Step by step guide: How to convince your boss to buy tickets for PODIM

Ahh yes, the smell of morning coffee that takes over the ambient of the office. While it is a typical morning, nothing says good morning quite like a good cup of coffee. You absolutely know today will be a good and productive day filled with great success. 

However something is on your mind, something you read about yesterday on LinkedIn, something that is huge and could transform your company forever. Forever! That something is of course PODIM Conference 2016 and you’re panicking a bit since you know tickets are going faster than fresh bread. 

But not to worry we’ve got your covered. Here are two resources to help you on your journey to increase the success of your company by attending PODIM 2016. 

1st step - The Elevator Pitch


Mandatory Elevator pitch stock photo. 

You’ve probably done one of these before. The elevator pitch is the backbone of every innovative company. It’s the exchange of ideas and pitching them to potential investors, bosses and coworkers alike and it absolutely always has to be done in an elevator, otherwise it doesn’t count. No, that was just a joke, it’s only called an elevator pitch because of it’s length. 

Apparently most elevator rides take between 30-60 seconds. So accordingly that is the maximum duration of your pitch, as you should be able to finish it within an elevator ride. Hard to do? Extremely, but nobody wants their time wasted so you have to be concise, on point and well prepared. 

Prepare and practice a couple of days ahead, as this could transform your company. However, remember that the point of an elevator pitch isn’t closing right away. Instead, it’s “raison d'être” is to excite the person you’re talking to enough for them to be willing to listen to a longer pitch. But before we get to longer pitches, here’s how your elevator pitch should look like. 

A typical elevator pitch consists of a problem that you are solving and a solution you are providing. Here’s your elevator pitch for PODIM. 

“Hey boss, I know we’ve recently been strugling with __________. * Our ________ * isn’t where it should be and it’s left a mark on the company’s trajectory. [You can add one more explanatory sentence here] I found the perfect solution for this. Attending PODIM this year would greatly benefit the company as a whole and our __________. It would give us access to industry disrupters, provide us with new partners and give us the knowledge we’re lacking. There are more than 600 participants, most of which are business leaders as well as more than 50 speaker” 

*insert any of the things PODIM is about: Innovation, Design Thinking, Hustling, Reinvention, Blue Ocean Strategy, Product Managment, Going from Idea to Product, Shaping your Story and Getting your Message through, Shipping your Ideas, Building Products your Users will love, Sales Count, Handle Global Media outreach or building a Fanbase. 

2nd step - 3 minute pitch

Congratulations, you’ve got the big boss interested or maybe, if you were really good the big boss already bought tickets. Should that be the case you can read on for personal growth. In any other case including the possibility you’re just reading through this for fun, a congratulations is in order since you’ve read this far. However, don’t stop, keep reading. We’ve come to the pinnacle of your story on convincing your boss to buy tickets for PODIM. It’s all down to this. Like Eminem said: “One moment. Would you capture it, or just let it slip?” 


Picture source: http://lifeasshay.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Eminem-Lose-Yourself-2-760x427.jpg 

Now you’re a deal closer. The 3 minute pitch is your weapon of choice. 

For this 3 minute easily prepared pitch, we will use a simple structure consisting of a short story showing the problem, a sentence or two explaining the solution and approach to the problem, another three sentences for the benefits, four sentences for your company’s competition attending PODIM and finally a few words on who from your team is interested in going. 

It should go something along the lines of:

“Hey Boss, it’s a pleasure to be here with you, I always enjoy our interactions. You make me not just a better worker, but a better person. However, that’s not why we’re here today. 

Instead, imagine this. Imagine a company with more than 2000 employees. A company that innovates like a startup. A company that invests in high-impact innovations. A company with business leaders with enough autonomy and knowledge to adapt their management style to particular types of business operations. Of course the company I’m talking about is Comtrade. A company, our company could be like. 

Now it’s important to note that I’m not promoting that we completely copy comtrade, that would be completely irrational. Instead the rational solution is that we as a collective go to PODIM 2016. A two day startup conference on the 11th of May, that will give us key knowledge about how startups revolutionize a business and their environment. With more than 50 international speakers it is truly spectacular. 

The benefits for our company are clear. We would become more __________,* [Same as in your elevator pitch] our coworkers would meet other potential business partners that we could capitalise on with our sales teams, we could also further our R&D by meeting startups that are looking to disrupt our industry. Quite honestly, attending PODIM is one of the best things we can possibly do to help our company succeed. 

Of course, I don’t have to tell you this since you probably realized this by now. However, there is a very big chance that if our competition goes to PODIM and we don’t, that we will fall behind. It would be a shame to do so, since we’ve all been working hard to make our company the industry leader. But this can all be avoided if we simply go. 

I’ve spoken with some of our co-workers from the ____________ [fill in who you’ve been talking to] department and they would also be very interested to send a representative to PODIM. 

In conclusion, it is important to know that I strongly feel that this is a great opportunity for us as a company. We could become even better than we already are. We could improve our ________,* [I shouldn’t have to tell you this by now, but it is the same as in your elevator pitch] increase our sales, further our R&D and help our coworkers grow and learn key business knowledge of the 21st century.” 

That’s about it. 

I know it might seem like a big hurdle, but remember what Molière said: “The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” 



In a typical startup journey with investors what would typically follow is a longer 20-30 minute presentation with lots of questions, followed by more meetings and a lot of due diligence. Then and only then would you confirm your investment and get some of that money. But you don’t need that right now. You’re a champion. You just convinced your boss to buy tickets for PODIM for you and your team. 

Here’s to you! 

Cheers.

Author: Simon Sovič
 

• The Managers' Association of Slovenia, helping managers deal with challenges of implementing digital changes whose tempo is dictated by rapid, lean and innovative startup companies with their disruptive digital products and services.
• Initiative Start:up Slovenia as the provider of key national programmes for startups and connector of public and private stakeholders of the Slovenian startup ecosystem, summarizing its activities every year at the PODIM Conference.
• Business daily Finance with the media project Startupozavri or Startuposauruses, in which they highlight startup freshness in established Slovenian companies and thus contribute to healthy development of entrepreneurial spirit in the Slovenian society.
• 30Lean as an established consultant and mentor of lean innovation in already established organizations, mentor of startup teams of the Slovene Enterprise Fund, ABC Accelerator and others, and the leading partner of the Slovenia Running Lean movement. 

Our first joint activities include gathering and sharing these types of good and bad experiences, and co-creating PODIM Conference content for established companies.