Mandatory
Make sure you have dug in and revealed each market’s core conflicts. These are the things that keep them awake at night. They are often so subtle that they won’t even be able to say them. Our investigative work can lock in our place as a trusted adviser when we speak the words they are thinking/feeling. This is different for every single market/venue.

Here is the template I find most effective – so far! Modify it for each client/market as suggested below.

“Hi, my name is Barry… maybe… you… can help me out for a minute” And that’s all I’ll say. (Note the dots… those are intentional pauses).

I’m calling to see if you folks are grappling with any issues around (a couple of their core conflicts)?

Trade Shows
There is a core conflict you can assume for trade show clients. They want booth traffic and they want to take home leads. There are others and you can learn them by studying the industry for 10-minutes and setting up Google Alerts for specific keywords.

Example:
I’m calling to see if you folks are grappling with any issues around getting huge amounts of traffic to your booth at CDA2018 and bringing back a huge list of qualified leads?

Corporate/Association Event – Awards Banquets, General Session Kick off, After Dinner Shows
For these, I want to know all I can before I go in. Who they had last year, who the audience is (relationship to the company, international, education level, spouses in the room, income bracket (if possible – we can gather this on our own and use it in approaching them from the side instead of straight on. This is an example of something they’ll never tell us, and it’s on their mind when making a decision.

I’ll use all of this for my core conflict statements to fill in the template.

Example:
I’m calling to see if you folks are grappling with how to keep 500 middle managers entertained at your awards banquet in Cleveland this year – knowing that they saw the Raspyni Brothers at your event in Cancun last year.

Cruise Ship Agents
These folks are so jaded that you have to give this some special attention. They are flooded with calls/emails/packages that look like the same. For these I recommend a personal recommendation followed by a 3-part product launch, then a phone call. We’ll cover this on the call on Wednesday.

They do have some core conflicts I have identified:

Losing their relationship with the cruise lines
Being burned by an act with great promo and a sub-par act
Losing creditability with a cruise line because of unprofessional traits of an entertainer
Having a hard time reaching acts for last minute availability
Entertainers that are too picky about where they fly to/from (this is one I leanred personally!)

Festivals/Fairs
Another market that is inundated with talent and fixed on the number of spots. This market is a perfect candidate to contact using the core conflict question template above.
Identify a few of their core conflicts – and go deeper than the obvious ones so you stick out and make the calls – a great practice field because there are just so many of them. Get good on the first few (make them smaller ones) and attack the ones you want once you have it natural.

I have identified these core conflicts for this market (and I haven’t worked this market in over 20 years so these might be useless):

Working with acts that drink/smoke in public
Working with acts that are messy (leave a mess on the stage/shared spaces)
Work with acts that will offend families with language (deeper is ruin their image as a family event)

Example:
I’m calling to see if you folks are grappling with how to keep everyone – from the children that get in for free to the General Manager of the (name of fair/festival) – proud and excited of the entertainment you hire?

Producers
Like cruise ship agents, this requires more of a product launch style introduction. They see a lot of acts and what we are doing will catch them in a new way.

We’ll cover some of this in the Sales Funnel section of Week 3, and go into it deeply in two other modules about working with producers.

We’ll have a guest presenter for one of those modules who books national and international dates in prices ranging from $2,500 to over $100,000. He’ll share what works for him based on a long history in this market and you’ll have plenty of time for Q&A.

The main point I want you to remember about working with producers is that they NEED you. They have no business without an inventory. Review the article in GMCG under Business called Getting Listed on Producer Websites – and know that we are going much deeper LIVE.