Whether you admit to it or not, your past affects your future. There isn’t any exception when it comes to being an entrepreneur. It may be surprising to find out that maybe YOU might be the opponent standing the way between you and your goal. How do you push past this? How do you ensure you’re creating a better version of yourself for the future?
Forbes Riley, entrepreneur and Queen of the Pitch, joins us on this episode of Making Bank to discuss the ways that she helps her clients find their successes as entrepreneurs. With her hands-on experiences, Forbes brings insights on how you might be stopping yourself with personal life issues mixing with the business but also touches on how you might be pitching completely wrong. Learn how she helps her client’s “breakthrough” and how you can turn your pitch into magic!
Breaking Through
When it comes to helping people become the best versions of entrepreneurs they can be, Forbes has a process called a breakthrough. Part of the reason that she does this is that she knows that people aren’t perfect; they have their baggage and problems. “If your closet is full of crap, you can’t keep hiding it. One day, it’s going to explode,” Forbes says of having people reach these breakthroughs and are in touch with emotions.
After Forbes helps her clients get to their breakthrough, they become clear. They are more focused on the goals that they want to achieve, and they change the way they look at the world. And when the world looks different, it allows people to react differently than before. It’s almost like a new experience, a clean slate that allows focus. That’s why Forbes is adamant about how success comes with getting clear.
So how does Forbes help her clients reach this breakthrough? “We go through a couple of processes to release you of some of the things [that you’re holding onto]. And that’s when you know you need to breakthrough. If you hit a wall and you realize that what you keep doing isn’t working, [or] where you keep sabotaging, or you wonder why it’s not happening to you, odds are somebody planted a seed way back in your past.” Maybe you’ve never had a solid mentor that gives you that support and encouragement.
Of course, it’s not always from other people. Sometimes, we limit ourselves. If you’re constantly telling yourself that you can’t do something, you’ll start to believe it. Whether it’s from someone else planting a seed, or even yourself, Forbes goes back into the past and helps her clients rewrite a future that aims to succeed. This is not a task that can be easily done alone, and Forbes encourages that you need a coach.
It’s hard to get there on your own, especially because you can’t see everything that someone else might see. Forbes focuses on changing habits by trying to rewire your brain and the pathways that it takes when certain things are triggered. By changing the pathways, you can change how you behave.
A brain is a powerful tool. It’s being constantly used, and we store everything inside of it whether we know it or not. “We have files for everything. We have files for our kids. Sometimes we like to put some of the crappy right in the center. And that’s the thing. We kind of reference it all the time.” And so, this becomes a habit. Forbes breaks that habit and allows entrepreneurs to think clearly without any previous bias habits that may be filed in the brain from before.
Perfect Pitching
Forbes takes the breakthrough aspect with her clients and applies it to their pitching strategies. By having a clear mind, they gain confidence in what they want. Conveying the idea and the passion that they have, however, isn’t as easy as trying to sell a product. You’re wanting to make a connection, and you want that connection to stick. To Forbes, “pitching in my world is just getting a yes.”
As an entrepreneur, Forbes stresses the importance of pitching. Your pitch is everything – it’s how you represent yourself and your company, and it determines the success of your future. A lot of the time, though, people don’t succeed in pitching because they feel the need to talk – but not communicate. Talking doesn’t allow for a deeper connection and the seed to be planted. There needs to be beyond just telling a story, but it needs to have meaning and purpose with every word.
For pitching, Forbes created a five-step system including relatability factors, springboard stories, assumptions, the hub, and the grid. A lot of the time, people just focus on features and benefits. Pitching needs to aspects that are effective beyond just the idea that you have; how does it relate to the customer? How can the customer use it to better their lives? This adds a new dimension that allows the pitch to be personal.
“There is no perfect pitch,” Forbes says. But there is a way to perfect the way that you’re pitching so that you are setting yourself up for the best possible outcome.
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