Selling before Creating with Freek van Welsenis
In this episode I chat with I Am Hable's co-founder Freek van Welsenis who shared how they sold a product before it even existed.
Grab your headphones and learn how they overcame hurdles and collaborated with diverse communities to empower those with disabilities by transforming tablets into accessible workstations for the blind and visually impaired.
🎙️📺 Catch the interview on Spotify, Apple, or other platform.
How to Throw a Kick Ass Cocktail Party II
Hosting any kind of party can be stressful. Especially if you’re hosting a cocktail networking party 🥳
Details like when you invite people, how do you invite them and what does the invite say?
Well in Part II of how to throw a kickass cocktail party, we’re covering:
- Who to invite
- Sending the invite
If you’d like to see Part 1, click here where you will see last week’s newsletter where we covered what day of the week to host your party, establishing the venue, and creating the event page.
Who to Invite
A big part of hosting a fun event has to do with the guests and their backgrounds. Since I want to meet and build relationships with people who are into Entrepreneurship, Startups and Marketing, I focus on inviting people in those industries.
To do this, I use LinkedIn and do the following:
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Click on My Network
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Connections
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Search with filters
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Locations: select city I’m hosting
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Click all filters
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Check 1st, 2nd, 3rd degree connections
In ‘Talks about’, select the topics that are related to types of people I want at my party
This is a good start in helping to build a guest list. If there are too many (results > 150), you can remove 3rd degree connections or unselect one of the topics. If you don’t have enough results (< 100), try adding another topic (i.e. for me it would be ‘tech’ or ‘innovation’).
Then go through each profile and decide if this is a person you’d like to extend an invitation to. If so, record the name and LI profile link onto a Google sheet.
If you want to have 12 - 18 people at your party, plan to invite at least 25 - 30 people. The more well-known you are, the higher likelihood a person will be interested in attending. So, it helps to be active on LinkedIn by posting regularly.
Sending the Invite
Sending the invite to your cocktail party may seem awkward, even if you are an extrovert. But what you have to remember is that no one ever got upset because they were invited to a party!
Keep it friendly, include basic details, and most importantly, don’t flat out ask if the person wants to attend. Instead, ask if the person is free or wants more info.
If the person replies and says they are interested, reply with something like:
Wonderful! Here’s the info page - [link to event page]. Will you do me a favor, can you rsvp if you plan on coming so I can get a head count? Look forward to seeing you there.
If the person wants more info, reply with:
Sure! Here’s the info page - [link to event page]. Will you do me a favor, can you rsvp if you plan on coming so I can get a head count? Look forward to seeing you there.
Your info page has the details about the event, so no need to respond with more info. *wink
If interested in attending one of my cocktail parties here in Bucharest, send me a note. Would love to have you!
Upcoming Episodes
🧋 Linda Klunder, co-founder of Kumasi Drinks - building a brand in the highly competitive beverage industry
💱 Dirk van Meer, co-founder of Core Changemakers - working on innovative projects like reducing battery fires and recycling solar panels
🪙 Chiara Lung, co-founder of Finuprise - the returns you get when you invest in a female founder
🚼 Enya Seguin, founder of BabyChecker - artificial Intelligence for safer pregnancies
We stick to our budget unless…
Once you step into the airport, the budget is out the window. 💲🪟
The End
The last couple of weeks have been really challenging for me, juggling a new client, my kids being home all day, planning another cocktail party, and working on building the Innovators Can Laugh podcast & newsletter media network. I've been counting the days until they're back in school just so I can catch up again.
But yet….
I really enjoy my time with them. Sure, I like podcasting, building relationships, helping my clients get results, but what I really am passionate about is being the best dad I can be and being present with them.
Have a great weekend!
Eric M.
PS If there is a podcast you enjoy and think it would be great for them to be a part of the podcast media network I am building, please tell me the name of the podcast. Thanks!
