Blue Oceans
I’m barely, maybe a third into ‘Blue Ocean Strategies‘ but from page 1 the idea resonated with me. Mad props to @tugglMatt for hooking me up and @joshClauss for giving up his copy. I can’t wait to finish it and pass it on to Tom.
At 360|Conferences, we try to not compete with other event planners and conferences, because we don’t really consider most if any of them as competition. I’m not gonna name names, because well they don’t deserve the traffic and people call me “harsh” for calling them out like I tend to do. That said, most charge a fortune for attendees, bend sponsors over with Sponsorship fees and charge for add ons, like Pre-Conference training.
We don’t.
I was thinking about the Blue Ocean concept the other day when Tom and I were planning to announce our new sponsorship price. It occured to me that we were (I hope) creating a blue ocean around sponsors, by treating them like our partners, not just cash cows, that we collect money from and hope they make the most of what we offer. We realize that if our sponsors succeed in their goals for attending our events, they’re more likely to return, and more likely to exist in the future, both of which we like.
We started 360Conferencs, thinking about sponsors the same way everyone else does. Charging them based on “sponsorship levels” and then essentially telling them to make the most of what they’ve paid for.
I’m really hopeful that our sponsors (new and returning) like this new approach, seeing the value to them that we hope we’ve created. I think it’s about time that conferences stopped milking sponsors, especially in this economy, but in general. It’s a terrible practice and most sponsors of other events I’ve ever spoken too, feel taken. “We paid $2,000 for this carpet because we wanted the padding underneaths since we stand all day.” and “We needed internet to demo and that was an extra $3,000 for a single drop, and it’s slow!”
Why?
