 Hello everybody. Thank you for watching this webinar. If you don't know already, my name is Tim Constine also known as T-Con within the Drupal community and here at the Drupal Association. If you don't know, I am the sponsorship fulfillment coordinator, so I'm your go-to person for all things your sponsorship, whether it's logistics, coordination, game planning, shipping, whatever it may be, I'm your go-to guy. So I'm here now to help you out to hopefully help you get the most out of your sponsorship. A lot of you have been DrupalCon sponsors or DrupalCamp sponsors before, so you probably know what to do. So this is kind of a brief rundown to refresh your understanding of what a DrupalCon really is and hopefully prepare you a little bit better for this upcoming DrupalCon in Barcelona. So over the years, the people here at the Drupal Association have kind of figured out that there's three main reasons why people sponsor DrupalCons or why they sponsor Drupal events in general and those three are leads and business development. So new business or working on making your current business relationships a little bit stronger, maybe even networking with other businesses for potential partnerships, talent recruitment, Drupal is a very specific knowledge and skill base. So what better way to recruit Drupal talent than at the largest Drupal event of the year? And the third reason is really to give back to the community and demonstrate thought leadership. This could be highlighting modules that they've created, demonstrating your proactiveness in growing the project and contributing to the project itself, whether it's accelerating Drupal8, maintaining it, or even just being a sprint mentor, a rollable training day mentor. There's a lot of things to demonstrate and with this being such a strong and passionate community base, sometimes it's important just to let you know or let people know that you're out there helping this community in whichever way it is that you want to demonstrate. So no matter what you're doing, whatever your goal is out of those three, there's basically four steps to help you succeed at achieving that goal. This comes down to being proactive. DrupalCon extends way beyond in the actual date. So even though it is only a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday event, you really need to start promoting your presence at Drupal weeks, maybe even a month before and extend a couple of weeks past DrupalCon. Whatever it is your branding is, whatever message you're going to try to get across, start early, start reaching out to people. As always, with all things, always follow up. If you are there collecting leads, follow up with those leads. If you're done with the event and you want to show the community what you did, do it. Follow up and let people know that you were there. The second step to success is to define your goal and message. There are going to be a lot of Drupal related companies there. If you're a Drupal shop, if you're a hosting company, if you're an ISV, you don't want to get lost in the crowd. So define your goal, what separates you and make sure it's consistent. A lot of companies will create a whole new marketing campaign solely based around DrupalCon, whichever it is. This can go from your artwork to whatever message you are trying to display, whether you're a thought leadership or a certain product that you want to promote or a new merger that you potentially are a part of. Define it beforehand, promote it beforehand, and stay consistent. Then define track metrics for your goals and make sure these are measurable. A good piece of advice, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. Go in there, what is your goal? A certain amount of leads, a certain amount of conversations, maybe a certain amount of sales to happen, whoever it is that is your goal, define it and let your entire team know about it. Then also promote it through all channels. I touched on this earlier. DrupalCon itself is those three days, but it really extends beyond that and obviously not everyone is going to be attending it. Go through your social media, your blog, just your website, whoever it is that you have, promote it and continue to promote it before and after the event. Going into being proactive, I touched on this earlier. It is so important to promote your presence at DrupalCon or your sponsorship beforehand. Whatever it is, ensure that it is consistent. If you are going to talk about a certain project or a certain product that you are releasing, you have just released or an idea that you're coming up with, start promoting it early. That's why I always ask you, how do you want your company aim to be listed? Is there a different logo that you want me to use to promote on our website? If you're jumping around, one logo is one color, you're talking about another message in another place, people get lost and you really become not very memorable. A consistent message or consistent branding is critical and people will more likely remember that than some other jumbled mess that you may come up with. Beforehand, connect with people. Connect with your followers. Connect with business opportunities, clients, potential clients. Whatever it is may be. There are plenty of resources out there for you to connect with them, one of them being our community page. If people, when they register, they can opt in to make their public profile visible to the entire public. You can legitimately reach out to them, set a meeting beforehand. If you don't have anyone specific in mind, use our social media outlets. Everyone's going to follow the JupyCon Twitter handle. There's hashtags. There's Drupal in general. Then there's also d.o. Let people know you're going to be there. If they want to contact you, if they want to meet you while they're there, let them know where they can find you, whether you had a booth number. If you're sponsoring a certain event, let them know what your event is, who you're there or who's going to be there and why you're there. And then during the event, this is also obviously probably one of the more important things because it's the JupyCon itself. If you're bringing a team there, make sure everyone looks like they are a team. You don't have to have a uniform per se, but let people know or have them wear something that lets them know where they're coming from, especially if they're going to be going to the social events or if they're going to be doing these sprints. It will show that your company is contributing. They're a part of this community and they're a team and your team is doing well. It's thriving. People want to join it if you're out there to recruit people. And make sure everyone has a business card. Even if they are just a developer and business development and sales isn't their thing, let them have a business card and maybe even create a business card specifically for this JupyCon. Whatever your goal is, whether it's to recruit talent, generate new leads, promote a new product, have that message on that card. So even if a business developer is talking to another business developer, they can simply hand him the card and the job credentials will be right there. It's just nice to have everyone on the same page and look professional and make the most of sending these people there. Before you guys go, coach the team on the message. So whoever they are talking to, you can't obviously be around your team the entire time. So let them know what the message is. Make sure that they are promoting it while they're there. And maybe you give them some metrics because again, if you can't measure it, you can't really manage it. Have your team tweet and promote it through their channels, through your company channels. The more people you send, the larger presence you're going to have. And then if they themselves can reach out through their own channels, the market that you're reaching is just exponential for the amount of people that you bring. Aside from the sessions, which are obviously important and the exhibit hall, attend all the other events going on. There's the boss, the bird of feather room, which you know, it's an excellent way to really promote your thought leadership within the community because these are just open conversations and the topics are chosen by you guys. So you even have the chance to submit a topic yourself, something you're passionate about or just join in on someone else's and you know, demonstrate that this is an area of your expertise or this is something you're passionate about. Join the special events, whether it's trivia nights also always a popular one. There's social events happening around Drupalcon every day of the week before, during and after the event, or maybe even throw one yourself. It doesn't have to be an elaborate party, but maybe just a dinner inviting people that you want to speak to and get to know a little bit better. And as always, the hallway track, the all important and hallway track, just walking around this event, this venue or even just the city itself, you know, what other chance or what other timeframe do you have this many people that have this much impact on Drupal gathered together, you know, take advantage of that, even if you're not going to the sessions, you're not doing anything. Just talk to people, network with them out in the hallways, out in the streets, go grab a drink, go grab a coffee, whatever it may be, take advantage of it. And then know how you're going to promote your message. Know how you're going to collect leads. This time around in Drupalcon, Barcelona, we will not be providing a lead scanner. So come prepared and make sure everyone knows how they're doing it. Everyone on your team knows what the what the game plan is. Because if one person is collecting business card, one person is scanning on the app, one person is just writing it down on a napkin. You'll regret that when it comes to a week after or a couple of days after the call when you're trying to follow up with people, just know what the game plan is and make sure it's consistent. However it is, you're going to do it. So you're not regretting anything and you're not wasting time. And then the all important after I already touched on this, but we like to recommend following up within 48 hours. Drupalcon is a big deal. It's hectic for everyone, not just you. So, you know, it's important to follow up while it's on top of everyone's mind. And if you follow up within 48 hours, you know, it shows that this is important to you. It's not you're not just some name and some email and some database somewhere, make it a personal message, you know, make it represent the branding that you were representing while you're at Drupalcon. Another little piece of advice, create this message before you go. Because as I mentioned, it's a crazy event. So last thing you're going to want to do is create an email or create a follow up after all this traveling after it's all said and done. So maybe have it prepared before you done before you get there. So when it's over to simple click the button or, you know, wave of the wand, whatever you want to call it. All right. So as mentioned before, we typically find that there are the three reasons why people sponsor Drupalcon. And so now I'm going to break down each one, keeping in mind those four tips of success. So first thing I want to touch into is lead generation. So this is for new business or new clients. This goes into being proactive. So know who's going to be there. Review the TND profile. I mentioned before, you can contact them directly. You can scroll through, see who it is you want to talk. And simply through the Drupalcon website, you can contact them. What easier way is there to do that? So while you're there, you know who you want to talk to. So you're not wasting time trying to figure out, oh, is this who I want to talk to? No, yes. So do it beforehand. And, you know, this will kind of go into the quality over quantity. Yeah, it's one thing to just get a list of a thousand names. But in my personal opinion, five solid leads is always going to be better than 20 garbage leads. So know who you want to reach out to or at least know the type of people you want to speak to beforehand. And on a side note, this community page, it's pretty important to Drupalcons for a lot of people. So don't take advantage of it. Don't spam. Don't use web crawlers. You'll get a bad rap. We'll get a bad rap. So it's really not good for everyone. So be considerate when you're using it and use it for specific reasons. Also, what I touched on, if you are there to generate leads or generate new business, let your team know how many are you going after, whether it's sales meetings, just general conversations, how many business cards you hand out or how many business cards you want to collect, you should have a number in mind and your team should know what number you have in mind. Because again, I'm going to say it again, without any metrics, you can't manage it. So come prepared with a goal and a measurable goal. The other part of lead generation for new business is doing it outside of your booth. If you are a booth sponsor, it's important to always have someone there at the booth collecting leads that way because there's the classic enter to win and you can win this TV, but in return we get you as a lead. Where you can find the more qualified leads and really take some time to evaluate who you want to talk to is outside the exhibit hall. So I mentioned before, attend boss, just network in general. Talk to other like-minded people, attend these social events. This is where you can get the most qualified leads, even if you don't have them scanned in a database, you at least made that connection and you've networked with them and in return you have become rememberable or memorable to them as well. Another thing I'd like to mention is we will be having again as always a VIP sponsor support appreciation happy hour. This will be happening Wednesday the 23rd of September from 17 to 1830. It will be there right at the CCIB level two terrace as that so conveniently mentions. This is really a good opportunity to do some high-level networking. Each company, all the sponsors are invited, so please send me an email and the attendees if you haven't already. This is going to be the high-level executive type account managers, just VIPs as it says in the title. So if you want to do some high-level networking, potentially talk business to business, maybe some partnerships, attend this. It's important and it's fun. There'll be drinks, food, and you really don't have to do anything but walk up a couple stairs. So might as well attend. So again, send me the emails of the attendees if you haven't already. Another part of lead generation is moving people or moving business down the pipeline. You've already been in touch with people or you were not able to close a deal or close business in the past. Now's your chance to reach back out with them. Like it says right there, DrupalCon is a sales tool. So if you've lost a lead, if you have leads active right now, let them know that you're going to be there. Let them know where to find you and really explain that client footprint. There's no better way to make a good impression than to be with them in person. Yeah, webinars are great, phone calls are good, but just to be there in person, having the face-to-face time in a social situation, take advantage of it, and even if you don't close it right then and there, follow up with it later and it's just a good way to spark up a lost lead or to help a active lead move even further down the pipeline. Some ways to do this specifically, invite them to your session if one of your employees has a session and you want to promote that and you're proud of it, tell them to go to there. It's a good way to get down to the technical aspects of it from the people that are the most knowledgeable at it. Host a personal dinner, whether it's a larger dinner with a couple different clients or just a one-on-one meeting outside. Take advantage of the scenery. How often are you going to be able to meet with clients in a cool area such as Barcelona? If you're not from Barcelona, if you're from the United States, other elsewhere in Europe, Asia, this is a perfect setting to have a more intimate meeting. Take advantage of it. And then send out newsletters, blogs, or tweets through your social media. This is a good way to really just take the shotgun approach and let multiple people know at once that you're going to be there. Let them know where you're going to be at if you're going to be at a boss. And it kind of filters out the people for you because then you know the people that are attending or the people that want to see you or want to hear what you have to say. So it's a good way to proactively move people down this pipeline without having to put a lot of specific time and effort because if they're attending a boss that you said that you're going to be at, that effectively is moving them down the pipeline right there. The last part of lead generation is partnership. So this is when we're talking about business partnerships, you know, whether it's you have a specific module product or expertise that you want to team up with someone and go to market with them with, or you want to team up with a company so you can capture a new market or capture a new audience. This happens a lot at DrupalCon and a lot of people take a do this or sponsor DrupalCon solely for this reason. Most of you know that mergers are a very large aspect of the Drupal ecosystem right now and many of them have started here. So as I've mentioned before this is you rarely have this opportunity to have this many influential people and companies gathered up together for this long. So if there's something that you have in mind, you know, now is the time to get the conversation started or move the conversation further if it's already been started. This is especially important when you want to start setting these meetings in advance. Business partnerships are not a small deal. It's not a lead. So you want to know who you want to talk to and you obviously want to have it in mind before you would show up. And the all important follow up with it because this could be a very, very large deal. And this goes into if you're going to have a booth, make sure there's someone else out there, you know, experiencing the hallway track, you know, whether it's they themselves are walking around the exhibit all going to parties, going to bobs, going to sessions, whatever it may be. If you're looking for potential partnerships, you need this more personal approach, this 101 talk rather than a simple booth visit. So make sure someone's there as well as well as a booth. The second reason why people sponsor DrupalCon is for talent recruitment. This one is a little bit more straightforward. But a couple pieces of advice that we have found helpful for people is if you're hiring, let people know. A lot of people will attend DrupalCon to look for a job. So they may not be a part of the company or they're a part of the company and they're looking for a new career path or new direction. So the easier it is for them to find you, the better. It could be as Blaine as saying, we're hiring with a giant sign, print out job posting so people don't forget about you. If someone's interested, hand them a job posting. It's a lot easier than relying on them to go back to check your website later on. So, you know, make it easy for them. And again, set meetings in advance. If you see someone with a certain skill set or talent level that you're looking for, let them know that you are looking for it. Let the person know that, you know, this company is different. They are seeking me out. Maybe this is something I should consider even if they aren't considering or looking for a new job. You know, if you are proactive in that sense, it sets an impression with them. If you aren't aware, we have the Drupal jobs board. I've sent all of you guys job postings to there. This is a great tool. And as part of your sponsorship, you get free postings. These do expire, but this is a perfect chance to sort of experiment with it. And obviously if someone's a Drupal developer or a Drupal talent, if you type in Drupal jobs and your search engine, Drupal job board is going to show up first. So, it's a great tool, great resource. And I hope all of you take advantage of it if this is what you're looking for. And as mentioned before, if you are hiring, make sure the branding is consistent across all outlets. So this example here is the business card. If you're hiring and a business developer is talking to another Drupal developer who's talking to another Drupal developer who sees a certain skill level that the company may need, give them the resource or the tool to recruit them. A simple business card with a job description on it will suffice. So give everyone there or give your entire team the resources and tools to recruit because the more people you have out there recruiting, the more effective it's going to be. And then instead of just promoting the specific job, whether it's, oh, we're looking for this many years, this skill set, yeah, that's important and all. And so is pay, obviously. But a lot of people, especially in the Drupal world or in the tech world, want to know why they or will have a reason why they join a company. And a lot of this has to do with a company culture. So promote this culture. Even if you're not talking to the person directly, just promote it through your channels, social media blog, promote it through how you guys interact while you're at DrupalCon. If people are wearing your branded shirts or your branded gear and they're actively talking about your company, that will show people that they are proud and they are happy to be a part of your company. And that could be the difference maker of why people choose to work for you or why people begin to seek you out because they see that this culture is there, that the team is strong and they'll want to join it. So it's important that you do get to the nitty-gritty stuff of the job, but go beyond that and show why your company is so great to work for. The last reason why people sponsorship, there might be other reasons, but from what we've seen, the last reason why people want to sponsor DrupalCon and DrupalCams is just to give back to the community and demonstrate their leadership throughout this giant community. Drupal has been opened up a lot of doors for a lot of people. It's made a lot of companies successful. It's made people money and people like to give back to this because they realize how great this tool, this resource and how great the community is. Some people's best friends have all been created through this, so people like to give back to it and people like to lead it and have some say into it. So if this is what you want to demonstrate, demonstrate it in your messaging. Demonstrate the sort of trainings you've done outside of DrupalCon. Demonstrate the modules that you've been contributing. Sprint, all the sprints that your team members have been doing, all the contributions your team has made. And the fact that you're a sponsor itself shows that you're financially supporting the Drupal community, the Drupal Association. So be proud of it and let people know that, yeah, it's one thing to be here for our business purposes, but that's not really why I'm here. I'm here to sponsor, to have fun, to give back and really change the direction or influence the direction that this Drupal project is heading. And let everyone know about it. If you're doing this, again, you're only reaching a small, tiny portion of the Drupal community out of all the attendees. So continue to promote this. Whether it's just, hey, we're here at DrupalCon. It's fun and promote it through all your media outlets. It's a good way to let people know who aren't there, that you are supporting it, that you are a thought leader. And obviously one of the more important things, if you really want to just contribute, is join the sprints. Whether it's you or your team members, that's the best way to directly contribute to the project itself. This is where issues get taken care of. People can just sit there and collaborate person to person. It's fun. It's effective. And if you're going to be there, wear some branded gear. None of that won't hurt to show off that, hey, I'm part of this company and we're all contributing. Maybe you even consider being a sprint mentor. Our sprint mentor base is amazing. Cathy Thays will lead that. So if you're interested, contact her and join the club. Join Trivia night. This is just a fun way to be a part of it. If you haven't done Trivia night, it's blast. A lot of people attend it. Again, wear your branding because especially if your team wins, not saying that bragging is all important. But if your team wins and you happen to be wearing your brand of gear, won't hurt. There's a lot going on. So just make sure you're attending everything. I mentioned before, Drupalcon extends way beyond the actual event, the three days itself. So be involved, get involved, talk with people, network. That's probably the best way to show that you are involved in this community and you care about where it's headed. So again, this was a pretty basic presentation. A lot of you guys do already know all this stuff, but sometimes it's nice to just get a refresher, especially with it right around the corner here. So this slide, I didn't create this slide, but I always feel like it's pretty helpful. Just a quick rundown, networking 101. Bring plenty of business cards. Make sure everyone on your team has those business cards and it's consistent with whatever message that you're doing. Prepare an elevator pitch. A lot of people on your team may not be within sales or within business development. So let them know, this is the message we're going for. If you see someone that is interested, here, talk about this. And branch out. Avoid just gravitating to people you know. You don't want to get there, have all this time, go by and then come out of it, realizing you really didn't achieve, you didn't really meet anyone. So try to meet new people no better way than to attend these extracurricular activities going on. If you're shy and if you're attending this by yourself, if you are bringing people that, you know, aren't really part of the community yet, try just, it's simple. It's just saying, hey, haven't met you yet. My name is Tim. That's the perfect way to get a conversation started. Don't be shy. The Drupal community are some of the most friendly people around. I'm relatively new and I feel like I've been welcomed in and I've taken this line word for word and it is worried. So don't be shy. Meet some new people. Take advantage of this time. And if you see someone who is not taking advantage, you know, who or who is being shy, help them open up. You know, you don't know this person could be your next employee. This person could be part of your next business deal. This person could be part of your next business partnership or you could just become a good friend. So be courageous and reach out to them if you see them struggling. If you see them being shy, this is community for everyone. The more people we have in it, the stronger the project gets. So don't, don't shy away from reaching out to the people that are keeping themselves. And don't really try to sell as anything instead of really just building a relationship. This is your time to meet people, to, to build that initial relationship. Go on with this selling later on. There's nothing worse than, you know, having, leaving a bad taste in someone's mouth because all that you were doing was pushing something on them. People become uncomfortable. People will stop visiting you. They will gravitate away from you. So use this opportunity to really build a relationship and then work on the sales later on if that's something you're interested on. Please don't be dropping random marketing material or the, I like to call it gorilla marketing. First of all, we may have to pay a fee if you're doing it in the wrong places. It's trashy. Your company looks bad. So just, just avoid any of these gorilla warfare marketing tactics. And if you're giving somebody a business card or if you're making a connection, be memorable. If you just simply write a hand note on your code or on your card or on whatever it is you're doing it, people will be more inclined to keep it and follow up with it and you in turn will become more memorable. So if you're hiring someone to say, you know, a little no, I liked how you had this certain skill set right there, you know, that will stick in people's mind and people won't want to go home and throw that away. So just to recap, we kind of just did in the last one, but whatever your goal is, be proactive, start early, follow up after, define your goal and message and be consistent wherever it is, whatever outlet you are branding yourself through, be consistent, whether it's creating your own little marketing campaign around it, or it's just your same message that you always do, be consistent and define it and make it measurable. That's also a key. Promote it through all channels and define your metrics and let your entire team know what the metrics are because the more people you have trying to achieve the same goal, the quicker and the more effective it will be. And your last resource would be me. I will be on the site. If you haven't seen me yet, there's a picture of me. I will most likely be wearing shorts, probably a backpack, and I kind of stand out. I'm there to help you out. There's my phone number that you can reach me while I'm in Barcelona. I do have a certain amount of minutes, so please if you can text me. If anything, if you have any questions prior to the event or after the event, reach out to me. I'm here to make it as seamless as possible. I may not be able to define your marketing strategy, but I can help you out and hopefully make your time as a sponsorship more enjoyable. So that's really about it. Again, a lot of you guys may have known this, but it's always nice to get a good refresher. So if you have any more questions, please feel free to reach back out to me. And that being said, I look forward to seeing you all in-