School for Startups – definitely worth it for any aspiring entrepreneur

On Saturday I attended one of ‘Doug Richard’s Schools for Startups’ seminars at the London Business School. I must admit, on the train into London I was feeling a bit sceptical about the whole thing. I was very concerned that it might turn out to be one of these motivational talks that one is normally only privy to when watching an episode Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends. However, I’m happy to report that it was actually a thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile day.

This one was entitled “Entrepreneurial Marketing: No Money Marketing for Startups”, and it was crammed with about as much information on that topic as one could possibly fit into an eight-hour day.

The first thing that must be said is that Doug is a great speaker. He manages to maintain a steady balance of entertainment and insight so well that it’s hard not to concentrate. I can say this with some authority considering I had spent the previous evening at a party and had barely had two hours’ sleep!

Aside from his great speaking talent, Doug had me right from the start when he opened the day with Alec Baldwin’s superb sales speech on the big screen from the film ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ – one of my favourite films (and apparently one of Doug’s!). If you haven’t seen this speech, may I highly recommend it and send you to it on YouTube.

So, that out of the way, he launched into an analysis of what marketing is, what it isn’t, what it’s job is, and the foundations of a marketable product/service. He used the interesting concept of making something remarkable. Not in the conventional sense of it being unusual or striking, but in the sense of it simply being something that can be remarked upon. Quite literally, remark-able. This, of course, is because the best marketing tool out there is word of mouth. No matter how good an advert or article in a newspaper is, there’s nothing that persuades us to do something more than a friend’s recommendation.

Of course, a great example of a company that spends a lot of time and effort making its products remarkable is Apple. Through beautiful design, great software, and (most importantly perhaps) extra flourishes and finishing touches, Apple has scattered the seeds of a worldwide cult based around its products. Without all of the little interactive features and smooth animations that set Apple’s products apart from their competitors, they would be much less remark-able. Without these, we wouldn’t show our friends how a simple pinching movement allows us to zoom in and out of our photos on the iPhone, or how at the press of a key all of the windows on the iMac’s screen spring away from us so that we can see everything we’re working on.

Following that, we were taken through the different types of people that we aim our products or services at. There are the suspects (this category includes more or less everyone that we might market to), the prospects (people who want what we offer but haven’t bought anything yet), and the customers. Naturally, effective marketing means aiming as little as possible at the suspects and only targeting the prospects. As Alec Bladwin says, “ABC – always be closing… A guy don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy.”

We were then treated to a breakdown of direct marketing (market research, good copy etc.), and the dark art that is PR.

With all that in the bag, and after a quick break for lunch, it was Doug’s colleague’s turn to take the stage. Luke Brynley-Jones is a social media consultant and took us through the concept of inbound marketing and SEO.

Luke provided some excellent insights into the secrets behind successful blogging and the art of making it easy for your customers to find you, instead of you wasting money trying to find your customers using traditional marketing techniques such as TV ads (which really are dying sadly).

The day was concluded with Murray Newlands, an Affiliate Marketing expert who got a grilling from Doug on the audience’s behalf about everything and anything to do with affiliate marketing.

So, would I recommend you attend one of Doug’s startup sessions? Absolutely! The next one is being held at the British Library on Saturday 19th September and is going to be a deep-dive into the key aspects of marketing featuring experts on all the fields covered.

For more info on anything to do with the School for Startups, head to their site at www.schoolforstartups.co.uk.

Posted by Jack on 21st July 2009 in Blog, Events

 Print This Post | Email This Post