Yay! Great news today. Cherie Blair is coming to the Entrepreneur Brand Accelerator event which I am running at the Science Museum in London on Friday (October 11).
At the event we will be going through the Key Person of Influence (KPI) strategy for small businesses . . .
I am thrilled as we will be raising funds for the Cherie Blair Foundation, which helps women entrepreneurs in developing and emerging markets.
So, how on earth did we manage to land such a great speaker for our KPI event?
The story of how I first met Cherie Blair goes back to an International Women’s day event in 2012, an event I attended while running LyncMeUp.
It was amazing: Cherie was standing right next to me and I talked to her about what I did with my business and who I was.
I gave her my 30-second pitch, very much in the KPI mould.
At the end of the pitch, it can either go pear-shaped or it can spark more interest. Luckily for me, it was the latter and she turned back and said she would like to know more. And, so, I gave her my five-minute pitch. At the end of it, she offered her contact details and said, ‘Can you send me that photo someone has taken (the one above) and I will sign it and send it back to you’.
That, for me, left a lasting impression.
Obviously, I knew who she was and I’d seen her on telly. I’d admired the fact that, in addition to being married to someone who had a massive and very important profile, she still had her own individuality and I liked that very much indeed. I was really fascinated by her and wanted to support her work. I liked the fact that she was supporting women in underdeveloped countries to be more empowered. I always think how very lucky we are in the western world to have the freedoms we have – freedom of choice, freedom of communication and freedom of opinions. Sadly, in other parts of the world, women do not enjoy what we come to take for granted in the western world. I was fascinated by Cherie’s work and commitment and I got in touch with her by email and we kept in touch.
Fast forward one year, I am now the CEO of Entrevo in the UK, which is a training and workshop company which is in three countries around the world.
I head the business in the UK and we reach out to more than 110,000 entrepreneurs.
As a key person in the entrepreneurial scene, I had the strength to get back to Cherie and ask her to be involved in what we are doing with KPI.
I offered to support her charity – the Cherie Blair Foundation. Cherie was more than pleased and offered her help immediately.
Her diary is very heavily booked, as you can imagine and she was meeting the President of Nigeria later that morning, but she still committed to joining us. But she has agreed to come over to the Science Museum on Friday to spare valuable time from her diary to encourage entrepreneurs and also talk about some of the work she has been doing through her foundation. Whatever we raise on the day will be going to the Cherie Blair Foundation, through which there will be more women empowered to run their own businesses. I am delighted that people attending the event on Friday will make a huge contribution towards making someone else’s life a lot better.
I am also really looking forward to working with Cherie on future projects.
My quick tips for a good pitch :
– be clear on your message
– be credible (why should someone listen to you?)
– run your pitch past someone you know has heard many
– if you are struggling with a 5min pitch, get yourself a mentor
Remember, a good pitch will help you save time . . . and practise what you pitch to light up those you speak to 🙂
Cheers
Darshana
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