By Steve Ashkin, The Ashkin Group

This article is the second in our three part series on marketing your company (and yourself) by conducting an educational seminar on Green Cleaning. In last month’s article (part 1 of 3) we covered some of the critical decisions such as identifying the objectives of the event, planning horizon and picking a date, and selecting speakers. If you haven’t already read the previous article, I would highly encourage you to do so.

In this month’s article we’ll get into some of the additional details such as the length of the program and speaking sessions, vendor considerations, and considering co-sponsors to help building invitee lists.

Length: There are actually a number of different length programs you can do. You might choose to do a short intimate event with a small group of people. These events tend to be only a couple of hours long and allow for plenty of time for attendees to interact and are frequently served with a meal --- breakfast, lunch or dinner.

I think this type of event works best if you do them frequently, such as once per month, but requires a lot of “personal” follow-up. However, this allows you to repeatedly make calls and send notes to your current and prospective customers not only on your upcoming event, but a short commentary on what was learned at your previous event.

Another event is a half-day educational event. My general experience is that senior decision-makers are extremely busy and getting them to come to an event is hard and is even harder if you need them to spend an entire day. Thus my preference is a half-day event which can overlap lunch. The meeting can either start in the morning (again my preference so that some unexpected emergency doesn’t prevent them from attending an afternoon event), but it can also be in the afternoon. And yes, I believe you should feed them.

Finally, all-day events can be very successful. In an all-day event you can choose to have different speakers, or repeat sessions if you feel that most people will either come for just the morning or afternoon. Generally I find that all-day events are preferable if you are doing a lot of hands-on training. And as with the half-day event I recommend that you provide lunch.

Educational Sessions: My preferred length to speak is 60 minutes including time for questions. Personally, I think doing 20 minute presentations, even if you recruit a “panel of experts” doesn’t allow for anyone to get into enough detail to really make it worthwhile. And I think that creating real value for the attendees should be the goal. Thus my personal recommendation is a half-day program which means you need only two speakers and in my opinion produces the best return-on-investment.

If however you have the time and resources, you might consider doing an event with one or two keynote speakers (everyone listens to them) and then have a number of break-out sessions where your attendees can choose which program they want to listen to. My only caution is that this is an extraordinary amount of work and requires a venue (meeting location) that offers multiple meeting rooms. And if you are new to doing end-user events or if you have a small staff and thus resources are limited, I would suggest that you forgo this type of event.

Product Show Case: When doing a half-day or full-day program I think it is appropriate to have some of your vendors exhibit their green products. While this is not a “hard” selling opportunity, but let’s recognize that at the end of the day if our customers and prospects continue to buy old-fashioned traditional products, then we have failed. Not only have we failed to generate a return on our financial investment, but we have failed to “green” their current practices and we really need them to change. One final thought about vendors is that if you are doing a “green” event you should ask them to only exhibit their green products to be consistent with the purpose of your event.

And for those of you who are concerned that your customers and prospects will be “offended” by having vendors at an “educational event” --- don’t be. From my experience, facility managers and other high ranking decision-makers are used to having vendors at trade shows and other events. They are quite capable of deciding how they want to engage the vendors. Plus, getting vendors involved will help you offset the cost of the event and provide additional expertise especially if you have a number of “hands-on” educational sessions.

Co-Sponsor the Event: One of the biggest challenges is that we want to invite our prospects, but often don’t know who they are or have difficulty reaching them. This is especially true the high up in the organization we want to go. One option is to have the event “co-sponsored” by another group such as your local chapter of the USGBC, IFMA and BOMA.

And think outside the box. Green is a big issue right now and lots of organizations and communities are trying to get their arms around it. Thus, consider co-sponsoring with your local Chamber of Commerce, civic groups, mayor’s office, community development board, sustainability initiative, university, school district, unions, etc. And when you do this, not only do you help build your relationship with these important organizations, but you get to use their mailing list as a prospecting opportunity.

This completes this month’s article. Next month will complete this series of articles on conducting a Green Cleaning educational event with some final ideas covering issues including picking the location, greening the event, invitations and planning for follow-up.

Have a good month selling and remember, Green is really happening and since your customers and prospects are going to attend such an event, we’d prefer that it’s yours.

Steve

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About the Author:

A 25+ year veteran of the cleaning industry, Stephen Ashkin is the author of Green Cleaning for Dummies and a tireless advocate for environmentally preferable cleaning products. Often referred to as the “father of green cleaning,” Ashkin has played a pivotal role in setting industry standards, promoting environmentally preferable products, and advocating for socially responsible practices.

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