https://vimeo.com/612826480

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, money, event, business, client, booth, company, pitch, investing, talk, person, value proposition, investors, exhibitor, bit, helping, raising, capital, ceo, spend

SPEAKERS

Jeff Barnes, Diana Tsakiris

Diana Tsakiris  09:51:32

All right, here we go, Wow, it’s another Thursday. And it’s noon here for me and 9am over there for you on the West Coast people. So it must be time for another episode of Ask me anything was Mr. Jeff Barnes, our CEO of angel investors networks, which is exciting. Last week, we focus mostly on getting to know you, Jeff, learning a little bit more about who you are as a person. And we’ll always go back and forth and touch base on that. But this week, I kind of want to talk a little bit more about more business focus type areas. And I’d like I know, you just got back in yesterday from Vegas, and you were at the money show. So why don’t you go ahead and start and tell us one? Why you went there what it is, you got out of it, you know, talk to us about the money show?

Jeff Barnes  09:52:17

Yeah, absolutely. So angel investors networks, when going to the money shows since Well, before was even aim. So over 20 plus years, our company has been going there for a lot of different reasons. One, either helping companies raise capital, or going as ourselves and raising capital into our funds or raising capital for ourselves in the past. And the whole point of the money show is to educate people on the different modes of investing. And angel investors network is one of the very few that educates people on private investing outside of the stock market outside of mutual funds and things like that. So when we go there, we always have conversation around what is angel investing in a lot of people know this as pre IPO investing, they’ve never really heard of angel investing, you know, it’s much more common now. But back in 1997, when the company started, it was not common at all. And people didn’t understand what in the world angel investing was, we’d spent a lot of time educating people on that. And that’s really why we went to the money show is because we would start with educating Well, this time we went for a client actually. And so I was there in spirit, one of our clients and other company I sit on the board of, and we’re helping him raise capital for his company. And that’s a great place for us to go and meet people network, talk to them, and, you know, find some good investors.

09:53:36

Great. Now, how do you decide? You know, there’s so many conferences, especially focused around money, right? Oh, how do you decide what is worth your time? What is worth sending AI n? Like, not all, not all events? Do you just go solo? There’s events that you send the whole team and we all go out there? So why don’t you break down? What what is it that and how you decide what is worth the time and the money away from the office and the expense that comes with going to these events? What makes it

Jeff Barnes  09:54:10

worthwhile? Yeah, great question. And it’s not a one size fits all approach, right? Like you said, there’s certain events that maybe I’ll just go to myself, and there’s certain events, I’ll bring the team to, or there’s other events that I’ll go with my clients to. And each one has a little bit different flavor. So if I’m going by myself, I’m going solo only because I’ve been invited to go speak. So I’m getting on stage, and I’m talking to people. And our goal is to really help educate people on the process of raising capital, when we talk a lot about marketing, and that’s a big part of raising capital is marketing. Most people don’t want to think of it that way. But to raise capital, you got to get leads, you got to get on the phone, you got a prospect, you got to convert those prospects into potential customers. And so it’s a lot of marketing and sales is how you raise capital. And so going to events as part of a marketing strategy. And when I go alone, and generally I’m speaking, and I’m educating business owners, entrepreneurs, startups, sometimes I’m talking to investors, or maybe they’re just to have a few meetings, one on one with people who are looking to invest with me. Second time, second reason we would go and we’d bring the whole team as if we’re exhibiting, and we’d go to exhibit a show for two different reasons, one, business development, right, if there’s other customers out there that we can help. And also speaking, educating people on the process of raising capital and angel investing. And then the third piece is when I would go with a client, somebody who’s paying us to help them market their business, okay, now, I don’t raise money for other businesses, unless I’m an officer of the company. But if they’re asking us to help market their company, then we’ll we’ll go to those different types of events and find those individuals. Now, your question was, how do we decide? And this comes down to what’s the purpose that your of you going? What are the results that you want to get? So let’s just say, you know, a lot of these companies that are at places like the money show, they’re either day trading companies, stock options, trading companies, their education, financial education, and newsletters. And there’s a handful of companies that go for the specific purpose of raising capital from individuals. And these companies have been going for years now to the same show in and out. So anybody who thinks they can go out there and get one check one time and be done with capital raising, let me tell you, that’s not how it works 90% of the time, right 99% of time. So we would go we’d find these shows that have a really good cross reference of our ideal avatar, our ideal Do client for whatever the result is we’re looking for. And like I said, we have three different results we might be going after. So for in this case, the money show has a pretty good cross section of people who have money. So they’re accredited investors, they’re looking for opportunities to invest. So it fits our top profile of who we’re looking for. And they have a large affinity for taking a little bit of risk, right? Let’s be honest, angel investing is always risky, there’s always gonna be some degree of risk, it’s not like you can put your money in a bond, and it’s always going to come back. So there’s always some degree of risk. And with angel investing, it’s perceived as a little bit higher than in most other forms. So we’ll find these shows, and the money show is just one example. But there’s other companies and partners that we work with freedom fest is a big one we’ve been going through for a number of years, and you look at who is going to be attending. And then who are the other exhibitors like there’s going to be a lot of competition, like money shows a lot of competition, because everybody that’s there is trying to get the investors to write checks to them. So there’s always a lot of competition. So in marketing, we call this a place strategy. Where can you be where your competitors are not, but your clients are. So money shows not a great example of that, because our competitors are there to a certain extent, a bunch of people raising money, but our clients are, they’re the people we’re looking for there. And then there’s other events that you can go to, it’s okay, I don’t really have any competition here. And my ideal client is here, differences, they’re not coming to look for investment opportunities, they might be coming to look at courses to buy a horse or car shows because they’re looking to buy a car. But people with money, people that are going out there and looking to spend a lot of money, and they happen to see us and say, Oh, I can make money while I’m here too. So that’s kind of the litmus test that we use.

09:58:11

Alright, great. Um, so how do you decide that you said when you are exhibiting as well, so usually, when you’re exhibiting I would think that everybody on the team has a little bit a different role. Like, for example, when I go to events, I mean, I’m, I’m, you know, I’m busy business development, I’m sales, right. So I have one set target goal when I go to events, and that talk to as many people as I can, me and make as many connections as I can, and make sure that they’re real connections, not phony connections, right? Because phony connections don’t matter. But I want when I when I get back at the end of the night at an event, my voice is scratchy. I’ve got a pile of business cards and post it notes and stories and pictures on my phone and selfies. And, you know, I just like a world when, and I want to sleep for like two days afterwards. But I’m so pumped and excited. And I know I got to reach out to my new friends and connections that I made, you know, and go there is your I would think that our roles would be a little bit different. Tell me a little bit about what it is that you do. When you’re at an event. What is your main goal? How do you go about it? Especially let’s let’s focus on an event that you’re going like you would bring the whole team because we were exhibiting or you’re talking to a client that that’s exhibiting and they have someone like myself there? What would the CEOs role be

Jeff Barnes  09:59:39

the CEOs role in that. In that case, it is generally to be the closer right to be that credibility source. Because your whether it’s your Investor Relations team or your business development team, their job is to generate the leads to get the prospects, right. They’re the ones that are out in front of the booth talking everybody that’s going by shaking hands, getting business cards, and qualifying. So you’re doing a pre qualification process. Then generally speaking, we want to we want the CEOs to be up on stage speaking about their business, about the opportunity about the industry, whatever that is, and positioning them as an expert, because now that you’re positioned as an expert, as the as the leader of your company, if you’re also out there on the floor constantly trying to get the deals and then people look like okay, well, I guess it’s a one man band, and that person’s not for real, right? Whereas you want to have this perception like, okay, that person is unattainable, untouchable, they’re an expert on the stage and so on. And the business development team and the investor relations teams, their jobs are to say, you know what, let me find out if you’re a good fit, and if you’re a good fit, let’s have you talk to the CEO, the owner, the founder, whoever that is, and have a meeting with them. Because we know this is what we call hotly somebody who’s really interested in having a conversation going deep and learning more, right. So when I’m going out there, and I’m speaking at an event, and we’re talking about raising capital, let’s just say we’re raising capital for our fund. And I bring people out there who are the lead gen the prospects, I don’t expect them to know everything we’re investing in, I don’t expect them to understand the term sheet or the subscription agreement. They’re not going to know everything that’s in the ppm, they’re really not going to know all of the intricacies of raising the capital or what the capital is used for. That’s where the CEO comes in. Right. So the business development and the investor relations teams jobs are to just like you said, collect business cards, shake hands. Get to know people find out if they’re qualified. And you know, qualifying somebody as an accredited investor who’s ready, right $100,000 check is not always the easiest thing to do. So you have to look for cues and things are picking up on, you know, how are they dressed? Are they do they seem interested? They seem like they know what they’re doing. Are they curious about this, right, you’re looking for the right type of person. And once you find that right type of person, you still may not know if they have any money or not, you just have a gut feeling. It’s nice, okay, let’s have a meeting, let’s come to our breakout session, come to our lunch, come to our dinner, whatever that might be. And let’s get to know you a little bit better. And that’s where the CEOs job is to step in there and be that credible source. So we can hopefully close those individuals.

10:02:11

Right now, it makes a lot of sense, you know, you really can’t play all roles. And kind of goes back to something that we talked about last week, a little bit where we talked about time management and making sure that you’re using your time effectively, which is why you want processes and procedures. A lot of times when we think about putting in processes and procedures. In today’s world, we think a lot about what technology can do for us. I mean, we’re we’re here, we’re on different sides of the country having a conversation like we’re, we’re sitting in the same room, you know, so technology does an amazing thing. But you even have to have processes and procedures put into place when you go to events, whether you’re an exhibitor, whether you’re going and speaking and you bring one other team member, because it’s you want someone out there to feel to gather those cards, or Hey, you just heard Jeff talk, do you have any questions? You know, whatever it is, you need, you know, you know, someone to help you out whatever that is? Um, why don’t you touch a little bit base? Since you know, we’re so big over here at process procedures and operations, why don’t you talk a little bit about maybe give an example short little, something that they can take away with them the next time they go to an event?

Jeff Barnes  10:03:20

Yeah, I’ll tell you the number one biggest mistake that businesses make when they go to a live event is they don’t have a lead capture process. They don’t have a way to collect the information, they need to then follow up and make an informed decision. Give me an example. We’ve done events that have cost several $1,000 for one meal, right? So I spent over 70 $500, at one restaurant for one meal, we had about 30 people in the room. And the job was to go out there and collect leads, because these people we’ve already found out okay, that probably qualified. Now we want to push them over the edge, we want to get them over the finish line. And we want to see if they’re the right people, well, if we didn’t have a way to capture that information, and it’s up to me to go talk to 30 different people and get their stories and learn, guess what I’m gonna forget, I’m going to lose stuff. And so I need to have a great way to capture that information, not only from just the people walking by the booth, so I know their name, phone number email, then I want to find out, are they accredited investors? Are they ready to invest? Are they looking at good investments like this? Then we get into the dinner because, you know, we’ve used technology, and I’m not gonna give away all the secrets. I mean, this is the stuff that we we like to help people with? Well, I’ll tell you, you got to use technology, you got to capture business cards, you got to get them into the CRM, you got to follow up, right? Get them to the dinner, went out to dinner. This is where you start taking notes, you get to know these people one on one. And if it’s just me, I’m guarantee I’m going to forget stuff. So you’ve got to have a way to capture information and it needs to go back into a CRM because you might have your your business development people who are not always at the event, or somebody who’s an appointment setter who’s following up down the road. If they don’t have all that information, you’re gonna look like a fool the next time you reach out, like, hey, Diana, this is Jeff from angel investors network. I can’t really remember where we met or what we talked about before. That conversation, right? Like, yeah, that sound versus Hey, Diane, is Jeff had a great time at dinner with you last night and talking about such and such over a glass of wine. You know, you mentioned you were really interested in learning more about angel investors network. I have some time available tonight or tomorrow afternoon. If you’re still here. Would you let you would you want to grab a cup of coffee? Right, that you

10:05:28

had one of those from this mass money show come into our our central database, and it was like, hey, Jeff, I know you’re traveling, but you got someone that’s trying to meet with you now. Exactly, you know, when I wasn’t there, but we were still able to technology.

Jeff Barnes  10:05:45

Yep. So that’s that would be I’d say the number one biggest mistake businesses make and entrepreneurs make is not having a good lead capture process. And then the secondary piece of that is a good follow up process. Right. And so we use technology for that all the time.

10:06:00

Yep, technology is really good on there. Um, so I would also say that just like anything was running the business that when you go to an event, you almost kind of think of it like it’s it’s separate little thing. And before you go, how important do you think it is to have roles and responsibilities mapped out? And make sure like some events, like if it’s just you and I that’s two of us, right? So it’s easy to know what our roles and responsibilities are your CEO, I’m VP of business development. But let’s say we had 10 It was a big event and we brought 10 people with us.

Jeff Barnes  10:06:32

Yeah, that’s where it gets a little bit challenging because you want to make sure that everybody knows what their job is. Because you’re spending a lot of money for these people to come, right. You know exhibitor ever gets away for free, right. So you’re already paying for the booth, you’re paying for all the collateral, all the material, the assets that you brings, it’s your flyers, your brochures, your business cards you’re paying for in the booth itself, right? All that stuff, pay for all that, then you got to pay for travel and meals and lodging, like, it’s not cheap to go to an event. You know, if you get away from a decent event for less than 30 $30,000, you’re doing pretty well. Right? But then again, it may not have been a decent event, it all depends on what the results are you get. So with we were to go with an entire team, we would have a spreadsheet, and we would list out who’s coming, where are they staying where their rooms, phone numbers, especially if you’re bringing somebody that you don’t work with all the time, maybe if somebody wants to help you run the booth and all that, you’re gonna bring a number of people over, and you’re going to put them on a spreadsheet spreadsheet with all the information about them on there, then you’re going to have an agenda schedule. Okay, when is so and so speaking, what room are we going to be in? Where is that? What is what are the exhibitor Hall hours, or was the exhibitor Hall open, and exhibit halls are generally open for 10 to 12 hours at a time. So you don’t really want one person at the booth the whole time, guess what they’re gonna get bored, their voice is gonna go out, they’re gonna be miserable, their feet are gonna be sore, they’re gonna leave, right? So you want to have rotating shifts at the booth. And then I like to do you know, when we do have a full team, we like to let other people walk around and experience the show, too. So if you have a big enough team there, you set up shifts, you’re like, Okay, you guys, you’re still working for me. But I want you to go out and experience the show, you know, go learn something, go meet some other people go sit in on some of these breakout sessions, right. And if they do that, they get more educated, they also can start picking up and if you’re telling them the right thing, they can start picking up on what other people are doing. It’s effective, right? And give you one example, the most ineffective thing you can do when you’re at a show is have the table up front and be sitting on a chair right behind it. And just watching people passing by, right? That’s not good. So you have that person that’s out in the walkway, like grabbing them, you know, pulling them in, it’s we call it a pattern, interrupt, get them into the booth, get them talking to us, right? And they won’t have the other person’s like, okay, now that you brought them in, let me tell you let me edify this person, let me bring in some more information. So there’s a lot of different roles and things that need to be happening. But to your point, I have planning ahead of time and letting everybody know what they need to do. And then setting expectations that’s so important because most people think, oh, we’re just gonna go there. We’re just gonna talk to a whole bunch of people gives me business cards, we want know, if that’s all you’re gonna do, I don’t really want you then I can go out and get business cards. Right? What I need is qualified leads. And I need the people to follow up with them and build rapport. Again, we’re asking for 50,000 $100,000 a month $500,000 checks. If we’re going to do that, we’ve got to build some serious rapport and get them to know us like us and trust us very quickly.

10:09:37

Yeah, we’re not selling Bob Pence, you know, but if you are selling ballpoint pens, and you’re at an event, you’re you’re not selling to one person you’re trying to get, you know,

Jeff Barnes  10:09:48

contract from a big guy, you

10:09:49

want to build those relationships.

Jeff Barnes  10:09:51

Same thing right now, you might have $1,000,000.05 million dollar contract, you got to build up that report.

10:09:56

Definitely. Good Tibbets. I, you know, one, one thing that you said, we don’t want to spend so much time because I could probably teach a class like I more than one, you know, less than on how to effectively go to go to events, different types of events, I’ve done it for the last, I don’t want to say how old I am. So for many different reasons. But you know, I like how you said that, you know, go into the breakout sessions, too. I always like to send my team and figure out what session they’re going to go to and, you know, there, they have two purposes, they’re going in there to learn, but they’re also going to continue building those, those relationships that happen. So even as the CEO, I’d actually rather send my CEO to a bunch of breakout sessions to learn and write notes and just casually talk not even like sell business, just talk and get to know each other, make those notes and then you know, what, when you come back from the breakout sessions, you know, oh, look, you walked over to the, you know, here I am set to kind of take it to that next up, but it makes you more, you know, personal brings out those things, but those breakout sessions are great. Alright, so let’s kind of switch gears a little bit. Um, you know, we talked a lot about that we gave away some little tips that, you know, someone can start thinking about when they go to their next event, while they’re waiting to start coaching with us and learn, you know, what they can do to have us go out there and help them market for them or give them a more set procedure on what to do. Um, why don’t what you said you were at the money show With a client, let’s kind of talk a little bit about this client, and how this client became part of angel investors network, how you became a seat on the board? What have we done? What are we planning to? Do? You know, what’s going on with this client?

Jeff Barnes  10:11:45

Yeah, great question. Um, so essentially, what we did is we went, it’s launched. Alright, so I’ll just give you that first and foremost, launch cards, our client and launch card, I sit on the board of a company, because I was one of the original investors in the company. We also worked with our fund to invest in the company. So we had a lot of skin in the game with them. All right. launchbar became a client of ours as well, we’ve been helping them with SEO, we’ve been helping them with marketing strategy. I’ve been helping them at the board level, of course, getting the business built out. And whenever we go to an event as launch card, I’m doing a dual role, right. One is I’m helping Greg, the CEO, with the structure and the strategy of the business as a whole. Right. So we’re, we’re talking and we’re strategizing. We’re thinking, Okay, what our next steps versus things we need to be working on. And then the next thing we’re doing is, I’m sitting there, and Greg is actually using me as a credibility source. Because Yeah, so when you go out and you raise capital, everybody thinks that you’re just trying to get money out of them, right. And they also think that they’re probably the first mark, right? That’s why so many people think of themselves, I’m just a target. I’m a target, and you’re just trying to get money out of me. So everybody likes to know that they’re not in a deal alone. They want to know that there’s somebody else there. So when I go on behalf of a client, I’m going there as a credibility piece, because Greg can say, Oh, no, here’s, here’s Jeff Barnes. He’s our lead investor, as funds invest in our company. And he sits on the board, and he’s been helping us for a while now. So now I can come in and say, Yeah, absolutely, you know, we’re really excited about this investment. This is why and here’s what we’re doing in the company, and so on. And that’s kind of my role when I come representing a client, right? Again, I can’t raise capital, as I’m an officer of the company. So I will generally become an officer in a company, if we’re going to try and take it to a billion dollar market cap, right? Whenever we get a client that says, Okay, I want to go public. And I have an actual realistic trajectory and a strategy to get there. Right now, these pie in the sky, people say, Oh, I have the next trillion dollar idea. Well, ideas are a dime a dozen. I think people forget that. Once you have execution, that’s what matters. But when we get one of those clients that actually has execution in place, and they have a strategy and an implementation plan, and I can get a seat on the board and get equity in the company, then I can actually go out there and I can represent them. And when I represent them, now I get to represent them as an investor myself, not just a founder, because there’s a big difference between an investor to investor relationship versus a founder to investor relationship. Right investor talking to a founder, they automatically assume Okay, you know, this guy’s desperate or gal is desperate. And she needs money, big time, versus me going over to an investment, say, Hey, I’m already in this deal. I really think it’d be good opportunity for you. But come check it out. They’re like, Oh, well, you’ve already put your money and you’ve got skin in the game. Okay. Yeah, I’ll check it out. Right. So that’s kind of the reason I went there with launch guard. And, of course, we’re doing the same process. We’re getting leads, we’re qualifying them, we’re having dinners. And then what we do is we actually rent out a really nice suite. So we bring a bunch of people up to the suite, once we know they’re qualified, we have a conversation with them. You know, to give it you know, we’ve, I think we have over $500,000 in commitments from that one, two hour block that we had.

10:15:15

Wow, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Let’s kind of backtrack it a little bit. Tell me a little bit about more breakdown on what you did to get launched cart to the place they’re at. Because launch party didn’t just like wake up one day, and like, Hey, I’m launch cart, and I’m ready for someone to come in and spend two hours at a cocktail party in Vegas. And I’m gonna give up $500,000 commitment, right? I know, there’s more people involved. So we’re just, you know, they didn’t start there. There’s obviously some things that it took a lot of work. Um, can you kind of talk a little bit about what you brought to the table to get launched cart to be able to be at the money show and raise what they did? And how and I helped with that.

Jeff Barnes  10:15:58

And I have angel investor network. Angel investors network. Yeah.

10:16:02

I kind of like to talk a little bit about angel investors network and what we did to, you know, what you did and how was

Jeff Barnes  10:16:08

okay, so I keep saying, launch cart was, you know, I worked with Greg A while back. And Lashkar was this idea that was birthed out of pain and frustration of dealing with a lot of e commerce platforms. And so long scars ecommerce SaaS platform, and it has a freemium model, meaning you can get started for free and start selling products online, within a few hours without paying anything out of pocket, which is a pretty cool value proposition. All right. And in that process, they build the technology, they built the team, they’ve figured all this stuff out. My job was to come in instead of the strategy person, right? And be a sounding board for the other investors and the CEO, and work with them on the strategy for what do we do? Now my strategy was really focused on the marketing of the business and getting capital, those are the really the two areas when it comes down to it, that I work with a lot of companies, they want to know how do I increase my revenue? And how do I get money in the door now? Right? Those are the two big areas that people come to me specifically for. So with gray, I am there, and Greg’s also a great marketer as well. So he knows a lot of the stuff, we didn’t have to teach them and build the whole thing. But we’re really working on Okay, what do we need to do right now, to start getting customers. And as a result of implementing a few different strategies, they were hitting something in the neighborhood of 30 to 50, new signups per day, right. And so we went from zero people to 30 to 50 signups per day that are happening right now, with almost no marketing budget at all. Okay, so that was that one? What is it that people want, and we can help them understand that they can get in the launch card, of course, I didn’t build the technology, I wasn’t the tech guy or the developer or anything like that. I’m more of the strategy guy. Then on the capital side, it’s like, I don’t think people realize how much goes into building a pitch deck and a presentation. And then of course, you have the legal side of it, which is the term sheet, the subscription agreements, the ppm the filings, the form DS, right? There’s just so much stuff that you have to do, you have to have a deal room setup. So I helped with all of that, okay, I don’t do the legal stuff. But I make sure we check the box, everything’s looking good. And we walk through the process. Okay, make sure we have all our ducks in a row, make sure the foundation is set. Now, what’s the presentation? How are we gonna present this opportunity to potential investors, so they understand what in the world we’re even talking about, we must have gone through 100 different iterations on that pitch, at least. And it’s still a work in progress, because there’s so much stuff that happens that when a company becomes a few years old, and now you’re starting to go after your series, a, all of a sudden, your pitch has to change a little bit. Because you’re talking to people that are professional investors who get pitched all the time, which means that your pitch can go from half an hour or 45 minutes, when you’re talking to somebody brand new to investing who’s a friend or a family, to now I’ve got to have it down in five minutes, right? In five minutes, I’ve got to be able to convince a VC. So that’s a big part of what I do with them, is go through that iterative process to make sure we were finding our pitch and our value proposition. So they understand so that investors understand what it is they’re getting into

10:19:15

value proposition, what’s the value proposition? Let’s break it down and pretend like I didn’t go to college? Tell me what a value proposition is.

Jeff Barnes  10:19:23

Right? So what value proposition in general is, if I’m going to spend money with you, what am I going to get back in return? Right? No one just spends money just for the sake of spending money, right? Even if it’s a stick of gum, or donating, you know, the penny in the little jars for the chosen charity, no one spends any of that money, without some desire to receive some sort of value, whether that’s intrinsic value or extrinsic value, meaning do I feel good about it? Right, I’m gonna put the money in this charity, in this little jar, because it’s gonna make me feel a little bit better about myself about who I am, right. So that’s a value proposition, I am providing money to a cause that I feel worthy. If I’m buying something, even if it’s a stick of gum, it’s, Hey, you know what, my mouth tastes money, I’m gonna be talking to people or I just need something to chew on, I have my oral fixation thing going, this feels good. I’m willing to spend 25 cents or a buck or whatever it is to buy the gum. When it comes down to investing, it’s the same thing, right? Just on a bigger scale. So instead of me investing money and say, Okay, are you spending money at a company and getting a product in return or a service return? I’m getting the hope of getting more money back. Right. So the value proposition for any sort of investment is, what’s the risk? How much do I need to invest? Am I going to get more money back? How long is it going to take? And as a result, what’s my internal rate of return? Right? These are the basics, then you look at it from an impact, and we can go on and on about different types of value propositions, excuse me,

10:20:58

Well, you know, we can do that in a one on one coaching session and go a little further but so are those the two things that you think are, you know, talk about how, how, how key what, how, what kind of key element is it to have your pitch down in your value? proposition doubt, like how, how important is it? What happens if you’re weak in one end? Can you give us some examples of what you’ve seen and how you’ve helped them improve it and the results that came from that?

Jeff Barnes  10:21:28

Yeah. I’ll give you a really good example. At this one booth at this show, there was this lady who was sitting there and she looked like she was bored out of her mind for three days straight, sitting behind the move, didn’t really want to be there didn’t want to do anything. He didn’t want to engage with anybody. So most people say, Okay, well, that’s not really the image you want to be putting off. And you’re right, that’s not what you want. But above her was the sign that said, Come learn, come earn a fixed 10 to 12% rate of return guaranteed every year, people kept coming by, right. So that’s your unique sales proposition or your unique value proposition? I’m gonna earn 10 to 12% every single year fixed and guaranteed, like, how’s that even possible? Right? So the value proposition is, I’m gonna get a rate of return. I know what it is, it’s a good rate of return. And they’re guaranteeing me some way shape or form them and get that return. Those are pretty good value propositions for an investor, right? Because you’re thinking about what investors get right now. I mean, yes, if they put money into bitcoin A few years ago, they’re 20x 30x of their money. And that’s great. But most people are putting their money into a savings, a CD, maybe a mutual fund and earning between sub 1% and maybe 10 12%. But it’s volatile, right? And so you need to think about what is your client want? And then how do you frame the value proposition for them. So going back to this example, the value proposition is what sold people, not the salesperson, that’s how important it is to have a great value proposition, then I’m going to go back, I’m going to tell you a different example. I have another company that had just amazing salespeople, but a terrible value proposition. And I’m not going to reveal the company’s name, but we just need examples. You know, we go to this event, and this company is there. And it was one of my pitch 10 clients years ago. And they were just hustling and hustling, talking to everybody and being on top of it. But every single time they give the pitch it was like, Well, what do you do, and then I listened to pitches, like five different pitches, like you guys need to get really clear on this, because you’re confusing people. So even though you’re doing a great job of getting them in and talking to them, engaging them and they’re liking you, they have no idea what you’re doing, and they don’t show up to the event. And they don’t come to the dinners and they don’t invest. This is why getting so clear on your pitch and your presentation is vitally important to your business. Again, if you have five minutes to tell somebody, then you better be good. And if you’re if I’m being honest, you have about 30 to 40 seconds to get them engaged, if you cannot get somebody engaged in 30 to 40 seconds when they have when you have a as a captive audience that is a captive audience sitting in a room giving a pitch and they know you’re about to give a pitch, you have 30 to 40 seconds to get them engaged, and then maybe five minutes to get them excited. Okay, if you’re in a booth or trade show, you have three to five seconds to get somebody engaged. So everything needs to be right their value proposition front and center. So people know what there’s, they’re getting into, and they’re either going to listen to it or they’re not, because it may not align with them. So that’s why those those two pieces are vitally important.

10:24:39

That’s great, how you great examples and, and how to, you know, break that down and make sure everyone understands how important that is. And, you know, like, like we said, we could spend hours and hours talking about this, but we’re gonna kind of just leave it there on that. So when we’re go ahead and tell me a little bit more about besides helping launch cart get their their pitch and our value proposition and then you know, making sure all the boxes were checked and legal. You said you focused on bringing money in with companies and you know, increasing their revenue. Can you talk to us a little bit without giving away your secret sauce? Just a little bit, give us kind of an idea what what is one thing I could do right now let’s say I have an online business. And I’ve been in business for about a year and I I’m steady revenues, but I want to increase my business. What is one thing that I need to look at to increase my my my sales?

Jeff Barnes  10:25:40

That’s such a hard question to answer, Dana.

10:25:42

But I know that’s why I asked it

Jeff Barnes  10:25:45

is there is one secret to all of this. And that is hustle, right? So many people don’t want to put in the work plain and simple. They just don’t want to do the work. They don’t want to learn the new strategy. They don’t want to go to the show. They don’t want to talk all day like listen, when I first got started in raising capital, and starting my own business, I was terrified to go talk to people, right. I was out of the Navy. I was a systems guy. I was an engineering kind of guy. I was the technical dude in the background. I did not want to talk to people. And so going and talk to somebody about raising money from them, especially somebody you don’t know is nerve wracking and terrifying and he don’t want to do it. And guess what, the only way you get good at it is by doing it. And I don’t care what anybody tells me. No one was born. Go raise capital from people, right? It’s a skill you learn. Now, at some point, it’s really easy for some people, but it’s really challenging for most. And we’re good at talking to people, but we may not be good at talking to people and getting them registered. Big check, right. And I’ve had people write me checks for millions of dollars. So it’s a skill and a strategy that you can learn. Now, going back to your question about, okay, what’s the one thing I could do? If I have an online business? I want to increase my revenue, right? I want to get more revenue coming in. Okay, there’s, I mean, there’s probably 100 things we could work there. But I will tell you the number one thing that I would look at is I would look at your conversion rate. How are you converting? I gave, are you because if you’re getting one sale per month, and one sale per month is, let’s say it’s $5,000 per sale, right? Whatever product or service you’re selling, right? And I’m getting one of those per month, okay, so $60,000 per year income, which is not terrible. If you’re a solo operator, it’s not great, but it’s not terrible if you’re a solo operator. Well, if I only have one person coming to my facility per year, or per month, and I’m closing that one person, I’m getting five grand, that’s 100% conversion rate, right. Okay, can I double that? Right? Can I can I get two conversions and still get 100%. And this is the saleability factor of businesses, right? But if I’m getting a million people coming in, on my online business, and I’m getting one sale, that’s terrible, right? So I would look at that, how do you convert more of the people that are already coming, because you don’t have to spend any more money to do that? Right? If, if it’s all about face to face sales, guess what it’s getting better closing, if it’s you already have a website, maybe you have to go rewrite some of the wording on your website, maybe you have to change the branding on it a little bit. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on this stuff. But you have to understand your numbers. And most entrepreneurs don’t even figure that out until it’s way late in the game. And they wonder why they’re not growing is because they’re not measuring what matters.

10:28:22

exactly understand your numbers. You know, I watch a lot of my friends and family they they kind of pick on me because I might I must be like some other entrepreneurs because the only people that don’t pick on me for this is people that are like me, but like I eat sleep, whatever I can find about business development. So I watched a lot I watched all the shark tanks and all of their lives and all of their episodes that they do individually and I watched you know the profits in the how to fix restaurants because I like to cook and how to do this and Jon taffer and like I Grant Cardone I’m always watching him and you know, The Wolf of Wall Street. I’m always in his business and find out Gary Vee and what they’re doing. So I and the one thing that they all say, you break them all down whether you like Grant Cardone whether you like to profit, whether you like Mr. Wonderful, especially Mr. Wonderful. If you ever listen to what every shark on Shark Tank says if you’ve ever watched it, or any of those shows there also you got to know your numbers. If you don’t know your numbers I that the investors they walk right out there, just like you don’t know your numbers by Yep. So you got to know your numbers. All right, one. Let’s, uh, let’s see, we got a few more minutes so fast. One last question. I’ve been seeing this one on Facebook. A lot. I think I saw it in one of the training videos that I watched with something that we were adding to what we’re doing here. If you woke up in the morning, with absolutely no money in the bank, absolutely nothing. And you had to feed your family, you had to move forward without breaking the law. Okay, good caveat. Outside of calling family and friends to help you out. You had to start from ground zero and rebuilt? What would you do? How would you do it? And how do you identify? How did you identify what you would do? I know what I would do.

Jeff Barnes  10:30:22

Okay. Um, I’ll start with how I would identify what I would do is first, the very first thing you got to do is take a realistic true accounting of what are you good at? What are you really good at that people would actually pay money for? For me, that comes down to working with business owners, whether it’s small business or big business mode. In this case, I’m going to say, Okay, if we need to make money like in the next 30 days, and I gotta pay rent and I gotta get food on the table, then I’m looking at small businesses in my local community. And I will say, I’m really good at helping them streamline systemized structure systemize and optimize the businesses, right? That’s exactly what the book is all about right here. How does your structure systemize and optimize for success? Well, that’s ambiguous at best, right? Most people don’t really know what that means, like, how do I structure my business better? They might think it means you know, do I need to get an LLC versus an S corp or whatever that you know? What I would do is it goes right back to value promises, what would I say to a company that would allow them, make them more Want to hire me? And I would probably tell him something along the lines of, Hey, are you working more than 40 hours a week as a business owner? And the answer is yes. Like, would you like to be able to work less than 40 hours a week and make more money? I might get their attention, right? They might think I’m a charlatan, and I don’t know what I’m talking about. But I’d say listen, give me five minutes of your time. And we’ll figure out how to get you working less in your business, and making more money at the same exact time. And I guarantee if in five minutes, you don’t like what I’m gonna say, I’ll leave. But in five minutes, I bet I can show you a few different ways that you can make more money, spend less time in your business. And if you’re interested, I’d like to talk to you about becoming a client. Right?

10:32:08

So you’re gonna go back to your systems and your processes are gonna hone in, you’re gonna hone in on one area, we’re gonna say, how do you make more money and work less than 40 hours a week, and that’s your key, and you’re just going to go out them?

Jeff Barnes  10:32:23

Yeah, cuz I got no money, right? And I write, I’ve got to figure out a way to feed everybody, I’ve got to, you know, otherwise, we’re living on the street, we’re living in the car. And we’re doing that I don’t want to do that. Again, I’ve done that before not doing that again. And so I would start, I literally go doing that. During the day, I go start talking to business owners in town physically show up, right? If I have a phone, I’ll call them. The next thing I would do. And I’m going to assume just in this day and age, I have access to social media, and my accounts are still active, I’d probably get on to our Facebook groups, and I just go start messaging people. And I do that as long as I could at night. It’s okay, hey, you know, I’m really interested in helping you work less and make more. Are you interested in learning how we can do that? And I might start, because I need a little bit of money, I might start by saying, Okay, listen, it’s 500 bucks a month. And if you pay me $500, I will work with you, I’ll coach you, I’ll talk to you. And we’ll figure this out. And after you do that, maybe 510 people now I’ve got $5,000, cool, those are paid. Next thing I’m doing is I’m stopping going door to door. And either I find somebody to replace me going door to door if it’s working really well. Or now I get an assistant or I start implementing technology to do a lot of the outreach for me, right? So it and I hate saying it because I resisted this so much early on, it’s sales, it’s going out there and finding something to sell that people want and then selling it to them. Right. And I didn’t like sales at all, never liked sales, it was always like that dirty four letter word in my house. Until I learned Guess what, that’s how you make money. And if you get good at it, you’re not selling someone, you’re providing them a service that they want and need, and they’re willing to pay you money for it. And you’re showing them how to do that, right, you’re servicing them.

10:34:06

We have such a bad rap as salespeople. It’s great. It’s kind of fun, and we both have the same, the same idea on what we would do to restart. You know, you first do identify what it is that you’re good at, or what you’re most passionate about and what you can you know what you can go out there and do. Um, you know, go for that passion, find that one key item and, and kind of go from there. Well, let’s say we’re gonna be wrapping this up here. Is there anything you would like to share with us either about the money show about business personally? Maybe a fun fact. I don’t know. something crazy.

Jeff Barnes  10:34:45

It’s still morning out here for me. So fun facts aren’t going to come well, but I will tell you this, right. If If you guys are ever going to go to an event and try to raise money, go with realistic expectations and bring someone like Diana right. Bring you know, Diane is a rock star when it comes to talking to people and getting them engaged and getting excited and making them want to show up. And when you have that process down, being live in person face to face talking to them. As much as you can talk face to face. A lot of the people there were still wearing masks, but being able to be belly to belly with someone. There’s no substitute for that. I don’t care how many zoom calls you do how many phone calls, FaceTime, being there in person with somebody shaking their hands, looking them in the eye and telling them your pitch. Nothing more powerful than that. Because now they get a chance to read you to see are you real Are you are you fake? Are you just trying to pull one over on me right? Being face to face is important and then bring someone bring your your Diana you can’t have my Diana and and really rocket that’s that’s all I would say I’d be in my last

10:35:50

rented Diana but I don’t know if you can afford to rent to Diana. What Jeff’s gonna charge you to be able to rent me. You don’t need us anyway. But um, yeah, you know, I I live for events like that. That’s like that’s what I like, um, I guess when are we going to go to an event I love them. I got to figure out what I did with all my travels. I have an event from three or four years ago and one of the games I was playing at this event because it was the same group of people. We saw him several times a year for this industry. And you know, like we just were in different places, is I would pick one type of giveaway you know, because everybody has some type of swag, right? Either pens are stress balls or butter. And I like putting them all over myself. And at the end of the event I like lost my voice. And someone brought me a glass of wine. And I’m like sitting at our booth with my feet crossed on the table with like, all this swag, like piled up on me and a glass of wine. Everyone was like, Where do I sign up? But it was just like, it was like, the last day my boss was like, What do you think you’re doing? Like, I really don’t know, someone buried me. But anyways, um, I think we’re done here.

Jeff Barnes  10:37:04

I think we’re all set. And you know, thank you, everyone for being here. Have a great weekend, you guys probably noticed the QR code on Diana’s background there. So if you have a business, you’re looking to scale it up, by all means reach out to her snap a picture the QR code, get a free resource from us on how to build your business and become free from your business. And, you know, I’m really looking forward to working with more people and helping them scale up their businesses to those eight or nine

10:37:25

figures I am here, I can’t wait to introduce you to the people. Sorry, I interrupted you there that I just talked to the other day. And I’m really looking forward to connect with the people you met at the money show where we’re going to be we’ll have in the comments the length, you can get a free resource. Yeah, we’re doing this every week. This is Episode Two. So please, please, my email address will be in the link. The website will be in the link, the you know the this Facebook page, go in here, ask any questions, ask us some questions, let us know what is it that you want us to talk more about? You know, we’re going to keep going on and thinking what we think it is that you you know, want to hear and what we specialize in, obviously, but we want to help you learn more about us. So it’s not just what do you want to know about Jeff, but more like, what do you want to know, to know if we’re right fit for you and your business? So shoot us those questions go on the website. Um, you know, shoot me a message and let’s talk.

Jeff Barnes  10:38:27

Sounds great. Awesome. Thank you, Dan. And thank you everyone for being here. We really appreciate it. And by all means, post your questions in the group so that we can answer them next week. Take care Bye