9:35 — Cale Johnson introduces Thoora’s Saul Colt.
9:36 — Saul started off with a little joke about removing the 1st 2 slides at Andy’s request, which were the slides that told who he was.
9:37 — Jokes that he loves women.
9:38 — Dick Shawn died in the middle of a performance at the same time that his character actually died in the show.
9: 39 — Saul jokingly skips to the last slide, just in case something happens to him during the presentation
9:40 — Live the life of your customers, fight for what they care about and be an advocate for their voice.
9:40 — For example, there’s Upstack.com. They provide online graphics services and have a firm no spec work policy.
9:41 — Do interesting things.
9: 41 — There was a really small budget to produce a holiday party for Zipcar employees in Canada. So instead, they decided to barter Zipcars and throw a holiday concert for all customers.
9: 42 — Do interesting things with dead inventory.
9:42 — Do interesting things with your customers.
9:43 — At SXSW, working with Thoora, they created a 4 page paper to cover the stories of SXSW.
9:44 — Everything you do without a budget should be about you customers and include your customers.
9:45 — Did some great promotions at SXSW with “baseball” cards and SM leaders and regular folks to promote Freshbooks.
9:46 — Also developed Freshbooks home parties and over 100 people hosted parties in their home.
9:47 — By promoting your customers, you’re forming a real connection with them. You empower them and indirectly you have a passionate sales force. And the more you will try not to disappoint them.
9:47 — Do interesting things by keeping your eyes open.
9:48 — Opportunities are everywhere, they can be big or small.
9:48 — Force people to ask questions. Make them scratch their heads. Try 100 things. It’s OK if no one shows up.
9:49 — Shares a funny story about buying a sponsor ribbon from supply store and adding it to the registration badge. It worked and got him into lots of special events.
9:52 –Also had a contest where he gave away his old iPhone and story was that it had 2 perfect fingerprints of Saul’s on it.
9:53 — This way, if winner committed a big crime,all they had to do was drop the phone at crime scene and buy themselves a few days for their get away.
9:54 — Make sure that there’s a great story behind every promotion that you do.
9:55 — Your brand and how you treat your customers is the only thing competitors can’t steal.
9:56 — Saul figured out how to get his brand, Thoora, up on the American Eagle digital billboard in Times Square for buying a $3 key ring.
9:59 — Just because you’ve done the event, doesn’t mean your job is done.
10:00 — Saul leaves us with these 4 important thoughts: 1. Execute 2. Extraodinary 3. Experiences 4. Every day.
Love this live coverage? It’s all thanks to the fantastically fantastic blogging of David Polinchock.
