Here let me read it to you

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I got a very nice award

I had a lovely surprise last Thursday night. A group of a dozen Scene Change people were at the Meetings & Events Australia (MEA) conference in the Hunter Valley. The conference closes with the industry awards night. I was honoured to get the Outstanding Contribution Award. It’s (quote from program):

“the highest honour the MEA community bestows on an individual from within the Australian events industry. It is a recognition of the contribution made by the individual and the influence they have within our industry.”

Self-praise makes me break out in an allergic rash. But the words the MC delivered came from a bunch of people I respect, so here goes:

“Ian has had a long, storied career in the business event industry. He has built up Scene Change over the last 17 years, into a significant premium national AV company with a unique business model in which the state managers are directors and shareholders. He is also highly regarded as an ‘out there’ marketing icon, author, blogger, and advertising creative whose maverick creative genius is lauded as much by his competitors as by his clients and the industry. The man never stands still. He is constantly coming up with new groundbreaking initiatives that are the envy of the industry.”

I’m very grateful for this, though the credit for Scene Change belongs to many others.

And yet, it doesn’t need an award. It’s been so enjoyable and rewarding for its own sake.

What exactly do you get out of industry groups?

It’s interesting to consider how much you should put into voluntary work in your own industry. After all, you’re busy and do you want to be involved with competitors?

Our industry association is a little different from many in that it’s not 100% pet food retailers, franchised gutter cleaners or whatever. It’s all different types of companies that service events.

Some are competitors, a few are potential clients, many others will be co-suppliers on projects.

I often get asked “what do I get out of joining the industry association?” Like you should be entitled to a guaranteed stream of sales leads or something. CFOs demand to know your exact ROI of going to the conference: how much verifiable sales revenue will you get from the people you met?

And that mindset encourages exactly the wrong behaviour: in-your-face pestering. If you go in spruiking your product hard at gatherings, people will cross the room to avoid you next time. You will sell nothing.

Long-term karmic payback

A better approach is old JFK quote: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but … etc.” Enjoy the opportunity to help people and learn from everyone in the room.

Ironically, if you approach it without the expectation of payback, there will be many long-term karmic, and commercial, benefits. If you’re shy and don’t like working a room, go on a committee and get to know people through working on projects together. That was me. I was terrified of working the room but once I made enough friends through the board, it was fine.

For me, these associations provide a chance to learn from people across our industry from all different sectors, and find out what’s on their mind. You discuss their big picture issues. You’re more informed when you talk to actual clients.

You can speak in a language that’s higher up the food chain. You’re not talking like a supplier. It just makes you better.

Rule 1 of the Scene Change networking manual is: do not mention the product. It’s not classy or charming, and nobody cares.

By the time the relationship gets to a sale – and no conversation should start with that expectation – they feel you have such a good handle on their issues that they take the nuts-and-bolts delivery of your product for granted.

Gradually you build a reputation as someone people can trust, rather than being purely transactional. Sorry it takes time, but it lasts your whole career.

Learn from newcomers

In industry associations you get to talk to young up-and-comers and get a sense of what the next generation of clients might want.

Plus you generate future goodwill because you spoke to them respectfully, rather than patronising them or ignoring them in favour of current hot sales prospects. Juniors become decision-makers real fast in the distorted time scale of running a business.

I used to do a lot of work with the Future Leaders program in that association. There’s a lot of PowerPoint stereotype nonsense said about young people in the workforce. Lazy, entitled etc. This has not been my experience.

I learned as much from them as they from me. Those Future Leaders endured so much patronising from the “What Shall We Do About Gen-Y?” speakers at every conference. “Oh those young people, glued to their phones all day” and so on.

Now the future has arrived and they’re all regular present-tense leaders and doing it like champions. I love to see it.

Just as I get a massive buzz when I get emails from readers telling me that they’ve set their own business up. It’s the best feeling and one that sustains me in writing this stuff for years on end.

Passing on useful knowledge is a privilege. Just as those helpful star chefs did for me in that recent story.

Competitors are not as shit as you hope they are

Let’s deal with competitors.

I think the conventional mindset of hatin’ on competitors and wanting to destroy them is counter-productive.

It makes you think they’re all idiots and they aren’t. Look to yourself and how you can improve before you slag off others in those internal meetings.

We have dozens of competitors and there’s only a couple I dislike, mind you it’s with the burning intensity of a thousand suns. Because they make the rest of us look bad. The other competitors do a perfectly good job and their clients like them.

I believe we’re the absolute best answer for some clients, but by no means all of them.

We have lots of competitors we’ve helped out directly over the years for various reasons, and it has cost us nothing. Many have repaid the favours and working life is the better for it.

Associations are good for recruitment

We lifted our Melbourne business partner Andrew from a job running a competitor through this very association. I had the idea to put together an industry band – AV/DC – to play the MEA conference after-party on Hamilton Island in 2015. (If you’ve not read That Time We Bought A Private Jet, about that whole caper, it’s a fun story).

We were happy to promote other competitors who were involved in the name of good times.

Andrew found out about it, who knows how, in about ten minutes.

Andrew: “I want to be in the band. Can you put me down as a guitarist?”

Me: “No, there’s only two and we have them already. We need a bass player though. Can you do that?”

A: “No. But I’ll learn.”

He bought a bass the next day and learned to play in a month or so.

He put on a credible show, in a black pleather unitard he’d bought at H&M in the previous year’s conference in Kuala Lumpur. I can’t begin to imagine why they offered that product, in that size, in that sweaty material, in Malaysia.

A few months later, when we needed a business partner to bring hustle and charisma, who did we think of?

He joined us partly because we seemed like we were going places, but also because we seemed like the fun place. He’s been every bit the leader his stage performance promised.

It ain’t easy

Industry involvement is not easy.

As a voluntary industry board member, I’ve been through heavier shit than I’ve experienced in our own businesses.

While getting unsolicited “advice” from a small minority of know-alls at cocktail parties on “what you should do“. Who seem to think you’re being paid like you’re on a Top 100 company board.

If you’re thinking of giving some unsolicited advice to people in that situation, I’d suggest you … don’t do that.

It’s also time-consuming. We’re lucky our business was structured to give me enough spare time for side-projects, and even then I had to wait until after the peak child-raising years to find the space.

Anyway, grateful to get the award. I really do recommend finding an industry filled with smart, pleasant people, even if it was completely by accident.

It’s been a hoot, and will remain hooty long after I’m out, in the hands of people who care.

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Why not buy this nice book?

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