Difference-Making

Let me get this out of the way first:  I lopped it off.  Turns out I really didn't even have to rationalize the haircut.  It's just one less complication in life.  Can't tell you how many times I've searched the house high and low for a small rubber band. No regrets and the staff thinks I look cuter.

So I went on an interview Friday.  Good company.  Owner is a very nice guy and knowledgeable about his product.  And I admire his conviction to sticking to specializing in one small corner of the exhibition world. I could sell it.

But at the end of the day, it's comes down to this being one of those product categories that doesn't really have much of a barrier to competition and isn't changing the playing field.  It's just your ability to sell vs. your competition's ability to sell basically the same thing.  That turns on some people.  And it's certainly why excellent salespeople are compensated excellently.

It may very well come down to working just for the money at some point.  But over the past decade, I've been fortunate enough to find myself in situations where it wasn't just the money.  It was making a difference and an impact, from both product and marketing perspectives.  No blowing smoke up anyone's butt.  That's not necessary when you're too busy changing the entire game for your market.  Did it at Passkey.  Did it with Aldo Coffee.  In some respects we even did it at Coverings.  And before that, the Internet World shows.

In each case, anyone else in that market had to react to what we were doing.  In each case we had many more customers who wouldn't think of going elsewhere because the falloff in value and benefits received was simply too great.  The product delivered.  Customers were allies, not adversaries to conquer.

It comes down to this.

Where's that gig?

Comments

[Promotional Products]

I wish I had the ability to accept jobs that weren't about the money. Constantly trying to constantly sell something can be very difficult if you don't genuinely believe in the product.

[Larry]

It depends on your age. At my age it gets harder to pull off the ponytail.

http://www.youHUGE.com

[Tim Bourquin]

Couple of them off the top of my head:

http://www.Pathable.com
http://www.EventMingle.com

[rich]

That's how out of the loop I've been... didn't even cross my mind to look into that, since none of them are around here (and so many of them were pure b.s. even just a couple of years ago).

But it's a good recommendation - will look into it.

[Tim Bourquin]

Interesting points Rich. I reminded me that there are a lot of startups working on social networking for the event industry.

Trouble is, they know online social networking well, but not so much when it comes to the trade show business.

I think there would be a nice fit for you at one of those companies trying to drag the trade show organizer into the 21st century.