The slogan of my city is both simple and endearing, it is “You Belong Here” and that could be the slogan of InCabin. I spend most working days explaining to someone what makes InCabin unique but when asked to write this blog I didn’t want to say the same thing I do every day, I want to articulate something more complex. I’ve decided to give you a behind-the-scenes tour of InCabin, looking through my lens coming from engineering.
When I started at Sense Media with no event background, Richard was adamant that I understood what was different about us vs. other event companies. So first he taught me how we do things at Sense Media and then he exposed me to how things are more regularly done, and I was startled at the impact of the difference. Having attended so many events, it really made sense as to why I felt so much more loyal to AutoSens as an attendee.
The overwhelmingly enticing thing about InCabin’s uniqueness is the same as AutoSens, it’s the ease of building enduring relationships. Now I admit, I am in business development, so most social events are easy grounds for me to find the seeds of LinkedIn connections and enduring relationships. That said I’m not basing this off of my own experience, I’m basing it off of the feedback from the engineers from global automakers to tiny startups, making tech you’ve never even imagined existing.
Enduring relationships in business are the ones where you think of one another for deals and partnerships that arise, you get the meeting with the big connection because of their recommendation, they invest in your technology because they trust you, or they select you for their car models because they understand you have the best solution.
Why are we so good at enduring relationships?
Step One: Get the right people there
The first big difference at InCabin is that we target the technical people rather than C-suites. This starts with our Production team who work with our Advisory Board and their good industry connections to get input on what technical information is relevant for solving their technical challenges in auto-tech. Then Marketing goes into overdrive telling everyone that we have a Call for Papers that they need to submit to, if they want to speak at our events.
We subsidize passes for OEMs and T1s so that their technical people who may not normally get budget to attend many events can easily attend. These are the partners of our exhibitors, so we want them to have the best time there, this makes that easy.
Step Two: Get them meeting one another
Engineers aren’t known for being outgoing so this is critically important to handle with care, if you can’t get engineers to talk there’s no event. What is something that engineers love to talk about? Their work! Especially with other engineers who are working with the same technologies! We use Round Tables on opening night to get them to meet a group of 20-40 people working with the same tech, they make lasting connections at that table who will in turn introduce them to the right people they know at the event. They also love talking about demos – we’ve got loads of those.
Step Three: Get them to have productive conversations that result in new work
This is a natural next step once we’ve executed the first two steps. We have bar tables all over the exhibition hall so that people can easily step away from the stand after a demo and have a more productive conversation while their colleagues continue doing demos. We also have private meeting rooms and really good networking receptions and especially great food to keep people on-site all day.
It was brought to my attention that it seems strange for me to spill our secrets so other event companies can copy us. I do so blatantly because they can’t copy us, they don’t have the bandwidth, connections, technical foundation, and certainly not the passion for the industry. We do not push over 200 events & webinars. We specialize in 2 events, AutoSens and InCabin, which is why we are able to be so dedicated, focused, and flexible, responding in real time to what the industry wants. We actually adjusted our floorplan for Barcelona this October after strong feedback from you in Detroit in May – giant companies don’t do that.
We don’t do the next event and move on, we work with you on the next 2-3 years as real partners who think about your business success. With a standard event company, they only care about a rebook and then they are off to sell on one of their other 200 events in digital business strategy or oil and gas until the next iteration of your event. We think about you all year, as if we are an extension of your marketing or business groups, looking for useful connections and creative opportunities to promote you beyond what you’ve got as line items in your contract. We see to it that you are part of the Community that makes up the interior industry. You can’t just copy and paste that.
As I said, my city’s slogan could be ours because when you build lasting relationships at InCabin you do feel you belong here.
I hope to see you in sunny Spain this October!
