Biznik Blog

Last week I wrote the first installment in a five part series on the ins and outs of Hosting Your Very OWN Biznik Event, Part 1; answering the question: What exactly is a Biznik event?. This blog came on the tail of a fantastic event on How to Host a Biznik Event, taught by Joe Shirley, Dominic Canterbury, co-founder, Dan McComb and myself, Lara Feltin. This blog series will share the ins and outs and hopefully cover all you need to know about hosting your very own event. I will include tips on things like ‘What to include in your description’, ‘Choosing a venue’, ‘How much to charge’, and ‘What materials to bring.’

If you’re interested in the class notes from the event last week, visit the archived page above to view the follow-up discussion, download the class hand-out, and watch the events page for another one. (I think this is a class folks would benefit from if we offered it once a quarter.)

PART 2

What kind of event can I host?

In the last post I listed the four types of Biznik events:

Biznik events serve two purposes equally. On one hand they are a marketing tool for the member who hosts the event. It’s an opportunity for the host to get their name out there, set themselves apart from the other Bizniks who run very similar businesses, and in the case of the educational events, it’s a chance to show off their expertise.

For the member who attends a Biznik event, it’s not only a place to meet and talk with other Bizniks, it’s also an educational opportunity to pick up something of value that’s going to help them grow or fine tune their business.

Dan and I, and a number of other Bizniks are indie professionals because we like to do things our own way and we prefer to work with people we like. We believe that business networking happens naturally between people who share an affinity with one another and who are members of a community. Even though we have defined Biznik as a “business networking group” in all actuality we prefer to think of ourselves as a community of indie businesses. Networking and referral passing happens, but it’s because people have gotten to know each other, like each other and want to share business.

(We believe a lot of things - if you haven’t read the Biznik Manifesto yet - what are waiting for. It lays out exactly where we’re coming from.)

The key word here is “community.” Now I for one agree with those that feel that the word is overused and has a devalued currency. (But that’s another blog post.) It’s also a word that aptly describes the group of people who are actively participating in Biznik. My point is, that Biznik events may be great marketing opps for the host, but they should follow the 95/5 Rule.

What’s the 95/5 Rule?

An educational Biznik event should be 95% valuable content and only 5% self promotion. Think about it. Would you be pscyhed to sit through a 2 hour evening infomercial when you were led to believe you were going to learn something of value?

We can’t police this rule unless we attended every single event (not possible in other cities) so we’re counting on our membership to do that. If you attend an event that felt too much like a 2 hour Mexican timeshare sale, talk to the person about it and then vote. We’re developing a rating system now that will essentially be something like a star system. Three stars means you’d go to an event this person hosted again; two means you might not go again but you’d recommend it; one means you’d wouldn’t recommend it to anyone but you have nothing bad to say; and a thumbsdown would be reserved for infomercials with no valuable content.

How do you apply the 95/5 rule?

Choose a topic that highlights your expertise, puts you on the radar of other Bizniks, and educates on something of value. Are you a small business consultant who’s a master with Quickbooks? Teach a class on the top three QB features that small business owners don’t seem to utilize effectively. How about a real estate agent with an opinion on real estate investing? Give a talk on three things to watch out for.

Keep in mind the target audience of Biznik events - other Bizniks. You can always narrow your focus down to a smaller demographic like, “Marketing Tips for Real Estate Agents,” or “New Business 101: Recordkeeping in your first year of business.”

Don’t forget about partnering with another Biznik.

Maybe you haven’t much experience in presentations and are a little shy, or you feel like an event you want to teach would be so much more successful with some complimentary expertise backing you up. Julie Dillon is a yoga instructor and Jan Weingarten is a massage therapist. After the “How to Host an Event” class last week, the two started talking about going together on an event that will teach some ergonomic and simple yoga tricks for your home office.

If all else fails…

I believe that everyone’s got something they could teach, but I’ve been in the boat of not knowing if I know enough of something to teach it well or teach for two hours. So just remember how easy it is to lead a discussion on topic of interest or a business or marketing book you read. Dominic hosted a marketing discussion for 7 people in the corner of a local cocktail lounge. He put it in the calendar, people RSVP’d and they sat around and shared their experiences. Christopher Braxtan led a discussion on the book The Long Tail. About a dozen of us sat around a table of martinis, spent time introducing ourselves and what we’re currently working on, discussed some of the theories in the book, and hung out. Do you know that 1/3 of us hadn’t even read the book yet (myself amongst them, but I got a lot out of it and decided to put this book on my To Read list.)

Note on Biznik “Book Club” events: We may refer to them as book “clubs” but it’s not really a club at all. Anyone who read a book and wants to lead a discussion can put a book club event in the calendar. It won’t necessarily be attended by people who attended the last book club event. And just because a particular title was discussed at an event a couple months ago, does not mean it’s not time to get a different group of people together to discuss the book again!

Here’s a short sampling off the top of my head of possible events someone could host:

(Why not contribute you own ideas for events you’d like to see to the comments field.)

I’ve written enough for today, so I’ll leave the following for Part 3 of this series on the ins and outs of hosting your OWN Biznik event.

Choosing a catchy title.

How do I choose a venue?

What’s a good number of people?

How do I choose a good date and time?

In closing, I’d just like to say that the suggestions are based on our experience hosting events in the Seattle area for the last 6 months. Very little is set in stone, there are always exceptions. Biznik is evolving organically and we expect Biznik events to follow the same course. If you have an idea that seems to contradict one of our points, drop either Dan or I a line and let’s discuss it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 14th, 2006 at 2:08 pm and is filed under News. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.