On October 30, 2007, I finally made it over to the annual SOHO small business show here in Vancouver. I had known about it for quite a while – a business mentor, Dean Barbour, had always talked about it very enthusiastically – but I had never initiated contact yet.
SOHO’s fact sheet states that
SOHO Business Group is a national marketing company focussed on connection Canadian business with valuable tools, benefits, savings, resources and special events. The SOHO – SME Business Conference and Expo is a national circuit of one-day events that focus on delivering a unique event experience to support success and growth of small and medium size businesses in Canada.
Part of this “unique event experience” were speeches by Peter Legge, well-known author and President and CEO of Canada Wide Media Ltd. (publishers of business magazines such as BC Business) and expert advice talks by people such as Martin Bryne of Yahoo! Canada.
A component that I personally found interesting was an “Ask the Expert” center. I think that’s a great idea; however, I must say that the one person I talked to saw this clearly more as a chance for a sales pitch than an opportunity for a potential customer (me) to ask questions; so it would be good to tweak that a little bit.
As you can imagine, this is a topic of particular interest to me. Marketing via blogs is pull marketing: Working with your clients’ and potential clients’ existing interests. What are their problems? What are their goals? What attracts them naturally? What turns them off right away? Where is the love?
What really excites me as a client or potential business partner is when, through normal person-to-person conversation (vs. let-me-sell-you-something conversation), synergies arise. That was the case with a number of exhibitors at SOHO, particularly Daniel Wang, a commercial insurance specialist at the co-operators (we discovered we had both lived in Germany), the people from the Gay and Lesbian Business Association (we might do some work together), Katie Morrison from The Business Exchange (an interesting concept, especially for people interested in franchises), and Victoria Ronco from Boiling Point Communications, who gave me a list Canadian business bloggers (you might find some of them discussed here in the future).
Have you been to any local trade shows lately? Or even participated? How did that work for you?