Look Up at the Stars and Not Down at Your Feet
Today the world mourns Stephen Hawking, a brilliant scientist who transformed our view of the universe and encouraged us to “look up at the stars and not down at your feet”.
This quote is extremely profound as it can be interpreted in many different ways and be applied metaphorically to both your personal and professional life. It made me reflect on recent experiences of attending business expos.
In recent weeks, I have attended a few local business expos with the intention of meeting potential new clients and opening doors to new and exciting opportunities. When initially entering the venues, I felt energised, excited and buzzing but very quickly this turned to feeling deflated and quite frankly bored as these events and represented businesses are all too often lacking something. It is not surprising, given they all have the same layout, with uninspiring stands littered with dull pop up banners and the same old branded merchandise of pens and sweets. The business representatives themselves looked bored behind their stands and it is sadly quite plain to see that for some companies, exhibitions are just a great big marketing tick in the box and something they feel they need to be doing, even if they have no appetite to be there!
As with any experience comes an important lesson to learn - don’t treat marketing as tick in the box for your business, harness it as an exciting opportunity to build that fire and passion within yourself and learn who you are, what your strengths are and be proud of what you are! In a room full of competitors exhibiting in the same space, don’t blend into the background with your competitor, instead focus on enhancing your authentic and original qualities that set you apart from your competition and use it to transform the way both you and potential customers view your business.
Do something different! Stand out! Consider WHY you are there in the first place and how on earth you can stand out from every other exhibitor that is competing for attention.
With this revitalised passion you will welcome new and exciting business opportunities with energy and gusto from the right people who share the same passion as you.
So remember, in the words of the great, late scientist, Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) – “look up at the stars and not down at your feet”…