Monday, March 30, 2009

Green Festival thoughts

Lots of folks show up again at Seattle's Green Festival, despite a seemingly "down" economy. Could it be that sustainability helps business keep an even keel despite fluctuations in the stock market? Methinks so.

Regarding "getting customers" at trade shows: I don't subscribe to the idea. It's too stressful to think in those terms for me. I like "make relationships". This opens it all up, and lets you think about every single person you see as a relationship, from the folks that clean the floors of "soy-product" when we've all packed up, to the people who sign up for our services.

Just connect to people and have fun. Let that be the purpose of the trade show and do the business-y stuff another day. ( That is, unless, you really do get lots of real work from the shows due to your particular revenue model. For the business-to-business folks who specifically cater to the trade show folks, it's all nitty gritty business all day, and the "relationship building + fun" stuff might not be your best bet. Try it toward the end of the day after you've done all the heavy lifting...)

Friday, March 20, 2009

Deep Green Public Speaking

As Campbell Energy evolves, we have been asked to speak on a number of occasions to a wide variety of audiences. After a few gigs, it became clear that this was something we are good and happen to love. I am personally very comfortable speaking in front of small or large audiences, and it really is the best way to communicate with as many people as possible. I like the web, don't get me wrong, but public speaking jazzes both the speaker and the audience in a way that is hard to quantify. We have been doing gigs for free for the most part, but when we add the in-depth Q&A the value of the engagement intensifies and becomes much more value-added. Interestingly, I like doing the Q&A so much that I would be very excited to do a 15 minute talk with 45 minutes of discussion afterward. It lets the group and each individual member really get something directly applicable to them, without the speaker being able to push some sort of agenda. I have priced my deep green public speaking at $500 for smaller audiences, and up to $1500 for larger audiences, but the Q&A component size really makes these opportunities invaluable to groups who take full advantage to ask questions that drill down deeply and personally. We'll see where this takes us, but I suspect we'll be adding more venues and different formats to this offering in the future, with anticipation of growing and evolving alongside the discussions. For Questions, email aaron at campbell dash energy dot com.