Rick and Whitney  

Today we had a great show so I want to follow up with a simple resource guide that will give you some of the tools we discussed and the things you should consider when putting on your local event.

The plan:

What is the content? What info will be so compelling that people will want to give their time, money or both to come to your event.
Will you be doing it alone or partnering with other businesses? Go it alone and keep all the spoils for yourself.  Partner with other people and expand your possible reach
.
What is your format?  Is it a workshop, seminar, lecture or something else entirely?

Length?  Don't make it too long or too short.  Keep your event to under 4 hours, serve food and drinks if is longer than 2 hours and build in refreshment/potty breaks.

Presenters.  Will you be delivering all the content or will you have compadres?  More talking heads is definitely better than one.

Marketing your event can be challenging:  Get a plan and stick to it.  Also use Eventbrite, it has everything you need to run an event including payments, badges and email marketing.

Local events can be a profit center or a great way to leverage you as an expert in your field.  Provide compelling content that is relevant and up to the minute and you will sell out your next event for sure.  Partner with other businesses, share mail lists, offset costs and get some new customers in 2009.

Today we had a great show so I want to follow up with a simple resource guide that will give you some of the tools we discussed and the things you should consider when putting on your local event.

The plan:

What is the content? What info will be so compelling that people will want to give their time, money or both to come to your event.
Will you be doing it alone or partnering with other businesses? Go it alone and keep all the spoils for yourself.  Partner with other people and expand your possible reach
.
What is your format?  Is it a workshop, seminar, lecture or something else entirely?

Length?  Don't make it too long or too short.  Keep your event to under 4 hours, serve food and drinks if is longer than 2 hours and build in refreshment/potty breaks.

Presenters.  Will you be delivering all the content or will you have compadres?  More talking heads is definitely better than one.

Marketing your event can be challenging:  Get a plan and stick to it.  Also use Eventbrite, it has everything you need to run an event including payments, badges and email marketing.

Local events can be a profit center or a great way to leverage you as an expert in your field.  Provide compelling content that is relevant and up to the minute and you will sell out your next event for sure.  Partner with other businesses, share mail lists, offset costs and get some new customers in 2009.

Local engagement events are perfect for gaining the interest of your current or prospective customers. How can you get an event organized, get partners to help out and do it all without going broke? We will be covering just that on this week's broadcast and you can learn how to do your first event in a snap.

How do you use print in marketing your small business. Are newspapers dead? How about magazines? Using direct mail to convert new customers and of course, how about catalogs for your business? Tune in to get our practical take on using this old medium to drive business.

How transparency in your business can hurt or benefit you. Does it make sense to be totally transparent to your customers? What if your clients are leaving negative reviews for your on Yelp? How should you handle things like that? What if they are wrong what if they are right? Blogging and social media are all about the "soft sell" what happened to the "hard sell".