reception of NOTHS
Last Saturday I went up to Richmond to the Not on the High Street HQ. A few times a year they have a pitch up, like an open mic, where you can show your products. I felt confident that I had a good idea, but after my research on them, my optimism was some what reduced as they only take 20% of all their applications.
After registering and waiting in a cool stage type room with a load of other wannabes, we got called, to go to the top floor. Emotions were shared in the lift, it felt like a school exam, Dragons Den and Britain’s Got Talent. In the open plan top floor space, it was set up like an exam. We waited our turn, people were quiet, it was quite tense and everybody was playing their cards very close to their chest.
I still felt confident until the moment my name was called my nerves his me. Fran and Ella were very nice (and they both had children!). The lovely speech I had prepared was a load of blabber words. I couldn't remember what I wanted to tell them. Luckily my pitch was saved by the images. I gave them three case studies. I showed them some children's drawings to which they related a lot. I then showed them the final outcome of the drawings and they were impressed. I blabbered on a bit more, showed them the pricing including their cut, money chat always makes me nervous but while I was trying to find my frame samples, the money chat passed me by completely.
I had returned to reality and looked at them, suddenly realising I had waffled on for too long without much feedback. My confidence sank to my shoes for a moment, what did they think? And Fran said, she thought work was brilliant and quality excellent, and yes would I like to become a partner…
I was in… I had 5 more minutes of stumbling around repacking my products and with a winning lottery ticket, I stumbled into the next room to sign up. I did it even if my performance was dissapointing!
A big goal was achieved, I worked towards this possibility for a long time, now I will set another one.
