Donald Crookes, Sr. • The Bootcamp was greater than my expectations, the value was exponentially greater than the dollar investment. It really helped to put definition in some areas that I thought I had a clear understanding about, the Bootcamp helped add refinement in these areas, and while I knew they were important before, I absolutely know how important they are now.
The “webinars” were “excellent”, the Q&A sessions were OK (participation lacked, would suggest finding a way to reach out through the ether and shake people by the lapels). Several of the “Ask a Pro” sessions were impressive, especially Mark Simpson at Saul Ewing, and Jim Nail at Forester. Both content and interviewing style worked well, Linda did a great job of leading into exceedingly important topic in a most casual conversational style, now and then going a bit far in directions I failed to follow, nonetheless gave me opportunity to write well framed questions.
The online worksheets are great, although the dashboard was confusing to use when submitting responses – none of my responses were saved. The worksheets are well planned and well laid out. If you worked with them, you learned. I did not have time to read through the accompanying text and got my information instead from listening to the training webinars.
I thought the LinkedIn group was a fabulous idea and tried to get people more engaged by posting something outrageous. When I was taking MBA classes with U Phoenix, we submitted responses online daily to a question of the day. All twelve members of the class submitted a critique of all response. Varying prospective can be enormously educational and informative.
With respect to follow on offerings from Plano & Simple, the greatest value received from the Bootcamp was in organizing the pitch, i.e., breaking it down into small pieces, then compiling longer ones for appropriate situations; elevator pitch, one minute, etc.
Learning about the Fear & Greed perspective is essential, especially in terms of trying to understand how it will impact a particular audience. It also helped me take a good look at what I have and figure out what it means for that individual audience in other words, “why does this person I am speaking with care about what I have to offer”.
The pace of the Bootcamp was neither too fast nor too slow. I wouldn’t recommend trying to do an abbreviated one day format.
Having a monthly online “mastermind” group would be very useful. The idea would be to have a monthly “check up” WRT with the 10 Question and address and pressing issues for the members.
“Deep Dive” online workshops or Bootcamp were less appealing, although some topics might be well suited for it. For instance, finding good legal help, both IP and corporate plus addressing legal issues. Also one focused on team issues: hiring, HR, building an adviser board or board of directors, acquiring partners.
Donald William Crookes, Sr.
