What is your formula for success?

I drove down to New York from Boston this weekend with a couple of friends.

Driving and talking usually leads to the revelation of theories and philosophies, and I came up with the concept of success and it not being an accident, i.e. that continual success is usually the result of some unconscious or conscious formula repeated over and over. I also the you are more likely to know what your success formula consciously the more successful you are.

What is your formula?

Here's mine:

1) Belief in yourself to the point that you could reach any goal you create for yourself;
2) Momentum behind you;
3) A decision to take action;
3) A understanding of the resources you need to get there(money, time, outside help, etc);
4) A step by step guideline on how to get there with milestones(measurement);
5) A willingness to change course or tinker with the path, or add resources, etc.;
6) A healthy dose of persistence, sometimes when no-one else will support or help you and in the possible face of derision;
7) Figuring a way to enjoy the process;
8) Assuming you hit the goal, figuring a way to make the success 'portable' so you can replicate it on other projects.

Am I missing anything?

Drinking from the Fire Hose

Last week I put out an advertisement in both LinkedIn and on a Senior Networking site looking for contractors to help me with the large number of future contracts I may soon get this fall.

Wow was I surprised at the response! I must have got 20 emails in two days, and I am still wading through them, trying to get in touch with everyone while still getting to my 'day job'.

I am really impressed with the talent that is available, just hope that some of the folks can stick around when times get better....

The new event landscape

As I mentioned before, I was at the SISO Executive Conference last week.

What did I learn?

That times are tough for most people with some events off 40% of their paid conference attendees from 2008. Funny that, as my business has never been better. What I think we are seeing is the transformation of the industry to one that is more agile, flexible and user focused.

Gone are the days when you could put up the tent and push a button and send out hundreds of thousands of emails into the unknown, hoping a gimmick will convince faceless thousands to hit the link entitled 'register here'. Gone are the days when top executives don't pick up the phone to speak with key buyers to make sure they're providing ROI. Gone are the days when events are just project management charts and budgets and internal meetings.

The customer(information consumer) now decides whether they will pay ANY attention to you. The show was good last year, but what's in it for me now? Maybe I'll just view a webinar on the subject, I can't be seen in Las Vegas/Orlando/Kansas City/San Francisco for a week enjoying myself, my own job's at risk.....

I think that the events business when it comes back(some say in 2011), it will be half the size in terms of employees as it was in 2007. The revenue for events may be the sames(or greater) for the winners...but is there room for a number 3 or 4 show in a market segment anymore which isn't regional?

Sounds tough? If you are reading this then you're asking me, Warwick what do I have to do to survive in this business?

Here's my prescription:

1) Get profit and ROI focused. No matter what position you have, make sure the bottom line is in your sights always;

2) Remove yourself from the office politics as best as you can;

3) Get to know your customers and their customers;

4) Try to make an impact on your job every day and at least every week;

5) Learn from problems and mistakes, and don't make the same mistake twice;

6) Find extra work to do, volunteer, and take on someone else's load if at all possible;

7) Learn about social media and how it can help your business;

8) Pay attention to the trends in the marketplace;

9) Network and learn from other companies' events;

10) Plan for the long term;

11) Read my blog and give me comments, I am about to post some real valuable stuff.


You know where to find me.....

Return from the SISO Executive Conference

Wow, in the middle of summer I am yet again insanely busy, with a client event and then the SISO Executive Conference in NYC.

I was especially looking forward to Barry Libert's sessions on community building. Barry is an old client when I was helping him at Shared Insights, so I got a chance to speak with him at the function on the battleship Intrepid the night before.

We agreed that some of the reasons why social media or inbound marketing is not taking off in the event space is because:

1) The events business is a technology laggard;
2) The whole area is reasonably new;
3) Not every event manager is focused on social media as a means of providing value to the market, just another tactic to 'drive revenue'.
4) There is not alot of strategy making going on, just using tools such as Twitter which may or may not work.

As Barry mentioned, the key also is giving up control, ie letting the users build content within your community which is SCARY. Most traditional event producers won't let this happen.

Oh, and I came across this blog called the Trade Show Marketing Report which is going under apparently. Looks like some good content and right about social media......

Onwards to Labor Day