Nick Griffin
Forum Replies Created
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Sam-
I haven’t been to NAPTE but I do a fair amount of trade show work across multiple industries.
The key to a successful booth is that it involves reaching both those who stop and spend time as well as those who simply pass by. Hopefully some of the passers-by are attracted enough to stop and want to learn more, but there is some long-term value in the masses at least seeing your name.
Use the big screen for very simple things, extremely short grabber scenes and other things that show your work is unique. These clips must be characteristics that can be identified in seconds. The other thing that the the pass-by needs to walk away with is your name and this is what background graphics are for. (That any nothing screams low budget amateur like having just the poll and drape provided by the show.) It also helps tremendously if you have a descriptive line under your name. Something like “Extreme White Knuckle Action” (or whatever it is you do).
The next consideration is what you do with visitors once you have them. Those who stop rather than pause will tolerate longer bites of your material, so the smaller screens are perfect for this. Headphones for these units would also be a good idea.
Finally, set up at area for those who you REALLY want to get inolved with. At the opposite end from the Big screen have a small seating area — a short couch, a chair or two and a coffee table — where you can invite the truly serious to sit down and talk with you. There you might want a laptop or small monitor where you can reference particular material, but the idea in the sitting area is serious talk, not an extended watching of scenes.
And finally, finally (unless I think of another “finally”) have a printed piece cheap enough that everyone who wants one can take one, but nice enough that a serious buyer can get information and a feel for what you do from it. At a minimum it should be printed 4/color and contain multiple still captures of what makes you unique. If you want to give away DVDs, do so to the couch visitors once you’ve qualified them.
OH… and one last thought… (see you knew it was coming)… one of the biggest factors in trade show success is what YOU do AFTERWARD. Collect names and cards and follow-up in the weeks and even months afterwards with phone calls and emails. Sounds pretty basic, but that’s where you get the most from your trade show investment.
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Viola! Do wonders never cease? Thans, Tom. I knew there had to be an easy way to do this. I assume that as “sub-clips” they do not duplicate the media, just the “directions” to it?
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Wait a minute! Stinton and I went out to dinner the last time I was in Toronto and I paid! You mean he was holding out on me???
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Steve Wargo: “…they wanted to be able to pay in 60 – 75 days.”
The real question, Steve, is did you take the gig? I don’t know if the concept was invented in the 80s or 90s, but somewhere along the line financial brains in many big corporations figured out that they could boost the performance of their own companies simply by holding onto their payables longer. This practice is rampant in some sectors.
Very large retail, like the one you mentioned pushes this on smaller vendors because there’s so little push back. What’re you gonna do? Walk away from the business? My solution, when I can identify this in advance, is to build in a small amount of money which well exceeds the cost of my having borrowed the money for 60 – 90 days.
And while I do use Quickbooks Pro to run the business, the invoicing and statements which go out are created in Filemaker. It gives a LOT more flexibility in the look and format and, afterall, invoicing can sometimes be one of the month’s most creative tasks. 😉
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Welcome, Tim. We look forward to the clarity of your wisdom. And thanks for helping to give the BizCow one of the most populated mastheads.
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Invoices aren’t anything special. The simplest way to create one is to simply take a piece of letterhead — for for that matter any piece of paper with your name, address, etc. printed on it and put the word “Invoice” on it. Then you should briefly describe the service(s)/ product(s) followed by a cost. It’s up to you how much detail you want to provide.
For example:
Production of 6 Minute 30 second Sales Video, including 1/2 day location shooting, tape stock, opening title sequence animation, 22 seconds of product animation & editing … $7,500
You could also break out each of these items and list an individual costs. (I don’t recommend that because it just opens a Pandora’s box of dumb questions like “What if we bring our own tapes? Will that save us this money?”)
An invoice should also have a date and terms: “30 days net.”
When you get down to it, an invoice is really a matter of faith. The recipient has to believe that you are accurately describing a service or product you provided for an amount you both had agreed upon. This is partially why many companies create another form labeled “Estimate” that the client agrees to in advance. The estimate can be essentially identical to the one you send at the end of the process only at the end it’s labeled “Invoice.”
Hope this helps.
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Will 5.1.1 make any difference on a PowerPC-based Mac? I was under the impression (perhaps mistaken) that this upgrade did little other than add Universal/Intel capability.
What other fixes does it address?
Thanx for any info.
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As Mark and Ron said above, great post, debe!
Legal proceedings are only worth it when there’s AT LEAST a high five figures or more involved. Or, as stated, if it’s a matter of pride. And then you’ve got to figure out just how much pride you can afford.
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And then there is Head On – obviously repetiton works.
Brilliant. A spot for a headache remedy that actually GIVES you a headache. I lunge for the remote everytime it comes on.
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And speaking of frequency. One of the dumbest mistakes that I see all the time on cable is over buying of single spots. For example, I have CNN and MSNBC on in a corner of the office on a fairly regular basis. That means I might see some spots 20 times in a week, 80 times in a month, a few hundred times before the spot is changed.
This is beyond dumb media buying. Instead of making me more interested it’s boring me to death. An example? Yellow Book. They have one spot at a time and run it into the ground. Saves on talent fees but bores the same audience over and over again.
Good examples of NOT doing this are:
Geico. The Don LaFontain – movie anncr spot is great and the Little Richard spot is the best! And their running these in rotation with some of the older lizzard spots.
Capital One. At least two different campiagns seem to be going at any one time, not just different spots, entirely different themed campaigns.
DiTech. Not great spots, but at least they know that with their frequecny they have to have different spots on a fairly regular basis.
There. I feel better know. Rant off.