What’s my Product?

A while ago I wrote about Tactical Marketing Management .  But I have recently had another insight about the Strategic Marketing of the Churchill Club .  In fact, I just realized what my product actually was.  Sounds dumb, but its true.

When I first set up the Churchill Club, it was going to mirror the activities of the original Churchill Club  in San Francisco.  However I quickly discovered that most globally influential technology executives don’t live in Australia, the Venture Capital Community here is fairly risk averse and our technology entrepreneurs are to busy to talk.

So for the last two years or so, the Churchill Club has been running a wide variety of programs to determine what kind of content and format could actually work.  We ran public events at hotels, at morning noon and night. We ran private dinners at restaurants and out of our offices.  We covered IT, Nanotechnology, Sport, Entrepreneurship, Innovation Policy, Venture Capital, Governance and Town Planning.  We had guests of honour, key note speakers and panels.  Day long programs and two hour events.

The problem was almost every time we ran an event; we were marketing to a new audience, as our topics were so diverse.  Additionally, we could never really plan ahead as we didn’t know whom we had available to speak, or what our topic was going to be.

Of course I got lot of advice.  Advice that I should just focus on venture capital / technology / innovation / leadership.  Advice that I should get high profile speakers / panels.  Advice that I should run more / less events.  Advice that I should market to real entrepreneurs / armchair entrepreneurs / public servants / CEO’s.

Terrific.  Lots of advice, most contradictory.  And sometimes when I ran suggested events, they were successful, sometimes, spectacularly unsuccessful.  The advice giver normally expressed surprise that people didn’t flock to their suggested event in droves.  I of course had to put my hand in my pocket, which made me more and more risk averse.

Mostly I struggled to get more than 50 to turn up.  Sometimes we made money, sometimes we lost.  The Churchill Club may be a not for profit, but that doesn’t mean we can make losses.

The story is probably not unfamiliar to you.  Change the names and products and you have a regular startup story.

Next Week – My three insights

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