Here are those sales and marketing ideas for CIC and and Venture Cafe events ...
The goal?
To deliver the message about the value of learning in your collaborative workspaces while increasing occupancy of successful tenants in every location around the world... Easy, Right?
Quick Hit:
The first way to differentiate your value from other workspaces is to have your Community Leaders actively make connections as they ask and hear about needs and opportunities.
Longer Hit:
Question: What is your real value?... what motivates which tenant prospects and corporate participants?
Like her t-shirt above says, how are you (specifically) "Connecting Innovators to Make Things Happen?"
Most companies need help with company growth ... business development and sales.
I am such a fan CIC/VenCaf that I personally experience the value and can visualize the real potential, more than free beer, to differentiate in the very competitive market for both corporate partners and entrepreneurial tenants... by facilitating bizdev... more specifically techdev for bizdev... even more specifically, a mobile app that puts all the awesomeness of VenCaf in your hands ... to optimize before/during/after events... and the right info at the right time in the specific point in the lifecycle of anyone's project.I believe that corporate sponsors would pool funds and pay for a mobile app that provided an optimized experience for THEIR audience - including prospect sales, business partners (vendors and Startups), their employees, the press, etc.
We are special here. We want to be quantified. We want to iterate and perfect our dreams of a better world. Most of us are not worried about privacy as we validate our ideas. We can lock them down later.
The "M" Word
There are great stories to tell about what you are doing and what is happening. Tell them for yourself. Tell them as part of the PR/Marcom machine we all need.
However, there is a gap in CIC's brand... I am talking about your Marketing. There, I said it.
So...
Let's create multimedia promotional case studies of successful collaborations between CIC tenants - re-enact and document engagements at scheduled events, random/repeat Venture Cafe meetings, and CIC-facilitated introductions. Leverage bizdev from, as Tim calls it, "The Density"
4 Elements:
1) Encourage and enable tenants (with an online gallery?) to share stories for community pride and a self-promotion PR machine... while solidifying our desire to stay tenants!
2) Demonstrate that we are here because we recognize the unique benefits of CIC. We are curious and open to learning about options. We raise our hands for help. We help others because givers gain (and learn beyond our core silos). Brand idea = "CIC - Be Curious"
3) Team Support - Community Leaders are CIC's most powerful differentiator to alternative workspaces ... when these awesome people start actively looking for ways to facilitate business solutions for individual tenant needs, CIC's reputation will flourish beyond ALL other options.
4) Connect the connectors - Gather the best CLs and the most zealous advocates already here. They will have great CIC stories and would benefit from showing their participation. Collaborate on ways to harness their ability to help without harassing.
We got some community feedback in a whiteboard session here in the 5th floor Midtown kitchen... I captured a few community conversations about the "CIC Value" and why we are here:
Growth/Revenue for all... Connecting the Density... Community Leaders as Advisors and Connectors ... and the obvious opportunities about all of us being quantified lab rats...
The opportunities to leverage are already happening all around us... Let's get meta... and share some awesome "Overheard in the halls of CIC" stories...
FYI - Share this post at www.bit.ly/CIC_Be_Curious
David "More Than a Tenant" Cutler
Managing Director at CreativeChaos.co
One Broadway CIC/Kendall - 5th Floor - Midtown
Partner Portal - Partners.CreativeChaos.co
617-331-7852 - dcutler@creativechaos.co
Personal: DavidCutler.net