Get Seen: Easy Way to Make a Movie About Your Local Entrepreneurial Scene
In Seattle a five-person business announced an event called Shine. Quickly, over 500 people signed up. They want to be featured in the movie that’s being created out of the event. It’s about the local business scene. Participants were asked to share stories about their business. Soon 96 volunteers stepped forward.
Event instigators Lara Feltin and Biznik co-founder, Dan McComb write that, “the videos were shot and edited by a team of volunteer Biznik members, directed by Biznik filmmaker Ben Medina - the creative force behind the “I’m a Biznik” videos that now appear on the Biznik home page. (Like all successful instigators, they make sure all partners get recognized.) Biznik’s motto: where collaboration beats competition.
You might orchestrate a similar gathering and get hundreds of colleagues to brag about our project that features your business story – and theirs.
Since Biznik has already created the template, it will be easy to replicate the launch in your town.
It costs you little more than your time because the expenses and responsibilities are spread among many eager-to-participate partners. They see an obvious self-interest (fresh way to attract customers) – and fun – in participating. Plus, of course, you’re creating a news-attracting event.
Here’s the blueprint on how.
Forge partnerships with all they players need to pull of your project. Inspire them to volunteer time and resources. Shine, for example, is co-sponsored by Fremont Studios where the event happened one evening between 5 and 10 p.m. Videographers were stationed throughout the place. They conducted three to five-minute interviews.
Motivate your participants to do their best, as Biznik did: “Small entrepreneurs are the heart of the economy. And when times are tough, communities pull together to make it through. One of the ways we do that is by telling our stories. Why did you start your business? What’s the biggest challenges you’ve overcome? How do you define success? Grab your camera and tell us YOUR story. The highest rated and most viewed stories will have a shot at being included in SHINE: A Big Film about Small Business.”
Some questions I’d love to ask: What’s one of your favorite experiences with a customer? What inspired you to start this business? What do you most enjoy about the independent business scene in Seattle? Why do people buy from you? What hardship have you overcome? Had a breakthrough moment? And make it real. As McComb implored attendees, “When you head to SHINE on Wednesday, leave your elevator speech at home. We want to hear your REAL story. (Seriously, is the world hungry for more rehearsed elevator pitches?)”
Reminders: Start vivid. Pithiness helps.
Keep the event format simple and easy for everyone – and make it fun to participate.
Attendees were interviewed on a first-come first serve basis.
They were encouraged to mingle with other entrepreneurs. They way they could find customers or potential partners – others who serve the same kind of customers – and concoct a way to cross-refer or co-create a bundled product or other event.
Give an immediate, tangible reward for attending
Each interviewee walked away with a high-quality video vignette to post on their Web site or blog. Interviews could also be posted on the Shine Project page. That way each entrepreneur –and the instigator of this project Biznik – has a reason to direct others to this page and an opportunity to reach a much larger pool of prospective clients. (You could be that instigator in your town).
Offer several ways to participate, explaining exactly how
Business owners who couldn’t attend the event or were unable to get interviewed at it could create their own video. Then they can upload it to a special site created for the project on YouTube. Patrice Fiset sent his from Buenos Aires. Imagine how that increases visibility for all participants.
To ensure consistency, Biznik offers tips on how to conduct a do-it-yourself interview. It includes sample questions.
Build interest in a bigger reward later on (being seen in the movie0
The editors will create a storyline about Seattle’s entrepreneurial scene, using bits these interviews to create a feature-length movie. As they work on it partners may have several opportunities to leak to the press and bloggers the back stories of what they discovered.
By the end of the Summer, when the movie is completed, the partners will have generated wider interest in its release, Plus they’ll have provided a fresh reason for their customers to brag about them – and multiple reasons for possible customers to visit their sites – online and through-the-door.
In addition to a general release, they might offer a movie “trailer” of it to all participants (to post on their sites) and to the local TV stations. Later on they could offer the video as a free item to local video rental outlets and libraries.
Protect yourself and your partners
To participate, Biznik required attendees to sign a recording release form. Making it more convenient, the form could be downloaded and brought to the Shine event to speed the processing or filled out on site.
Spread the costs fairly
Biznik and partners charged a $5 entrance fee to cover the venue and production costs. That seems low, considering the benefits and the expenses. I’d charge $10 or $15.
Run lean and stay transparent about costs
If more money is raised than is needed for the project, the money will be donated to a well-regarded local charity, Northwest Harvest.
Three observations:
1. You Don’t Have to Go it Alone
A partnership, done right, generates a Multiplier Effect whereby every participant enjoys bigger rewards for a small investment of time and/or money.
2. Partnering is a Fast Track to Growth
We enjoy the camaraderie of shared success and the experiential opportunity to improve our business by learning from partners.
3. Create “First Evers”
The instigator of a first-of-a-kind partnership often reaps the most rewards in public recognition, business growth and friendship. With a recurring partnership (if Shine became an annual event, for example) the instigator may do less because of the avid involvement of more partners, yet reap more rewards.
Success breeds success.
The Multiplier Effect works on steroids for the instigator who creates or adapts a smart partnership with an immediately obvious benefit for all participants. And, with a first success, it’s easier to attract eager partners for a second, perhaps different partnership.
People trust your eye towards serving the mutual benefit and your ability to attract the right partners to complete the project.
What way are you generating more value for your customers – with the right partners?
May 18th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Fantastic post, Kare. It’s truly inspiring what’s possible when community is built into the DNA of your company, as we’ve done at Biznik (Biznik was a community first, and a business second).
One small correction I need to make, however: Biznik is today a 5-person company.
Another interesting observation: I agree with you that this is a very press-worthy event. However, it did not turn out that way. Just one member of the press attended the event, from an AM radio station, and she butchered the story, calling the participants “Washington CEOs.” In fact, very few participants would ever refer to themselves as CEOS, despite the fact they are entrepreneurs, and it makes them sound far more corporate than they in fact are.
The good news, from our perspective, is that we don’t need the press to tell the story. In fact, that was the whole point of the event – to create our OWN story, in a highly sharable format. We’re excited about the results – a big film about small business, which will be released later this summer, after filming and editing is completed.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Oh Dan I knew that yet somehow forgot (re now a staff of five)… and you’ve expanded to so many regions. That reflects your astute and generously inclusive biz model.
Re “the press” – however media is evolving – it is a compliment to your way of encouraging sharing and partnering that Biznik attracts attention from parts of the “old” and the “new” and “newer” social, mobile and other “media.” Business quality, candor, collaboration, helpfulness and interestingness have and always will always will trump advertising methinks – just like talking “at” people is never as thoughtful as talking “with” – but you demonstrate that you already believe that from how biznik is constructed and how you facilitatively lead it.
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
[...] You might orchestrate a similar gathering and get hundreds of colleagues to brag about our project that features your business story – and theirs. More Info [...]
March 12th, 2010 at 3:05 am
[...] Alternatively, invite all members to come to one place to act out their part in a movie of tips for people like them, as biznik did. [...]