2015 Business Pitch Contest Winner

By: Stan Washington
Date: April 20,2015

My day began at five something in the morning as I loaded up a van with goodies for the event. Not knowing what to expect, I was extremely excited! When the crowd arrived I was even more elated because I was now in "my crowd!" I asked the crowd "Are you ready?" and they all yelled "YES!"

We started with ten contestants, but many more jumped in as they did not want to be shown up! This was a business pitch competition and the contestants only had 30 seconds to wow the crowd. We heard business pitches about dress making to bath products, to preserving historical music to technology.

When the smoke cleared one winner emerged, Scott Stewart of Project Tech Teens filled every last second with eloquence. He was able to excite us about his service while letting us know how to get in contact with him. He explained the benefits and we were excited. All of this in 30 seconds? Absolutely!

He took home the grand prize of a trip to the Cincinnati Jazz Festival, Mike Epps concert tickets and a Marketing Plan from Honor Services Office!  He was elated! Tickets were compliments of Chicago's R & B 106.3.

Shelby Moore was there along with Victoria Cook and Dan Duster.

Our winners for small business awards for 2015 are:

Rod Thomas of Cajun Fryer and Grill

Rod supplied the tasty morsels we had during the event!

Dr. Porter was there helping people understand how to have healthy hair through science.

What does hair have to do with this event? She is part of our community and we bring a community of people together to help.

For those who are interested in writing a book, L Marie was there. She was / is the editor of our book series and is available to those who NEED to write a book to put in words their expertise. She is tough but passionate!

Evie Burke served with me on the board of ICF. I am proud to see where she is going!

Great event full of great people. Remember to take GOD with your business!

Honor Services Office - Business Pitch Contest 2015

Why did we choose to have a Business Pitch contest?

We wanted to develop a contest that would actually benefit your business. By entering this contest, it brings fresh eyes to your business and you can couple telling people about the contest with any special offerings you may have.

What is a *Business Pitch?

You have 30 seconds to tell a compelling story about your business that the audience can clearly understand. Be careful what you say because the audience will be your judge!

What should I say?

When writing a business pitch, consider the nine C's:

• Concise. Keep the pitch succinct with as few words as possible.
• Clear. The pitch should be easily understood by a layman, rather than filled with acronyms and industry terminology.
• Compelling. What problem does your business solve, and what can you do for your target audience?
• Credible. Spell out what makes you qualified to do what you do without using buzzwords like outside the box or synergy. Using credibility-driven words like certified will help sell your business.
• Conceptual. Keep your pitch broad; don't go into too many details.
• Concrete. The pitch should be tangible and easily grasped by your audience.
• Customized. Each target audience is different. The pitch should be tailored to the listeners.
• Consistent. No matter how many versions of your pitch you have, they should all convey the same basic message.
• Conversational. Start the conversation, and hook your target. Keep it casual. Don't try to close a deal in the pitch

After I enter the contest what should I do?

When you enter the contest, most of the work has been done for you!

•             Purchase any one of the books for sale during the event on April 18th 2015 at Chicago State University.
•            Deliver your business pitch within the allotted time and within rules.
•           Get the crowd involved for they will be your judges!

How will I be judged?

The entrant with the most votes by audience applause wins. 

What are the prizes?

The contestant with the most votes wins up to $1000 in prizes and cash. Cash availability is subject to book sales and will not be finalized until up to four (4) weeks after the event. All cash prizes are subject to cancellation at the discretion of Honor Services. See Rules for more details.

Tell what you Sell - The Catch, You only have 30 Seconds!

Some call a pitch an ELEVATOR SPEECH, others call it a MEANINGFUL INTRODUCTION. Whatever you call it, this is your chance to tell people about your company and what you offer!

The goal is to get the audience to understand what the business is about and what it can do for them. The purpose of an elevator pitch is not to close a deal or a sale; rather, it's to make the audience want to continue the conversation. Your pitch should contain salient, intriguing details about your company rather than dry figures.

When writing an elevator pitch, consider the nine C's:

• Concise. Keep the pitch succinct with as few words as possible.
• Clear. The pitch should be easily understood by a layman, rather than filled with acronyms and industry terminology.
• Compelling. What problem does your business solve, and what can you do for your target audience?
• Credible. Spell out what makes you qualified to do what you do without using buzzwords like outside the box or synergy. Using credibility-driven words like certified will help sell your business.
• Conceptual. Keep your pitch broad; don't go into too many details.
• Concrete. The pitch should be tangible and easily grasped by your audience.
• Customized. Each target audience is different. The pitch should be tailored to the listeners.
• Consistent. No matter how many versions of your pitch you have, they should all convey the same basic message.
• Conversational. Start the conversation, and hook your target. Keep it casual. Don't try to close a deal in the pitch

WAYS TO EMPOWER MY BUSINESS SATURDAY APRIL 18, 2015 

CHICAGO STATE LIBRARY AUDITORIUM

Small Business Deserves Big Dollars!

By: Stan Washington
Date: April 15, 2015

Like excited eagles, small business owners start out soaring but soon become cynical slugs if they don't have the correct foundation.

Understand who you are. Your brand is extremely important. People will get to know you and your product or service. If they are not satisfied, make adjustments to help your customer.

Listen to your audience. People are screaming about what they need all the time. Listen to them and get excited about them instead of being the selfish business owner who only spouts quotes about their stuff.

Use Technology. Social media is social media. Technology for business means gathering metrics to understand how well your business is doing so you can make adjustments. Just because you have a lot of "likes" or "followers" doesn't mean you are doing the right thing to address their need. 

Use a simple CRM like Honor Services Office or a more complex one like Salesforce to keep track of your customers needs. Leverage a tool that can send bills in emails. Market to your customer base with email marketing on a semi-regular basis that is not noisy. Learn marketing techniques that work and apply them. Identify sales techniques that enable you to help people instead of being pushy! Come join us and find out how to put your business on track!

WAYS TO EMPOWER MY BUSINESS SATURDAY APRIL 18, 2015 

CHICAGO STATE LIBRARY AUDITORIUM

Collaborating with WSRB on our April 18th Event

We are excited!!

To give for this event to help entrepreneurs:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ways-to-empower-my-business/x/10382501

Ways to Empower My Business - Resources and Book Talk

On Saturday April 18, 2015 at Chicago State University Library Auditorium we will be hosting our “Ways to Empower My Business” Resources and Book Talk. 

1. Address: 9501 S King Dr, Chicago, IL 60628

   Phone:(888)611-7725 x1

It’s time to turn the “Hustle” into a money making business! We have brought together mentors, resources and advice for small business owners who are ready to grow but do not know how.

Authors Victoria Cook, Dan Duster and Stan Washington will be there to sign their books, discuss the curriculum and give tips to those who have been in business but need some fresh new ideas. We welcome those who are just starting out as well!

Please remember to bring your business pitch and win prizes! More details on this in days to follow!

Victoria Cook, founder & managing director for The Center for Guilt-Free Success, helps women entrepreneurs grow their businesses through coaching and training. Known for her proprietary 7-step Guilt-Free RESULTS™ process, she often is in demand as a speaker. Named "Business Brick Builder" by the International Coach Federation Chicago Chapter in 2013. Her innovative approach reflects her commitment to building the strengths of her clients as she helps them market their businesses more confidently and easily. Victoria is co-author of Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success.

Dan Duster President 3D Development Group, is more than a salesperson. He sits on numerous boards, conducts training for personal development and goal achievement, and he still holds one of the largest picnics on the lakefront of Chicago for his high school, college friends, and colleagues. He loves people. One of his favorite hobbies is playing bid whist, where he welcomes any and everyone to challenge him. He combined his passion for sales with the skills of training and became one of the most decorated salespeople in his area. In 1999, Dan felt the need to formally begin helping people get over the fear of selling.

Stan Washington, a McDonald’s executive turned entrepreneur is founder and president of Honor Services Office, software that helps small business grow sales, market businesses, and process invoices easily. He has helped thousands of small businesses achieve sales into the millions. His leadership of operations and technology enabled multi-billion dollar corporations to increase sales and he is ready to share their tips. Stan also is the co-author of Peaceful Selling: Easy Sales Techniques to Grow Your Small Business and Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success. 

Things You Should Know About Writing a Book - Our Journey (Part 5)

By: Stan Washington
Date: February 26, 2015

We were in the homestretch, or at least we thought so. After months of late nights and hundreds of hours logged on phone calls, we could finally see the end of the tunnel. Our scheduled end date for this project had past but only by a couple of days. Our thoughts of being "done" were dashed to bits instantly when we threw the book over the wall at the editor.

"This is just the beginning of your journey" implied the editor with that steely eyed look that would terrify the fearless! Okay, enough exaggerating. She read our sample chapter and sent it back with a huge number of strikethroughs, corrections and suggestions. We thought we were finished!

Hire a professional editor. We hired a professional editing company, L Marie Editing. This was part of the project budget and worth every penny!  We thought we would put down our content and have someone simply modify our words into something coherent. Wow, were we wrong!  With thirty years in the book business and several books published, she asked us the right questions.

When she asked "Where is your back of the book copy?" we looked at each other like she was a martian. That was just the beginning.  We soon realized that she is an editor in this project and not an author. She pointed out missing or vague information. Fortunately for us, she was great at following up to see if we had the missing content.  Here is the link to our editor's blog: https://lmarie7b.wordpress.com 

Be careful of quotes. We put a ton of quotes in the book thinking it would be so cool if we would mention words from a particular expert. Our editor stopped us dead in our tracks. There are a ton of rules regarding quotes that we had no idea of. Siting the sources became more of a task than a pleasure.

Format after editing. With red pen flying, we received countless cuts, additions, and changes but eventually we were finished! We frantically grabbed the CreateSpace 6 x 9 template and began stuffing in our content. Use the blank template if you can. Here are the Create Space templates. https://www.createspace.com/Products/Book/InteriorPDF.jsp.

Use quality pictures. After the final review of the book, we were ready to upload to CreateSpace and Smashwords, or at least we thought so. When we uploaded our book, it took 24 hours to get comments. We sat and sat and finally received an email. To our dismay it said "The book interior has issues that need to be corrected." Our pictures were not high quality and could be blurry in the final print. We changed the pictures and inadvertently changed the spacing of the content.

We uploaded the book and it was accepted, but upon closer review, we noticed a number of formatting errors that we did not catch in our final review. The inadvertent shift caused many problems that rippled throughout the book. We made the change to the picture sizes and waited yet another 24 hours! We finished our books and celebrated when everything was in, formatted and uploaded.

I hope you enjoyed our journey!  We learned a lot and will be coming out with more resources for our followers.  Blessings on your book!

Our books have been featured in Small Business Trends!

Blessings to you!

Things You Should Know About Writing a Book - Our Journey (Part 4)

By: Stan Washington
Date: February 23, 2015

Another week passed and we still had our books to write. We were on a huge tangent getting all the “stuff” together that we should have collected before we started writing the book. We had our outline, content and plan, but had no idea about all the other “stuff” it takes to self-publish a book.

Choose Size and interior of the book. We chose the 6” x 9” format since this is common amongst paperback books. There are plenty of book templates out there where you can load your content into the template and upload it onto your self-publishing website.  We chose CreateSpace.com as our provider. This is our second account.

Purchase an ISBN. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number.  Yes, you need one of these too! We chose to get our own in order to remain flexible. CreateSpace.com has free ISBN’s that will lock you to their site for sales. We chose Bowker.com to purchase our ISBN’s. Please note that you will need at least two ISBN’s, one for paperback and one for eBook. This is the third account we set up for free.

Download a FREE Bar Code. Now that you have an ISBN, it’s time to get a barcode. We had the price of our book in mind already so all we had to do was go to http://bookow.com/resources.php, add our price and our ISBN and download a bar code. This generated a free ISBN JPG file to put on the back of our cover. This is great for those who are going to use a paperback book style.

Your self-publishing company will provide the sizing spec for your ISBN Picture.

Download a FREE QR Code. A Quick Response code is used with apps on smartphones to quickly take your customer to your site or information. We chose Google Chrome QR Generator https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/. You can add your website or some other information related to your product or service. 

More to come in part 5!

Our books have been featured in Small Business Trends!

Blessings to you!

Plans to Prosper Book Signing

 By: Stan Washington
Date: January 17, 2015

We are honored to serve the small business owners who cam out to celebrate our book release.  We now have a Marketing Curriculum that takes entrepreneurs step-by-step through a process to market their business.

Victoria Cook and Stan Washington co-authored the book and it's said to be "simple to read and easy to implement." Great for businesses right now!

The crowd gathered to get their book signed. Felt like a celebrity!

Here is what people are saying about the book:

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars PHENOMENAL!!!!, December 7, 2014

By 

Richard N. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Paperback)

Awesome find! This author does a masterful job of weaving the critical elements of faith into our plans to develop and prosper personally and professionally. The book serves as a coach with strategies which were easy to follow, understand, and integrate into my daily life. I can't wait for the follow up...

This should be a best seller!

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars highly useful book! Victoria gives clear, January 8, 2015

By 

Gail Moore - See all my reviews

Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems & Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Kindle Edition)

This is a really important, highly useful book! Victoria gives clear, concise information and priceless tips and tools. And what’s really invaluable is that it all feels doable, it takes away the overwhelm. And wow the 30 day checklist of what to do for the next 30 days- what a gift. Ive taken some of Victoria’s classes and this book is all that and more! Love it if you can’t tell!

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST read!!!, December 23, 2014

By 

Crystal - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Paperback)

Unlike many, this book provides step-by-step strategies on how to grow your business and won't leave you feeling overwhelmed. I recommend it for those who are just starting out as an entrepreneur as well as those who have been in business for a while but could use timeless approaches to increase revenue.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great value for small business on a budget!, December 12, 2014

By 

maurice sykes - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Paperback)

This a must read. Most people want to prosper but forget about the plan. The book provides simple but necessary and often forgotten solutions everyone can use in their life plan to prosper. It also provides additional tools that are extremely helpful in your small business. This is a great value!

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars No-nonsense strategy, December 23, 2014

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K Levi - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Paperback)

Stan is an amazing small business coach. Using tried and true principles, he designs a no- nonsense strategy that is easy to implement and maintain. This is an awesome tool designed to take your business to new heights!

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I highly recommend that you adopt this book into the best practices ..., December 14, 2014

By 

audwin Rowe - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems & Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Kindle Edition)

As a small business owner, I'm always looking for ways to sharpen my approach to doing business. I highly recommend that you adopt this book into the best practices of your business.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and Easy to Follow, December 10, 2014

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Avid Reader (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Paperback)

Often, we get so caught up in the day to day operations or just "putting out fires" that we fail to put together a clear plan to get us from where we are to where we want to go in our businesses. This book provides a clear, step-by-step marketing plan that is easy to follow. It is a great resource for making sure nothing falls through the cracks, causing you to waste time and money. The sooner you read it, the sooner you'll get on the right track.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive. Easy to follow. Brilliant find!!, December 19, 2014

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Eileen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Paperback)

If you are excited about starting a new business but aren't sure where to start with your marketing, or if your small business needs a boost, you've got to read this book! Great tools, tips, and easy-to-follow guidelines to get you going and keep you on track.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must have marketing book, December 8, 2014

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Motivator in Chicago (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems & Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Kindle Edition)

This book is the best resource that I've seen when it comes to being able to help an entrepreneur market their business. It is practical and has things that you can implement quickly and easily. It is a must have if you want your business to prosper!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great marketing resource, December 7, 2014

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Romney D. Lowe III - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plans to Prosper: Strategies, Systems and Tools for Small Business Marketing Success (Paperback)

Great marketing resource. This book provides a good framework for establishing a good marketing strategy for any small business. I will continue to use it to further develop my consulting business marketing plans.

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