Latest / Speak In Flow / Cut 50% of Your Pitch and Get 10x More Results

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Cut 50% of Your Pitch and Get 10x More Results · Speak In Flow

• 0:02
  Melinda Lee: Welcome to the Speak and Flow podcast, the podcast where we slow things down just a bit to help you communicate with more clarity, strategy, and, purpose. Today, we are going to talk about how to communicate and be a leader in those high-pressured moments.
• 0:20
  Melinda Lee: Joining me is a leader. He's the board of directors of At the Home More Project, advisor for GLG. He's a founding member of Open Water Group. He advises early-stage startups through Series C's go-to market strategies.
• 0:35
  Melinda Lee: product marketing, demand generation, and customer experience. He turns complex ideas into strategies that drive measurable growth. Welcome to the podcast, Keith.
• 0:47
  Melinda Lee: Keith Myers.
• 0:49
  Keith Meyer: Thank you so much, Melinda, it's great to be here. I appreciate you having me on the show.
• 0:54
  Melinda Lee: I am so glad, I'm so glad you're here, and I'm… I can't wait to dive in.
• 0:58
  Melinda Lee: And so the first question I'm going to start off with is, there is a busy leader right now who has stopped to listen to this podcast, and if this person takes everything into account that you're about to tell them and implements them, what do you hope would change in his or her, this person's life?
• 1:17
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, I mean, let's face it, as a leader, we've got a lot of stuff on our minds, and we think about a lot of things all at the same time, right? And one of the things that would be awesome if somebody took away from this discussion.
• 1:28
  Keith Meyer: is how to get over that fear factor, right? How to get over the fear that comes in when something happens, or you might have a crisis, or when you don't know what to say, or you feel nervous, right? Like, how do you get over that and kind of…
• 1:42
  Keith Meyer: Step into your power as a leader.
• 1:45
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, that is… I mean, as a founder, advisor, you've been through it all. Can you share an experience where you felt like it was one of those critical moments where you just really had to make a decision to push through fear?
• 2:00
  Keith Meyer: That's a good one.
• 2:02
  Melinda Lee: maybe when you've… oh, actually, before we step into that, I would like for you to share with the audience more about what you do, and what excites you today, so that gives them context.
• 2:12
  Melinda Lee: Amazing person that you are, and how much experience you really have.
• 2:16
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, definitely. You touched on it a little bit. So, you know, my earlier in my career, I spent a lot of time at big corporations. I learned a ton about things like branding, things like how to bring a product to market, how to start something from scratch, all those things.
• 2:31
  Keith Meyer: switched over to more startups, I was working at startups, I had my own startup as a founder.
• 2:37
  Keith Meyer: And then, more recently, have been working with other startups, and really more recently, have been working as an advisor to early stage through, Series C, kind of, fintech in general, mostly in that vertical, right, in fintech.
• 2:52
  Keith Meyer: And what I like to do, and what I see, is come into an organization where they're struggling a little bit with, like, we've tried out a lot of things, some things work, some things don't. How do we pull that together into, like, an official strategy, both from a business standpoint as well as a marketing standpoint?
• 3:10
  Melinda Lee: And so, what are the challenges that you see people having with that?
• 3:17
  Keith Meyer: I think, it's very easy to get down in the weeds, right? When you're a founder or a leader, and it could also be a leader at a bigger organization where you're over a piece of that organization, right?
• 3:29
  Keith Meyer: But it's very easy to get wrapped up in the weeds and kind of get into the day-to-day tactical things that you need to work on, and not take a step back and kind of say, okay, strategically, what do we really want to accomplish? What do we need to do? It's like, not just keep the lights on, right? But actually, how do we make a difference? How do we really make an impact with what we're doing? If it's a business, how do we grow the business to a certain size that we want to get to, and not just kind of…
• 3:52
  Keith Meyer: rest on our laurels and kind of… and cruise on, right? And most companies want to eventually get to a bigger size, right, and get to a certain level of success, and, you know, that's… that's one of the things that kind of
• 4:06
  Keith Meyer: taking a step back and thinking a bit more strategically, I think, helps people with.
• 4:10
  Melinda Lee: Yeah. Can you share a moment when you've experienced that? Like, take us back into your thought process and what was happening when you were in the weeds?
• 4:20
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, I can. When… when I was the founder, one of the founders of In Command, early on, we thought that we had everything figured out, of course, right? Of course. And it was, it was, and we did have some things figured out, to be fair.
• 4:37
  Keith Meyer: But, we thought we would get funding, for example, very early. We had some people promise us that they would come in and fund us, and to make a long story short, they didn't.
• 4:46
  Keith Meyer: And that was very early on, and then we struggled a bit because we're like, wait, our whole premise was built on, you know, putting together this funding, and we don't have it. And so we had to really bite the bullet and take a step back and say, well, if we need to go from scratch and actually go out there and raise money the traditional way that startups do with
• 5:02
  Keith Meyer: you know, early-stage funders, like angel investors, or even, you know, smaller VCs, how are we going to do that? And we kind of had to really build all of that out. And, it was a cool place to be, right? But it took a lot longer than we thought. But the interesting thing was, once we got that first
• 5:21
  Keith Meyer: funder in.
• 5:23
  Keith Meyer: Then, it was like a floodgate, because all of a sudden, we got that validation, okay, somebody believes in you.
• 5:29
  Keith Meyer: somebody's willing to actually give you money, and then all of a sudden, all these other people were like, okay, now I'm in. But they were kind of sitting in the sidelines waiting, you know, because they didn't want to be the first one to take the biggest risk, and then…
• 5:41
  Keith Meyer: Finally, somebody did, and then we had people come in, and then… and then it was great. Then we had, enough money to kind of launch the company, do what we needed to do to get to a certain phase, and
• 5:51
  Keith Meyer: And also, kind of build things out to where we needed it to go.
• 5:56
  Melinda Lee: And did you have moments at that time where you just had to… someone would ask you a question, or… and you just had to… you had that stomach, that knot in your stomach, like, there's high-pressure moments, I'm sure, throughout that whole time. Can you tell me how you were able to actually navigate those?
• 6:14
  Keith Meyer: Oh yeah, definitely. So I think…
• 6:17
  Keith Meyer: Every company that goes through, kind of, fundraising, usually you have, you know, tactically you have a pitch deck, right? You go out, you're pitching for money, and very often you get feedback after that pitch deck. Sometimes people might move to the next stage of potentially funding you, sometimes they're extremely critical.
• 6:34
  Keith Meyer: of what you present. And myself, personally, I like to say that I'm a, extroverted introvert.
• 6:44
  Keith Meyer: So I'm not naturally super extroverted, right? I've kind of learned how to become more extroverted and actually be able to talk to people or whatever, but no doubt, when I'm out there, if I have to do a pitch, for example, or I have to be in front of a large group of people, I get very nervous, and I have to go through a little bit of a process to kind of handle that, right? But for me, the biggest thing is no
• 7:04
  Keith Meyer: The subject matter that you're talking about.
• 7:06
  Keith Meyer: Right?
• 7:07
  Keith Meyer: Practice, feel comfortable with that, and then when you're out there actually pitching, it's a lot easier and a lot…
• 7:14
  Keith Meyer: more difficult to be… to become nervous, right? And to feel that you can't do that. But, the other thing is, you know, I think I've heard other people on some of your other guests talk about this, is in that same process, listen to what people say to you, right? Like, actually have an interaction. It's not just you.
• 7:31
  Keith Meyer: emoting and telling people what to do, or giving them information. It's like, as much as possible, have it as a two-way…
• 7:38
  Keith Meyer: conversation, it makes you feel more confident and comfortable, and it gives… it's more of… gives other people a reason to attach to the… to the content that you're sharing.
• 7:48
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right, engage with them so that they're, like, feeling attached and connected to the content. Well, congratulations! I mean, how many times did you have to pitch before you got the funding?
• 7:57
  Keith Meyer: Oh my god, somebody asked me that the other day, I think, probably… Over 100, for sure.
• 8:02
  Melinda Lee: What? Oh, yeah. You said, so people were watching in the sideline for over 100 times that you did this.
• 8:08
  Keith Meyer: Oh, yeah.
• 8:10
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, and it's not just me, right? We had multiple people of founders where we were all out, you know, pitching. Actually, our CEO probably pitched the most times, but, you know, I also was out there pitching. And if you put all those together, for sure, over 200 pitches, right, to VCs, to individual funders.
• 8:27
  Keith Meyer: to awards, you know, all different things where we were trying to get our name out there. But it's all part of it, right? You kind of have to…
• 8:35
  Melinda Lee: Hey, yeah.
• 8:36
  Keith Meyer: To get our first money in the door was probably close to a year from when we started doing it, and then once we got that first money, like I mentioned, then it was pretty fast. Then within about 6 months, we got
• 8:50
  Keith Meyer: The majority of the money that we raised in the door.
• 8:52
  Melinda Lee: Wow, wow. And what did you learn along that way, along the way, that whole time?
• 8:58
  Keith Meyer: You know, it's interesting, I think the biggest thing we learned was that there was a there there in what we had as a business, right? Whenever you launch a business, you're like, is this real? Like, is this really something that can make money and that people are going to be interested in? And one of the things that I learned was,
• 9:14
  Keith Meyer: To believe in what you… what you know you're launching
• 9:18
  Keith Meyer: is valid, right? Once you get it out there, I mean, for us, for example, once we got it out there and actually brought the product to market and people could actually… so our… just to give a background, yeah, our product was, alternate investment that you could invest online on your own.
• 9:33
  Keith Meyer: You had to be an accredited investor, but you could come in, and what we did was we fractionalized home mortgages, so mortgage loans, so people could buy as… could invest in as little as $100 across many different loans to kind of diversify their risk. Okay. So in essence, you were kind of putting together your own pool.
• 9:52
  Keith Meyer: Of investments and customizing it however you wanted to do that.
• 9:56
  Keith Meyer: When we put that out live, and…
• 10:00
  Keith Meyer: actually put it on the market, we sold out, like, almost instantaneously. So, we realized, okay, there is a there there. People are really interested in this product, right? They're really interested in what we offer, which was something that was less risky, but with a decent return, kind of a cash…
• 10:15
  Keith Meyer: alternative. And, you know, most of us have cash. We put it into our bank account, and it makes zero or very little percent interest. So this was a way, if you have extra cash, that you're not still using, to lock it away for a little bit of time, kind of like a CD, but with a much higher, you know, interest rate.
• 10:35
  Keith Meyer: So… so that was the biggest.
• 10:36
  Melinda Lee: while to work out how to pitch it, like, how to say it quickly so that people understand.
• 10:40
  Keith Meyer: instead.
• 10:40
  Melinda Lee: Turning calm.
• 10:43
  Melinda Lee: into strategies that drive growth.
• 10:45
  Keith Meyer: I did. Like, I… it's funny that you say that. Recently, I saw… I was looking through all the documentation that we had, I was looking back, some of our very early projects. I'm like, how did even anybody… how did anybody even understand what we were doing?
• 10:57
  Melinda Lee: It was.
• 10:58
  Keith Meyer: So convoluted and so complicated.
• 11:00
  Melinda Lee: Yes!
• 11:01
  Keith Meyer: how long, like you said, and then when you break it down to its core essence, you know, sometimes less is more, right? Sometimes sharing too much. Like, people don't want to know about the back end of what you're offering. People don't want to know, like.
• 11:15
  Keith Meyer: how does, like, for example, with that, how does fractionalization work? They're like, I don't care, I just want to invest in your, you know, what you're offering. Yeah. Or as an investor, they're like, just give me the problem that you're solving, why you guys are good at it, and why you're the right ones to do it. That's all I want to know.
• 11:31
  Keith Meyer: Right? They don't want to know any of the detail behind the scenes, and that's hard, because you're proud of it. It's really hard. You know, but nope, they don't… too much sometimes.
• 11:41
  Melinda Lee: Sometimes a part of what you do is what makes you unique, what makes you different, so then it's that balance.
• 11:47
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, exactly right.
• 11:48
  Melinda Lee: Because then, because if you just keep it at the high level, you sound like everybody else, too, with the problem I solve.
• 11:53
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, exactly. Yep.
• 11:56
  Melinda Lee: It's, it's very quite… it's quite interesting. That's why us entrepreneurs are, you know, you know, continue to keep going, because it is challenging, to…
• 12:06
  Keith Meyer: You know, that's… that's what keeps… that's what sucks people in, though, when…
• 12:10
  Keith Meyer: either have your… if you're a founder, or if you are working with startups, yes, it's complicated and difficult, but at the same time, it's super rewarding, right?
• 12:18
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 12:19
  Keith Meyer: The way I say it, I like to, like, characterize it as, like, you know, very often when you work at a full-time job, or you have a career, you know, it kind of goes like this. You have ups and downs, but it kind of goes like this. A startup, on a daily basis, you're spiking up, and then you're… the next minute, you're like, oh my god, why am I doing this? Oh my god, this is so exciting, we're gonna kick butt, you know, no, it's terrible.
• 12:38
  Melinda Lee: Fuck.
• 12:39
  Keith Meyer: It's never gonna work, you know?
• 12:40
  Melinda Lee: And…
• 12:41
  Keith Meyer: It's crazy, but you kind of get addicted to that.
• 12:44
  Melinda Lee: You gotta get addicted to it.
• 12:45
  Keith Meyer: Yeah.
• 12:46
  Melinda Lee: We've already come so far, and we haven't broken yet, so it's just… but then the next day, it feels like, okay, I really want to give up. Exactly.
• 12:54
  Keith Meyer: Right, and, you know, like you're talking about, attaching that to communication, you can't…
• 12:58
  Keith Meyer: you can't show that on the outside. Right. And I always have to be up about it, and kind of always be pretty even-keeled about what's happening, like, everything's, you know…
• 13:08
  Melinda Lee: I hate…
• 13:08
  Keith Meyer: Great, but sometimes in the back, you're not feeling that way, so…
• 13:12
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 13:12
  Keith Meyer: Kind of psych yourself up to be, you know.
• 13:14
  Melinda Lee: Well…
• 13:15
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, no, I really appreciate you bringing that into the communication realm, because when I think about communication, I think about it's actually also an external… a representation of how we feel on the inside, and so for me, I have the belief that when we say something, our words actually translate to action. Like, every word, whether we're bringing people together, whether we're getting, influenced by them, to buy something, or…
• 13:39
  Melinda Lee: whatever words we're using, we're, like, eroding trust. Like, it's…
• 13:44
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, so we're creating some type of action, intentionally. That's right. Yeah, and so, like, it's really important to be thoughtful and, careful and purposeful with our words.
• 13:54
  Keith Meyer: Yeah. And one of the, you know, one of the things that just popped in my head as you were talking about that, the other thing that I think is really key is consistency. Yes. So, whoever it is, whether it's you speaking about something about the company, your co-worker.
• 14:08
  Keith Meyer: somebody that invested in you, you know, somebody seeing your website. So, like, even from a marketing perspective, right? Marketing is just a broader communication than a one-on-one communication, so…
• 14:19
  Keith Meyer: All of those things, whether it's a salesperson talking one-on-one, or marketing talking to thousands of people that are seeing some communication, all those things need to kind of family together, because they all support each other.
• 14:30
  Keith Meyer: Right? And to me, that's, like, a really, really important thing about communication, or even communication style, is that
• 14:36
  Keith Meyer: if you're out there talking about the company, make sure that you're following, I guess, kind of the branding and the communication style that has been set up for the company, so you're not working at cross-purposes, right? Because that can happen, too, really easily.
• 14:50
  Melinda Lee: Yeah. Well, how does a company continue the conversation and consistent communication when strategies are changing, goals are changing? How would a leader continue to…
• 15:02
  Melinda Lee: When the person, the leader itself, have you ever experienced it when you don't even know where you're going?
• 15:08
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, it's really tough, right? Because different people have different, reasons that they're in a specific role at a company, for example, right? And maybe what has changed with the company, they feel they need to be convinced is gonna support what they're being asked to do. So I'll give you an example, right? There might be a change in branding, or maybe a change in the voice that the company is using to talk about
• 15:32
  Keith Meyer: so…
• 15:33
  Keith Meyer: I've been at companies, for example, where the product has expanded dramatically, but then the way the companies talk about it about itself is much narrower.
• 15:41
  Melinda Lee: Yes.
• 15:42
  Keith Meyer: And so, you need to kind of have everybody in the company understand what does that broadening mean. But as an example, for a salesperson, right?
• 15:51
  Keith Meyer: typically a salesperson has had success talking about the company in a certain way, and it's very scary and difficult for them to say, okay, I need to give that up. Something that has made the company money, and more importantly, made me money, because, you know, sales is always making money from the sales that they bring in, right?
• 16:07
  Keith Meyer: And so, for you to go in and say, okay, no, sorry, we don't want you to talk about the company that way anymore, you have to change it up, right? It takes some time for them to be comfortable for that, but I think some of it is…
• 16:18
  Keith Meyer: Clearly communicating the why, of why it changed, and why you can't necessarily move
• 16:26
  Keith Meyer: move forward in the way that you have. And, you know, just realizing as a communicator that sometimes that's going to take a while. It's probably not going to be instantaneous for somebody like a salesperson to say, oh yeah, great, I'm going to drop everything, and I'm going to talk about it differently, because they've become comfortable with a certain style and type of communication, yeah.
• 16:46
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting.
• 16:49
  Melinda Lee: It's really fascinating how we have to, yeah, continue, like, evolve, like, continue to remind and evolve, and repeat and be consistent, and bring everybody else along together. That's right. And sometimes people, like you said, they're not going to be on board right away, because they're not comfortable.
• 17:07
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, and I think it's the job of a leader, but particularly, like, let's say, a main leader of a company, like a CEO.
• 17:14
  Keith Meyer: To be that cheerleader.
• 17:16
  Keith Meyer: Right? And explain the why in an exciting way, like, almost like a mentor to the rest of the company, so everybody can gel and move in that direction, right? If it doesn't happen that way, and maybe a, you know, lower-level person, like, let's say a marketing manager or something's developing it, but it doesn't flow all the way up to the CEO and doesn't communicate down to the rest of the company.
• 17:38
  Keith Meyer: that can be kind of a little bit of a disaster, right? Because it…
• 17:41
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, because… keep going, sorry.
• 17:43
  Keith Meyer: I was gonna say, it's a little bit of a disaster because it's not… it's not matching, right?
• 17:47
  Melinda Lee: Yes.
• 17:48
  Keith Meyer: One part of the organization might be saying something one way, which is maybe more progressive, but the highest levels haven't bought off on that sometimes.
• 17:55
  Melinda Lee: That.
• 17:55
  Keith Meyer: That can be really difficult, because then, then,
• 17:59
  Keith Meyer: You know, it's gonna be fragmented, and people in other groups may not,
• 18:03
  Keith Meyer: follow what marketing, for example, is saying because the CEO isn't on board with it. So it's important that… that, it comes from the top down, I guess, is the important thing.
• 18:13
  Keith Meyer: That… for that type of situation, yeah.
• 18:15
  Melinda Lee: Have you worked with a company where they don't… they understand it, but maybe the why? Like, what is a powerful why? I think sometimes when you ask them to say why, they might be, why? Yeah, can you share some examples where… do founders get it nowadays? Maybe more do so now?
• 18:37
  Keith Meyer: I think they do, because I think.
• 18:37
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 18:38
  Keith Meyer: especially if they've gotten to a certain level, they've obviously found some… something that's clicked with their customer base, right? So, yes, they do get it to a certain point, and usually if they've brought in some form of funding, right, a funder, especially if you get to the VC level of funding.
• 18:55
  Keith Meyer: They're gonna require a certain level of communication, and… and… and…
• 18:59
  Keith Meyer: Simplicity of communication, that they can understand, and that they can see, excuse me, can grow into…
• 19:07
  Keith Meyer: You know, a bigger business that's going to make their investment worthwhile.
• 19:10
  Melinda Lee: Interesting. Is it a template? Do they usually want you to type it out in a template, or how do you present this information?
• 19:16
  Keith Meyer: I mean, there is kind of a template.
• 19:19
  Melinda Lee: That's fun.
• 19:19
  Keith Meyer: pitching, the template is very much around, like I kind of mentioned, having… what's the problem? What's the main problem that you're solving? How are you solving it?
• 19:29
  Keith Meyer: Right? And then, why are you the right person to bring it to market? Like, what's so great about you or your team? Like, what's unique about the team that you're bringing to market? That's… that's a little bit earlier stage.
• 19:42
  Keith Meyer: Once you get a little bit farther along, they're going to want to see more detail around what was your traction, how much is… how much revenue are you bringing in, what's your revenue growth projection, how are you going to do that, why are you going to do that? If you're asking for money, exactly.
• 19:58
  Keith Meyer: how are you going to be using all that money, right? Like, if you're… because some… nowadays, you know, companies are bringing in millions of dollars, if not a lot more than that, and it's like, okay, well, how do you break that down? We don't just want to bring it in for you to try stuff out and throw it around, like, exactly what are you going to spend that money on, and how is that going to lead to success?
• 20:15
  Melinda Lee: so fascinating. I mean, it's the simplest, like, statements and questions to answer, but they're so difficult to answer.
• 20:25
  Keith Meyer: They're really difficult. They're really difficult, especially because the far, you know, in that situation, the farther you're looking forward.
• 20:33
  Keith Meyer: conjecture, right? It's not scientific that you know in 5 years this is what things are gonna look like.
• 20:40
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, no, especially nowadays, right?
• 20:43
  Keith Meyer: There's a lot of uncertainty in the world right nowadays, so…
• 20:46
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, that's so great. Thank you so much. I think that, you know, I'm really fascinated by all the different, ventures, boards that you're on. Have you had one where you really had to work on their marketing and positioning? Like, is there one that…
• 21:05
  Melinda Lee: stands out that you'd like to share?
• 21:07
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, I mean, the most interesting for me, just because it's very topical and recent, is the Homework Project, right, which is a still relatively small nonprofit focused on homelessness in California. We've had a lot of traction the past 6 months to a year. We've gotten a significant amount of fundraising.
• 21:24
  Keith Meyer: And we've had some successes with, kind of, our early product. So, what's been interesting with that is, you know, my background is for-profit. My background is not
• 21:33
  Keith Meyer: nonprofit, although I've had a little bit of nonprofit experience, but generally for-profit. And bringing that for-profit mentality into a nonprofit, I think, is something that really works well, right? Because sometimes nonprofits get… get
• 21:48
  Keith Meyer: bogged down in the fact that they're a nonprofit, and they need, you know, they're getting donor money, and it's a different way of thinking, but if you look at it, that's your revenue, right? That's the money, that's the fundraising that you're bringing in to run the organization. Look at it the same as you would a for-profit. You don't want to waste money, you want to be careful about what you spend the money on, you want to be strategic about where you put the money.
• 22:09
  Keith Meyer: exact same as a for-profit.
• 22:12
  Melinda Lee: Fascinating, yeah.
• 22:13
  Keith Meyer: Interesting with homework.
• 22:14
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 22:14
  Keith Meyer: On the communication side, right,
• 22:17
  Melinda Lee: I'm gonna hold off on that.
• 22:19
  Melinda Lee: So, I have a question about that. So, it almost sounds like
• 22:23
  Melinda Lee: Because the actions would be the same. Just like you would be thoughtful about where to spend the money, how to, you know, use the money, the actions are all the same, but the way that they… almost like, I think, the way that they received it, because when you said, oh, it's a donor money, almost like we received it as something like, we feel bad, or feel like we feel the same, where if you, it's a for-profit, almost like you earned it.
• 22:46
  Melinda Lee: Yeah. So we want to be responsible. That's so fascinating that the way that it comes in and almost shifts the way that you receive and give it out and what you do with it.
• 22:56
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, that's right. And it is the same, and it's actually, for a nonprofit, in a way, it's better, right? Because people are believing…
• 23:04
  Melinda Lee: Believing in it, because we believed in it, we earned it.
• 23:07
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, it takes a while. Can you hold on for one second?
• 23:10
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:11
  Keith Meyer: Sorry.
• 23:12
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, it's a little bit of a,
• 23:15
  Keith Meyer: somebody's believing in you, and they're willing to give you money, right? They're willing to say… and it might be as small as somebody, a local person giving you $50, it might be a corporate giving giving you a million dollars, right? But it's still the same. They believe in what you're doing, and they want to try to make a difference in what you're trying to make a difference with, right? So…
• 23:34
  Keith Meyer: as a… as a person, for me, right, being involved with something like that has been so rewarding.
• 23:39
  Keith Meyer: Because you're actually helping people that need help that are…
• 23:43
  Keith Meyer: Very often not able to get help very easily, right?
• 23:46
  Melinda Lee: Because…
• 23:47
  Keith Meyer: So that's… that's kind of the message. But the… the… but it's the same…
• 23:50
  Keith Meyer: Around homeware, it's not just about homelessness, right? Because there's many, many organizations that focus on homelessness. It's like, what's unique about what you're doing? How are you doing it differently? And how are you doing… you know, this is from a messaging and marketing standpoint. How are you doing it differently, and how are you doing it in a way that,
• 24:10
  Keith Meyer: differentiates you from some of these other organizations that might be raising hundreds of millions of dollars, but you don't see them doing very much, right? They have a big bureaucracy or whatever.
• 24:19
  Keith Meyer: And so our message at home more, what we've come down to, and this is how the whole organization started, is each person
• 24:26
  Keith Meyer: Each person that's experiencing homelessness, right, is a unique individual. They all have a story. They all have a reason why they're in that situation. It's not just this block of thousands of people that all have the same thing.
• 24:37
  Keith Meyer: They're all human being… they're… each of them are a human being. They each have, kind of, something that is a reason why they got there. And when you come from that angle.
• 24:47
  Keith Meyer: Right? It really hits you, because you really start seeing
• 24:52
  Keith Meyer: The humanity in those spaces.
• 24:54
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 24:55
  Keith Meyer: And not just the fact that they're, like, the other, the people that you see on the street when you're walking around, right?
• 25:00
  Melinda Lee: Ed?
• 25:00
  Keith Meyer: So, that's kind of where our mess… that's how we've built out the whole, organization from the beginning, and has…
• 25:08
  Keith Meyer: Completely fed into why we've strategically
• 25:12
  Keith Meyer: Decided to go in a certain direction at a certain time, right?
• 25:16
  Keith Meyer: If that makes sense.
• 25:18
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. Just by the… you… how you described it, I can hear the stories, I can… and it makes… I'm, like, compelled to want to give, because you're, like, this individual, yes, has a story that, you know, it's not just… and I'm more connected.
• 25:34
  Melinda Lee: And I feel like I'm actually giving to this person, because I'm connected to the person. Versus if I give the money to an organization that I don't know.
• 25:43
  Keith Meyer: And we, you know, the, I don't want to get too much into our product strategy, because I don't.
• 25:48
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, no, but that's fascinating, it's great. Did you help them come into that? Did you help them… you're a part of that idea?
• 25:54
  Keith Meyer: I came on with them quite early. So, Homer was actually started by a very young guy who was still an undergrad in university in San Francisco at the University of San Francisco.
• 26:04
  Keith Meyer: And he had moved to San Francisco to go to school, and he saw a lot of homeless people, and he was like, why is this happening? I read in the news there's $200 million going toward homelessness in San Francisco, like, where is it going? He would walk past people naively, and say, hey.
• 26:21
  Keith Meyer: And he would see the same people every day on the street, and he would go up to them and say, hey, does anybody talk to you? Like, are you getting help for, you know, your situation? And most often, more often than not, people would say, no.
• 26:32
  Keith Meyer: Nobody's ever talked to me, and he's like, how could that be? Like, it's not that difficult for somebody to walk around. You can kind of figure out who's experiencing homelessness, you know, on the street.
• 26:42
  Keith Meyer: Nobody's really helping them, so a lot of the money goes to these big money things, like building out housing, which is important too, but there was kind of this ground level that
• 26:54
  Keith Meyer: help that was… was missing, or it was expected that the person had to find it or figure it out on their own.
• 27:01
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 27:02
  Keith Meyer: You know, so that's kind of… that was kind of how it started, and yeah, I got involved from the beginning, and now I'm… I'm still on the board, but also advising them, and…
• 27:12
  Keith Meyer: You know,
• 27:14
  Keith Meyer: Anyway, one thing that might be interesting to chat about really quickly, I don't know how much more time we have, is that…
• 27:20
  Keith Meyer: Bringing it back to communication is…
• 27:23
  Keith Meyer: being on a board and board communication is very different than, you know, being an employee at a company or even being a founder, right? And,
• 27:33
  Keith Meyer: it's very important to have that, if you're on the board, or if you're bringing information to the board, to kind of consolidate that down to something very simple that people can kind of get their heads around, because a board member typically… I've been more involved just because I've had the time, and I'm passionate about what they're doing.
• 27:50
  Keith Meyer: And I've been advising them. But usually a board member is just there to kind of gather
• 27:56
  Keith Meyer: A very summarized piece of information and make a decision.
• 28:00
  Melinda Lee: Correct.
• 28:01
  Melinda Lee: So yeah, have it dialed in, and rehearse it, practice it before you go to any board member. And even as a founder, when you're sharing your specific messages, have it…
• 28:11
  Melinda Lee: concise, so people can understand you. I mean, even going out, right? People think, maybe as a founder, I have more grace to talk longer, and then they keep talking, and then…
• 28:21
  Melinda Lee: That's right. And, you know, people drown you out.
• 28:24
  Keith Meyer: And sometimes that is counterintuitive to what you think.
• 28:27
  Melinda Lee: Yes.
• 28:27
  Keith Meyer: what we talked about earlier, you think you need to share everything.
• 28:30
  Melinda Lee: Great.
• 28:30
  Keith Meyer: Because it's like, oh, look at all this great stuff, but actually, usually less is more, and simple is better, right? And let's face it, in today's society, right, we're just bombarded with bazillions of messages all the time.
• 28:45
  Keith Meyer: like, all of us glance at something for a few seconds, and then we move on to the next thing, right? You need to catch somebody in that very short, very small window.
• 28:53
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah. So this leads us to our last question, Keith. What would be possible when leaders, founders, board members, professionals start to think about communication not as just a soft skill?
• 29:06
  Melinda Lee: But really have intention, purposeful communication, where you think about how this is going to translate, how it's going to get repeated, how it's going to get transferred. What is the impact of that?
• 29:18
  Keith Meyer: That's a really good question, right? I think… I think some of it is around,
• 29:24
  Keith Meyer: being thoughtful before you kind of just blurt something out or just communicate something out, whatever the channel is, whether it's verbal or written or whatever. I think one thing that's really, really important is to not just do that on your own.
• 29:38
  Keith Meyer: Right, always have other people that can be a sounding board and listen to what you're saying before you put it out there more broadly, to make sure that it's not going to be misunderstood or whatever.
• 29:52
  Keith Meyer: So, sometimes that's not always possible. You kind of have to… you're kind of thinking at the moment, but I think, like anything else, it's like.
• 30:00
  Keith Meyer: practice makes perfect, right? So the more that you're out there, the more you're talking about a certain topic or different things, the more you feel comfortable with a certain direction, right?
• 30:13
  Melinda Lee: Would you say… a quick question, for messaging, because a lot of times, we are still trying to refine it, and I agree with you, the practicing, it just hit me. I mean, is there a percentage? Because yesterday, I practiced a lot, my messaging, but…
• 30:28
  Melinda Lee: maybe we can't always get to 100%, because we're still refining. Maybe we start to go out to the market, start to talk to people when we're at 75%. What do you think? Like, is it 50, 40, 70?
• 30:41
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, I think, I mean, it depends what you're trying to do, but I think it's always good to get it out there and just kind of see how people react.
• 30:48
  Melinda Lee: Yes, but you don't want to go too early.
• 30:50
  Keith Meyer: That's right. I think, you know, one of the things I've talked to other people about, you don't want to be petrified.
• 30:56
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 30:56
  Keith Meyer: So that you never go out there.
• 30:58
  Keith Meyer: Plenty of us have been in that boat, right? But you also don't want to release something too early.
• 31:03
  Melinda Lee: Too early.
• 31:04
  Keith Meyer: So that, you know, it's misunderstood. But I do think, you know, you can do that maybe relatively early on a one-on-one basis, right? So you might, depending on what you're trying to do, maybe there's somebody that has subject matter expertise in what you're thinking about doing that you can run it by confidentially.
• 31:21
  Keith Meyer: Right. Just to get their feedback, kind of see… see if that… that makes sense. Like, we did that a lot. Like, when I had my startup and we were, you know, we were considering pitching, we had a number of advisors that had done startups before, and we would share with them, this is how we're going to talk about it, and they would give us, almost always, it's like.
• 31:40
  Melinda Lee: some…
• 31:40
  Keith Meyer: It cut out, like, 50% of what you're talking about.
• 31:43
  Melinda Lee: Either.
• 31:44
  Keith Meyer: You know, and take 90% of the words off your slide.
• 31:48
  Keith Meyer: with that, but, you know… Yeah, yeah.
• 31:50
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 31:51
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, even me, you know, as a marketer, and that's what I've always done, it's not always easy to do with your own company or for yourself.
• 31:58
  Keith Meyer: I'm very good at telling other people what they're supposed to do, but when it comes down to me, and then I have to think about it, it's… it's a lot harder.
• 32:06
  Melinda Lee: So interesting, so hard. Yeah, but that's where you said, that's where you run it by people that you trust, and, you know, a select few, and then you can go out to more people. That's a good strategy, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it.
• 32:18
  Melinda Lee: Awesome, Keith, thank you so much for your time and your expertise. If there's a startup entrepreneur or some entrepreneur that wants to find you, and needs your help and counsel, how can they get ahold of you?
• 32:33
  Keith Meyer: Yeah, I mean, feel free to reach out to me. I think the easiest way would just be to connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 32:38
  Melinda Lee: Okay.
• 32:38
  Keith Meyer: make a message that way. I'm a pretty active user on LinkedIn, and it's usually the easiest way right now to get ahold of me. So, yeah, please, please feel free to do so, and any startups that need, advice or just kind of want to talk stuff through, I'd be happy to connect with them.
• 32:53
  Melinda Lee: Thank you so much, Keith.
• 32:55
  Keith Meyer: Thank you, Melinda. It's been… it's been awesome to hear. It went fast, that was fun.
• 32:59
  Melinda Lee: It was so fun, thank you so much. Lots to talk about, so interesting. And thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, take care, and remember, anytime you communicate, communicate what matters, so we move together. Take care. Bye-bye.
• 33:14
  Melinda Lee: Bye, Keith!
• 33:16
  Keith Meyer: Bye, thanks.