It's also incredibly valuable to expose your mind to different examples of sales and marketing success.
There is plenty of information about how entrepreneurs have built their information product or ecommerce business, but how about building a city?
A city is like any other product. It needs to be marketed and sold to visitors. Over the past 20 years, one individual has shaped Nashville, TN.
President and CEO of Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp Butch Spyridon, lead the charge on branding Nashville 'Music City', convinced the Oilers to move to Nashville and become the Titans, spearheaded the 'Let Freedom Sing' 4th July party (the biggest firework display in America), increased annual visitor spending in Nashville to a record $9.2B in 2022, and even helped a then unknown Taylor Swift land one of her very first gigs.
I was lucky enough to sit down with him to find out his marketing strategy and secrets. Here are three pieces of gold I got from Butch:
1. Build things based on what customers will love, not what you think will earn the most money.
In 2003 the city that brought the world Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash and Taylor Swift seriously considered rebranding away from music.
A group of 140 business and civic leaders gathered to map out the future of Nashville branding. One of the more popular ideas was making Nashville the 'Health Care Capital'.
'Health Care Capital' might have been popular in the healthcare industry. You can see why many business owners that exist around Vanderbilt would have liked it, but let's be honest, it doesn't exactly get the juices flowing, does it?
Butch knew there was no way they could sell Health Care Capital as a tourism draw. People love to be entertained. Entertainment means music, sports, good food, fun times, and major events.
He was adamant that Music City would be a winning strategy. "We just had to do it differently," he said. "People still thought of Music City as 'Hee Haw.' We had to highlight the Fisk Jubilee Singers and songwriters and the cool side of our music industry."
2. Think outside the box and don't give in to fear.
Butch is always on the lookout for a major event to boost the city's profile and one day got an idea to host the NFL Draft in Nashville.
The problem was the draft had been held in New York for the past 50 years, and they had no intention of moving it, least of all to 'Music City'.
"I just always saw the draft as it fit Nashville," Butch said. "It was a fan event. It was multi-day. So in 2011, I got the Titans to get us a meeting in New York. We made a day trip, called on the senior VP of events, his name was Frank Supovitz at the time. We took him to lunch and dropped that we'd like to bid on the draft.
"(Supovitz said), 'Well, we don't move it.' (I said), 'Well you should.' It was that kind of banter," Butch recalled.
Butch went in with the mentality of, 'I know you don't move it, but we want to give you a reason to.'
Not long after, the NFL started considering the idea but were adamant if it was going to be hosted elsewhere, it would only be in a major city like Chicago or LA. Butch still put in a bid.
"I emailed Peter O'Reilley, who's the current senior VP, and said we'd like to bid," Butch said. "He said we're only going to go to Chicago or LA. I said, 'That's OK, we want to bid'. He said, 'As long as you know'. I said, 'Look, you can use our bid against the other cities if you want. I just want you to be thinking about us.'"
His persistence paid off.
In 2018, 7 years after that first meeting, Butch got the news that Nashville had been chosen to host the 2019 NFL Draft.
Rather than stick to the script, Nashville played to its strengths, transforming the traditional idea of the draft into a destination event with music.
The outcome?
600,000 fans came to watch, making it the biggest NFL Draft in history.
The previous record was 250K.
3. Always be thinking about the next big project.
The final piece of gold I got from Butch was to always be thinking about the next project.
After each success, many people in Nashville were ready to sit back and relax, but Butch was always thinking about the next big thing. "When we got the Titans, I was thinking about the draft. After the draft, it was the soccer World Cup."
It's the same in business. Many business owners and entrepreneurs will get their first win and then take their foot off the gas instead of using the leverage from that win to fuel future projects.
Think about your next big project in terms of your value ladder or dramatic demonstrations. What could you do next?
Should you be hosting a summit? Is the world waiting for your first book? Is it time you started partnering with major celebrities?
Take this newsletter for example, a great goal would be to reach 100,000 readers. If it does that, we'll have some real leverage for the next goal, which could be to start interviewing major players in the digital marketing space.
Those interviews might get us to 500,000. At 500,000, maybe we'll start interviewing titans in the business world. Those interviews might get Netflix to come knocking at the door. Next thing you know, we might have a star on the Nashville Walk of Fame next to Butch's…
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