#17: Marion Chapsal and Ken Homer

Episode 17 - Marion Chapsal and Ken Homer - Collaborative conversations to build the office we all want

Key Points:

• Instead of blame, bring everyone to the table and involve all of the stakeholders

• Men and women need to work together to rebuild the community and to create a different culture

• Training should focus on identifying agents of change within organizations, then creating allies

• Before starting to address gender inequality, it’s important to listen and understand the issues

• Programs need to work on both the individual level as well as the collective

• To start addressing gender equality, we need to ask everyone how they would like their environment to be

The startup world has not been immune to some of the negative revelations that have come from the #MeToo movement. Stories implicating startup founders, teams, and investors have abounded. The startup world likes to think of itself as a modern, forward-thinking group of people but as we’re seeing, that is not always the case.

Soon after the start of public discussion about the #MeToo movement, we invited Marion Chapsal of Ideas on Stage and Women on Stage to join us in the studio to speak about gender equality, or as we have today, inequality. As a woman and as a coach, she’s witnessed this for years, so the emergence of #MeToo came as no surprise. Marion believes that as bad as the stories have been, the moment highlights an important issue and gets it out in the open, so at least now everyone can talk about it.

Marion recently teamed up with Ken Homer of Collaborative Conversations while working with a particular client. The idea behind their co-training sessions is that in order to seriously address gender inequality in organizations, they had to include everyone in the discussions. Both genders need to listen and be heard. They wanted to start a dialogue rather than continue a blame game.

This episode is a bit different and it’s not about a startup, though it’s a subject that is important to address. We can all do better and we all need to figure out what we want our future to look like, whether we’re in big companies or small startups.  

The #MeToo movement isn’t going away anytime soon and we believe this episode provides everyone with something to think about. If you’re a startup founder, do you want to be ahead of the curve and build a team that truly represents your market and is forward-thinking? Or do you want to be part of the old way of thinking that startups are supposedly disrupting?

#2: Phil Waknell

Episode 2 - Phil Waknell - The Perfect Pitch

Before diving into startup storytelling, we wanted to first step back and focus on one of the most important parts of startup creation.  You could argue that it’s not as important as the concept itself, but without a pitch, moving forward is going to be a struggle.  

For starters, you need to pitch the idea to others to get them onboard with your idea.  You need to pitch others - or even amongst yourselves - to do a lot of work to build a prototype so you can go out and pitch others, to get customers or raise money.

Pitching doesn’t come naturally for most so for many, it’s such a painful and forced process, that there will be only one pitch.  Talking with potential partners?  Here’s our pitch.  Potential investors?  Oh good, here’s that same pitch.  Prospects?  You got it, here’s the pitch.  It’s difficult coming up with that pitch masterpiece so surely it works for every situation, right?

If you thought that your pitch wasn’t all that important and that you only needed one, you really need to listen to our guest Phil Waknell, Chief Inspiration Officer at Ideas on Stage.  Phil has coached countless people for pitching, including students at some of the Grandes Écoles in France, startup incubators such as NUMA and Share-It at StationF and numerous corporate accounts including Microsoft, EDF, Orange, Sanofi and beyond.

Phil explains the critical components that are needed for your pitch as well as why you need not just one pitch, but many.  If you want to have a successful pitch, each pitch must speak to your specific audience, which is important to consider beyond just your pitch, as you grow your business.

Learning this process is often more difficult for technical founders, who put more value on the technical aspects of their startup rather than the marketing side.  It’s true your technical solution needs to be solid, but it’s a mistake to undervalue the critical nature of your pitch.  If you fail to connect with your audience, it’s going to be difficult to get the to listen to your cool new offering.

Remember, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all pitch.  In fact, as we will discover during our podcasts, there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all in the startup world.  We always need to know our audience and speak to them, not a generic person.  Nobody explains this better than Phil, so enjoy!