Ideas on Networking Events

bizcardexpert |

I set up a small stall in a shopping centre and handed out offers to business owner to advertise for free for one week.

I had mixed reaction, but it seemed to attact attention.

My opening line was “do you have a business card?”, and from there, I would start talking about the displays I had there.

Aaron.

Feb 18, 3:30 PM —

Good idea with the shopping centre…if you are infront of people, you’ll make money. Just like any other busness, this is a numbers game.

I know it’s not easy to get infront of people in numbers on a regular basis, but what you have tested there would no doubt ‘create awareness’ of who you are and what you do…never know who will walk past!

How did it go?

Dean

Feb 18, 9:29 PM —

I accidently tripped over this one! I visited the local community college to get info about a design course I want to take. I started talking to one of the professors and I am going to speak to his sales & marketing class next week. He was excited about my coming because they are talking about “guerilla advertising”…which is what we do!

I am going to suggest one or two of his students take a display…find a location and sell the ads…and make a little $$$$. Will give you an update!

dmiles

I spoke to the sales and marketing class this morning… (See above) What a waste of time!!! Students are being taught to think inside the box…they can’t think outside of the box. The thinking is so traditional…i.e., newspapers, magazines, direct mail, TV, radio…yellow pages. I was asked “How will your business card displays help brand a companies image”…Give me a break…I told them I don’t brand…I deliver results…I send customers to the small businesses that advertise with and they spend money…and I fit the budget of small business owners.None of the people I sell to have the millions of dollars it takes to BRAND…

Made me think…A lot of our potential advertisers are tradtionalists..they wait each week for the newspaper or radio ad salesperson to “pick up their ad” Our task is to get them thinking outside of the box and go for results!

dmiles

Hello everyone,If you want to sell allot of displays look for networking groups in your community. A couple of examples of groups would be
BNI or Letip http://www.bni.com/ or http://www.letip.com/
both of these groups need referrals to stay in the group. Some businesses have the perfect opportunity to give referrals by putting up a display at there location. So lets say you found a group of 24 net workers ,out of that 24 you will find 6-12 of the company’s that would display cards at there location that way everyone in the group would benefit. They would also split the cost of the displays.

Steven Scheeler

Find a local group in your town or city.Talk to the president of that group.Tell them you would like to sit in on one of their meetings. The meetings will be about an hour to 1-1/2 hours and will be either a breakfast meeting or lunch meeting once a week. The first meeting is usually FREE and then you need to decide weather or not you want to join. Try to find the chapters or groups with the most members.
Also look up in your city for a chamber group. They will have events that will give you exposure to the rest of the businesses. For example our Scottsdale chamber has once a month meetings were about 10 - 15 tables of 8 - to 10 people will give each other a 2 min commercial about there business. You will then go to a different table and tell them about your business. Not bad you get to tell 16-20 people about what you do.They also have once a month meetings were you can give a 30 second what they call elevator speach about your company in front of 100-150 business depending on the size of your city.( what is a elvator speach? It is a spaech about your company in a way to get them to ask for your business card for more info.Remember you only have one floor or 30 seconds to get your point across.) Back to BNI. If you can get a hold of the district manger of that chapter you might be able to put the BNI logo on the back board for credibility which shows people shaking hands and supporting their community..

Hope this helps

Steven Scheeler
Desert Breeze Glass