Going Solo

Whether you generously want to support the Going Solo conference or are looking for an opportunity to make your name known, you can now become an individual sponsor a little more elegantly than by sending PayPal money to an e-mail address. (Read the initial announcement.)

We now have buttons for you, and a few tweaks.

Tweak #1: the £200 and £500 packages now include an opportunity to provide business cards that will be added to the attendee packages (being a sponsor is about promoting yourself, isn’t it?)

Tweak #2: you can specify which area of Going Solo you would like to sponsor in priority. There is food, speakers, conference materials, and event organisation to choose from (and also “I don’t really care” if it’s the case).

Here’s what it looks like:

• Name (+link to personal website) on Going Solo site
• Personal slide in the “Thank You” slideshow presented at the event
• Opportunity to provide business cards in attendee package (for £200 and £500 options)

As an individual sponsor, you may also request discount codes or a free pass (for the £500 option). Ask for details.

Become an Individual Sponsor for £100

Become an Individual Sponsor (£200)

Become an Individual Sponsor (£500)

While I was at it, I did a little housekeeping and separated the page listing the sponsors and the instructions and information about the sponsorships.

For the curious, here are the discounts you can ask for when you become an individual sponsor (it’s not compulsive, so don’t be put off if you can’t use them — somebody else will take them). £100: two 15% discounts, £200: three 20% discounts, £500: 1 free pass and two 20% discounts.

Do you know anybody who would be interested in being an Individual Sponsor at Going Solo? Suggest it to them, and send them the link to the individual sponsorships sign-up page. I’m around to answer any questions, of course.

Promoting an event like Going Solo is a huge amount of work — often more than what you’d imagine (and more than what I imagined initially). That’s why everything the community does to help counts.

We don’t have a team of online marketers to get the word out there. It’s basically down to me, and of course to what all the kind people supporting Going Solo are willing to do.

I’m a blogger and a busy person, and so I know how easy it is to “want to do something” but not actually get around to doing it. Or how easy it is to think that what I can do won’t really make a difference.

So, I’ve tried to make it easy for you to “do something” to help get the word out about Going Solo Leeds (to your readers/network/community/friends) if you feel like it.

First, logos and blog badges which you can easily insert in a blog post or a sidebar by copy-pasting the code we provide, like these two for example:

<a href="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/" title="Going Solo Leeds Conference: 12th Sept."><img src="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/files/going-solo-leeds-logo-yellow-rectangle.gif" style="height: 75px; width: 150px;" alt="Going Solo Leeds logo." /></a>

<a href="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/" title="Going Solo Leeds Conference: 12th Sept."><img src="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/files/going-solo-leeds-badge-180x260.gif" style="height: 260px; width: 180px;" alt="Going Solo Leeds Badge." /></a>

(You can find others on the Promote Going Solo page.)

Second, the Going Solo Leeds home page provides you with the main information and links, as well as a brief description of the event if you’re looking for some stock text (we encourage you to speak in your own voice, of course, but sometimes it’s handy to know what the key points are).

Third, the videos and photos of the Lausanne conference are available (and embeddable — Flickr and DailyMotion) as illustration material. I guess this is particularly relevant if you were present in Lausanne and want to point out one of the highlights of your Going Solo experience to tempt others to follow in your steps.

Fourth, there are events on Upcoming and Facebook (as well as a Facebook group) to which you can invite your friends very easily (you certainly know how it works if you’re on one of those two services).

Fifth, if you’re into offline stuff, you can ask me (steph at going-solo dot net, or @stephtara on Twitter) to have a box of Going Solo MOO cards sent to you, or print out our posters and plaster them all over your neighbourhood:

And sixth, so that you don’t have to figure it all out for yourself, there are two links you can use to point people to registration:

• http://goingfar.expectnation.com/gsleeds08/public/register/order is the direct link
• http://leeds08.going-solo.net/registration provides some extra information.

While we’re at it:

• http://going-solo.net is the Going Solo blog
• http://leeds08.going-solo.net is the Going Solo Leeds website

Happy blogging, thanks in advance, and let us know if you don’t see your post appear in the coverage list soon!

Update 01.08.08: bloggers and community managers can now ask for their discount/referral code.

You might remember that quite a few weeks ago, I mentioned I wanted to set up a referral programme. Well, unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated to implement than I thought so at first.

Still, I wanted to find a way to give something back to those of you who sign up with a friend or two, specially now that the Early Bird deadline is past. So… introducing the “Bring a Friend” discount scheme:

• sign up at the same time as 1 friend: you both get 10% off
• sign up at the same time as 2 friends: you all get 15% off

Of course, if you are somebody with lots of freelance friends, or are feeling like a superconnector, you can bring more friends, and we’ll reward you all accordingly (5% additional off per extra person, for a maximum group size of 5 people: 25% off!)

Here’s how it works:

• decide to come to Going Solo
• convince a friend or two (or more!) to come with you
• e-mail steph at going-solo dot net with the names of the people who are coming
• I’ll e-mail you back with a discount code
• each person registers within 48 hours with the discount code
• you’re happy bunnies, because you’ll be attending Going Solo together, and got a discount!

Now, how do you find a friend to come with you? Because we like you — and also because it’s in our interest! — here are some tips you may find handy:

• tell the people you know about Going Solo, even if they aren’t freelancers: they might have friends who are!
• remind your freelance friends they will walk out of Going Solo with things in their heads which will help them be more successful and earn more money (that’s the point, isn’t it?)
• write a blog post inviting interested readers or passers-by to get in touch with you so you all benefit from the discount
• point people to the great sessions and extraordinary speakers who will be there on the 16th
• plan to stay in Lausanne for the week-end with your friends — how about a day off by the beautiful lake?
• use the Going Solo poster to print Moo cards and distribute them everywhere you go (that’s what I do!)
• if all else fails, you might want to consider blackmail or coercion — but we here at Going Solo will deny ever having suggested anything like that.

I’m looking forward to receiving the first e-mails from smart people who want to take advantage of this discount!

When I came up with the pricing scheme for Going Solo, my expectation was that most people coming to the conference would take advantage of the Earlier or Early Bird prices.

My initial estimation was that 1 month of Early Bird price was more than enough to get the word out — only I left out of my calculations that I would spend three of those four weeks travelling and conferencing. As a result, I’ve hardly done any Going Solo promotion during that time, and as promotion rests largely on my shoulders, well, Going Solo hasn’t been promoted much.

So, good news for everybody: I’m extending the Early Bird deadline until the end of the month of March, which means that I get relieved of trying to cram a month’s worth of promoting the conference in the space of two days, and more people will have a chance to hear about it and register for the cheaper fee. Yay!

Finally! As I mentioned, the logo/branding/design aspect of Going Solo is proving more of a headache than I anticipated. I really really wanted to have it all sorted out for LIFT08, but that’s unfortunately not going to happen.

However, we do have something for you. We’ve been asked for stuff to show off on blogs wishing to promote Going Solo (which we’re very happy about), so we went and created some. Thanks to Carlos, who did all the hard work on the first version of these badges while I complained that it should be “more like this” and “a little like that”, and to Steph who came up with what you see below. There are two widths (180px and 150px) to accommodate various styles of sidebars, and also in compact form if you prefer something smaller.

Please hotlink to these images by copy-pasting the code provided.

<a href="http://going-solo.net/"><img src='http://climbtothestars.org/files/going-solo/going-solo-badge-180px.gif' alt='Going Solo conference for freelancers, May 16th, Lausanne (Switzerland).' /></a>

<a href="http://going-solo.net/"><img src='http://climbtothestars.org/files/going-solo/going-solo-badge-150px.gif' alt='Going Solo conference for freelancers, May 16th, Lausanne (Switzerland).' /></a>

<a href="http://going-solo.net/"><img src='http://climbtothestars.org/files/going-solo/going-solo-badge-180px-wide.gif' alt='Going Solo conference for freelancers, May 16th, Lausanne (Switzerland).' /></a>

<a href="http://going-solo.net/"><img src='http://climbtothestars.org/files/going-solo/going-solo-badge-150px-square.gif' alt='Going Solo conference for freelancers, May 16th, Lausanne (Switzerland).' /></a>

Carlos is also responsible for putting together the image file that graces the back of the Going Solo Moo cards that I’ll be carrying around with me at LIFT. Come and ask me for one when you see me!