My blog today comes from Sarnia, Ontario where I am meeting with several companies on operational details and selling tickets for the festival
.
I am very encouraged by the number of people who I meet that are aware of the Festival and are excited about the concept...now we just have to get them to buy tickets!
However, these conversations also reaffirm how important our crusade is because 90 per cent of them have never been to the track. It is also encouraging that after I finish my 30 second crusade speech about Harness Racing they all say that sounds interesting I look forward to seeing some of the races.
It got me thinking that if we all developed our elevator speech on Harness Racing. (From Wikipedia - An elevator pitch is an overview of a product, service, and project or in our case a sport. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds and 100-150 words).
The term is typically used in the context of an entrepreneur pitching an idea to a venture capitalist or angel investor to receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the elevator pitches to quickly weed out bad ideas and weak teams.)
We need to think of ourselves as entrepreneurs and the customer as our venture capitalist. (their wagering is our capital)
Our sport requires one on one conversation to get customers to the track; they need to feel your passion they need to feel excited and engaged. This seems like a daunting task but just imagine if each member of Standardbred Canada (I think there are over 13,000 people getting Trot Magazine) spent only 30 seconds per day talking to a person who has never been to the track or has been away a long time. If we could talk to 13,000 people per day for 365 days it would equal 4,750,000 people per year that might be inspired to attend the races. I don’t think any marketing campaign can live up to those numbers.
So we need something easy to get started with...here is 30 seconds on attending Adrenaline that you can use as you first attempt at an elevator speech. (of course I am bias because I am trying to get 30,000+ people to attend Adrenaline)
Hey friend did you hear that Harness Racing has the hottest new festival this year in Sarnia!
Adrenaline is an exciting new summer festival loaded with great food, entertainment, sports events, contests, horse racing, music and more! It’s the festival that has something for everyone. Adrenaline is like no other festival and it is being held at Hiawatha Horse Park in Sarnia, the party begins on August 20 and continues through the 23. If you live in Southwestern Ontario, or near Port Huron, Michigan, or are visiting any of these areas come out and celebrate summer at Adrenaline!
Adrenaline has a Bartending competition, Ms Adrenaline Bikini contest, Pro Beach Volleyball, the Famous McCann dog show, Yuk Yuk’s on Tour and over 20 bands.
All this and more than 40 exciting harness races for you to experience for the first time.
And there’s much, much more! Go to their website www.adrenalinefest.ca
There you go 150 words that can get first timers excited...so off to the mirror to practice your speech and we would really appreciate you talking to one person today about Adrenaline.
Crusade:
- exert oneself continuously, vigorously, or obtrusively to gain an end or engage in a crusade for a certain cause
- be an advocate for;
- campaign: a series of actions advancing a principle or tending toward a particular end
Until next time...join the crusade!
See you at the track,
Mark