Welcome to the How of Business with David Begin and Henry Lopez, the podcast that offers practical advice and tips on how to run and grow your small business.

The How of Business helps aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners achieve their definition of success and overcome challenges that get in their way.

This podcast series focuses on the everyday common business issues,

challenges, and opportunities that face the small business owner. So here now are your hosts of the

How of Business, David and Henry. Welcome to this episode of The How of Business. This is Henry

Lopez, and I have a guest with me today, John at Livesee. John, welcome to the show. Henry, it's great to be with you today. We're great to have you. John, or it's a pleasure to have you, I should say. John is a sales expert and a funding strategist. He has over 20 years of experience. He's the host of his own podcast. It's called

The Successful Pitch. And he speaks with investors from around the world. And he's also the pitch

mentor at startfast.net. They are the number one accelerator, business accelerator, in

upstate New York. John gives his

startups the pitching secret to become irresistible to investors. When John works with

startups, they become master storytellers so that they can inspire investors to join their team.

He's the author of a couple of books, the seven most powerful selling secrets, and his latest book, The Successful Pitch. I have not had a chance to read them yet, but he's going to tell us a bit about it, especially the successful pitch. Because in this episode, we're going to chat with John about his entrepreneurial journey and get some really good insights for small businesses on this big topic of

funding, which is obviously a big challenge for all small business owners. It's been a challenge

for me as I've started businesses. It's a challenge for my small business clients. So John lives

in the Los Angeles area. He'll tell us here more about his background, but John Livesey, welcome to the show. Thanks again. Looking forward to a nice chat about how to make yourself irresistible to investors. Yeah, I love it, love it. So you live in L.A.? Have you always lived in the L.A. area? No, I'm originally from the Chicago suburbs. I went to college at the University of Illinois,

and then I moved out to San Francisco and worked in Silicon Valley and then moved down to Southern California.

Oh, fantastic. And you went to school and studied advertising, if I've got that right.

You did, yes, indeed. I've always been fascinated by the intersection of

entertainment and business, and that to me is what advertising really is. Did you always look at it

that way, and what kind of sparked that interest early in life? Well, years ago, I used to watch a

television show that most of your listeners are probably too young to remember called Bewitched.

And Darren Stevens, I thought, had a really cool job.

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