How did the roar of the Tiger’s Pen come to be the success it was at the Mid Sussex Net XP expo? The founder of Net XP, Sonny Cutting, was always intrigued by the BBC programme Dragons’ Den, watching in anticipation. Sonny was thrilled to be invited by Pete Jenkins, creator of Gamification+, to be a ‘Dragon’, alongside several other business individuals, at Brighton University where graduates would pitch business plans.
Imagine a future where you can be immersed in a room from the comfort of your own home. Imagine a future where you can visit an exhibition again to remind yourself of the name of a distinct stand. Imagine if this technology wasn’t far off in the future as you thought, but at your fingertips right now…
As someone who understands the power of exhibiting at tradeshows, I am keen to help others make the most of these opportunities. Innovation is always well-received at exhibitions, and the last thing that anybody wants when they’re showcasing their business is to blend in, or worse: be singled out as having a lack-lustre stand. But there are a number of creative touches you can make to ensure that you stand out for the right reasons, without breaking the bank.
Networking is undoubtedly one of the most divisive activities in business. Some people relish the opportunity to jump into a busy room and engage with others, while some find networking daunting and difficult. Whatever your position is, networking is without question one of the most successful ways to grow your business and serves as an opportunity to market your company, with you as its public face. Therefore, how you interact with others will affect how they view your business as a whole.
Running an event involves a lot of prior planning to ensure you get it right on the day. This is no truer than with exhibitions. There’s a whole host of factors to cover, including (but not limited to): keynote speakers, choice of venue, catering provisions, event dates & exhibition literature. And what’s more is the organisers also have to put the time into source the right kind of quality exhibitors for the events, as well as then promote it to potential visitors, all months in advance.
Gamification is a rapidly growing method of adding value to a business and its services. It’s functional, fresh and fun. However it’s not – as some people believe – simply adding games to business, it’s much more than that. It is, in fact, the process of using game-style mechanics to improve and enhance a current business experience. By applying game mechanics to ‘nongame’ company processes, you are adding a whole extra layer to your business and making it stand out from the competition. This is precisely what we’ve done at Net XP.
My last piece focused on the Power of Face-to-Face events, and as you’ll know from having read it, I’m a big believer in networking and creating real-life business relationships. However, this doesn’t mean I think technology has no place in business tradeshows; far from it. There are a number of impressive technological tricks both exhibitors and event organisers can use to create an innovative tradeshow experience, so in this piece, I’m going to name just a few examples that add wow factor to events.
Today’s advances in technology are incredible, aren’t they? It’s never been easier to get in touch with someone across the globe, and the internet means that we can now achieve many of our daily tasks from the comfort of our armchairs and offices. To put it into perspective, we send around 200 billion emails per day, a statistic some might consider daunting, but most would say is an incredible feat of modern tech. And whilst we can converse so freely through emails and phone calls, many would in fact argue that we’re becoming out of touch with one another.
For small business owners, preparing for a trade show or exhibition can be a very daunting experience. Here are a few ideas and concepts to employ at your next exhibition for the smoothest expo possible…
The experience of being a customer has changed beyond recognition in recent years. Self-service systems, automated messages and AI are taking over the front line of customer interaction in the search for ever-greater efficiency. A recent study has indeed shown that emerging digital technologies such as AI and cloud computing are even changing the way we think and react as a customer. Human call centre employees are being replaced by chatbots in all but the most-regulated of circumstances. These technologies can point a customer in the right direction but have limited problem-solving abilities when it comes to a complex question and perhaps most importantly lack the empathy and good will that only another person can provide.
Customer service is particularly important to business-to-business companies, which often deliver a large volume of business to a relatively small number of clients. Against this backdrop what does truly great customer service look like in 2017, and what are the skills that underpin it?
How gamification can dissolve the social anxiety of a networking event
Sonny Cutting, founder of B2B event specialist Net XP.
Business networking can be important to a successful sales and marketing programme, especially for B2B enterprises that work with relatively few high value clients. Yet the prospect of attending a networking event can conjure up feelings of apprehension, stress and even resentment. Event organisers need to change the game and inspiration could come from a psychology-based trend making waves across the business world.
Beyond its buzzword credentials, gamification has earned its place as a powerful business principle, transforming a range of sectors from fitness to military recruitment. Introducing game elements into a non-game setting works by triggering powerful human emotions such as intrigue, competitiveness and excitement. New ways of applying this simple but effective methodology are continually being found and business networking is just one of the many fields that could benefit.
Though born in South London, Sonny Cutting was a Brighton local from the age of 16 and has lived in Hurstpierpoint for the past 17 years. Today in the sleepy little village of Hurstpierpoint, he lives with his wife, Andrea and their four-year old twins, Jack and Charlotte.
Sonny is the managing director of Sussex Pages, The Business Marketing Network, a local digital marketing company which he set up after leaving BT as a new media specialist after 8 years of service. Inspiration struck in the midst of running Sussex Pages. Sonny was invited to a business conference in Haywards Heath in 2015 and was simply not impressed. The business conference felt tired and lacklustre – no doubt encouraging the epiphany about tradeshows and conferences that then came to him. In January 2015, Sonny created a small networking group which worked like a mini conference with speakers, guests and members that met once a month on a Saturday morning in Ardingly, West Sussex of bringing together 15-20 business people every month to network, make connections and ultimately, this was the humble beginnings of the Network Xpress brand and vision.
