On the 5th of June 2009, I took part to the Young Entrepreneurs (Tineri Antreprenori) conference. Find out below my impressions on that.
First of all what did I learned about promoting a coaching or a training business?
1. Most of the promotion should be on:
a. Competency;
b. Human Factor;
Those are the most important factors in deciding to participate at a training or coaching session;
2. You should avoid promoting a brand or doing a commercial;
3. You have to convince the consumer that the training brings him value;
4. Lots of hard-to-define insights from entrepreneurs;
5. Bobby Voicu answered me a private question about web directories; Thanks!
What did I like best about the conference?
1. The form for entering the conference looked just great (nicely done);
2. The questions received rather long answers; It was not a fast, quick, rapid fire of answers; Instead, the questions were answered with lots of details; Lovely!
3. You could see that the speaker had a great time; It was fun, people laughed, everybody seemed to enjoy the show;
4. Both the questions put and the answers received were smart;
5. The promoting of the conference was good (and I helped a bit);
6. The sweets were delicious;
7. Speakers came from various fields of activity;
8. Great place for networking;
9. There was great emphasis on “How is it in Romania?” rather than “How is it worldwide?”; That’s just great.
What would I do better?
1. If I am presented with a form with 5 questions to enter the conference, I’d love to see those questions asked at the conference; If you want me to have just one question, that’s fine, but asking me for 5 things, from which I should pick just one – well, that’s not that good;
2. There were two speakers in the room at the last panel of speakers:
a. Speakers who spoke a lot;
b. Speakers who spoke less than a lot;
I would have preferred to see them all speaking; (this could be arranged by the organizers, by invited the speakers to – well – speak;
3. The conference should have begun at 10 and have a schedule; The conference begun later than 10, and all the day there was a rush to recover the lost time, which ended in a very short lunch break; I would have preferred the conference to start at 10 and keep the schedule;
4. A lot of small breaks? I’d much rather prefer a smaller number of larger breaks;
5. At the beginning speakers were not introduced and I had to deduce who does what (an answer from an accountant is usually from an answer by a advertiser);
6. I had the impression that the catering was done something like that:
a. Either too many waiters at the same time;
b. Either no waiter;
Anyhow, it was fine, no big deal;
7. In the morning it would have been Ok to have some snacks;
8. I was in the first row and I didn’t hear everything; I wonder how it was in the back of the room.
All-in-all, a great conference, lots of things to learn and to enjoy the show.