Posts Tagged ‘moose’

When you’re at a networking event most people are dressed in a similar way, most people have similar ish business cards and promotional materials, so how exactly are you supposed to remember anyone, or more importantly how are you personally going to stand out from the crowd and get remembered?

For me two things are making a difference.

The hat.  It started off life as a purely practical thing, keeping the light out of my eyes etc, but it’s evolved to the point where it gets me noticed, helps people find me in a crowd, and even gets me business.

However the thing that is making the real difference is my change from using ‘boring’ images on my business card and promo materials.  I was in a room full of business people, trying to get them to use me for commercial photography, so I had photos of that nature on my cards.  Although they were fairly well designed, printed on nice card stock they almost never got a reaction.

Things changed however when a few months ago I decided to put a photo of a moose on one side of my business card.  When I hand it to people I often say “here, have a moose“.  I’m sure a few people think I’m a bit simple, but you know what, I don’t care.  It gets a reaction, and more often than not people make a comment and a conversation starts that isn’t business related.

All of this brings me neatly back to the photo at the top of the page of some of the staff from telephone answering company Frontline.  I met one of their company directors, David, at Business South a few months ago.  Within moments of him seeing the card we were talking about road trips around the American West.  Despite there being no talk of business, a few weeks later I got a call to come in and do some photography work for them, and this week I was back there doing a second stock photography shoot for them.  Would I have got the gig if I hadn’t got noticed, got a reaction and then remembered?

Towards the end of the shoot I was asked do to a few group shots of some of their staff.  Now having spent a couple of afternoons there I knew Frontline although very professional at what they do, they like to have fun at the same time.

As we’d done plenty of ‘safe’ shots on the previous shoot I suggested that they write out the company name in big letters on A4 paper and then hold them up while standing outside their offices.

Silly?  Yup, a tad, but will you remember them?

That reminds me.  I’m running out of moose cards, I need to order some more.

Yes, I know the plural for moose is moose, but mooses sounds more amusing so I’m using it.

I was at a CityLocal networking event at Eastleigh Football Club earlier today.

Anyone who has networked with me knows I don’t really do the whole public speaking thing – which is partly why I use the “I talk in pictures not in words” catch phrase.

It was a slightly odd 60 second round because everyone was getting a polite ripple of applause after they’d said their bit.  I’ve been to loads of networking events, and this was a first.  Even BNI wasn’t that bizarre.

So this morning I had to stand up and give my “60 second” pitch directly after another photographer.  This guy was the polar opposite of me, loud, outgoing, well spoken.  He’d done his pitch standing on his chair.  Upon finishing he turned to me and in a friendly way said “follow that”.

I stood up, held up my moose postcard and said, “Hello, I’m Michael Palmer, another photographer.  I don’t stand on chairs, but I do shoot mooses.” and sat down again.  At the risk of offending some of my fellow networkers, some of the 60 second pitches I hear are so deathly boring that they made you want to self harm yourself.  My current marketing thinking is to make an impression and to be remembered.  The moose theme does actually seem to be helping that somewhat.

It was the first public outing of my new moose postcards and I was rather pleased with the reaction.

Being different and original is where it’s at, and it’s starting to work.

If you hadn’t already noticed I have a thing about mooses.  Is it mooses, meese, or moose?  Whatever…

But why?  Because I’ve driven most of the way across Canada twice, seen dozens of road signs warning about moose but never once at any point had I ever seen a moose.

So during my visit to Grand Teton National Park in October 2009 I made it my mission to find and photograph a moose.

My day started with a walk around the small tourist town of Jackson Hole.  A photographic gallery caught my eye.  I got chatting with the owner and photographer David Brookover (www.brookovergallery.com).  His work is simply stunning, a true inspiration to me.  I told David my moose story, at which point he shouted across the street to a local reporter friend who happened to be passing.  He gave me some inside information about where some mooses had been spotted that morning.

So off I trot, a few miles up the road, turned right, spent an hour drive around in the now heavily falling snow, and no mooses.

Bugger.

Time was getting on, the snow was still falling and I had 3 hours till sunset.

Deciding I had nothing to loose I took a bit of a punt and drove 45 minutes to the northern end of the park to the area around Oxbow Bend.  It was then more by luck than judgement my moose adventure began.  I spotted across the river a couple of people out of their car, they were looking at something in the bushes.  I drove over.

MOOOOOSE!

At first all we saw was a mother with baby but then as more people joined us (at least 20 cars pulled up) someone said they’d see a male hiding in the rushes.  True enough, a few moments later out popped the beast pictured above.

I got the photo I wanted by taking another gamble and leaving the crowd to head back to the main road.  My luck was in when a few minutes later he crossed the road in front of me.  I was a tad nervous, what with me being the closest to him, and him being so damn big, but I was so happy to get my shot.

Now I can partly understand the rush that hunters must get when shooting these magnificent beasts, but at least with my way of shooting he’ll still be there tomorrow for others to have their shot.