The story that saved the event before the event even happened

A marketing team at an IT services company came in for a workshop. Somewhere in the middle of it, I told them a story from my own career.

Years ago, I was part of a breakfast meeting in the US. The delivery head and sales head were flying in to lead it. Fifteen prospects had confirmed. I was joining remotely to handle introductions.

On the day, one person showed up.

The room could have collapsed into awkwardness. Instead, we made a choice. I opened by saying we had a captive audience, and rather than presenting at them, our team would simply have a conversation and see if it could be useful.

That one person became a customer.

In hindsight, it was probably the best outcome we could have had. Fifteen people in a room would have given us a presentation. One person in a room gave us a relationship.

I shared that story during the workshop and moved on.

What I didn’t know was what one of the participants did with it.

His company had organized a baseball event for a group of prospects. Of all the invites that went out, four had confirmed. The management was already discussing whether to reschedule. The effort didn’t seem worth it for four people.

That’s when he walked into the room and told them my story.

They decided to go ahead.