Tradeshows, Projects and TeamCamp
Somehow last week, March flew by and turned into April. March 2009 might have been one of my busiest months ever. In the past 3 weeks, my marketing team at school has completed: a 12 month media plan, a comprehensive marketing research report, and an eMarketing and Distribution channels report. All three of these major reports were tied together with a marketing planning and implementation report that allows our client to pick and choose programs that will help them achieve their organizational objectives over the next 12 months. Our final presentation to the clients is on April 14th, 2009 and then 11 days later we write the final exam and school is over. After a nice rewarding vacation, it’s time to focus on the job market.
March/April Shows and Events
Throughout late March/early April I’ve attended three tradeshows in the Ottawa area. One was for pleasure and two were for business purposes. All three shows were great and I scored plenty of goodies from all the exhibitors.
March 21-22 – The Ottawa Gatineau Golf Expo – Cost: $12
This year, the trade show was at the Ottawa Athletic Club on Lancaster Road in the east end of Ottawa. All the big name manufacturers had demo stations set up (Taylor Made, Ping, Cleveland, Nike, Callaway, Adams Golf) so I was able to go try out all the 2009 drivers and woods. Another thing I liked about this show was the separate area they set up with 20 golf course exhibitors. As you walked in you received a card and they had to go around to each booth and get your card stamped. Once you had the card stamped you were entered into the draw at the hour for a free round of golf, or other prizes. I thought this bingo card system was a creative incentive system to get people interacting with the exhibitors at the golf show. I picked up lots of 2-4-1 golf coupons just by going around and asking a few questions to each exhibitor and getting my card stamped. Plus it was a good way to find out information about local golf courses which helped me since I’ve only lived in Ottawa for 3 years and I’m not sure where all the good courses are yet.
April 1 – Social Innovation and Social Enterprise Tradeshow – Cost: Free
This was the first annual ’social enterprise’ trade show at Algonquin College and a relatively new concept in general. From the presentations I sat in on, my understanding is that a Social Enterprise is where non-for-profit organizations use business and marketing strategies to achieve a triple bottom line.
What’s a triple bottom line?
(Wikipedia): The triple bottom line (or “TBL“, “3BL“, or “people, planet, profit“) captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success: economic, ecological and social.
While I was at the social enterprise show I made a few new contacts. One was Ian from The Code Factory, a great little place downtown at 246 Queen St. The Code Factory is a business incubator and collaborative work space for start-up businesses. They host a variety of events and offer meeting space that can be rented out to members on a variety of terms. Ian told me I should come and check out TeamCamp on Thursday night, I forgot about it until I got home on Thursday afternoon. Looked at the back of the business card I wrote it down on and called Ian around 4:30pm and asked if I could come, he said “come on down, just show up” so I did, and I’m glad I did because it was an excellent opportunity to network and find out about what is going on in the Ottawa business community.
April 2 – TeamCamp Meeting: Pitchfest – Cost: $5 cookie jar donation at end.
From the TeamCamp homepage:
TeamCamp is a series of events aimed at forming like-minded individuals into teams for the purpose of turning smart ideas into startups.
TeamCamp is for you if you are…
- Someone with an idea that you would like to turn into a web or software business;
- A full-time employee looking for part-time experience running a startup;
- A student looking for experience in being part of a startup;
- An experienced entrepreneur willing to share advice and lend a hand.
I went out on April 2nd and attended the latest TeamCamp meeting and the meeting topic was:Pitchfest. This was an opportunity for anyone with an idea to throw it out there and get some constructive criticism and a chance to brainstorm new ideas. I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was a very productive meeting, about 4-5 people pitched different ideas and everybody received some feedback about how to move forward with the ideas. I can’t wait to have some time to prepare an idea for the next Pitchfest. It looks like they’re having another one in May. The TeamCamp meetings are on the first and third Thursdays of the month, I’m gonna go to the next few meetings and see how things progress.
April 4 – Explore Franchising Show – Cost: Free
The Explore Franchising Show was a one day event put on by the Canadian Franchise Association and the Ottawa show was held at the Hampton Inn Ottawa & Conference Centre on Coventry Road, just off the Vanier Parkway. This was my first time at this conference centre and I was pretty impressed when I was walking in, the place looks like a 5 star hotel, as it should for a business conference.
There were a panel of speakers at the trade show, I sat in on the first two. One was titled ‘Learn From A Franchisor’ put on by John Wissent from M&M, Meat Shops. A good presentation about what to expect as a franchisee looking to buy a franchise. The second presentation was titled ‘How to Finance Your Franchise’ put on by Luella Chiasson from TD Canada Trust in Kanata. She put on a good presentation about business banking and how TD will finance up to 70% of the start-up cost through the Canadian Small Business Financing Loan program. The other 30% has to come from the owners to ensure there will be less risk of defaulting on the loans. Before they will consider your start-up you they will want credit history and a personal net worth statement. They also require the last two years of tax assessments from Revenue Canada to ensure you’re not behind on your taxes. TD is also the only bank in Canada that has in-house merchant services. All the other banks have to outsource merchant services and they have a ‘push’ fee to transfer money between accounts. I’m already with TD, so maybe I am biased but overall the presentation was very informative and worth watching. I’ll likely stay with TD if I need to open a business account in the near future.
I also talked with a few of the other exhibitors to listen to their pitches and see if I could generate any new ideas for myself. Most of the franchisors at the show were restaurants and hair cutting salons but there was also a moving company (Two Men and A Truck) and a new sign company (Sign o Rama) that I found interesting. They both had lucrative looking business models but both exhibitors judged me based on my age, and they both assumed that I was a student and only there for research and not to buy a franchise. First impressions mean everything and both of these guys lost mine. Other than that I enjoyed the show and scored some free magazines and a huge franchise directory for all of Canada.
Looking forward to getting out more and attending more events over the next few weeks,
Lucas