|
|
|
Marketing, Business, and Personal Growth Articles To Grow Mindshare and Create Lasting Results ARTICLES ON THIS PAGE Site Selection Guide for Your Next Event, Seminar, Meeting, Etc. They say to business location, location, location becomes top of the list critical for a physical businesses and events. Here are the criteria used in selecting meeting locations in an urban environment serving a membership from a 90 mile radius: 1. Room rental rate 2. Availability on a long term basis 3. Flexibility and willingness of facility management to work with us 4. Space to accommodate group size 5. Space to accommodate short term growth 6. Accessibility to public transportation (subway) 7. Accessible parking for cars 8. Cleanliness, odor free, rodent and insect free, and mildew free facility 9. Area of facility seemingly safe for people and cars – actual and feel 10. Amenities in facility (non fixed chairs, tables, internet, screens, projection, PA, lectern, air conditioning, etc.) 11. Decent acoustics and lighting 12. Hours venue available 13. Restroom capacity and cleanliness 14. Proximity to cafes, fast food, restaurants, etc. if you have all day events with long breaks 15. Security at venue 16. Extras - who cleans up, what is cost? What are you allowed to bring in and do at facility? 17. Other simultaneous events - will they interfere with yours? Are rooms sound proof? 18. Is facility ADA approved and equipped 19. Is electricity and outlets, and water available to you with or without charge? Please note although this is a long list it is not exhaustive and there other items not included. Although these may not be a make or break a deal it is the totality of combining the items on matrix and weighing all the pros and cons that will provide you the best location for the purposes you seek. Including everyone to voice their two cents you can put out a call to action to your list. We sent two call to actions out and there were no viable sites suggested with concrete information nor photos (everyone has ideas and suggestions and fewer have the facts or will get them to you). Having no or few inappropriate sites offered the selection of a site is then by default left to you in its entirety (or whomever did all the work and research to locating the best possible venue under the criteria above). The adage in working in a volunteer environment where everyone loves giving you their two cents yet doesn’t offer you the whole dollar is “put up or shut up” – in a gentle way of course. There will be those not happy with what venue (whether - location, building, costs, windows, neighborhood, yadda, yadda, etc.) you select for your event. It is unusual if you have a large number of attendees where not a single one will not complain about location, space, distance, price, etc). Be very aware you cannot please everyone and to give into one person or your emotion to make choice without a pragmatic and systematic checklist for site selection to work off of can be a detriment to the success, both short term or long term, of the event you are producing. Bottomline, the facility must work with the group and be flexible as you are flexible with the facility, you need it to be available tomorrow (if it is repeat) – or even available when it is supposed to be, and you need it to be positively memorable. What should you pay for a venue? The going rate is based on what you derive from at least five location quotes. I usually price ten or more. Recently I priced out about 36 locations before narrowing the prospects to a smaller list to match them against one another on the above matrix. Knowing what our minimum attendance will be and what you can charge for attendance helps you select a site based on what they charge. Once you get down to the top three in consideration then you need to 1) meet personally and interview management; and 2) inspect the site. A credible and dependable facility will offer you at least an initial agreement acknowledging or agreeing to either short or long term rental. If they do not and it is on a handshake – DON’T! This happened while working with the selection of the Snapple Theater in NYC. The General Manager put off providing us lease agreement stating she would get to it – never did. They summarily cancelled our rental with a single email notice the Monday afternoon before Wednesday (two days) of the meeting without justifiable cause. No calls, no follow-up email, etc. zip zilch nadda - just one single solitary email that could have been sent to wrong address or lost in cyber space. At this point (two days before the event) over 600+ members were already notified of the meeting date, time, and location being at the Snapple Theater. You can see the huge challenge presented. I have been producing events since 1973 and over the years my acuity to what attendees (really really want and expect) and working with venues has been honed a wee bit. Some areas and concerns may not seem important or perhaps really important but don’t be misguided. As live events go we have something called Murphy’s Law and we have an incredible effect called a “ripple effect”. Any little decision or action can translate into enormous consequences (positive or negative). Understanding this dynamic and having tons of experience with groups, psychographics and demographics, producing events for 20 – 24,000, the reality of what does or doesn’t happen at events, and what will happen with the facility is predictable more so by those with more experience. You don’t want to commit event suicide by not taking into account what the attendees will experience and feel at the event – would you want your attendees to get a ride in a smoking sputtering jalopy or would you rather have them take a ride in a brand new smooth posh leather lined Lexus? Although cutting corners is beneficial, if it is not necessary you don’t want to undermine environment and ambience. The look and feel (and even smell) of a facility does have a subconscious effect on the attendee which has impact on word of mouth (more about WOM in future articles). The key is to get as much experience under your belt as possible and not act in a manner based on what your personal needs or wants are but based either on group surveys, experience or better – registration questionnaires. Carson Tang, President Carson Worldwide Secrets to Experiential Persuasion How would you like to build communities of empowered buzz agents, leave a legacy in your name, or achieve huge results? Attain your vision by deploying and mobilizing the human capital that is waiting for you to ask.. more specifically “persuade”. Over 25 years ago I developed and produced an experiential exposition that took on a life of its own. It resulted in bringing to life a loyal community of hundreds of devote volunteer supporters, celebrated notables and award winning writers from across North America. It has become the largest convention of its type in the east and is respected worldwide. It has been enjoyed for two plus decades. Another community I am growing is a special interest group whose mission is to make a difference in this world and build a huge capacity for exceeding ones own limiting self through involvement within the group. This group has grown from 40 to 700 members in the two years since I have taken over driving its strategic direction. Using a practical knowledge of experiential marketing and strategic events these juggernauts are just a piece of what results can be generated using experiential persuasion. You can create similar results using some simple techniques in persuasion whether it is in community building or building brand for your product, service or company. Understand that “persuasion” gets you from point A to point B. It is built around “buy in”. Everything you do in life involves a form of persuasion and influence whether it is a teen wanting an iPod, someone seeking a better deal buying a car, a job seeker at an interview, or where a couple will ultimately enjoy their next vacation. If you want to be heard, if you want your vote to be counted, if you want to close more sales, and if you want your product, service or organization to be perpetual and sustained by others you will need to be like many of this nation’s most powerful people who in their capacity are the top master communicators and persuaders in the world. EXPERIENTIAL TIP #1 The hierarchy of empowering human capital; Level 1 to Level 10: Level 1 – Short Term Results A - Control others B - Use Coercion C - Achieve Compliance D - Gain Cooperation E - Secure Commitment Level 10 – Long Term Results As you move from “A” (less effective) to “E” (loyalty and huge experiential results), you will find the techniques and strategies used to achieve (A-E) respectively will result in definable results where outcomes require much of your attention to achieve (A) versus a situation where a team will get the job done without much involvement from you (E). STRATEGIC TIP #2 Be consistent, congruent, believe in and be passionate in what you share with others to get them on board. People can see through facades and falsehoods. There are connectors and mavens for everyone and every issue, you just need to make your story compelling and inspiring (making lots of money is also inspiring for some). Where your strategic marketing begins success follows. People will follow leaders who can truly lead and those they believe in. When you are incongruent, people second guess you. When you are completely passionate about something you display complete confidence, and you crank up the motivation threshold for others to experience you and what your mission is. PERSUASION AND SCIENCE TIP #3 Persuasion if done effectively is sub conscious – below someone’s radar. It is not right in your face, it flows like melting butter and anchors beliefs and memories into one’s un-waking state where millions of bits of information are flying through the mind and being processed for immediate action (typically 8,000 bits of information is the max we can deal with from the millions entering our mind every minute). To prevent you from going insane your mind filters out what it believes useless and puts it where it can be easily retrieved. Since your brain believes this information important, persuasion creates bookmarks in Wernicke's area of your brain. This is involved in and comprehension. While the Broca's area effects speech and language output. "According to this model, when you hear a word spoken, this auditory signal is processed first in your brain’s primary auditory cortex, which then sends it on to the neighbouring Wernicke’s area. This area associates the structure of this signal with the representation of a word stored in your memory, thus enabling you to retrieve the meaning of the particular word." - McGill, The Brain Top To Bottom. Imagine how powerful it would be for you to be able to train or influence the Wernicke’s area of your audience’s mind in how it interprets and processes language and information, while influencing the Broca's area to process the chosen output desired. Our mind looks for answers when asked a question. If you ask yourself a question your brain will find an answer. You can embed empowering questions into a person's mind subconsciously. For example even if I say "Don't think of the color blue, whatever you do don't think of the color blue!" What color do you think of? The other area in your brain where information is used for processing information is the reticular activating system. The mind has the quantitative capacity to process 5 plus or minus 1 or 2 pieces of information at a time. This is why zip codes and phone numbers are kept to this particular number of digits. This is a generic rule of thumb where only a small percent of humans do not fit into this profile; however, the majority does. In persuasion make sure you recognize information needs to fit into this quantitative capacity for people to recall and act on information you are sharing with them. “KISS” Strategy – ‘Keep It Simple & Stupid’. Make it memorable, relevant and emotionally powerful. To enhance the results of persuasion even further you would access and seed impressions in the limbic system where information becomes transparent to logic. “The limbic system is involved in emotion, motivation, and emotional association with memory. The limbic system influences the formation of memory by integrating emotional states with stored memories of physical sensations.” "The limbic system is embryologically an older part of the brain. It developed to manage 'fight' or 'flight' chemicals and is an evolutionary necessity for reptiles as well as homosapiens. "– Wikipedia.
By influencing the limbic system you bypass logic and enter the subconscious through a person's emotional gateway. You don't consciously think about your physiology when emotions are in play, your affected mind kicks into automatic based on experiences you've already embedded, and the limbic system does the rest. For example, can you control your facial expression when you are surprised? or can you control when your body gets goose bumps when you are afraid? Actions follow the physiological response the limbic system creates. Your body subconsciously tunes into the warning signs or those emotions that arise triggering your "gut" instincts. Your brain then immediately forms options for the action to take.. fight or flight, etc. In our case you have already anchored a thought connected to emotion in someone's subconscious; therefore, their thoughts are predictable ones and the options that will arise in that person's mind and what action they may choose to take are already anticipated. This is the power of creating experiences through multiple modalities.
Recall effectively occurs more quickly when information is readily accessible in the mind. Being associated with powerful emotions activates your limbic system and allows the firing off of synapses that command your reticular activating system (RAS) to call up select memories. This is the area where you have created short cuts to allow you to make quick decisions and take rapid action, e.g. ever drive down a road to the grocery to pick up milk and not even recall what streets you just drove down or turned on? It is your RAS creating a shortcut for you, so you don’t have process an overwhelming amount of information. If your persuasion is subconscious it opens a dialog with Wernicke's (input and processing) and Broca's (production of language and output) areas; and the limbic system of the brain. This creates stickiness and powerful results including the reticular activating system. An area where your audience’s guard is down and where they are more open to suggestion and information. Bottomline – Take advantage of all modalities subconsciously and consciously to create total recall and action using experiential persuasion. Persuasion becomes more powerful when it is done subconsciously. There are different parts of the brain involved in this dialog and the conversation becomes automatic if you learn how to activate these areas of the brain and implement the right process. All communications between two or more people is based on a process. Think of how important it would be to tap into and share a subconscious dialog with your audience’s subconscious mind. Neuro Linguistic Programming - The Heist Carson Worldwide uses experiential events to generate awareness, recall and action for its marketing clients. We integrate the use of techniques and principles associated with Neuro linguistic programming (NLP) and hypnotic suggestion in the events we develop and produce for our clients. When these behavioral tools are used in communicating with others you can 'unlock' and communicate with an individual's subconscious mind. The hidden depths of a person's psyche controls their behaviors and sets a foundation for their belief systems. We use this to clear a person's mind of distractions and create a portal to an open receptive mind otherwise 'closed' due to a defensive posture or closed way of thinking. Belief systems control behavior and move someone to action (or inaction) depending on the outcome. When we feel we are threatened, feel something doesn't effect us, or be of no or little value, our brain filters it out and as the expression goes.. "in one ear and out the other". Do you remember a time someone was telling you something you felt had nothing to do with you or that you were even interested? What did you remember about the content? Did your mind drift or completely miss the what they were saying? Around us at any given moment exists hundreds of thousands of stimuli bombarding our minds every second. If we were to pay attention to everything happening around us our minds would overload, shut down or melt down from system overload. Think of the pressure of the air touching your skin now, the smell of the air in the room, what you are looking at, what you are thinking, feel the temperature in the room, the amount of light in the same room, the noise around you, are you listening to someone saying something and understanding what they are saying, etc. If you tried to think of all this and all the other thousands of events, sensations, and stimuli occurring around you it would most likely cause your brain to implode.
Beliefs evolve into principles, and principles transform into habits. Your beliefs are built upon the need to satisfy a particular fundamental human need. These needs may be any of the following; or in combination thereof: PRIMARY NEEDS 1) Certainty 2) Variety 3) Significance 4) Connection/Love
FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS
5) Growth 6) Contribution When three actions (or inactions) you take result in any one of the above human needs being satisfied it becomes a behavior. When we associate an experience to an action or inaction while our emotional state is at its peak (peak state) we then can instill a new belief that will result in new behaviors (this is the simplified explanation). There is a powerful online video you can watch to see how powerful NLP is and what it can do even without the participant being conscious of the embedded commands. This can be used for good as well as evil. It has been used to forego pain killers during procedures, it has helped thousands quit long term health threatening behaviors such as smoking, gambling or even over eating. NLP can also used for getting past your own fears such as snakes and heights, or even procrastination. Using the power of suggestion a natural anesthetizing technique may be applied. It has intrigued, and in several instances assisted the medical profession over the years. It is also an integral part of 'true' experiential event marketing. Jose Arigo became famous in the 1960s for reportedly performing an emergency operation on a dying woman, using a kitchen knife to remove a tumor. Subsequent operations performed under similar circumstances were just as successful. Judge Filippe Immesi wrote in his report after a visit with Arigo serving time in prison for illegally practicing medicine: "I saw him pick up ...a pair of nail scissors. He wiped them on his shirt and used no disinfectant. I saw him then cut straight into the cornea of the patient's eye. She did not flinch, although perfectly conscious. The cataract was out in seconds...Arigo said a prayer and a few drops of liquid appeared on the cotton in his hand. He wiped the women's eye with it and she was cured." These experiences rely on hypnosis as a form of natural pain control. This has become increasingly significant in all fields of medicine and is now used to help alleviate everything from phobias to the pain of childbirth. Hypnosis expert David Spiegel, for example, says that he has been able to help several women experience painless childbirth by 'hypnotizing them into concentrating on things other than the forthcoming pain.' NLP is based on hypnotic trance or dealing with the mind at the subconscious level.
If you are interested in more of how you can reach your target audience and move them in similar and compelling ways where the experience we create induces a call to action and results, please freely feel ready to contact us now at 347.689.9090 or at the email address below. We may not help you get others to rob an armored truck for you although we certainly can ensure your product, service and brand are top of mind, tip of tongue on word of mouth, and is part of any relevant action when your participants' sub conscious thoughts are triggered accordingly. The Heist video is no longer available online
Living through love and self while sharing your compassion of others. Have you gone from one partner to another and just about given up believing there is no one worth being in a relationship with? Are you at a dead end in your relationship now or feel something is missing? Everyone can easily change others.. want to know the secret how? Provided you lived in a vaccum and held a gun to other person's head you should be able to change them.. temporarily. So here it is the truth, you can transform yourself faster and more effectively than trying to transform others. There is a mantra used by T. Harv Eker that goes like this: "I am a money magnet". The same holds true with relationships and love.. "I am a relationship magnet"; "I am a love magnet". The quality and demeanor of your relationships are a reflection of how you feel inside about you. You are a magnet attracting to you a mutlitude of things that effect your relationship which oddly enough is influenced by the quality of your relationship. Every relationship you have and every interaction with every person, is a reflection of your own thoughts and feelings in that very moment. Here is the recipe to finding the relationship you want in your life by
putting your love out there; for and transforming the relationships you
have in your life now: 2) Appreciate and love yourself deeply in every moment; 3) Be aware you deserving of everything anyone could possibly desire or
want in life; 4) What you focus on is what you get so focus on all the wonderful
things in all people. If you focus on the bad things they will manifest bad
or negative thoughts; 5) Write down a list of all the magnificient things about you and make sure you update this regularly; 6) Do not blame or criticize anybody, ever; 7) Understand and know no one is perfect including you. Remember to not focus on the negative; 8) Allow yourself to be free of any responsibility of trying to make others happy. You can love them and accept what and who they are and allow them to take charge of their own happiness; 9) Set an intention to see the best in everything and everyone; 10) Ensure you make your happiness number one in your life; 11) Move away from those areas fixed in others that don't serve you make you feel good;
13) Feel and know you alone control your happiness and it is a choice, no matter what you believe the responsibilities are or causes of others. Stop assigning blame and be responsibile in being accountable for your own feelings and actions (or inactions); 14) Respect and love yourself unconditionally; and
15) Know you may not be PERFECT right now but all that you need is
within you now. If you haven't seen an online film titled The Secret, you should visit the site now and prepare to be awakened and transformed to the core.
1) Make your reputation simple and clear. Hone a particular quality until it is a calling card. 2) Create attention at all cost. PT Barnum (of the circus fame) would even write public attacks against himself to keep himself in the news. Even scandal is better than indifference. 3) The essence of power is to keep the initiative. Making other people react to your moves. Make people come to you. Sometimes pickpockets put a sign that says "Beware of Pickpockets" because passersby see the sign and instinctively reach for their wallets. The thieves see that and know they have a prey. 4) Win through action, not through argument. "Learn to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly." 5) Learn to keep people dependent on you. "If you are ambitious, it is much wiser to seek out weak rulers or masters with whom you can create a relationship of dependency." 6) Crush your enemy completely. Chiang Kai-shek did not finish off Mao. Mao's army was reduced to 10,000 soldiers, but eventually came back from the Long March to take over China. 7) Be deliberately unpredictable. It keeps everyone on off guard and confused. It intimidates and creates a sense of power. 8) Do not commit to anyone but yourself. "I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married." Queen Elizabeth I 9) Feign surrender. It lulls other people into a sense of complacency. "When a great lord passes, a wise peasant bows deeply and farts silently." - Ethiopian proverb 10) Plan it to the end. The end game is everything. Most people are just prisoners of the moment. To be the one in control, you must have a plan to the end of the chess game. 11) Success starts with self-image because you are the only one who can make that possible. Before you convince anyone else, you have to convince yourself. 12) Successful people are “good” finders. They look for the good in other people. “You can have anything in your life, if you help others get what they want” 13) No goals equals no game. Activity is not accomplishment. Don’t be a wandering generality. Goals should be big, long range, daily and specific. 14) Unlimited possibilities. Records were meant to be broken. Until Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile, most thought it was physically impossible. After his achievement, people broke the record constantly. 15) Work as a team. There is a limit to what you can accomplish by yourself. Example: Geese fly 72% farther by flying together. 16) Attitude is everything. It determines the outcome. While you cannot control the environment, you (and only you) can control your attitude. The pessimist says. I will believe it when I see it. The optimist says, “I will see it when I believe it. 17) Create good habits because habits define our lives. Example: The average teenage student watches 17,000 hours of television before they graduate high school. 18) Successful people enjoy their work. 19) Keep going. "The price of success is less than the price of failure". We all hold the keys to our own success, and we deserve it. It is not accidental but deliberate and takes hard work. Carson Tang, Carson Worldwide (April 2006) Influence and the Psychology of Persuasion It is amazing how the
human mind works and how we are predisposed to long ingrained
behaviors, habits and beliefs. Part of marketing is introducing a
product, service or brand to an individual to foster top of mind
experiences while stimulating a call to action.
Carson Tang, Carson Worldwide (December 2005)
Market Domination through
Experiential Event Marketing Carson Tang, Carson Worldwide (November 2005)
|
|
Carson Worldwide, LLC HQ Address: 1653 11th Avenue, Park Slope, NY 11215-6018 US Office: 1.347.689.9090 (Office) | 1.917.880.5091 (Mobile) London, UK European Office: +44.788.142.6320
©
2006 Carson Worldwide. All Rights
Reserved
|