Opinion

Is your pitch getting emotional? Because it should be

By Tommy Felts / March 2, 2016

When it comes to selling your product or service, the devil truly is in the details. Despite what bad salesmen might tell you, people don’t buy based on features or price. Decision making is rooted primarily in the part of our brain that controls emotions. Science shows that regardless of whether we are buying a…

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Cut the crap: How to discern worthwhile advice

By Tommy Felts / February 29, 2016

In my early days as an entrepreneur, I ran into a lot of consultants who claimed to be “experts” and guaranteed they could help me out. Then I’d do some fact-checking and discover they were neither reliable nor experts, and their advice wasn’t worth the space in our email inboxes. In the last few years,…

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Pettet to students: Get off your duffs

By Tommy Felts / February 26, 2016

Editor’s note: The following letter was submitted to Startland News by Zach Pettet,  a recent graduate of the University of Kansas City-Missouri, in response to a recent conversation on student engagement in the area entrepreneurial community.  Dear students of Kansas City, You’ve been the subject of some open letter writing recently. Have you noticed? Probably not.…

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Brown: ‘Most entrepreneurial city’ should act like it with Airbnb regulations

By Tommy Felts / February 25, 2016

Editor’s note: Kansas City is mulling regulations that would affect the operations of more than 300 “home-sharing” properties in the area. The proposed regulations would impose a $600 permitting fee and a host of other stipulations on hosts of Airbnb, VRBO and other similar services.  New technology brings promises of a better future. But it…

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The impact and challenges of cultivating champions of your startup

By Tommy Felts / February 22, 2016

I recently wrote about the importance of building a close relationship with a champion of your company. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor, notes that “women have twice as many mentors as men, but half as many sponsors.” A mentor can provide advice and perspective, but a sponsor or champion…

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