Larry Chiang writes about hacking business and school. After a Harvard Business School keynote, they wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. If you read his scandalously awesome “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford About Getting Revenge” and, “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Public Speaking” you will like his latest post about Getting VCs to Pitch Us Entrepreneurs.
If you spend 60 minutes reading his stuff, you’ll be street smart by St Patrick’s Day.
By Larry Chiang
B-School is a lot like the NSA… awesome stuff but sometimes not very immediately applicable.
My concurrent session will break a lot of rules including speech structure, content organization and absolutely no flow or use of transitions. But it will have deliciously scandalous tips like;
-1- Being Media to Get Media
It used to be that we would aspire to get on TV news or a talk show. Now, we can move our own sales needle by being media to get media. An example is guest posting on a popular blog like ProBlogger or BusinessWeek. The last time I checked, blogging at NSA Speaker.org has a pretty darn low bar (even I am allowed to post as much as I want). And the good news is that they don’t even edit your stuff so you can be as self-promotional as you want to :-)
Once you are media, you can write about what major media should be writing about. Heck you can even call out a writer such as Mike Arrington of TechCrunch, Brad Stone of the NY Times, Om Malik of GigaOm or Josh Tyrangiel of BusinessWeek
-2- Using Twitter to Get a Testimonial
Use it a little or use it a lot. If you use Twitter a little, do what my venture capitalist friend Ken Howery did. Tweet seven times and just stop.
If you want to use it a lot, you can squeeze a testimonial out of people when they tweet at you. It doesn’t even need to be in the right context which works great if you’re a pretty bad speaker like me. For example, Eric Ries, author of the blog, theLeanStartUp, said of during a dinner, “Larry Chiang is a genius.”
He was referring to the fact that I had four iPhone chargers in my pocket and was offering to charge people’s phone for $3.50 or a tweet. He wasn’t referring to my CEO-ing abilities or any other ability except to be boy scout prepared at a conference we were both speaking at.
-3- Doing a Two-Way Keynote
This is what the cool kids are doing.
The two way keynote is where information flows both ways. Audience feedback is live. Leveraging listener train of tweet is critical to your ability to do a two-way keynote. I discovered this skill purely by accident: My audience (sorority girls) is/was multi-tasking me. I thought, why not have them cheat on me… with me. Cheat your attention to my keynote with my material on-line.
There are some very advanced skills required to listen while talking so it works best if you learn…
-4- Moderating a Two-Way Panel
Moderating a two-way panel is one step easier than doing a two-way keynote. When your panelists talk, you can read the Twitter stream. For example, when I moderated a panel on Venture Capital, I used the hashtag “#vcSecrets”. When audience members had questions, they could tweet them to the live-stream. The live stream was projected onto a huge screen in the room.
An added channel of the two-way moderated panel is to take questions via text message. I do it to show off my ability to listen while speaking. It explodes the attention the audience pays to my stuff because they think they are controlling me and my content by texting and tweeting me.
-5- Getting 60 questions / interaction within one keynote
It is very possible to get 60+ interactions per 45 minute keynote. It is also very possible that over half of your tweet stream won’t even be in the room.
-6- Pre-Programming
I pre-load articles that I think will pop up during Q and A. Ideally, it’s an article I wrote or a paper I published that shows expertise. I live ambushing an ambusher. Lets say I am talking about FICO credit scores and I pontificate on how things might be, what to keep an eye on and what it all really means… I pre-load up my Congressional testimony at some bit.ly link ( a bit.ly link takes a long web address and makes it smaller so you can tweet it. Tweets are under 140 characters )
-7- Using an “air traffic controller” during your keynote to fire off tweets as you speak
An “air traffic controller” is someone sitting at home with a computer ready to go. The air traffic controller gets an audio feed of your speech and loads up tweets as if you were tweeting them yourself. You can amaze, shock and awe even the most jaded of college students if you tweet while you talk.
I also like to record video of people asking questions while I speak. Yes I use a flip cam. Being media gets you media.
-8- How to Self Syndicate Content
It used to be you had to have real writing talent to syndicate your written material. Now, all you need is a decent focus (mine is ‘What They Don’t Teach in Business School’) and the moxie to cold-call blog editors to post your stuff. Write once, publish 18x.
-9- Rebate on a a freebie speaking gig
My biggest problems come from when I say yes to the free speaking gig. Here is how I solve that problem: I charge them a deposit and make them agree to simple terms. I used to get fired from free gigs before I even spoke. How depressing is that?! I solve the problem of the last-minute-deal-change by using my deposit gambit.
I also use this when I host a workshop. My speaker friends always wanna come for free so I get them spots if they leave a deposit. Also, this works great if you use EventBrite because your tickets have price momentum.
Here’s an example that shows price momentum. Lets say you have a 100 person venue. The worst thing you can do is put it out there that you have 100 unsold tix… I tranche the tickets 25 / 25 /25 and mark it sold out at 75. I always sell way more after my event has been sold out :-D
The first 25 are a rebate meaning you get your 45c back if you show up. The next 25 tickets are 55c but there is no rebate. The next 25 tickets are 61c so people see, the longer you wait, the higher it goes.
After I mark it ‘sold out’, it is uber easy to sell tix. An example of this is here
Larry Chiang boils down difficult things into bitesize chunks to execute. His bestseller, “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” – He has spoken at Harvard and Stanford about how to be street smart. He has had a half-dozen mentors at NSA and he is passionate about entrepreneurship and has the goal to keep the social media time sink in under 20 minutes a week.
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If you liked this, you may also check: Larry’s mentor Mark McCormack wrote this in 1983. He started IMG which represents athletes. |
I wrote this in 30 minutes. If I missed something, email me… larry @larrychiang dot com and include your cell in the subject line.
DISCLOSURE: I kick a lot of butt. Text or call me during office hours 11:11am or 11:11pm PST +/-11 minutes on my cell: 650-283-8008.
Larry Chiang is the founder of Duck9 , which educates college students on how to establish and maintain a FICO score over 750. He is a frequent contributor to BusinessWeek. His earlier posts on GigaOm include: How to Work The Room ; 8 Tips On How to Get Mentored ; and 9 VCs You’re Gonna Want To Avoid . You can read more equally funny, but non-founder-focused-lessons on Larry’s Amazon blog .
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