You Need
Not at BETT 2001!
Martin Littler explains why in his June Journal
| BETT is the big one. 25,000 visitors over four days. Three-hundred-and-sixty exhibitors. Journalists, Cabinet Ministers (Gillian Shephard once spent 20 minutes on my stand and I was interviewed by Eddie the Eagle). Awards: won a few and just missed last year. Fun: the Inclusive Big Night Out at BETT is always a hot ticket. While at SEMERC, I founded and organised the BETT Special Needs Village for many years and I must have done a dozen BETT shows. |  the stand construction alone cost £12,000 and we had a quote for £20,000 (click for larger version) |
So why aren't we going in January 2001?
Well, first of all you can never really tell if a marketing activity is worth doing until you stop doing it. But the main reason is to do with numbers, big numbers with pound signs in front of them. And with how we want to treat our customers. These are such big numbers you will need to sit down. Sitting down is important in itself too as you will discover later.
| While you sit down, let me give you a sense of place. It is more than likely (about a 60% chance) that you are not from the UK and you may have little idea of what it looks like. Particularly the best bit which is called Yorkshire. Here is the stone table in my garden where I am writing this on a sunny Sunday in Yorkshire. Actually I borrow the garden from my next door neighbours (a Masons' meeting hall). They never use the garden and have been happy to let me plant trees, pot pots and build stone tables. |  Martin's garden (click for a larger version) |
Sitting down now? Last year our total bill for BETT was £36,000! That is $48,000 US dollars. This does not count the salaries of the team of ten we had on our stand. Each of these ten would have spoken at length to an average of eighteen people a day (three an hour from 10:00 till 16:00 - BETT is open after four but you mainly talk to other exhibitors). Over four days that is 720 people. Do the sums, you will find that they cost £50 each to talk to for up to 20 minutes. Worse. We cannot offer these 720 special people any more hospitality than you could manage in a bus shelter. No coffee. Probably not a chair.
Contrast this with what we did on June 6th. We hired the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh and invited key customers, special schools and the like. Those who saw "Blood on Carpet" on TV will know that the Balmoral is the luxury hotel Roco Forte bough after he lost the Trust House Forte Group in a bruising battle with Granada. Anyway, we were overrun. We had to turn away sixty people. The hundred we could cater for (literally) had a slap up buffet lunch, all the coffee they could drink and the most comfy chairs you can imagine. Total bill £2,000 ($3,000). That is £20 per head.
At Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel we had your undivided attention for six hours. You were the people we wanted to speak to; we were the people you wanted to listen to. We could treat you properly with a coffee, a meal and a comfy chair. This is how we really want to relate to customers. And at only £20 per head. As my friend Arjan Khalsa (CEO of IntelliTools) would say: "It's a no-brainer".
With the £36,000 BETT cost we could organise eighteen Balmoral style events. Attract eighteen hundred people and treat them all nicely. Actually we will be at BETT - but not in the Exhibition Hall. We will be nearby with at least a coffee and a comfy chair and probably a meal as well. If you would like an invitation, then email me, martin@inclusive.co.uk.
HowITworks seminars at SpecialneedsIT
 SpecialneedsIT |
 Special Needs North |
 the impressive Reebok Stadium |
These went ever so well at the space-age Reebok Stadium in Bolton. Don't take my word. Sally McKeown of the TES has written up the event for us. All of our exhibitors enjoyed the event except a nice lady from Iansyst who didn't like the proximity of the gents' toilets, the temperature of the hall or the crowded seminars.
| Jack Randall and John Ogilvey of Penny and Giles joke that the show is quiet for the photo. They attended every one of the Oldham Micros for Special Needs on which this show is based. They sponsored the HowITworks seminar slot for the Northern ACE Centre and are doing the same for the Oxford based ACE Centre Advisory Trust at the London version of this exhibition on the 2/3/4 November 2000. Nice one Penny+Giles! |  (Click for a larger version) |
SpecialneedsIT is a stand-plus-seminar event. Using the calculations above, Inclusive Technology would have seen ninety-six folk on the stand. We also had another eighty people at our two HowITworks seminars. And we had their undivided attention for 40 minutes. The cost? Well nothing actually as we had organised the event. Another "no-brainer" for Arjan.
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 Rapt audience in their over-the-pitch eyrie listen to Terry Waller of BECTa |
 Roger Bates (right) and Nigel Wallace |
I never realise how hard our Information department work till I fill in for them. Roger Bates, who heads the department, was briefly off sick. I did talks in Birmingham, Edinburgh and Belfast in a single week. I was exhausted. This month I did just one day for them. Last Thursday. A talk just at a training centre just below Winchester. The Centre and IT suite is owned by Southern Water who, when not training their own staff, loan it to teacher groups and schools free of charge. Good for them. |
The talk and an excellent lunch took me two hours. Plus five hours driving down and another five back. I don't know how Roger and Nigel Wallace keep up the pace. Incidentally Nigel is taking over our expanding Information Department next month and we will shortly be joined by Melanie Jones in our new Advisory Teacher post.
The visit was very worth while - all the eleven Special Schools in Hampshire plus their newly separated brethren from the new unitary authorities in Portsmouth and Southampton. The County Adviser Chris Lloyd dropped in to see us too. Well organised by Ted Gallagher of Limington House School. And the cost? A lot less that £50 per head!
| So have we bought the Floating Light, a Pennine pub, as our new HQ (May musings)? I hope so. We have just spent £1,000 on a video of the drains. I'll keep you posted. |  |
Martin Littler
martin@inclusive.co.uk