It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER.

We're moving through these 4 aspects of preparing to PITCH your organization to someone, and we're taking lessons learned from the idea of Shark Tank, when a leader has a few minutes to present their vision or idea. To do this successfully, you need to understand these 4 things:

#1) Know Your Message

#2) Know Your Numbers

#3) Know Your Competition

#4) Know Your Customer

Today we're talking about YOUR CUSTOMER.

We're not really talking about your customer, but we're asking YOU to define who your customer is.

This is how I began to learn this lesson years and years ago:

We had arrived into Ecuador to launch a work (Youth World International). We had worked on our message and had a plan. Our mission statement was simple:

"We exist to identify, teach and equip leaders to impact young people

and families to be disciples of Jesus Christ."

We worked on this for a long time, and finally felt that we had it right.

But we had a problem, and the problem began with me. If you had asked me who our customer was at the time, I would have replied, "Young People". That was who we were targeting, that's why we existed.

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

KNOW YOUR COMPETITION.

We're moving through these 4 aspects of preparing to PITCH your organization to someone, and we're taking lessons learned from the idea of Shark Tank, when a leader has a few minutes to present their vision or idea. To do this successfully, you need to understand these 4 things:

#1) Know Your Message

#2) Know Your Numbers

#3) Know Your Competition

#4) Know Your Customer

Today we're talking about COMPETITION.

I want to frame this in 2 ways today:

First, we're all "competing" with other companies or other organizations. This "competition" should move us to excellence and doing our best and not to attacking others that are in the same space as we are.

Second, if we are Kingdom Builders, which means we are focused on serving God and being a part of His purpose and Kingdom, than we don't compete with others, instead we collaborate.

In Ecuador, where I lived for many years, there's a "sales phenomenon" that happens... Our family calls it the "Hanging Pig Syndrome". Now you're curious...

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

KNOW YOUR NUMBERS.

I realize that the title "know your numbers" can talk about FINANCES or IMPACT. We're going to focus on FINANCES for this post, and we'll come around to look at IMPACT when we finish this SHARK TANK FOCUS. Remember last week, I shared that we're going to talk about 4 things over the next few weeks:

#1) Know Your Message

#2) Know Your Numbers

#3) Know Your Competition

#4) Know Your Customer

The goal is to give you some ideas for your PITCH or your presentation.

These are from lessons learned, and today is a really simple one.

We were doing a large capital campaign for a retreat center property in Ecuador in the late 90's. We had identified a piece of property, and we had negotiated some time to raise the finances to complete the project. This was the first time I had led a capital campaign of this size focused on one project, so it was a series of lessons. I'll share one of those today:

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

PITCHING YOUR IDEA.

I really enjoy watching the show on TV, Shark Tank. I like to hear the stories of peoples ideas, and when an entrepreneur pitches their idea on Shark Tank, they are looking for 2 things: First, they are looking for a financial investment and second, they're looking for one of the "Sharks" to bring their experience, network and skills with them to help the business scale. It's a two-part ask, and you can tell when people that are pitching just want the money, and you can see when they find the value of the "Shark" as being the biggest investment.

I'm going to take a couple of weeks to talk about some things we can learn from Shark Tank. We've been talking about different aspects of a start-up organization and things that every leader, founder, entrepreneur needs to be thinking about. We started a number of weeks ago, and you can find those posts HERE.

There are 4 things that we're going to address from the Shark Tank Show that can help all of us:

#1) Know Your Message

#2) Know Your Numbers

#3) Know Your Competition

#4) Know Your Customer

Pretty important things to know. This week, let's simply talk about KNOW YOUR MESSAGE.

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

Do you ever just stop what you're doing and try to envision what is to come?

Many times we are working with our head down, trying to get things done, and we forget to stop and take a look and simply "imagine" what this thing we're doing will look like.

We've been talking about aspects of a start-up or launching an organization over the past number of weeks. You can read the thread of posts HERE, and I'll keep moving forward but want to encourage you to do 2 things today:

First, STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING

We don't do this enough. We are in constant motion, always going from one place to the next. We have a difficult time being still, and often as we move at a rapid pace, we try to catch a glimpse of where we're going, but we're moving so fast we can't see it. Just take a moment and STOP.

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

EAT THE FROG

Last week we talked about "Getting Stuff Done", and I appreciate your many comments that were sent in. I'll share a few of them at the end of this post today.

Mark Twain said, "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."

I remember looking at a "To Do List", and on it was the word FROG. I looked it up and found many acronyms:

"Flame Resistant Organizational Gear" (The Marines us this)

"Frequency Resolved Optical Gating" (Something to do with lasers)

"Fully Rely On God" (I like this one!)

But it didn't make sense until I found that Mark Twain quote above. His quote has now been used by many people as a tool for productivity.

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

GETTING STUFF DONE

We've been talking about different elements of a start-up organization. Last week we talked about defining "What's Important Now?".

Today, I'm going to need some help.

All the planning, preparation, prioritizing and practice mean nothing if you don't figure out how to GET STUFF DONE.

Some of us are much more comfortable talking about things instead of doing them.

I'd like to take this week and next week to share some PRODUCTIVITY TIPS. These are things you do on a regular basis that help you to GET THINGS DONE.

I'll give you a couple of examples today, then I'd like you to write in with your ideas that we can share.

Here are 3 things I do on a regular basis:

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

WHAT'S IMPORTANT NOW?

This is a question in LifePlanning that we ask regularly, and it does a couple of things at the same time:

First, it puts you in the MOMENT. What is important for you to focus on right now? What things are the most important and the most urgent? What needs to be done first?

Second, it helps you to identify things that you can put-off for LATER. This isn't about procrastination, but it's about timing. There are things that don't need to be accomplished today, so don't think about them yet.

This past week I facilitated a LifePlan for an Executive Leader here in Orange County. Towards the end of the facilitation, during a short break, I wrote on a piece of paper, "Russ, What's Important Now?" After finishing the LifePlan and sending this executive on his way, I picked up that paper and spent some time with my calendar and to-do list, simply making some notes of some things that I had avoided completing, and I identified them as "important now". The reminder prompted me to ask myself that question.