Business Lessons from sucessful entrepreneurs and business leaders: LunchLearning.com

Reading time: 3 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 48 minutes 02 seconds

There is hardly a more entertaining and game-changing sales “guru,” if you will, than Jeffrey Gitomer (@Gitomer on Twitter). His lesson is relatively simple. . .be yourself, and be creative. . .but his lessons are comedic and instructional at the same time.  It’s a great combination.  His message is particularly unique, because being creative for some, often runs  contrary to sales-process thinking.  Gitomer serves as a breath of fresh-air for both salesperson and prospect. He’s also from Jersey, like me, so if you’re a fan of Gary Vaynerchuck you’ll certainly dig Gitomer.

If you’re not familiar with Jeffrey Gitomer’s stuff, he burst on the scene with his The Sales Bible, The Little Red Book of Selling, which, in my opinion at least, should be required reading material for every salesperson and sales manager out there. He also runs a sales training program, TrainOne.com which I took when I was starting out in hard-core sales a number of years ago. I would recommend it, particularly for greenhorns.

Gitomer is fond of gags. . .and you’ll notice in this presentation he’s definitely been to a novelty shop or two. Enjoy the presentation. I guarantee you’ll learn a LOT about how you should be selling, if you’ve never heard of Gitomer, and if you have, it never hurts to have a laugh over lunch!

Some of the things you’ll learn in this video:

1. New ways to ask for a referral
2. Why your competitors should hate you
3. The fastest way to make a sale
4. Eliciting good word of mouth marketing
5. Why being liked is THE most important aspect of any sales relationship
6. And tons more new ways of thinking!

From Jeffrey’s bio: Jeffrey gives over 100 public and corporate presentations a year. His customers include Coca-Cola, BMW, Comcast Cable, BlueCross BlueShield, IBM, and hundreds of others.   In August, 2008, Jeffrey was inducted into the National Speaker Association’s Speaker Hall of Fame. The designation honors professional speakers who have reached the top echelon of performance excellence. To date, 191 of the world’s greatest speakers have been inducted including Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter, Colin Powell, Norman Vincent Peale, Earl Nightingale, Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar.

Reading time: 3 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 26 minutes 59 seconds

Could you get a town to change it’s name to that of your company? Josh Kopelman’s from Half.com did.

A lot of entrepreneurs dream of launching a company that is so successful it gets snapped up by another company that sees the vision and is willing to pony up a substantial sum to buy into that success. Josh Kopelman did it. And he did it more than once.

Josh Kopelman (@joshk on Twitter), founder of Half.com talks about how he went from the local kid taking pictures at Bar Mitzvas to running a company while in college, and then on to other successful start ups including the aforementioned Half.com (sold to eBay within a year of launch), and TurnTide, an anti-spam company later sold to Symantec. Today, you’ll find Josh in the Managing Director spot at First Round Capital, a seed-stage venture fund. . .and that is what brings him to this episode of LunchLearning.com.

Other than the general story-telling here, it’s a great reminder to hear Josh talk about the importance of focusing on our strengths as entrepreneurs. . .a realization further cemented now that as a VC he can focus on what he does best. . .starting companies! Josh also comments on the role of business plans in relation to getting funding, and how important individuals and teams are in early stage companies where direction often changes on a dime. Great stuff if you’re ever pitching.

So, check out Josh’s chat with Samantha Ettus. . .he provides a nice cursory look at where some VC firms are looking these days as well as a (little) peek into how some VC think with regard to proposals, etc. Gary Vaynerchuk stops by end the end of this Obsessed segment, of course, with a wine selection for Josh, and some more questions about business. . .always great to hear from Gary as well!

From Josh’s bio: Josh is an inventor on eight U.S. Patents for his work in Internet technology, and in June 2000, was awarded Ernst and Young’s prestigious “Entrepreneur of the Year” award for the Greater Philadelphia region. Josh has also appeared on numerous national television shows, and is a frequent speaker at industry-wide conferences on entrepreneurship, Internet marketing and the future of Internet services. In 2001 Josh and his wife created the Kopelman Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on angel philanthropy to provide “start-up” grants to social entrepreneurs.

Thanks for joining LunchLearning.com today! Enjoy your Lunch!

Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

Video Time: 29 minutes 19 seconds

I love Sergio Zyman’s ideas on marketing. And for him, his “Selling more stuff to more people more often for more money more efficiently™” mantra defines marketing success. If Sergio is new to you, he’s the man behind many of Coca Cola’s successes during his tenure there — as well as being at the marketing helm during one of the firm’s largest perceived “failures”: New Coke.

He later founded (then sold a majority stake in) one of the most well-respected and innovative marketing strategy firms around: The Zyman Group. He is also the author of four best selling books: “The End of Marketing as We Know It”, “Renovate Before You Innovate: Why Doing The New Thing Might Not Be The Right Thing”, “The End Of Advertising As We Know It”, “Building Brandwith: Closing The Sale Online” and currently working on his fifth.

From Zyman’s Premier Speakers bio:

Sergio Zyman has been hailed as one of the most dynamic and charismatic speakers in the world. He energizes audiences with his entertaining and bold, unpredictable style. He speaks on non-traditional growth strategies, the role of marketing in corporations, the similarities between the political process and the marketing process, and all current and social events and the impact on consumer behavior.

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***there’s a bit of an abrupt ending on this vid, but it’s as he’s closing things up. . .***

Reading time: 2 - 2 minutes

Video Time: 46 minutes 6 seconds

Mike O’Donnell (@iCopyright on Twitter) is the founder of StartUPbiz.com, one of the first internet-based services organization with the aim to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Since it’s inception in 1997 (that’s dinosaur years in Internet time), Mike’s firm has helped over 25,0000 businesses ramp up to larger levels of success.

Part of Mike’s desire to mentor and help others comes from his own success that straddles decades of work in the high-tech industry with companies responsible for introducing new ideas and new technology to the world; including Compuserve and Design Intelligence which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft.

In the below presentation entitled “The Six Phases of Entrepreneurship,” Mike tackles the “ocean of opportunity” the can, at times, confound entrepreneurs and how to tackle those challenges effectively. I really enjoyed this presentation because Mike addresses in a linear fashion some of the ways we can move from idea to market, and he does it in his engaging and funny style. Enjoy the program. . .Mike’s a lot of fun and will give you lots of ideas as you move through your day!

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Reading time: 2 - 2 minutes

Video Time:  6 minutes 7 seconds

Seventeen year old Chicagoan, Zoë Damacela is the personification of every entrepreneurial dream. Humble beginnings, huge Chutzpah, loads of talent and the innate ability to see past any obstacles in her path.

She serves not only as an inspiration to budding entrepreuenuers everywhere, but to those of us already knee-deep in the game. Her efforts have taken her from 8 year old greeting card designer to fashion impresario selling her wares and gaining the attention of Chicago entrepreneurs like Larry Levy, of Levy Restaurants, and Joe Mansueto of Morningstar. Not a bad deal.

As Crain’s Chicago business puts it, Zoë Damacela’s story, “isn’t about success, it’s about the power of entrepreneurship.” Amen to that. Enjoy the video! To get the video to play, you’ll have to click the “play” button in the upper right corner of the player, just off to the side. . .where you’ll see Zoe at her machine and the “play” button. . .

Thanks for joining LunchLearning.com, and enjoy your lunch!