240: The Mom Founder's Handbook: Overcoming Challenges and Avoiding Common Outreach Mistakes for Successful Business Growth

Mom Founder Imagination Hub

Hey there, welcome back to another episode of the Mom Founder Imagination Hub podcast! Today, we're diving into three super common mistakes that mom founders often make when they're reaching out to prospective investors, partners, alliances or even internal sponsors of their business ideas. Trust me, these are totally avoidable!

So, let me tell you about this one mom founder I know. She had this amazing idea for a TV show, but when she pitched it, she made a few missteps that could have been easily avoided. First off, she didn't really understand who the decision maker was. Big no-no! It's so important to know who you're talking to and what makes them tick.

Next, she didn't take the time to figure out what actually mattered to the person she was pitching to. You gotta know what their priorities are! And finally, she didn't contextualize her pitch. You can't just throw your idea out there without showing how it fits into the bigger picture i.e. how does your solution fit into your target audience’s portfolio or performance goals.

Being a mom founder comes with unique challenges, especially when balancing entrepreneurship and family life. I understand completely. That’s why I’m here to provide practical advice and support to ensure your next pitch gets you to the bargaining table (vs. is ignored).!

In this episode, you will hear:

• Understanding the decision maker and contextualizing the pitch

• Unique challenges faced by mom founders in balancing entrepreneurship and family life

• Challenges of navigating family life while pursuing entrepreneurship

• Failure to consider the perspective of the person being pitched to

• Lack of understanding of what matters to the person being pitched to

• Contextualizing the pitch to fit the specific industry or sector

• Need for thorough research and due diligence before reaching out to potential partners or investors

• Thoughtful and strategic communication in building successful business relationships

In the car driving? Pause this episode and write this down. Book a free consult with Melissa this week. Go to www.melissallarena.com/sessions. Let’s role-play one conversation you intend to have this week. You are a founder with a baked idea and you are currently in the pitching process whether it’s for investment dollars or after you’ve gotten investment dollars and now you are on the hook for speeding up your business development efforts!

You can tell me who I should be in this role-play, and I’ll tell you what red flags I hear and whether a VIP day is right for you.

Here’s what you can expect during your VIP day and I want to be transparent. Spots for my VIP Days are extremely limited. I'm offering just 3 spots this month, and after that, this opportunity may never come around again. This is your chance to fast-track your connections and propel your business forward in just 3 hours.

Here's what you can expect:

Tailored Strategy Session: Before the VIP Networking Day, you'll receive a simple questionnaire. This prework is designed to optimize our time together, ensuring every minute counts. We'll dive deep into your business goals, target investors, potential podcast guests/partners, or media contacts, and current networking challenges, setting the stage for maximum productivity.

Real-Time Guidance: Once we're live on Zoom, it's all about action. Together, we'll roll up our sleeves and dive into the heart of networking. I won't just talk strategy; we'll implement it in real-time. Using the insights gathered from your prework, we'll identify and reach out to potential investors, podcast guests/partners, or media giants on the spot. You'll witness firsthand how to craft compelling outreach messages and make meaningful connections that matter.

Strategic Outreach: Cold outreach can be daunting, but not anymore. With my guidance, you'll confidently reach out to potential investors, podcast guests, or media contacts during our session. Whether it's through email, LinkedIn, or other channels, you'll have a clear plan of action and the confidence to execute it in real-time.

Follow-Up Mastery: The conversation doesn't end with the initial outreach. I'll equip you with a follow-up strategy designed to nurture relationships and keep investors, podcast guests/partners, or media contacts engaged. From timely follow-up emails to strategic touchpoints, you'll have all the tools you need to move prospects closer to funding, secure podcast appearances, or establish relationships with influential media personalities.

By the end of our VIP Networking Day, you'll feel empowered, energized, and ready to conquer the world of networking. Say goodbye to wasted time and missed opportunities. With our tailored approach, you'll unlock the door to funding success, captivating podcast episodes, or media exposure and propel your business forward.

Because this is SO important and so easy to fix….the elevator pitch itself…for starters…..I want you to sign up for the 30-minute complimentary session before you step out there and start pitching yourself to anyone…..let me give you quick tips that can be the difference between getting to pitch your idea or being totally shut out and ignored…..so go to www.melissallarena.com/sessions today....the VIP day are limited and may not be right for you right now but the free sessions are available today…no reason not to share your pitch with me.

About Melissa Llarena

I’m a bestselling author (learn more on www.fertileideas.com), imagination coach behind the Fertile Imagination to Networking Success Group Coaching Program, consultant, speaker, contributor to ForbesWomen articles that have garnered 4 million-plus views, and the podcast host of the Mom Founder Imagination Hub. Featured guests include GaryVee, Beth Comstock, Suzy Batiz, David Meltzer, and hundreds of other unconventional thinkers. Melissa has been featured in the WSJ, Business Insider, Fox Business, CNN Money, The Huffington Post, and other publications. She holds a psychology degree from NYU, an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a Transformational Coaching Academy certificate and is training to become a meditation practitioner. Melissa lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and three sons (one singleton and a set of identical twins).

Quotes, that can change your perspective:

“First impressions happen one time, and yes, you can totally turn it around, but you're a mom founder. The time you spent making that first impression, the guts it took to put yourself out there, is something that you're now going to have to work up to yet again.”

“When it comes to being a mom founder or being a mom with a business, it is urgent that you really, really stay sharp in terms of coming up with unexpected or new or shortcut ways to reach out to everyone and anyone.”

“If you want to do business on your own terms as you have opted to as a mom founder, you don't want to not be yourself when you're doing business. That was part of the purpose of owning your own thing along with solving a challenge, being mission-driven, and heart-centered.”

“I know the effort it takes to think through a product, I know the effort it takes to see a product market fit, and I know the effort it's going to take to implement whatever it is that you promise to the people on your list.”

SHARE this episode and elevate your business! Master effective networking and pitching by avoiding common mistakes and adopting personalized communication strategies. Make a lasting impression and build meaningful connections and start transforming your pitch today!

Supporting Resources:

Schedule a free call to see if Fertile Imagination to Networking Success my signature program is the right fit: https://www.melissallarena.com/sessions/

Podcast: Mom Founder Imagination Hub: https://www.melissallarena.com/podcast/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MelissaLlarena/

Or, grab for free your copy of the “From Contact to Connection: The Mompreneur's Go-First Networking & Follow Up Playbook”: https://witty-thinker-2643.ck.page/21e52edb87

Subscribe and Review

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00 Melissa: First impressions happen one time. And yes, you can totally turn around, but you're a Mom Founder. And what distinguishes you versus someone that might not have kids is the fact that that time you spent in making that first impression, the guts it took to put yourself out there, that is something that you're now gonna have to work up to yet again. And it is way harder to constantly fall down and get back up, fall down and get back up when you're navigating family life in parallel.

00:00:39 Melissa: Welcome to the Mom Founder Imagination Hub, your weekly podcast to inspire you to dream bigger. Plan out how you're going to get to that next level in business, find the energy to keep going, and make sure your creative juices are flowing so that this way you get what you really want rather than having to settle. Get ready to discover how mom founders have reimagined entrepreneurship and motherhood.

00:01:01 Melissa: Ever wonder how they do it? Tune in to find out and stretch yourself by also learning from diverse entrepreneurs who might not be moms, but who have lessons you can tailor about how you can disrupt industries and step way outside of your comfort zone. I believe every mom's superpower is her imagination. In this podcast, I'm going to give you the mindset, methods and tools to unleash yours. Sounds good? Then keep listening.

00:01:32 Melissa: Hey there, it's Melissa Llarena, your host of the Mom Founder Imagination Hub. So we're gonna tackle today three avoidable mistakes that often mom founders make right when they begin to outreach their network or talk to complete strangers so that their business can grow. So three avoidable mistakes. Let me share a story first.

00:01:57 Melissa: I had a wonderful conversation the other day with a mom who was so psyched about this TV show that she wants to put out into the world. And she has an outreach list of organizations and different individuals in those organizations that she wants to pitch her idea to. So she's thinking companies like Lego, companies like Hasbro, you get the drip. And here's the thing. She was so excited about her elevator pitch. I mean, she was just so ready to roll with it, and I wanted to hear it.

00:02:32 Melissa: So of course, she went ahead, she memorized it, and I can tell that she spent probably hours upon hours really refining it with her peers. And she said it, and then I kind of felt these like internal crickets. And that brings me to today's episode. I don't want you to make the same mistakes that this super excited, well-intentioned Mom Founder made.

00:03:00 Melissa: The mistake was the following. Once I heard her pitch, I was like, okay, first of all, who was I supposed to be? Like there's some key questions that as you are putting yourself out there, pitching your business idea to potential investors or partners, that you've got to ask yourself. And if you don't actually think about what you're going to say and whether or not is going to resonate with the other person, then you've completely failed. So that was point number one.

00:03:32 Melissa: Who was I supposed to be? I had no idea. I was just listening to the pitch and I was like, wow. My hair felt like wind was blowing, but it was kind of like hot air because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to prioritize in terms of the information that she shared. The other question was, okay, so now that I'm this person in her case, marketing director, let's imagine, then what do you perceive to be so important to me? And in terms of the pitch that this person shared, I didn't really catch that. I wasn't able to discern what she perceived to be important to me.

00:04:08 Melissa: Some other questions. Why would I, someone working for an organization, want to bring on or support a TV show that's not addictive? Now, this was super specific to the sort of content that she had worked really hard on. However, you have to understand, there might be one or two words in your pitch to an investor or a partner that simply don't make sense given that person's key performance indicators. I would want a TV show that's addictive so that this way kids watch it over and over again.

00:04:46 Melissa: But again, if you hadn't done your homework prior to pitching, you might miss that point. And here's something else that came up when her and I were on a 30-minute complimentary session where I was listening to her pitch, this idea. So what problem are you trying to solve in my company? And I think that is something that we often do not think or consider prior to working on our super fancy put together pitches. It is so contextual. And that's why we are here today.

00:05:20 Melissa: So the three avoidable mistakes that you will want to be mindful of if you are pitching a business idea to an organization or to someone that you admire, begin in this very, very clear manner. Know the decision maker. That's one of the three mistakes. So I originally began sharing a bit about the questions I was asking myself after she shared her pitch and I shared with her and I helped guide her.

00:05:51 Melissa: But at the same time, that is the most important thing. You might think to yourself that, okay, my product is amazing, my service is compelling, but at the end of the day, you're talking to a human being that has a filter that is quite precise. Now, if you've pitched an organization, and you have considered an investor profile as like your go-to, who am I pitching sort of document. That's amazing. It's a start, but every single human being with whom you interact is going to have a completely different set of priorities. And you want to be mindful of that.

00:06:32 Melissa: So you want to really know what are the job titles that you're going to encounter pertaining to this pitch? What's common. For example, is this someone that's going to be in a job for two years, 10 years, or six months? You can tell really depending on the functional area of expertise, there's some functions like marketing where the timeframe is really low. What might that mean? That might mean that whatever outcome or whatever sort of impact you intend to make has to be in the very near short term. All of this is to be considered in your pitch. And all of this is to be considered as you go through an outreach networking list.

00:07:15 Melissa: Now, I might be calling it networking. You might call it biz dev. You might call it sales, looking for strategic partnerships. I really see it as one in the same. Why is that? Because you want to find someone with whom you're almost going the same way. It's almost like a hitchhiker. Not to say you do that and that is not safe, but let's just imagine that you're there and you're on a highway. Think locally, wherever you might be, and you're heading in one direction. You're heading north. You want to be sure that you figure out who else is heading north. You would not want to get into a car and start chatting with the driver and saying, oh, hey, why are we going south? I want to go north. That is a lot of effort.

00:08:05 Melissa: So what does that mean? That means that you have to know the person that you are reaching out to on that long list that you probably spent hours trying to put together as a Mom Founder, which i.e. is time away from the kids. And you want to be sure that you're both going in the same direction and you are speaking their language. That brings me to the third big mistake I have noticed when it comes to going through a list of contacts that you would like to pitch your business idea, whether it is for funding or it might be for media placement.

00:08:40 Melissa: It's really interchangeable in terms of the people that you are going to reach out to. But at the end of the day, every single person has something that matters to them that might not be so obvious to you, especially. And this is what I've noticed so much because these are the mom founders that I have partnered with through these years. It's folks that are entering a brand new market, folks that for them, maybe you know, their background was working in one sector, and this is a new sector.

00:09:11 Melissa: So what does that mean? That means that you have to understand what matters to that person and what matters in that market. And what does that mean? That means that if you're talking to someone in procurement, they have a different set of words that they use to quantify success versus if you're talking to someone in finance, versus if you're talking to someone that is at a different level.

00:09:37 Melissa: So I think it's really important that not just knowing who the decision maker is and actually looking up whether it's LinkedIn, and that's just surface level. There's a lot more research that needs to go into this if you're going through a list where you're asking for thousands of dollars or millions of dollars in investment, but asking at least, let me look at their career background to have a good sense of how they might approach this particular project. Right?

00:10:07 Melissa: Okay, so knowing the decision maker, the second mistake is not understanding what matters to that person. And it could really rely on their functional area of expertise. Again, you're the mom founder, you're an expert in your product or service. However, here's the thing, the person that you're talking to, they have a lot of priorities and they have a lot of different ways of calling success and you need to speak the same language. Otherwise it is like straight up a tower of babble situation.

00:10:37 Melissa: And you do not want that because we all know what happened. Things crumbled and things did not go so well. Okay, so again, what does this person really care about? Right, so knowing what really matters, what do they care about? What is it that they actually call what they care about? So that is mistake number two.

00:10:58 Melissa: So these are the three mistakes that I want you to avoid. And I'll get to number three. When you have a list of contacts that you're going through because you just came up with an invention or you have a business solution or offering that you are ready for funding or to get funding, right? Okay, so mistake number three, contextualizing your pitch. So back to the first story.

00:11:22 Melissa: So there I was listening to this beautiful pitch. I mean, we're talking about perfection. The words were exciting. Everything that she said was compelling to the right person in the right context. However, this person didn't have the expertise of a particular industry. So as you go through your list of contacts and you're there pitching your idea to different organizations or people, there's different things that are going on in different sectors.

00:11:55 Melissa: For example, let's just imagine that you are pitching to one sector and in that sector, you have no idea that this concept that your TV show would not be addictive is absolutely not going to work and not at all the key to success when right now you have a lot of people who's attention is disparate, right? Is in a lot of different places. So here you are saying that, yeah, they're gonna get like one hit of my TV show and that'll be enough and it won't be addictive. Meanwhile, let's imagine as an industry, you need to get people to keep coming back because that is how you organize your ad campaigns with your advertisers, then it's not gonna lay quite right.

00:12:46 Melissa: Okay, so let me get to the point as clearly as possible. Here's the third mistake, so contextualizing your pitch. I wanna share something with you that I learned back in advertising. So I used to work in ad agencies. This was now at least 13 years ago. And I remember working on the IBM account, working on the SAP account, and I remember being told back then, you need to know more about what's happening and what's important to IBM and the tech space than your clients. Same thing with SAP.

00:13:18 Melissa: What does that mean to you, a Mom Founder who has this glorious list that you want to go through but you don't want to burn because you just spent so much time figuring out who the right people might be to shepherd your idea in a big organization. So what does that mean? That means that you need to understand if you need to understand what the drivers are in that sector. You need to understand if there's like new competitors that are just really eroding or just really eating into a market share. You need to also understand how to contextualize what it is that you're offering in the context of their existing portfolio of offerings.

00:14:03 Melissa: Okay, so I said a lot there. There's a lot that needs to happen before you start calling people. I totally get that you might have an investor profile. I get that you have partners that believe so much in your product that they've desired and they've worked for free till this point. But you're going to waste your time, waste your effort and your energy. And I know as a Mom Founder, particularly, you don't got a lot of energy if you do not do this due diligence to a point where at nauseam, you know more about someone's business than they might.

00:14:41 Melissa: However, back to my advertising days, you don't want to show up as arrogant because we always would say, you know more about your business than we do. But that wasn't always the case if I'm being really honest about it. And in your situation, if you're looking to really make a great impression on an organization because you want to partner with them, again, you both have to be going in the same direction. You need to totally understand who you're talking to in terms of how long they're going to be there, how you might want to angle the value that you bring to the table and where you fit in terms of the context of their portfolio.

00:15:20 Melissa: But at the same time you just want to be sure that you have done your homework to a point where again you feel confident and competent that working with you is gonna leave them better off than not working with you in whatever capacity that might be and It takes a lot of practice and I wanted to just kind of go to the very top, your elevator pitch might not be enough. It might not be what is necessary. Every single person that you're talking to, it might completely throw someone off because they'll think that you're talking into some sort of recording, especially if you've recorded it.

00:15:57 Melissa: So you want to be sure that you also bring some stories because oftentimes those resonate a lot more than just statistics and having the right leadership team in place, which I tend to hear a lot. Okay, so here's the story. So risks of not doing your homework. This is personal in the sense that as a podcaster, I'm sure you can imagine how many times I am pitched in terms of podcast guests. And the other day I was looking in my inbox and I noticed someone was pitching me. They were a PR professional so they should have known better. However in terms of time budget, etc., they provided a very generic pitch.

00:16:43 Melissa: So imagine in your situation, right? Again, back to you being a Mom Founder, having a list, having finite time and energy, having spent so much effort upfront, trying to figure out who you're gonna reach out to, but not having done enough effort in terms of researching the three things that I shared with you in terms of the actual people that you're talking to, what actually matters to them, and then also how you fit in the context of like a company's portfolio as an example, and why partnering with you is better than not.

00:17:19 Melissa: Let's imagine this, with this person, this PR person, she was pitching me, again, this is the Mom Founder Imagination Hub podcast. She was pitching me a guy, which 100% I have had men on this podcast, like James Altucher, Gary Vee, et cetera. But she was pitching me a guy that was really all about financial market solutions, having nothing to do with entrepreneurship. And I was just like, what the heck is this? Like, is this even for me? Like you don't want to be that person that emails someone a pitch or jumps on the phone, I know old school, but hey, it still works, and you completely are talking, but the person on the other side is like, why are you calling me?

00:18:08 Melissa: So that is what was happening to me. And that story basically wants to just like reaffirm in you the fact that don't waste your time by not knowing who you're reaching out to at the individual level. And I know it takes a lot of work, a lot of effort. But here's the thing, if you don't do it, this is what happens. All that money, right? And if you think about your time as money, is wasted in terms of the effort that you put to just creating that outreach list. That's one.

00:18:41 Melissa: Here's the other thing, you're gonna burn a bridge because it's going to show that you're not as thoughtful as you truly are. And if you're a Mom Founder, one thing I know about the ones I've worked with, like you are so thoughtful. I mean, when it comes to like the logistics of your family and how you went about, you know, doing market research for your product or figuring out market product fit, I know you're thoughtful. So you wanna be sure that that reputation precedes you, right? So again, you've gotta do that extra research. You wanna be sure that you are resonating with the person. So you don't want to burn through that contact list if you don't have to.

00:19:21 Melissa: Here's the other idea. Let's imagine that you make that mistake, kind of like that PR agency, right? That was sending me a very random podcast guest proposal. You're gonna have to then, if you're really interested in partnering with a Lego or with a Hasbro, et cetera, you're gonna have to then go back and do some triage. And it's not always possible to like resurrect from some blow paw like that.

00:19:44 Melissa: So I wanna just say, here's the other thing. First impressions happen one time. And yes, you can totally turn around, but you're a Mom Founder. And what distinguishes you versus someone that might not have kids is the fact that that time you spent in making that first impression, the guts it took to put yourself out there, that is something that you're now gonna have to like work up to yet again. And it is way harder to constantly fall down and get back up, fall down and get back up when you're navigating family life in parallel. Just this morning to give you an example.

00:20:27 Melissa: So I have all these podcast episode recordings today. And my son then says to me at 5:00 AM, mind you, mom, I think I have a fever. And I looked at him and I was like, please do not have a fever. That's just like one of the ups and downs. We'll call that a down that is so natural to you that other people might not experience, but your business has to keep going on. So, you know, we have finite energy and finite abilities to get back down and get back up, figure out new ways, different patterns, right? Use our imagination and try other or alternative paths forward.

00:21:08 Melissa: If you've got to do the same thing for being a mom as you do an entrepreneurship, you've got to be sure that you are somehow preventing all of that struggle where you can. You need to be a sane mom. That's what I'm saying. So again, this is avoidable. That's why I have it in this episode. And I really hope that you take it to heart because there's so much that's at stake. If you don't actually consider those three mistakes that I share.

00:21:40 Melissa: So I don't wanna leave you hanging. I think this is so important. I wanna be of service to you because I think that it takes so much guts to just like leave your job, for example, or start a business, especially as a mom. It also is absolutely beautiful that you want to do something that's mission driven. Those are the moms that I work with and I help in terms of really navigating networking and building relationships so that you're in the right rooms, having the right conversations, getting the money that your business idea deserves, that I wanna do this for you. So hear me out.

00:22:17 Melissa: Okay, now let's just imagine that you are in a car right now, so you're driving. So what I will have you do is absolutely bookmark this conversation, but write this down when you have an opportunity in the event that you're on the move. So I offer something called a VIP day. It's a three-hour Zoom session during which time we are going to work through your contact list. But here's the thing. It's even better than that.

00:22:45 Melissa: Not only are we going to work through your contact list, but prior to jumping on Zoom, I'm going to give you some homework that's going to help you thoughtfully not just put together that contact list, but approach your research so that this way you can avoid these three mistakes. I'm also going to make sure that as you approach the different people during our time, that three-hour Zoom time frame, that you're leading with what is going to resonate the most based on a number of criteria that for me and in use with my clients have worked in the past.

00:23:24 Melissa: I mean, it's so predictable in terms of some of the priorities that people actually have, but it's not always obvious on LinkedIn because sometimes people are not that upfront in terms of their agendas. And I'm not using that in a negative way, but I'm sure you get what I'm saying. So there's other sources of research that I will share with you also on that three hours Zoom session. It's a VIP day. Also, it's really about making sure that we have woken up your imagination. That is the name of this podcast. And I stand on that.

00:23:58 Melissa: When it comes to being a Mom Founder or being a mom with a business, it is urgent that you really, really stay sharp in terms of coming up with unexpected or new or shortcut ways to reach out to everyone and anyone. And again, relationships is absolutely critical when it comes to building your business and making sure that your message gets out to as many human beings as possible. So you wanna be sure that you're doing it from a place of expansive thinking. You're doing it from a place of, okay, this person is gonna expect me to reach out to them on, as an example, Instagram, but I'm gonna come in through this side door, right? Which has worked for me and my clients as well.

00:24:44 Melissa: So let me share an example. I had a client that actually wanted to reach out to insurance companies. And it was really interesting because this was completely new to her. She owns a nonprofit. And so she reached out to an insurance company and she was baffled that the person on the other side of the email got back to her almost like in an hour, okay? He got back to her in an hour. Why was that? It was because she realized that this person would be, A, in a position of power.

00:25:13 Melissa: So people do want to be helpful. So you want to make sure you're asking the right people who can help you. But then at the same time, her email was personal. It resonated, and it was thoughtful. It was in alignment with what's important to an insurance organization. And she had to do some research in order to uncover precisely what that was in this market. Sorry to say, but sometimes different times of the year, different things are important and different trends will influence whether or not what was important, you know, last trend is in season this trend.

00:25:45 Melissa: So again, there's a lot that needs to happen, but we can cover that during the three hours together over Zoom. Here's what else happens during that three hour session, the VIP session with me for Mom Founders. So you and I are gonna roll up our sleeves. Like literally, if I have long sleeves, or metaphorically, if I do not, we're going to actually start emailing and reaching out to people live because I need to see, like, what do your subject lines actually say? Are they generic or compelling? How is it that you're positioning what you intend behind the conversation with that contact, right?

00:26:20 Melissa: So it's about authenticity, but it's also about being direct and infusing your personality. Because if you wanna do business on your own terms, as you have opted to as a mom founder, you don't want to not be yourself when you're doing business. Like that was part of the purpose of owning your own thing, along with solving a challenge, along with being mission driven and heart centered and wanting to see impact in the slice of the world that matters to you.

00:26:51 Melissa: So here we go. Call for you to reach out to me so I can help you so that you do not make those mistakes. You do not burn through a list of contacts if you have a business idea or already a business in market that you want to get funding for, or you want to leverage some sort of strategic partnership, be sure that you take advantage of this. And it is the following. So I do have those VIP days, but this offer right now is for free.

00:27:20 Melissa: Go to melissallarena.com/sessions. You will have an opportunity to apply for a 30-minute complimentary session, during which time I'm going to help you by role playing and hearing what you have to offer in terms of your business pitch, in terms of your origin story, in terms of what you intend out of a conversation with a decision maker, right? All pertaining to your business. So go ahead to melissallarena.com/sessions. There is an application and here's the reason why an application is going to be absolutely helpful to you.

00:28:02 Melissa: When you start to put pen to paper or technically type out your answers in the application, you also start to clarify what you need to happen in terms of the people that you wanna talk to, in terms of your very best next steps. And in terms of your own business, putting pen to paper has been the absolute life-giving solution for me when it comes to ironing out my thoughts. And it's better for you to do that on my application than to do it in front of someone that can give you money.

00:28:38 Melissa: So go ahead, melisallarena.com/sessions, and you will see the link here. What I invite you to really consider is, okay, bring forth your story, bring with you your idea in terms of the investor profile. Be sure that you tell me who I'm supposed to be. I want you to know also what is going to be important to me and how whatever it is that you've got is going to help me and fix in my existing portfolio. So have that already in mind, be prepared. It is going to be a great session. And that is for free. That is 30-minute session for free.

00:29:20 Melissa: At that time, at the very end, after you have your answers, I will absolutely invite you to join me during one of the VIP sessions. Those VIP sessions, I only do three spots every single month. I'm sure you can understand as a mom with kids yourself, what I do is really, really important in terms of helping moms specifically as flexibly as possible. So it could be an evening time or a weekend time or chunk of time. And for me, three hours each month is what I can do in terms of VIP days.

00:29:58 Melissa: You get to choose if it's the right fit, I get to choose if you're the right fit and I can help you and we will take it from there. So I'm really excited about these VIP sessions, but more than that, I wanna hear from you and I don't want you to make a mistake in terms of burning through a contact list. I know the effort it takes to think through a product. I know the effort it takes to see a product market fit. And I know the effort it's going to take to implement whatever it is that you promise to the people on your list.

00:30:29 Melissa: So be sure that you take advantage of the 30-minute session with me. It is complimentary. You'll have the link here. It'll also be in the show notes if you are just listening to this conversation. And then we could certainly talk about whether a VIP day is the right next step for you. No strings attached. You are very welcome to attend a 30-minute session with me. I want to be sure that we avoid as many mistakes as possible when it comes to working through an outreach list. I want you to have so much success.

00:31:03 Melissa: And until Tuesday, let me know what you got out of this conversation, you are more than welcome to leave some comments. If you're watching this on YouTube, you're also welcome to share this with a friend, because here's the thing, Mom Founders know other Mom Founders. And if anyone is interested in actually pitching investors or securing strategic partnerships with people in different organizations or different organizations, you want to be sure that they have the greatest odds of success.

00:31:31 Melissa: So go ahead and share this episode. It's also in audio. And if you're interested in that 30-minute consult, it is available to you. And no strings attached, as I mentioned. So thank you for this conversation. And thank you. Until next Tuesday, go ahead and subscribe. Follow me officially, because next Tuesday, we're going to go through an actual interview with an investor. Stay tuned. Signing off, Melissa Llarena.