This post is about one of my 45-second pitches at my BNI Chapter, BNI City Business. You can read the introduction to this collection here.

I wanted a series of pitches around the subject of buying a business. I sat down in August to design the slides for the series, and therefore the rest of the year. I subsequently changed the sequence a couple of times (sometimes I just wasn’t feeling it), and ultimately dropped a couple that weren’t as funny as I had originally thought.

Once I had the series’ topics set up, I went in search of the right jokes/memes to use. I then created this slide to introduce the series. Some of the jokes were perhaps more risque than I had used previously, and I wanted here to set that scene – without giving it all away.

With the start of this set of slides, I also have better notes as to when I used the slide. In this case, 30 September, 2022.

This joke is very Pythonesque, which appeals to me, and was used as I found it.

The pitch message was that when buying a business, don’t be afraid to upset the vendor with your questions. In a discussion with the new owner of a business (not a client), they told me they had deliberately not asked pointed questions of the vendor for fear of upsetting them – and they believed an alienated vendor would tank the deal. Their lack of probing had come back to bite them. Hence a good fit with the theme.

Somewhat ironically, I had met with a member of my chapter for a 121 that week. A 121 (‘one to one’) is a meeting with another BNI member to get to know them, better understand their business, and how you can help them grow their business. In the course of the 121 discussion, we touched on her religious upbringing and schooling, and how she had broken her toe by stubbing it on some furniture. She was still in a moon boot.

I was biting my tongue through this chat. I had already put the slide together, but could easily see how that member might have thought it was a reference to her. I wondered if I should swap out the slide for something else. But then I re-read my own slide and decided to be true to my own words.