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Feature - Wendy Launches Online Commercialization & Entrepreneurship Training
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Wendy Kennedy's online training program is the ideal source of personalized training, coaching and support for inventors, entrepreneurs, and commercialization offices. Working with Wendy, commercialization and entrepreneurship come to life in a dynamic virtual classroom complete with instruction, guided exercises, worksheets and real-world case studies.
Each month, Wendy brings a limited number of participants together for personalized training and coaching through 90-minute classes that give you:
- In-person coaching, training and support in technology commercialization, technology entrepreneurship and technology transfer.
- Training on best practices for commercialization and technology transfer strategies. Select from two training streams: Entrepreneurship and Commercialization
- Practical, step-by-step advice to apply the frameworks, tools and approaches to your specific situation.
- Collaboration and insights through a peer Q&A session to share with and learn from Wendy and other session attendees.
- A rich package of takeaway materials, including presentation materials, worksheets, templates, PLUS...
- Special access after the session to Wendy's private online resource library, The Toolshed, a $100 value!
A limited number of seats are available for each class to allow for personal interaction.
View the 2008 course calendar here.
Register now to reserve your seat.
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Tutorial - Translate Technology into the Language of Value - A Simple 4 Step Process
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In most cases, sharing the "laundry list" of product characteristics or features of your technology won't grab the attention of your customers. Technology characteristics without translation into customer value, leaves your customers, investors, and partners having to do all of the hard work of translating the "what it is" into "why it matters".
Want your customers to be inspired by the value of your science or technology? Learn how to translate your features, attributes and characteristics into the language your customer speaks.
Use this simple four-step process to get the most out of your technology attributes by translating them in to what the customer really wants - a value proposition.
Step 1. Establish clearly the pressing need or pain that the customer feels right now. Make sure that you get them to tell you about their needs, and that they are explicit about it. While they are telling you where it hurts, keep technology attributes out of the conversation for now. You'll use them in a later stage.
Step 2. Next, explain to the customer the value of your solution. As you've likely guessed, this isn't the place for your technology attributes either. Patience! Tell your customer about how your solution saves money, boosts productivity, and facilitates team-working or any of the other good "value" elements that it delivers.
Step 3. Ready? Now you can talk about your technology attributes at this stage, so that you can justify the value statements that you were making in the stage before. For example, "our solution lets you make major savings in time and labor because the substrate bonds directly to the metal surface in one simple operation, instead of three separate ones."
Step 4. Back up your technology attributes with proof: specifications, lab tests, client testimonials or whatever else will set the customer's mind at ease.
To get the value, remember the sequence of steps to follow. Their problem will be solved by your solution because of your technology attributes that are backed up by proof.
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Quick Tip: Coaching Entrepreneurs - 5 Lessons Learned on my Journey
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It's a thrill to work with entrepreneurs - they're always moving, thinking, and shifting at breakneck speed. You get energized by their passion and enthusiasm for what they do. But as a coach to entrepreneurs, it's not always easy to harness the raw passion and turn it into fuel for the business building. Here's a few quick insights on what I've learned is important in a coaching program for entrepreneurs!
1. Coaching is not Consulting - It's important to be clear on the dividing line. The entrepreneurs need to be doing the heavy lifting and leg work, not you. Your role is to help get them get the priorities mapped out and to execute on them - not to take on the job yourself. This is not an easy thing to do, especially when the team and the idea are inviting us to engage. It's important to teach and mentor, not to do the work for them.
2. Create Structure - I've learned having a game plan about how we'll work together is critical. When it's a loose "we'll meet and discuss" relationship, that spells lots of navel gazing and ambiguity. I prefer to tie meetings to specific activities and outcomes - for example, I'd like to spend an hour discussing your path to market. I like to frame the time together so that we're not discussing 5 things in the span of an hour. There's a tendency to jump around a lot, not surprising - entrepreneurs have a lot of balls to juggle and want all the answers immediately. Your structure needs to also include accountabilities for the action items, identifying deliverables and timelines. This also lets everyone involved see the progress and value of investing time in a coaching environment.
3. Are you Writing this Down? I'm a huge fan of setting up "homework" assignments - otherwise, there's lots of good discussion, but little execution. It's useful to set up action items, small and big, to ensure projects that are being discussed have an action tied to them. This makes the meetings productive for everyone and shows the value of your coaching program. Often the act of capturing points during the meeting is a useful habit to encourage. I've even had entrepreneurs that record the meeting to listen and recap later.
4. The Weekly Meeting Trap. Be careful of the mindset of a weekly meeting - just because we have an appointment in our calendar doesn't mean a meeting is in order. I prefer more of an outcome driven approach - so I'd rather say "get this done first". However, one benefit to a weekly meeting is a fixed schedule, so if you choose weekly, I'd suggest a structure to be sure weekly meetings have topics and deliverables to keep things structured and moving forward.
5. Deliver the Tough Love. Coaching in any discipline isn't always a pleasant experience - there's some tension, anxiety and tough love that needs to be delivered. Entrepreneurs will appreciate a straight shooter and someone who isn't simply a rah-rah champion. You need to deliver the brutal reality at the appropriate moment and then give them a pick me up too. I've never been one to shy away from tough love and in the end, entrepreneurs appreciate it. Just remember, entrepreneurs travel a lonely, stressful road to realize their dream - be careful to strike the right balance.
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What's New @ wendykennedy.com?
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There are lots of new developments at wendykennedy.com, including new organizations adopting So what? who cares? why you?®, new co-branded book programs, new faces, news from the road, and so on.
Below are just a few highlights - check our news page to stay up to date on the latest developments.
1. Online Commercialization Training
As you learned earlier in this bulletin, we're launching a series of educational classes devoted to commercialization and entrepreneurship. Classes start August 13th and will run monthly. They'll be content rich and focused on skill development for inventors, entrepreneurs and technology transfer professionals. They are limited in enrollment to allow for discussion and participation during the session. Register EARLY to reserve a seat.
2. ToolShed Updates
There are always new tutorials, tips, and materials being added to the ToolShed. Two noteworthy additions this month include:
- Getting from Here to There: A Product Roadmap to take Technology to Success
- Spinning Straw into Gold - Technology Features to Benefits in 3 Simple Steps
3. Wendy's Audio CD
If you missed Wendy's audio conference seminar in March, hosted by Technology Transfer Tactics, you can get the audio CD of the entire seminar. Click here to get your copy.
4. FREE Downloads
We've posted two of our most popular checklists in the resources section of our web site:
- A 10 Point Assessment Tool for Technology Transfer
- Customer Conversation Starters
Put them on your office wall to help you navigate a path to success.
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Got an idea or a suggestion? We'd love to hear from you.
Email us at wendy@wendykennedy.com or call Wendy at 613-851-6621.
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