How do you know when you've "made it"?
In other words, what's the true, indelible, embossed-by-official-stamp sign of success in business?
Last week, I found out.
And now, to explain...
One of our target markets at Just For Laughs is the tourism trade. Our event is evaluated on many metrics, but few as important as how many dollars we bring to our local economy from the outside, hence an annual strategy of attracting tourists. One of the tactics of this strategy is attending trade shows, where tour bookers, travel agents and interested individuals gather to decide what destinations tickle their fancy and earn their dollars.
The person responsible for tourism at Just For Laughs is a young man named Arman Afkhami. At our first meeting this year, he showed me last year's trade show booth set-up--a dreary, cliched backdrop of a silhouette of Montreal (the mountain, the cross atop it, the Olympic stadium, snore...), on which was plopped our logo, all fronted by a table-clothed bridge table on which was strewn equally-as-stultifying flyers.
"Nobody will stop at that unless they want to arrest you for wasting money," I told him. His mission this year was to create a tradeshow presence that would literally halt people in their tracks, trumpet the Festival's spirit, and get them interacting with him.
After a few mis-fires ("Arman, would YOU stop at this?" I would chide him when he showed me some dull early drafts), he and Just For Laughs creative director Francois Blanchard came up with this:
Everybody in the company--especially me--loved it. Simple, effective, sells the sizzle, and pulls 'em in from miles away. You couldn't look away if you wanted to. (The aptly-dressed eye-popper is actually comedian Lavell Crawford, a Festival favorite.)
But that's not all.
Arman and co. also came up with the concept of a "human booth" which would debut at the Boston Globe Travel Show. Literally enacting the adage of "taking the mountain to Mohammed," Arman, engulfed by a booth-on-suspenders, would now eliminate the unease of approaching one's tradeshow table. Why wait for people to awkwardly come to you--given they come to you at all--when you can go to them? This pic of Arman as the human booth below appeared on the Boston.com website:
The end result was an unmitigated success. When I emailed Arman on Saturday to ask how it was going, his reply went:
"Everything smooth. Other booths were jealous and complained so I couldn't walk around anymore."
Like H.L. Mencken and Lillian Smith before him, Arman was, for all intents and purposes, "Banned in Boston."
And THAT my friends was the embryo for this week's learning. So, back to the question atop this post, how do you know when you've made it?
--When the competition complains...you know you've made it.
--When you've done something so productive, so outstanding, so attention-getting, so crowd-drawing, so customer-pleasing that all your competition can do is run and cry and whine to the authorities...you know you've made it.
--When someone lays down a new rule*, a new tariff, a new tax, a new law, a new sanction because you're just too damn successful...you know you've made it.
Arman was a little worried, not wanting to piss of the competition.
"Don't be foolish," I told him. "That's our goal. If our competition hates our guts, you know you've done your job. Playing nice is for the sandbox."
So I think Arman and Francois helped us "make it" last week in Boston. This week, Arman is taking the show on the road to the prestigious New York Times Travel Show. Let's see who he pisses off there...
To close, a little (sometimes shaky) video montage of Arman in action, before his legs were cut off and was shackled to his backdrop. Note the delight on the faces on the people he interacts with. Who cares what the competition thinks? Well done!
*To see what I mean, read this piece and see how the NHL changed its penalty rule because of the dominance of the Montreal Canadiens power-play.