Create your own visibility
How do you create visibility for yourself, get noticed, step out into the spotlight and become the center of attention in your space and make an impression? Does it mean that you half to launch a new product or hire the CEO of Microsoft followed by a stellar press release? Not necessarily.
I remember back some years ago when I was in the recruitment space. One night I was sitting home watching a little TV when “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” came on. If you recall the format of the show, Bill had two guests sitting to his right and two guests sitting to his left; all of them celebrities in some fashion with Bill sitting at the head of the invisible table in the middle. Bill brought up sensitive topics for discussion and encouraged each of his guests to weigh in, while an attentive audience positioned all around them listened in like a fly on the wall as they expressed their views.
Back at the office I had been contemplating whether to fork over the money to participate and have a booth at a local human resources conference in an effort to get some exposure for my company, and promote some of the new products that we had just developed. I contacted a colleague of mine over at the Boston Herald who I knew had attended the event a few times over the past several years, and asked him what kind of visibility and exposure they were able to gain from it. He went on to tell me that the booths were positioned down a corridor that led to the main conference hall, and that if you were lucky you might get in front of a 150 VPs, Directors and HR Managers as they passed by with the chance to actually speak to 20 to 30 of them during the course of the day. He said “We’re just going because we have to make an appearance, we really don’t get much out of it.” For the price tag that they attached to it, the ROI just wasn’t what I was looking for.
After I hung up the phone I remember thinking back to the TV show that I watched the previous night. And then it hit me – That would make a GREAT format for a conference! Yup, you guessed it. I decided to hold my own.
I had been in the space for several years developing out-of-the-box strategies during the dot-com boom for companies like Sun Microsystems, Akamai, Nortel, Motorola as well as mid-sized companies and some hopeful, well funded start-ups. The problem that I was running into was that I was viewed more or less by these companies as their little secret, and even though I had enough to keep me busy, I felt that it was time that I made a splash and grab a little bit of the industry spotlight.
My first step was to come up with a name for the conference and create a simple website to make it real. I called it “Recruiting Views”. In my mind the site was designed to accomplish a few things – 1.) Be a brochure. 2.) Offer exposure as part of a package to potential sponsors. (You didn’t think that I was actually going to pay for this whole thing out of my pocket did you?) 3.) Provide a means for attendees to register.
Using the “Politically Incorrect” format as a basic model, I began to make some calls and recruit my industry “celebrities”. At the same time I leverage my contacts in the space to help me get the word out to the masses and started approaching vendors who I knew would love to get in front of an audience like the one that I was about to assemble.
When the dust settled, this is what happened:
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The event was held at the Sheraton Hotel
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We provided an impressive buffet breakfast
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I had a celebrity panel of eight industry power players
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I had headhunter.net (now CareerBuilder.com) promote the event to their database and enlisted the resources of several other players as well
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I had a 24 page four-color event directory
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Sold sponsorships that included a booth, a four-color full-page ad in the event directory and a banner on the site for $2,500 each
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And had an attendance of over 300 HR professionals from every company imaginable in the area, that included some of my existing clients who were very well known in HR circles
Now the stage was set. I grabbed a microphone and played the role of Phil Donahue (dating myself here). I introduced myself as their host along with my assistant, who also had a microphone at the other end of the room and just happened to be from Headhunter.net. Because of how large Headhunter.net was at the time, by them participating at my event only served to elevate the perception of me in the minds of those attending who didn’t know who I was. It also didn’t hurt that one of the panelists was an executive from Hotjobs.com.
I walked around with my microphone as members of the audience asked the celebrity panel questions. I also made it a point to offer my two cents ad engage in the conversation in order to be seen as an active participant and expert in the field. During the halftime break I made it a point to say hello to my existing clients at just the right time. That time of course was when they were surrounded by their colleagues. As we exchanged hugs and handshakes they stepped back and introduced me to all of their friends.
I then laughed as I passed by my own booth that we had set up at the conference. Why – because we had one of those glass phone booths that people stood inside of while money blew all around them as they tried to grab as much as they could in 30 seconds. Whatever they could grab was theirs to keep, and HR people were lining up to make fools out of themselves before the conference got back in session. By the way, the money booth was part of a promotion for an employee referral product that we were just about to launch. Oh yeah, did I mention that 7 of the ads in the event directory were mine?
In the end this is what I walked away with:
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Over 300 HR decision makers (potential clients) within a matter of hours knew me by name
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My status in the space was elevated due to the fact that the power players (panelists) in the industry knew who I was, and everyone knew that they knew who I was. (Say that three times fast)
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I got great visibility for the new ERP product that I was about to launch and had everyone talking for weeks about the money booth
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300 VPs, Directors and HR Managers left with a directory that contained seven of my own ads
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The event was the buzz of the industry in the week that followed
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By leveraging my contacts and resources I didn’t spend a dime in marketing
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I actually walked away $2,000 profit when all was said and done, so my cost to produce and market the event was ZERO
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Best of all I had to bring on two more people to handle the amount of new business that followed
By the way, the entire thing was put together in three weeks by me and my assistant, so if you’re thinking that you don’t have the resources to do something like this – you’re wrong.
I apologize for the long post, I just wanted to provide you with the rhyme and reason as to why I did what I did and what advantages I believe I gained as a result along the way.
Duke
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