Pitching in Entrepreneurship: The Struggle and Reward

Not all entrepreneurs began their profession freshly out of college, equipped with the proper knowledge of risk taking and business management. For some, like Mr. Feliks Leybengrub, the decision to explore this career path is made for them. In 1992, immigrating to a foreign country at a young age, he found himself supporting both a wife and a newly born son. Feliks sought a temp job and settled on painting. After several years of mastering and learning the painting trade, he realized that the painting business had tons of room for growth in both quality of work and customer service. He decided to quit his job as a contracted laborer and thrust himself into the world of an entrepreneurship and become a business owner; a painting business.

Feliks’ business venture exemplifies a small yet very fascinating category of entrepreneurs, a main reason I decided to interview him. This group is known to have little to no formal business education. Feliks studied to become a mathematics professor in the USSR. Another important aspect is that they have little to no initial start up funds, risking everything for their venture. Many successful entrepreneurs today belong to this select group but many have also attempted and failed. As a case study, Feliks is of the few that have succeeded and exemplifies an ethical approach to business.

Before starting any business, one of those most important aspects of success is good communication skills, specifically being able to pitch your ideas. According to Feliks, pitching an idea is a showcase of a business venture in which you “attempt to convince your audience of believing in your idea and gain possible investor interest.” Feliks went to every possible source of funds to gain capital to support his endeavor, including banks, friends, acquaintances, and private investors. Through his experience, he found that the initial introduction of the idea to the possible investor should be concise, clear, and simple (helps make it more memorable). After the initial meeting, one should set up a formal meeting in which the pitch must be comprehensive and should include a detailed set of goals and deadlines. The organization of the pitch should be very logical which will fairly easy to follow. Also you must make sure to put it into words understood by your audience and not make it convoluted with unfamiliar jargon and such. The potential investor should be able to “imagine themselves running such a business and running it successfully.” In 1993, Feliks made successful informal pitches to two acquaintances that he effectively convinced to invest in him.

To ensure success, he established several key goals in his pitch for his painting business called Feliks Painting. First and foremost, most important to him, was to provide the best customer service, which meant honest business practices, finished labor, and convenient dependability. He made it a priority to always be available, either over the phone or fax, even on weekends. His treatment of his workers would be respectable and kind, making sure to hire only the best. He also began to use email recently to communicate with his more tech savvy customers. And finally, he strove to be as personable as possible despite the language barrier.

Certain communication techniques were exhibited during the interview by both parties. During the interview, the model of communication was surprisingly interactional, because it was more than just a question and answer. Personally, I was pretty comfortable during the interview and exhibited no reflexive nonverbal markers of communication. In terms of ocalics, we both kept fairly good eye contact. To make his points, Feliks often used lots of gestures which goes under gestics. From his artifacts, it was clear he just came from work and I was dressed fairly casually. We met at Boston Market so our gustorics were put to use. The interview lasted roughly 45 minutes because of the amount of tangents we went on so in terms of chronemics, it was slightly long. Despite his thick russian accent, there was no noise present because I know Russian and am used to it. And finally, in terms of paravocalics, his volume was higher than mine, I guess because he was making a point. The rate at which he spoke was also quicker than mine as he attempted to convey his entire message into such a short period of time. And he certainly succeeded in that respect. His message was clear. So clear that I could relate to what he was saying as I to invested in a DJ business venture. I learned a lot from his interview and hearing about his story and certainly want to pursue a career in that field in a different context.

Further Reading: http://factoidz.com/how-to-make-a-successful-business-pitch/

Feliks Painting:http://www.angieslist.com/companylist/us/md/baltimore/feliks-leybengrub-painting-llc-reviews-2081866.aspx

FELIKS LEYBENGRUB.

Awarded BEST of Baltimore 2004.

Phone Number: 410-916-2083

MHIC# 49059