There was a great learning opportunity in this episode of Shark Tank.
Raven Thomas is pitching her company that makes chocolate-covered pretzels. After Kevin O'Leary remarks that the market is flooded with people already making, or who could enter the market for, chocolate-covered pretzels and what makes her pretzels any different, Lori Greiner asks her point blank, "If you had to say to us right now why we should invest in this, give us your very best. Why should we invest in this?" Raven's original response failed. She immediately went on about her and her sons and how it's important for them to see that if you put your mind to it you can achieve anything. . . and blah, blah, blah.
Rule of thumb: A successful entrepreneur - and you are an entrepreneur any time you're selling yourself, whether it's asking someone out on a date or interviewing for a job or selling a product or selling an idea or every time you are pitching yourself - convinces people of how by entering into a relationship with them they will make the potential partners better off. Convince me of how you are going to create value for me and I'll do business with you. You have to explain better than anyone else with whom I can partner how my relationship with you will make me better off than what anyone else is offering.
On the flip side, it's not a one way street. I, too, must convince you of how I will create value for you by partnering with me.
In any mutually advantageous voluntary relationship, all parties enter into them only if they perceive that by doing so they will be made better off relative to any other option, including not entering into any relationship. Too many people fall into the trap of explaining how entering into a trade or partnership will make themselves better off rather than their partners. We are all self interested, but in a market capitalist system, in order to make me better off, I have to make you better off.
Convince me of how you are going to make me better off and I'm interested in listening. Start telling me how you are made better off by partnering with me and I'm out!
