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How to Deliver a Killer Pitch by Precious L. Williams ― #KillerPitchMaster
Working at perfecting your elevator pitch or your business pitch?
Search no more, listen and learn from our GEW event partner and CoP member Precious L. Williams.
Precious L. Williams is a world-class master communicator who works with successful women entrepreneurs and helps them take their professional speaking skills to the next level. With over 23 years of experience conceptualizing unique branding and marketing techniques, Williams seeks to train individuals and companies how to remain authentic while marketing concepts and visions to distinctive audiences.
As a 13-time local and national business elevator pitch champion and former lawyer, Williams has been featured on top television shows and publications for her pitching and branding skills. She was featured in ABC’s “Shark Tank,” CNN, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal as well as several others.
The philosophy of her “killer” pitch is evident in the strategic and personalized creative communications and presentations solutions Williams puts forth. As a serial entrepreneur, international professional speaker, and coach, Williams is equipped to bring life, authenticity, strategy, and boldness to all your oral and written communication needs.
Williams is a graduate of Spelman College and Rutgers School of Law. She is a current member of Phi Beta Kappa and lives in New York.
We are delighted to have Precious as a member of the Community of Practice for Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs (CoP).
Thank you Precious for making our GEW 2018 Celebrations that much better.
Interview with Dr. K’Nife ― Caribbean Diaspora, Entrepreneurship and The CoP
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Making a chilly Saturday evening warm with a commitment to the winds of change for taking Caribbean Entrepreneurship in the Diaspora and in the Caribbean to the next level is Dr. K’adamawe K’Nife. He is the Director of The Centre for Entrepreneurship Thinking and Practice (The Centre), at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Dr. K’Nife and the Centre will partner with the Community of Practice for Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs (CoP) to deliver capacity building, research, foster inter-regional and Caribbean Diaspora collaboration.
Join us as Dr. K’Nife shares on entrepreneurship, trends, tradition, and the ecosystem for supporting Jamaican and Caribbean entrepreneurs, the Caribbean diaspora, Diaspora Direct Investment, Jamaica, and the CoP Opportunity. Dr. K’Nife also addresses the potential of entrepreneurship and business as a possible glue for driving regional integration.
With Dr. K’Nife is Meegan Scott, of the CoP Secretariat, and Magate Wildhorse Ltd.
Brought to you by The Community of Practice for Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs.
Ask to join your CoP today, click here!
The Community of Practice for Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs (CoP), is Not a STARTUP COMMUNITY
By Meegan Scott
The CoP is not a startup community!
It is that safe place where trust is built, collaborations, cooperation, friendships, and partnerships are forged― in a market place and research hub for delivering dynamic and inclusive entrepreneurship for and by Caribbeans. It is where Caribbean entrepreneurs and their businesses will draw on connections, knowledge, opportunities, and support to help them thrive and grow.
The same is true for members of the African community, immigrant entrepreneurs who are not native speakers of the English language, African-Americans, and Canadian entrepreneurs with no history of entrepreneurship in their families.
The CoP is that space were tacit and formal knowledge blends, and is transferred within the community among retired entrepreneurs, more seasoned, not so seasoned entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs (over 18 years old), young entrepreneurs (those over forty who are embarking on their first business), individuals who have or are approaching retirement and are starting their retirement business, as well as startup entrepreneurs over the age of eighteen years old.
Many who still do not quite understand technology as a method, tools, or equipment for executing strategy and tactics during operations, view the CoP as another Facebook group.
Let us take our governance related responsibilities seriously, and engage in needed research when steering organizations or seeking to influence public opinion. Let us make it a habit to step outside of the domain of our core areas of expertise and engage in research that will enable us to understand and to twin both risk intelligence and risk management for delivering real and lasting solutions. Leaders and entrepreneurs must engage in research that will inform decision making and put them and the organizations they serve in the position of innovators and first movers.
With its day-to-day work, connection, research, and market place housed on the Facebook social media platform the CoP is positioned to deliver relevant solutions that are inclusive in terms of access to information, markets, and networks as well as financial accessibility.
It is where families, friends, fellow alumni, social workers, politicians, members of the diaspora in different continents and others can stumble upon the CoP opportunity and bring it to the attention of one of our entrepreneurs, or a community member sitting on the fence of becoming an entrepreneur. It is where the real entrepreneur who constantly seek out knowledge will come across its existence and seize the opportunity to give and to receive.
The CoP is therefore in a perfect space as a solution that is relevant, effective, and inclusive as it relates to access, as well as for facilitating formal and informal learning on how-to do business for entrepreneurs at all stages of their journey ―from the retired to the startup.
Moreover, where social media and the CoP hub intersects is fertile ground for the kind of shared knowledge that is equivalent to social capital―a concept advanced by Harold Jarche’s framework for Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM). The planned and desired unintended results of the CoP cannot be delivered by a regular Facebook Group (The ties of a regular Facebook group are too weak to deliver the objectives of the CoP.).
In keeping with the PKM model (And its’ seek, sense, and share approach), we say with confidence that the CoP provides a safe environment for testing innovative ideas, market research, and building trust (a challenge in our community, and a barrier to doing business).
Furthermore, the CoP is supported by a backbone for conducting virtual face-to-face meetings, market connections, team work, and conversations. This was demonstrated in the form of training events, its virtual launch, and the panel discussion “Born Global & Born-Again Global Businesses: Pathways to Internationalization (Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs & Peer Entrepreneurs), held during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018. Additionally, the CoP will be supported by face-to-face meetups in various cities in OECD countries and wherever members of the diaspora reside. We invite community members who share the vision of the CoP to put themselves forward to lead a hub in their city.
At the next level the rich ecosystem of the CoP―intersects with work teams in individual businesses, core working committees of the CoP, supporting entities and partners such as JAMPRO, Jamaica National, The Centre for Entrepreneurship Thinking and Practice (UWI), and prospective host cities for delivering innovation and co-creation of value. It is at that intersection that knowledge is translated and put to work by individual businesses, partners, and the CoP. At that intersection we will also see solutions to social problems, scaling-up of Caribbean businesses to mainstream businesses with that ethnic or local Caribbean flavor, job, intellectual property, and wealth creation. It is also where the job of Caribbean and host country trade and business support agencies will become easier and can focus resources at a higher level on the value chain, and on the results chain.
That intersection is also where shared practice and reputation flows back from work teams, individual businesses, and entrepreneurs into the Community of Practice for the benefit of all. The CoP and its stakeholders will be able to assess how well shared practice is working and delivering impact, or to make suggestions for improvement by interrogating the CoP’s theory of change and performance results, in addition to member and partner testimony over time.
Even in its early days the CoP is backed by decades of experience in corporate strategy, organizational performance management and measurement, marketing, research, education, social and economic development, entrepreneur and private sector development, business incubation, ethnic media, finance, FDI and trade promotion. The core actors and shapers of the CoP are themselves serial entrepreneurs with experience establishing businesses in the diaspora. The door is open for others to join and contribute to leading the CoP.
The CoP aims to deliver shared visions, acts from a position of inclusiveness, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and accountability. It values and is grounded in the principles and practices applied by performance driven, learning organizations, that are designed to facilitate improvement, and acting together. Our work will be informed by rigorous research, and evidence. We are entrepreneurial in thinking, and we value and collect dissenting perspectives for driving the delivery of innovative solutions, innovation, and for putting forward a best solution that continuously gets better.
It is therefore clear that we are equipped with a rich talent pool, tools, different perspectives, and mindsets for growing a CoP that will manipulate the “foreign” or “local but unsuitable” entrepreneurial ecosystem to deliver our objectives (that of member businesses, entrepreneurs, partners, and the CoP) while adding value to society and customers. It is where we will develop greater mastery of entrepreneurship.
(Meegan Scott, B.Sc. Hons, MBA, ATM-B, CL, PMP., is a Jamaican-born Strategic Management Consultant, at Magate Wildhorse Ltd in Toronto, and the CoP Secretariat).
Born Global & Born-Again Global Businesses:Pathways to Internationalization, Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs & Peer Entrepreneurs
Panel Title: Born Global & Born-Again Global Businesses: Pathways to Internationalization: Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs & Peer Entrepreneurs
Organizer: Meegan Scott & Magate Wildhorse Ltd on behalf of The Community of Practice for Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs
Moderator: Meegan Scott, Magate Wildhorse Ltd
Panelists:
• Loretta Green-Williams, Caribeme Magazine
• Marguerite Orane, Free & Laughing
• Marva Hewitt, Food Hygiene Bureau
• Tamu Petra Browne, Innovative Education and Training Solutions
• Lester de Souza, Impact Galaxy
A Global Entrepreneurships Week (GEW 2018) Event!
Held: November 13, 2018
Findings from Panel Discussions
Born Global Panel Report Final
This the first public event hosted by The Community of Practice for Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs.
For Speaking Engagements & Workshops
Determined, Decisive, Driven
Strategic, Witty, Passionate
Meegan Scott, is a competent toastmaster, competent leader, advanced toastmaster bronze, and strategic management consultant.
For almost two decades Meegan has helped organizational leaders across industries and geographical borders to get better results from their strategy development, planning, and execution processes. She has helped Boards of Directors and managers to think beyond risk management to embrace risk intelligence―to own, and deliver tough pieces of their mandates.
She has inspired people within organizations, and complete strangers from diverse cultures and jurisdictions to commit and act to deliver visions, missions, objectives, and development goals.
Meegan is known for helping organizations to develop planning mindedness and for growing their competence and demand for organizational performance management and measurement.
When it comes to entrepreneurs, she is known for helping them to bring a deeper understanding of self, the problem to be solved, and finding their own best fit pathways and processes for growing their businesses. She firmly believes that small businesses should act and think with a big business mind.
Meegan has addressed audiences at conferences, trade shows, MBA and other graduations, boards, corporate launches, webinars as well as radio and television audiences.
Meegan holds a Bachelor of Social Science in International Relations; an MBA (Marketing and finance focused); the designation PMP, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Analysis. She also studied International Trade and Finance Law at the graduate level, and holds a Diploma in International Environmental Law.
She is available for workshops, conferences, strategic facilitation and strategy communications sessions, rapporteur, and other speaking engagements.
For more information visit: https://magatewildhorse.ca/speaking-engagements-workshops.
To request a speaker session or workshop please click contact us.
Business people and social change
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Warm and Up-Close Remote Strategic Planning
“Remote strategic planning? Hmmm… I’ve got to say I am doubtful about that one. Strategic planning is too expensive, time consuming and important for me to risk on getting it done virtually”.
If that’s how you feel about remote strategic planning we couldn’t fault you for sharing that sentiment. Strategic planning is serious business and you would be foolhardy to take such an important risk with little information on how remote have worked for planning, or the advantages and drawbacks to it.
Moreover, when you are embarking on the strategic planning journey, both you and your team need a warm interaction with an expert who will do more than facilitate planning. You are likely looking for an expert in strategy as well as a facilitator who serves as an objective advisor. One who ask heads-back and chests-forward incisive questions for helping your team to rethink strategy, goals, objectives and actions. And by doing so ensures what your plan is doable, positions your organization for growth and account for risk. You also want someone to lead your team into reflecting on its history and results to date.
Today, 99% of strategy solution sponsors expect their investment to include an external sounding board, researcher, coach and mentor for helping their team to grow planning skills, experience and knowledge. With such a long wish list hinged on relationships, expertise, experience and time management it is easy to see why to someone unfamiliar with remote strategy planning would perceive it to be too cold and distant to deliver their expectations.
But as William Yeats (The Irish Poet, W.B. Yeats) says— “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” Remote strategy planning is one such magic thing waiting to help you grow a stronger organization.
Though odd, this open secret—fear of the unknown and failure is still a hidden factor that have dogged and crippled the leadership of many organizations when it comes to pursuing growth-focused innovation and strategy execution. Making strategy planning happen when teams are scattered or budget is tight is not excluded from that scenario.
I’d say it’s a sad state of affairs that can be easily fixed. Do not allow fear to limit the impact of your leadership or options for developing and executing your strategy. Explore the exciting opportunities presented by low cost technology for remote planning and other strategic management activities.
Technology have come a long way in providing the virtual platforms that allows individuals and organizations to deliver face-to-face, warm remote interactions. Not to mention, the variety of software and applications that allows for democratic and group processes, stakeholder consultations, interviewing, surveys, data capture from social media and mobile engagement.
All of which provides for deeper learning, expanding knowledge and improving the quality of data on which to make predictions for developing your strategy, plan and related logic.
By now I believe you can see at least a glimmer of how strategic planning could work in a remote environment?
Our ability to gather information on context, clients, customers, suppliers, industry—you name it in addition to internal information for guiding decisions relating to the what and how for advancing your mission and delivering your vision have been enhanced exponentially by remote research capabilities.
On top of that opportunities for your team members to revisit planning sessions individually in their own time for increasing understanding and reflection are tremendous.
Cost is another big factor that have led some organizations to take the “do it yourself”, less objective and less effective though better-than-nothing approach. Others have sadly chosen to skip planning on a flawed assumption that they cannot afford it. International development agencies and large charities have come to see the benefits and cost savings that are available through both remote strategy planning and organizational performance evaluation.
They have come to see the benefits of leveraging technology to connect remote communities and entities with limited resources to top-notch talent. Talent has come to realize the cost savings and value-added they can deliver through extended capacity to reach customers and stakeholders in faraway places in addition to those nearby. Big business and organizations in large cities are increasingly turning to the use of remote planning solutions in order to save while including participation by team members in other towns, countries or cities.
You’ll find that UN organizations (United Nations) are among the large NGOs and intergovernmental organizations that are seizing such opportunities. So, what’s holding you back?
If you lack experience that’s not a problem, you must start somewhere. If you fear it might not be right for you then, you have two options research to find out more then decide, try and see or both.
We understand that remote planning might not be right for every team, so we are willing to help you decide if it is right for yours.
We bring almost two decades of strategy and remote service delivery experience to helping you to decide.
What Goes into The Remote Planning Exercise
When planning with us the steps we’ll take will vary depending on the following: the experience of your team with strategic planning, remote planning, the stage of development of your organization, motivation to and purpose for planning as well as where you are on the strategy process continuum.
As it relates to the strategy process continuum it could be that you are in need of your first corporate strategy plan; or you are at a milestone and need a new strategic operational plan? It is also likely that you have come to the end of the implementation period for a program or a 3-5yr corporate strategy plan and is now in need of a strategy solution for developing the new plan.
In that case you may need an organizational self-assessment for assessing how you did in the past, strategy development, evaluation and planning for creating the new corporate strategy plan that will guide your next strategy execution period. Most organizations, experienced in planning would also invest in the combo of corporate strategy plan, operational plan and performance management tools (For guiding monitoring and evaluation during strategy execution).
Your Solution Unwrapped
Note: The following is not a step-wise process as the steps will depend on where you are on the strategy process continuum.
Depending on what’s right for you we put technology to work with human care and intelligence to take you through processes such as:
- Eyeball-to-eyeball virtual meetings, conversations and document reviews for understanding your context, wants and needs;
- Strategic identity creation, clarification or update (For ensuring mission, vision, values etc. are clear, relevant, inspiring and impactful);
- Identification of your core resources, competence, aspirations, challenges and capabilities;
- Strategic analysis, drawing on qualitative and quantitative research methods and tools for better understanding your external environment. At the end of which we will better understand how it will or could impact your organization in addition, to how your organization might influence the environment.
We do that by conducting an external environmental scan (PESTLE, STEEP, STEEPLE, SKEPTIC etc.). Having identified trends related to regulation, inflation, ecology, customers, competitors, stakeholders, suppliers among other things we revisit your strategic intent and organizational capacity (Your SWOT plus analysis) to determine the new competencies that will be required in order to get the job done. Technology comes in handy for helping us to engage in rich conversations with your customers, clients and partners live, or to through anonymous sharing— irrespective of distance.
- Getting to an organizational development plan for you, here again we draw on the technology to present you with a user-friendly document plus face-to-face conversation that enables your leadership and management team to respond to our findings, recommendations and proposed strategy options for delivering your desired competitive edge. This forms part of your planned strategy formulation process.
- During planning, remote technology enables us to create interactive tools for illustrating and sharing your strategy framework and strategy— articulated into your position, and objectives. From Board to staff will be able to tell what kind of strategy framework you have chosen (Ansoff Matrix, Stakeholder Model, Values Discipline, McKinsey’s Strategic Horizons, Balanced Scorecard or your own blend). Strategy and logic maps can be adjusted in real-time as your team think and re-think your objectives. Best of all they can be made available in a virtual room 24/7s for comments and ideas as they flow to and from your team.
- Planning remote allows you even more time for bringing leadership and execution teams to a meeting-of-minds as they review scenarios, assess risks and assumptions and decide on trade-offs during the strategy evaluation and strategy elaboration You won’t miss out on live group brainstorm sessions, team building games or pictures of your team working together.
You’ll have plenty of opportunity to share what is working for your team during the planning process and to work out adjustments if necessary.
You may have noticed that we have covered several steps and activities before touching on strategy elaboration—the step or sub-process where the strategy gets translated into plans and workplans (Your plans will include strategic objectives, goals, indicators, quality measures, outcomes and outputs aligned with strategic intent, effort, timelines and resources).
Once the plan has been completed we will help you with the initial stage of communicating your plan. However, if we are engaged to assist with performance management and measurement we support you with full plan communication, additional help with identifying your emergent strategies, analyzing your performance results and triggering strategy update.
Challenges of Remote Planning
In exchange for deeper learning and broader participation your team will need to prep ahead for remote planning. This means using online time converters and e-calendars (outlook, yahoo and or google calendar) for scheduling.
In some instances, you and/or your team may be required to learn new skills for working in virtual planning rooms, accessing web conferences, participating in e-groups or completing online surveys. Most teams we have met have enjoyed learning those skills. Older Board members might be averse to using some e-tool, depending on their experience with technology. Nonetheless we have been able to include technology challenged individuals in remote planning sessions.
The planning process may be stretched over a longer period of time. Some groups can manage a typical 4-hour virtual planning workshop (Plus lunch and refreshment breaks) while some can only manage two hours.
You may need to check on computers, microphones and plan seating arrangement for you team ahead of the session depending on the set up we agree. It is possible to have a session without you having to consider seating or computers. But we will guide you in setting up your room as the facilitator would have if required.
Love your flipcharts? We will tell you how to make that happen during remote planning.
Expect a session or two where technology might fail and a reschedule maybe required.
Discipline for completing related assignments is required.
You may need to plan and secure refreshment and meals for your team.
Could It Be Worth Your Investment?
We believe that the challenges above are small compared to the benefits of having a plan that includes:
- a clearly articulated strategic intent,
- is easy to use for guiding the delivery of the results you planned,
- makes performance management easy,
- is doable, affordable and communicates the what and how of your strategy effectively both internally and externally.
When a solution is designed to fit your needs and budget and still allows you to access the expertise and help of a strategy expert, facilitator, strategy analyst, strategy finder, sounding board and performance improvement catalyst, we believe it’s worth the while.
Still on the fence?
Schedule a remote face-to-face connect and clarify session today!
Click the “let’s talk button” to submit your needs, name of organization, location and three possible meeting times.
Meegan Scott is a strategic management consultant with almost two decades of experience in strategy and remote (virtual) service delivery.
Copyright © 2018 Meegan Scott
All Rights Reserved