IAM1566 – CEO Helps Professionals Create Persuasive Pitches

CEO & Co-founder of Brevity Pitch, an AI-powered software helping professionals, create persuasive pitches, Kelvin Johnson has versatile career experience as a CPA, consultant, and executive at a fast-growth tech startup in Denver. He is the author of the forthcoming novel, “Don’t Fear The Sharks: Six Principles to Pitch Investors,” coming out in October 2022. Johnson graduated from Villanova University with a Master's in Accountancy.

• CEO Story: From CPA to management consulting helping early-stage entrepreneurs with their finances, sales, and most especially the pitch. Communications software as a service company serves the market gap in creating clear, concise, and compelling stories
• Business Service: AI-powered tool that helps people craft and deliver pitch deck that sells. Relevant for fundraising, sales, interview for a job, or corporate presentations.
• Secret Sauce: The aggregation of helping people refine their story, content, message, and delivery.
• CEO Hack: Deep breathing exercises. Journaling – R (recognition of the emotions) A (acceptance of the emotions) I (investigating why, what's the root cause) N (nourishment/non-identification)
• CEO Nugget: Hire by methodology. Stay consistent. Especially in the early stages of the company.
• CEO Defined: Chief energy officer, chief everything officer. CFO chief follow-up officer. Time blocking.

Website: brevitypitch.com

LinkedIn: kelvin-johnson-cpa

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Transcription

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00:23 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:51 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, this is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Kelvin Johnson of Brevity. Kelvin, it's great to have you on the show, Gresh.

00:59 – Kelvin Johnson

Thanks for having us.

01:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. Excited to have you all on and talk about all the awesome things you've been working on. Before we jump into the interview, I wanted to read a little bit more about Kelvin so you could hear about some of those awesome things. And CEO and co-founder of Brevity and AI Powered Software helping professionals create persuasive pitches. Kelvin has versatile career experience as a CPA consultant and executive at a fast-growing tech startup in Denver.

He's the author of the forthcoming novel Don't Fear the Sharks. Six Principles to Pitch Investors coming out in October 2022. Johnson graduated from Villanova University with a Master's in accountancy. Super excited to have you on the show, Kelvin. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:41 – Kelvin Johnson

Absolutely. I'm excited for this.

01:43 – Gresham Harkless

All right, well, let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you got started. What I call your CEO story.

01:50 – Kelvin Johnson

Yeah. How do we land on Brevity? Right. So before Brevity, I was running a consultancy called Humble Warrior Advisors. Even in the background you kind of highlighted a lot of how I went from being a CPA to now how you run a communication software as a service company. I went from being a CPA, did management consulting, and eventually was the fifth employee of a tech company out of Denver.

From that experience, I started my own consultancy called Humble Warrior Advisors where I was helping other early-stage entrepreneurs get to that next major milestone, whether that was the help they needed with their Finances, whether that was sales. But what I found myself helping out the most with was the pitch, right? And whether it's to acquire customers or secure funding. When I was running my own consultancy, it was always in the back of my head, how can I productize my insights at scale?

What hurt me was there were a lot of people who found value in my services. But for those who couldn't afford it, how could I actually help those people who have amazing ideas, but have difficulty crafting and delivering a clear, concise, and compelling pitch? So I asked myself that question. I started asking questions, what are the options for people who need to improve and optimize their story to get someone else to take action? So on one side of the spectrum,m you had, like myself, those expensive pitch coaches and consultants that not necessarily everybody could afford to help clarify their message.

On the other end, you had expert books, blogs, and YouTube channels. My discovery showed that a lot of people found it too time-consuming and overwhelming to learn those actions and apply them to action. Then I started to really dive deep into the pitch and presentation software as a service market. I would say 98% of the landscape was hyper-focused on the pitch deck, aesthetics, slide design, layout, and formatting.

We've all seen pretty presentations where you can put lipstick on a pig. So we saw a gap in the market in a self-service manner. How can people create a clear, concise, and compelling story? And that's where we started to go on this journey with Brevity.

04:06 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. Especially like, I think anytime you hear a journey, you don't, oh you hear where you are now. We see this snapshot and we see all the awesome things you're doing with Brevity, but you don't see behind the scenes, the journey of you having that consultancy experience and saying, hey, I'm really great at what I do, but you don't have that opportunity.

It sounds like, to reach as many people and make that impact as you could have. So I love how true entrepreneurial forum, you said, hey, I'm going to actually figure out how to do this and start to delve deeper into like these are the gaps, these opportunities, this is where there's not this service and let's create something around that.

04:39 – Kelvin Johnson

Correct.

04:41 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So I want to drill down a little bit more here, a little bit more about brevity. Could you take us through exactly how it works, and how you're making that impact?

04:49 – Kelvin Johnson

Yes. So again, Brevity is an AI-powered tool that helps people craft and deliver persuasive pitches that sell. That's relevant for fundraising, that's relevant for sales, that's relevant for interviewing for a job, that's relevant for corporate presentations. Asking someone out on a date. We're really designed to help you get that clear, concise, and compelling message to better influence your target audience.

The way this works, I compare a product in two different realms. One is TurboTax. TurboTax did a really great job of taking those long tax filings and breaking them down into consumable, digestible parts. We've applied that same logic for being able to create a pitch script across all those different scenarios. Our product that launches November 2nd, you're going to have over 100 different scenarios where you need to influence, your target audience.

What's difficult for people is how to start a pitch, how to transition, and how to end. So we basically applied that turbo text logic where you're getting step-by-step guidance directives and examples along that path to help you curb writer's block and spur ideas. Then the other way our product works is similar to Grammarly, where we've created our own proprietary pitch intelligence that analyzes your pitch script and provides ways to be more clear, concise, and compelling to better influence that target audience.

06:17 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Absolutely love that. It's so important. I'm glad you talked about all the kinds of use cases, I guess, for lack of a better term, on how people could use it because I almost feel like there's some you said, there's some really phenomenal potential products that serve service, people that are looking for funding or whatever it might be, maybe even just trying to ask that person out on the data, as you kind of talked about too.

But it's almost as if it doesn't happen unless you're able to, with Brevity, a lot of times be concise and effective in the things that you're saying. So I feel like you're helping people to bridge that gap to see those things, whether it be data or obviously the next big thing that's coming outcomes to fruition.

06:53 – Kelvin Johnson

Correct. Because our goal at Brevity is really around being understood. So we can't guarantee that you get fundraising or you close that deal, but the experience we want to have is you don't want to lose opportunities because people don't understand what you do. There's a statistic, there's a Stat form, or a quote from Y Combinator, Michael Siebel, that the number one mistake that founders make is that they can't explain clearly what their business does.

That is exactly what our software is designed for. So whether you're at a networking event, you're in the airport, you're in the elevator, and someone asks you what you do, we have one of the best products, what I would say in the world to be able to do that. The purpose of our platform is to drive engagement. So people actually want to learn more about what you do.

07:42 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. That's so powerful. So it almost makes me wonder is like, do you feel like that's part of your personal or even the business's secret sauce? The ability to kind of take that information and synthesize it and be able to help people to communicate that. Do you feel like that's what sets you apart, it makes you unique?

08:02 – Kelvin Johnson

Yeah, I think it's the Entourage effect. Like, there's not one feature that I would say that's just superior. It's the aggregation of really helping people refine their story, their content or message, and their delivery. I didn't touch on the delivery part, but it's really the Entourage effect of all these features that is the secret sauce in the workflow.

08:24 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely love that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:37 – Kelvin Johnson

The entrepreneurial journey is super, super hard. Your ability to manage stress and your ability to manage emotions is huge because that allows you to think clearly. Right. So one of the big things that George has prompted me to do early in my journey is because I'm a Philadelphia guy, I have a lot of energy, a lot of passion, but a lot of emotion. But your emotions can be either fuel or interference. So he challenged me to become what's called a professional emotions processor.

One of the big things I do probably twice a day is, you know, I do my deep breathing exercises. But I have this journal called Rain and Rain. The acronym stands for the recognition of the emotions, acceptance of the emotions, and investigating why would it try to do some root cause. The end stands for nourishment. Slash, like non-identification. So literally, journal journaling out.  I feel anxious about it. I accept. Because a lot of people are like, you shouldn't feel this way.

No, you got to recognize, you got to accept it, investigate why. Then you got to find a way to get some nourishment and you know, not have some non-identification with that emotion. So you can process that fully and move on. So you can think in the most think as clearly as possible. We make so many decisions as CEOs, you know, outside of exercise and diet and all that other stuff. But I think really processing your emotions has been something that's been super helpful for me in my journey.

10:14 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that. Especially the way to think through those things and being able to spell out rain and have that for like a better term exercise to go through that because almost feel with emotions sometimes we can try to push them off or compartmentalize them or say they're not affecting, but I think that you end up giving more power to them.

When I think if you're able to really go through that exercise and explore that emotion. Why am I angry? Why am I happy? Why am I whatever that might be? You start to get more, I don't want to say power, but maybe awareness around it. So it allows you to be more, I guess, empowered by understanding. This is the emotion that I feel and this is how it's resulting. So if you want to redirect it or whatever it might be, you at least have more awareness around what's happening.

10:58 – Kelvin Johnson

Awareness is the first step for any change. Right. So that's why I really, use this twice a day, morning and night.

11:06 – Gresham Harkless

I absolutely love it. So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite business client potentially. Or if you were to hop into a time machine, what might you tell your younger business self?

11:22 – Kelvin Johnson

We get taught a lot of things in life. Right. But it's very easy to and things that you might have done well in other roles. So before brevity, I was introduced to this hiring methodology called the who Hiring method is considered one of the top hiring methodologies in the D.C. private equity space. Right. I did that well under somebody else. When it came to running my own company, it's one of those things that I just forgot about. So having a hiring methodology is something that stays consistent.

You don't have to be by the book per se but have a hiring methodology. Test it out continuously, iterate, but don't, don't hire by bias or even put it this way, even my co-founder, I've known him from 3 years old. I still leverage the who-hiring method when we decide to join forces and it's been unbelievable. It's been my best working relationship in my career.

Have a hiring methodology, and stay consistent. Because regardless if you're running a software company, hardware, you know, fintech, crypto, you're going to have to work with people and align philosophies, core values. Alignment on the vision and mission of the company is super critical, especially at the early stages.

12:42 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on their stuff. So Kelvin, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:52 – Kelvin Johnson

CEO, it means a few things to me. So this may not be super brevity but Chief Energy Officer, Chief Everything Officer, then I like to say, Chief CFO, Chief Follow-up Officer. Right. At the end of the day, it all comes back to you and it's really important to be collaborative. But I would say that as the chief follow-up officer, it's very easy for things to fall through the cracks and I don't want to.

When you asked me a question earlier I'm a big fan of getting things done right. I think that's been mentioned on your podcast multiple times about time blocking. I don't want to bore the audience with the things they've already heard before, but you know that that is super important to make sure the I's are being dotted and the T's are being crossed.

13:46 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. It's so underrated because I feel like, I almost believe it's a misconception about success is that sometimes people feel like the people that are most successful, they try one time and then it happens and then they just do that over and over again, and then their success whatever that means. But it's often that follow-up persistence, a lot of those things, I think are in the recipe of success and it feels like you feel the same way.

14:12 – Kelvin Johnson

Put it this way, even with current investors in my company, the amount of blue, if people use iMessage, the amount of blue doesn't look great. But they ended up investing. Right. So that's the. You gotta be willing to go in the blue.

14:31 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Literally and metaphorically. Right, Exactly. Awesome. Well, Kelvin, truly appreciate that definition and that perspective. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people could get a hold of you. Find out about all the things your team is working on, of course, get a copy of the forthcoming book.

14:58 – Kelvin Johnson

Yeah. So a few things our Instagram is at Brevity Pitch official. We will be launching our commercial product in early November. You can go to brevity pitch.com, and sign up for an account. This is relevant for anybody who's looking to influence and persuade pitches for sales, fundraising, or interviewing for a job. We make sure that, when you're competing with zoom fatigue, lower comprehension rates, and shrinking attention spits, shrinking attention spans, you have something that's clear, concise, that's easy to understand for any time you're looking to present. So appreciate you guys having us on the show.

15:36 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely and to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you and take advantage of all the awesome things that you're doing, but absolutely love everything that you're doing. Again, it's just I think it's so underrated in the ability to communicate what we're thinking and sometimes the great ideas.

I appreciate you taking your genius and being able to kind of share that with so many people and do that to scale. I think it's something that, you know, is obviously very necessary in all aspects of life. So thank you so much and sharing your genius and your brilliance and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:08 – Kelvin Johnson

Absolutely. Thanks, Gresh.

16:10 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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