A Preview of Pitching and Closing with Alexander Taub

Wade Danielson — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 12:41:44 +0000

A summary of things you should know about Pitching and Closing according to Alex Taub

Introduction

In this episode Alexander Taub provides his insights and expertise on business development and partnerships when it comes to startups. In his book, Pitching and Closing, Taub gives you an all-inclusive guide to the best practices of creating a startup in a nontechnical format breaking down the categories of business development, partnerships, sales tactics, preparation, and execution. This book is the perfect match for the entrepreneur interested in startups who does not have the technical capabilities.

The Book’s Unique Quality

There is really no great go-to book that helps nontechnical people break in to the startup world. So this is a book for people interested in startups but don’t have the technical capabilities.

The Reader’s Takeaway

Once you read this book it should get you excited about going in to the startup world and how much potential there is.

A Deep Dive Into The Book

We broke up the book into five sections. The first section is called Business Development. Basically it goes through everything you need to know about business development. From what is business development to how to structure your business development team and what the difference between business development and sales are.

The second section is an introduction to partnerships. We came up with something called the four golden rules of partnership which is basically why would anyone want to work with you? You are either going to make them money, you’re going to save them money, you’re going to grow their user base or you’re going to improve their product. We also talk about three types of partnerships.

The third section is pitching and closing. We talk a lot of the legality of deal making, contracts and things like that. We have a lot of quotes from companies such as Spotify that give us some great insight into when you should sign a letter of intent. Another part of part three is launching deals and compounding effects and the last part of part three is keeping the deal.

Part four is about the best practices of preparation and execution. We go through all the best practices around all the preparation execution of being on the nontechnical side of a startup.

The last section is called war stories. In this section we talk to people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Tristan Walker and Jesse Itzler and let them tell their story and why we have highlighted them in the business development world.

Notable Quotes From The Book

There isn’t a quote that I’m really excited about but one of the sections I like is called sincere selling, in the introduction to partnerships. This is one thing that I really live by; you need to believe what you are selling to other people if you want them to buy into it. If you don’t sincerely believe what you are pitching to somebody, you need to get out of there and go do something that you do believe in.

The Credibility/Inspiration Of The Author

I am the co-author of Pitching and Closing with my good friend Ellen Dasilva. I am also the co-founder of a company called Social Rank which is a simple tool to help brands find out more information about the people that follow them across social networks. For the past two years I ran business development and partnerships for a startup called Dwolla. Two years before that I ran business development for a business called Aviary. I also have a blog called Alex’s Tech Thoughts that I write four posts a week and contribute to Forbes entrepreneur section every two weeks.

I have been writing for four years and one day I got a LinkedIn message from an editor at McGraw Hill asking me if I ever considered writing a book because she really liked my stuff. I hadn’t thought about it before but I said that’s a pretty good idea but I knew I couldn’t pull it off on my own. That’s when I brought in my friend Ellen to co-author the book with me. The inspiration was an editor liked my stuff and I felt like there wasn’t much out there on the topic of business development in partnerships.