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It All Began with Balls
The fine art of doing something different to get results
Most companies begin on a shoe-string — under-funded, under the gun, and under the radar. The company I co-founded in 1986, Idea Champions, was no exception.
When my business partner and I began, we had almost nothing — just an idea, some chutzpah, and a deep desire to succeed.
While we both were likable, smart, and skillful schmoozers, we had zippo in the way of a marketing plan.
Racking what was left of our over-caffeinated brains, it soon became abundantly clear that we needed some kind of showcase, some kind of “window to the world” — a place to strut our entrepreneurial stuff and get in front of the people who were the likely buyers of our service.
Back in those days, this meant one thing — renting a booth at the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Convention — the annual meet market in the training and development field.
The thought of this made the two of us slightly nauseous, since we had “cased the joint” a year before and come away with three impressions:
