Reply to: The direct marketing thread

[Clippy]

Absolutely fkn spot on mate. Will definately go. Top work, thanks very much

No problemo - would appreciate it if you could feedback via this thread.

While I'm on a roll, not sure if the below is useful:

Home Enterprise Day

Friday 20th November 2009 is the UK’s first ever Home Enterprise Day!

It’s a day to celebrate anyone and everyone who is starting and growing a business from home.


And there’s plenty of ways to get involved:

• Join us on the home business roadtrip

• Enter the Home Business Awards

• Attend the Enterprise Nation Conference

• Run your own event

[d000hg]

Chill out tulip, I'll be there.

I assumed your business ambitions would be on hold with the new contract in place?

[Zippy]

Fair enough. Not sure myself but am in London anyway.

[RichardCranium]

Oi RC! Are you going to go?

'Fraid not.

a) my field is managing large public sector systems implementation. I'm not sure the event would be relevant to me, nor can I see how it could help me.

b) that's the day of the inspection on our current rented house and we give the keys back.

[Zippy]

Oi RC! Are you going to go?

[Zippy]

Chill out tulip, I'll be there.

Top notch event then

[suityou01]

Thanks Clippy. Would love to go but slightly worried aboout who I might meet

Might give it a go.

Chill out tulip, I'll be there.

[Zippy]

Came across the below and thought it may be of use to some (SY01/d00hg):

Thanks Clippy. Would love to go but slightly worried aboout who I might meet

Might give it a go.

[suityou01]

Came across the below and thought it may be of use to some (SY01/d00hg):

Absolutely fkn spot on mate. Will definately go. Top work, thanks very much

[Clippy]

Came across the below and thought it may be of use to some (SY01/d00hg):

The London Entrepreneurial Meet
Tuesday 8th Sept, 2009

Achieve you business and personal goals faster.

This is regular networking event for entrepreneurs and individuals who are currently thinking about starting a business and for established entrepreneurs who are trying to grow and develop their businesses.

The event is also for freelancers, home workers who can help entrepreneurs grow and develop their businesses. We especially would like to meet web & IT specialists, sales & marketing professionals, admin & secretarial, finance, accounting & legal professionals.

If you have small business, just thinking about starting up a business or a service provider to small and start up businesses then these events are what you are looking for.

Do you have a business idea and don’t know what to do next?
Come along and speak to other successful entrepreneurs about how they got started and speak to people who can help your get your idea up and running.

Do you have a business that’s currently struggling in the current economic climate?
Come and speak to other business owners about how they are currently dealing with what’s going on today.

Would you like to increase the sales in your current business and increase your profits?
Come along and see how other successful entrepreneurs are increasing their sales and profit margins.

Please tell your friends and associates about us.

This is a networking event so make sure you have your business cards with you and be prepared to network.

[d000hg]

Right, just back from breakfast club. A few first impressions.
...
This is my immediate thoughts, just back so flame away.

Sounds very similar to what I'm doing tomorrow... breakfast->1min pitch->someone gives a talk->a couple of 10min 'appointments'.
A little nervous, and I have no idea what to say in my pitch - keeping it understandable to non-techies without being patronising.

I like your ideas on aiming your services at tech-related companies like web-design companies (who tend to be useless at code). I was thinking that even software houses might be good targets... if they focus on desktop apps they might want someone who can do the "web thing" etc.

[d000hg]

VMWare, Microsoft action pack.

Around £300 in total. All the popular server OS's and apps in one bundle from MS for £200.

HTH

Not really, when MS represents about 1% of software out there. For a start, what about Oracle, Sybase & DB2? Then, all the millions of random apps out there... anyway I suppose for anything non-standard you can legitimately request the client provide a configured test-box, and for standard things (like databases) maybe you just splash out on the cheapest license you can find. I was amazed to find you can get a DB2 license for £hundreds, I'd expected it to be in the thousands.

[suityou01]

Right, just back from breakfast club. A few first impressions.

1. A good opportunity to talk to other small businesses in the local area. At worst case an opportunity to build up a network of people just in case you need something.

2. A good way to learn about offers for local businesses, such as just up the road are offering free office rent for 6 months! Nice posh new offices "n'all".

3. A slightly terrifying experience as you need to stand up and give a 60 second spiel about what you do. This came off the back of talking to an ex IT manager about what I do prior to the round the table, who after my carefully worded planned spiel said, "right, but I still don't know what you do." After my 60 seconds in the limelight many people came and spoke to me afterwards, and seemed to grasp perfectly what I do. Needs some pondering because all feedback is valid, and if this one guy represents 10% of future clients who don't geddit then the pitch needs tweaking.

4. Good opportunity to catch swine flu, with all the coughing, sneezing and handshaking going on at close quarters in a stuffy Travel Inn conference room.

5. It made me reflect on how many businesses there were, and what different types of business showed a slight sniff of interest. The johnny pr men, or HR peeps did not seem interested. The corporate branding guy was interested as he does a lot of CMS work, and the IT services company were similarly interested.

It would seem initially from this learning experience my next targeted local campaign should be to IT related businesses, be it web houses that turn work away because they can't do databases, or the IT services company that are in a similar spot. By offering my services to these established businesses they can fortify their product range a bit, and approach clients with a bit more width to their services, I get to trade on their coat tails a bit (unashamedly) so their could be a sort of symbiosis.

I would not rest on my laurels though, and would still do the breakfast clubs, still do the cold calls.

This is my immediate thoughts, just back so flame away.

Oh and NO MOLLIE F*****G RINGWOLD WAS NOT THERE.

[suityou01]

I suppose you're right. The problem is that in my experience, this would require getting a rig running that's a reasonable copy of their system, with potentially expensive software and lots of app-specific config.

Maybe that's only on some systems though, and I just had bad experiences Certainly with a test system, it mostly all ends up being the same thing in the end.

VMWare, Microsoft action pack.

Around £300 in total. All the popular server OS's and apps in one bundle from MS for £200.

HTH

[d000hg]

I wouldn't be so downbeat. I am after all from a hardcore coding background too. You could write someone a CRM database right? You could integrate an off the peg CRM solution with their accounts package if you learnt the APIs? That's largely all systems integration is.

Message queues, APIs, SOA.

I suppose you're right. The problem is that in my experience, this would require getting a rig running that's a reasonable copy of their system, with potentially expensive software and lots of app-specific config.

Maybe that's only on some systems though, and I just had bad experiences Certainly with a test system, it mostly all ends up being the same thing in the end.