Graham Evans

The discussion with our guest speaker Graham Evan; had a very fact based and practical approach to it. He started of talking about business marketing. Three points he mentioned in regards to marketing a product were:

-          Great product + Lousy Marketing = No money

-          Lousy Product + Great Marketing = Short Term money

-          Great Product + Great Marketing = Long Term money

With this he tried to explain the role of marketing in terms of a product. He supported this is some examples one of them were of a British Company.  He elaborates how British companies tried to set them up in USA but failed due to lack of market research. He highlighted the importance of marketing in a way of what your audience wants, and how it can lead to a big failure if not done right.

For an entrepreneur he suggested four ways to follow:

Know what you don’t know – Learning a process of life. I keep learning new things. Don’t think that you know everything.

Recognize Challenges to your Paradigm – One should recognize the challenges that might come in their endeavor and try to work through its way.

Five wrong ways of thinking.

Open Communication – Good communication with others always ends in good results. So communicating yourself well is an important aspect.

He then advised the students that how it’s beneficial to pitch for the investors who are not that interested. This way we can get good critic’s comments on your plan which might help present it better to the ones who are actually interested in it.

Last but not the least Graham talked about six ways to think, namely:

-          Brain storming/ reverse Brainstorming

-          2x2 Strategic matrices.

-          SWOT(Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat)

-          Morning Pages

-          Six Hat Thinking

-          Business Plan.

Graham Evans discussion was one of the most unique discussions we had so far. He helped me think not only in a better entrepreneurial way but also in a non-traditional unique manner.