Not If I build but How will I build?
It is 5 years ago in April 2019 that Scamp Speakers was launched. In the week before the launch, the wonderful Jim Lawless kindly sent me this gift (see photo)
As inspiration for this anniversary piece, I started to look at the statistics of the business; how many bookings we have taken, the profile of the events we have worked on and the clients we have had the privilege to work with. As I was looking through the data I realised I was focusing on the growth of the business rather than how we have built the business.
Many will have their own values around how they wanted to build their business but from my perspective I wanted build our business around three key things – efficiency, trust and knowledge.
Efficiency – I want to build a company that was efficient when it came to dealing with enquiries and always getting back to people promptly.
Trust – I wanted to build trust with our clients and speakers to know we would take care of their events and make sure the speakers were always fully briefed and prepped beforehand (we will even be checking if the trains and flights are on time)
Knowledge – I wanted to create a bureau that was not just transactional led and that we had knowledge on what every speaker spoke on and offered impartial and accurate advice on who was best suited for our clients requirements.
As a speaker bureau our shop window is often our website and the speakers we have on that site – but we also have to be the shop window to our speakers too and I did not want a bureau that had speakers listed for the sake of it. Finding the right speaker can be a minefield and we want to be that safe pair of hands.
Only our clients and speakers will be able answer if we have been getting these right and we continue to learn but I feel very proud of how we have built in the past 5 years and cannot thank everyone enough who has supported us along the way.
Best wishes to everyone else who is building.