Aspen Waite People On Tour!

Rhona, Ed and I have been very busy bees over the last few months; and we were very lucky to be able to attend two Business Expo events in the last couple of weeks.

The first event that we attended was the SW Business Expo on Thursday 16th March at Westpoint, Exeter – which was attended by over 2000 visitors and over 100 exhibitors. It was a jam packed day with the three of us arriving at 8am and setting up our beautiful stall for the day. Nothing went back in the boxes until 4pm and by that time there was a lot less to bring home!

We were blown away by the love for our colour scheme and branding (thanks Lara!) and we had so many comments about how professionally presented we were and all of the little touches on the stall really enticed people in. Our branded pens and sticky notes were super popular and provide that subtle subconscious reminder on people’s desks that we are there, even when they are not even thinking about us.

Our main reason for being at the Expo was to promote Aspen Waite People and the services that we could provide for our clients – but, as always, we are team players and also took a host of other leaflets etc for all of the other Aspen Waite Group services including Corporate Finance, Radio and Payroll. Rhona, Ed and I managed to strike up some fantastic conversations with potential customers – hopefully securing some strong leads – but also make contact with other businesses in the area that, although might not have a need for our services, would make for fantastic strategic partnerships and could be a very useful point of lead generation for us. Events like this are very time consuming and exhausting, but face to face networking is something really important and special that was lost during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and is only really starting to make a strong come back now. A lot of visitors were astounded at the breadth of the Aspen Waite Group services - which makes us a very strong competitor.

After disappearing for five minutes to get some fresh air, the lovely Rhona signed me up for the business version of “speed-dating” for an hour, which was a fantastic experience! Myself and approx. 25 other professionals sat in a designated area and we each had 2 minutes each to “sell” our services to the other, exchange businesses cards and potentially make some great connections. I had never done anything like that before, so it really pushed me out of my comfort zone, but it is definitely something that I would like to do again. An hours constant talking, reading body language, adjusting a sales script and finding potential biting points on so many people was quite a feat and I was ready for a large cup of tea (and a slice of cake) by the end of it!

In the run upto the expo, Team #AspenWaitePeople had thought about the best ways that we could entice potential clients to come and connect with us – so we had the great idea of setting up a business raffle.

Everyone who put their business card into the bowl had a shot at winning a host of great prizes including wine, chocolate, and a free radio advert on AW Radio amongst other things! At the end of the day we had about 100 business cards in our bowl and we have reached out to everyone of those people to make connections and see if we can assist them with any of their HR needs.

Another bonus of attending events such as this is that we could have a wander around the other stalls in the Expo Book and see how other businesses present themselves at these types of events - and what selling styles they have. As a new offshoot of the Aspen Waite Group, Aspen Waite People are learning and adapting as we go – so speaking to other businesses in the region is a really important part of that, especially if they have been established for many years. Our second expo event was part of the Confex Expo in Cirencester on Thursday 23rd March which Rhona attended on behalf of Aspen Waite People. The dynamics of this event were slightly different compared to the SW Business Expo as it was aimed mostly at wholesalers including companies as large as Coca Cola and Unilever! Rhona managed to strike up some great conversations and we made some more valuable business contacts. Watch this space for more super exciting news about Aspen Waite People coming soon……!

#BringOnTheHRRevolution

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