fill sales pipeline,” you might have circles that say “generate sales leads,” “qualify sales leads,” “hire sales administrator,” “create sales funnel and lead aging system,” and many more. For “create marketing plan,” you might have circles that say “build press list,” “develop activity timeline,” “identify influencers,” and, of course, many more.

4. Keep drawing spokes and circles until you’ve run out of ideas for each activity. Then highlight the most important ones and start executing them. You’ll get to them all in time.

Train yourself to both look at the big picture and remember to ALWAYS pay attention to the pain of the marketplace so that you can move fast to reduce it. You never know what it’ll lead to: sometimes a new company, sometimes a new connection, sometimes a chance to make the world a little better.

For a great free mind mapping software see http://www.mindjet.com.

Remember that we ALL have blocks – from the top CEOs to the newest entrepreneurs. If you ARE ready 100% ready to bust through yours, then having the right coach is key. I will MAKE room in my BAI program for you, IF you are serious. (I’ve added new dates all over the country if the West Coast isn’t your thing!) Teaching my Mighty Formula for Executive Evolution is my personal passion to turn this economy around, one success story at a time.

Christine Comaford, Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Times Best Selling Author http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

PS: Business Acceleration and an experienced Coach are always the key.
http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

Executive Coach and Business Accelerator, Christine Comaford shares more on her “Evolve as an Entrepreneur” series. As a top Executive Coach and the CEO of Mighty Ventures, Christine has coached thousands of business builders to higher revenue, bigger sales, and better business plans and financing pitches. As the New York Times Best Selling Author of Rules for Renegades she has inspired entrepreneurs around the globe.