Month: November 2020

The Marketing Connect Meetups

If you are a marketer in India, here’s a networking opportunity that you can NOT miss. Come meet other marketers like you with this curated, 1v1, networking opportunity.

Lemme tell you a secret.

I am a podcast host. Really.

I am.

In fact, I am the host of The Marketing Connect Podcast where in the first season, I have spoken to some of the finest marketers in the country. Via these conversations, I try to learn from their journeys and what it takes to succeed in the day and age that we live in! I am not sure if that has helped the listeners but I have learned a lot. Just that I hate my voice and thus I have not really marketed the marketing podcast. Well, the mystery of life 😀

So, one of the reasons I started this podcast, was to meet interesting people.

My thesis was that if I wrote into seniors from the industry and asked for a meeting, they may or may not respond to me. But if I told them that I have a podcast, they would respond faster / better.

And they did!

I was able to reach marketers from more than 15 companies like Pidilite, Burger King, Eros, Magicbricks, FBB, and more. Each interaction was for good two-three hours and I could ask them questions about their lives, career trajectory, mistakes, learnings, and more. I don’t think I would’ve ever been able to get into such candid chats with people if it were not on a podcast.

Of course, the downside is that each conversation required hours and hours of prep (research on the guest, editing, and general operational things).

Ok. Wait. Lemme digress for a bit…

Hello, Lunchclub.ai

I recently got introduced to this website, lunchclub where they match me with “interesting” professionals and invite us to get into 1v1, quick, short video calls with each other. Think of speed “dating” for professional conversations.

In the last 2 weeks, I have had 3-4 calls and the quality of people I’ve met has been superb. Most of these people I met were like me – explorers, tinkerers, generalists, Jacks (and Janes) of all trades, and others of the ilk. And since these calls are 1 on 1, I could open up about things that I would probably not on a public chat.

So, it works well.

And it is quite similar to podcasting – just that the people I meet are strangers (so there is that excitement and tentativeness when I meet them) and there is no background research required (so, I need to invest less time).

This is when the light bulb went off in my head!

Hello, Marketing Connect Meetups!

So, what if I marry the podcast (that I hate to market) and some tenets from lunchclub (that I love)? And create a matchmaking opportunity for marketers?

To attend these meetups, you have to be a marketer. You could be on the client-side or the agency-side. Or you could be a freelance consultant (like me). But you have to be in the marketing space!

So, Marketing Connect Meetups is an opportunity to meet other marketers!

Sounds cool?

Here’s how this would work. Simple steps.

  1. I invite you to fill this Google Form. And no, I will NOT spam you.
  2. Once you’ve filled in, each weekend, I will curate matches (manually!!) and make introductions. I will send emails to you guys and invite you to meet each other.
  3. You guys then move me to BCC and plan and schedule a meet / call.
  4. What happens post that call? Well, up to you. May be you’d work together, maybe you’d pick brains, maybe you’d teach others something that you. are passionate about! The possibilities are endless.
  5. Give me feedback! Simple!

Simple. Right?

Oh, here are some ground rules.

  1. Safety first! Like any other matchmaking platform, we would get all sorts of people and it would be tough to filter the kind of people we’d get. So, please do stay safe. Although these meetups are planned in a professional setting and we have the Linkedin handles of each attendee, you never know.
  2. Respect trumps everything. Respect is not just about how you speak to people but also about how you conduct yourself, and how you respect the other person. For example, if you have set up a particular time for the call, you better show up on time! I hope you get the drift.

And here are some disclaimers.

  1. I am merely giving you an opportunity to meet others that you would other. Please do know that I can not control how these meetings would turn out for you.
  2. This is an experiment. I don’t know how this would pan out but I would love to have this become a way to meet new people.

In the end, I don’t know if this will work or not. Or if this will appeal to other marketers. But I do think that this “variation” of lunchclub is worth giving a shot. It is yet another itch that I want to scratch.

And here I am, with it. Lemme know what you think.

Oh, and this is part of the 30 posts in 30 days project. This was Day 4. Other posts are at 3010, 3110, 0111.

Day 3 – Spilled!

I continue to be butterfingers and spill tea on my laptop and the table that I work at!

Read about it.

As I write this, I am at a Starbucks (yeah, even with lockdown and COVID by withstanding, I have been coming to a Starbucks for a week now). I am one of those rare ones to believe that nothing would happen to me. It is 6:42 PM (published at 7:13 PM) and I am going to write for the next 30 minutes. And I do have a thing that I want to write about. Read on.

So, I am one of those people that has extremely good hand-eye coordination. so much so that I can give competition to Po, the greatest Kung-Fu master of all time. Or to those robots that seem to be snatching balls mid-air. Even Jonty Rhodes is nothing compared to me (do see this video of Jonty in action to get a sense of how good I am!).

Once I see a room with my eyes, I can walk in there with a blindfold on my eyes.

Really!

In fact I claim that once I place something on a table with my hands, I am so aware of my surroundings that I can close my eyes and reach out to things that I have placed on the table.

And yet… I have this notorious record of spilling things on my laptop. Thing is, when I write, I like to keep the laptop an arm away, stretch my hands and place my notepad, pen, tea / coffee / coke / water etc between the laptop and the edge of the table.

See this picture.

Saurabh Garg's desktop
Apologies for the bad picture quality…

Yeah yeah. I am sure you are worried that I am walking on eggshells and I am inviting disaster every time I even flinch. And I agree. But what is that life that you don’t live on the edge of?

And you know what is missing in this picture?

A cup of black tea that I was sipping onto, that I spilled on the table and the notepad and the laptop!

Sigh.

Thing is, most days I am ok with this setup. And most days I don’t spill things. But today, I did. At a crowded Starbucks and I had everyone staring at me as if I were a petulant child! Or I was Edward (Scissorhands).

So yeah, that was the achievement of the day. I had no clue that I would write about this but now that I made the mistake of spilling tea, why not make it into an opportunity and talk about it 🙂

And with this, its over and out. See you guys tomorrow!

If you like this, spread the word. Help me get an audience. I know these essays are cool :D. Older posts – 3010, 3110