Tomorrow morning I am speaking at the Melbourne Spring Fashion Week Breakfast Series. I have no idea if tickets are still on sale or not, but you can check out the program and enquire here if you are interested.
I was somewhat surprised by the invite. Despite the persona underlying mag nation, I am probably one of the least qualified blokes to speak at a fashion event that you could ever imagine. My super stylish Spanish wife can’t stop laughing at the thought.
Luckily, I have been spared from embarrassment thanks to the topic up for discussion. Here is what is says on the MSFW website:
An exceptional line up of speakers will share their experience and knowledge on what it takes to create and maintain customer relationships throughout the retail lifecycle – from the temptation and seduction of courting new shoppers, through love and marriage, and how to ward off separation.
Learn more about the most evolved, savvy, feature-rich retail brands and online entrepreneurs and how they connect to their consumers’ desires at every touch point to seize their brand’s potential and build relationships that last.
We feel honoured to be thought of in this light. However, they have definitely put us in the wrong category. There are four breakfasts; the first on Temptation and Seduction was today, while tomorrow is Love. We have some really nice relationships with our customers and I would be happy to admit that with some of these people, there is genuine love which has gone beyond the courting stage. However, the vast majority of folks have never even heard of us. Ask outside the fashion and urban savvy crowd, and people will think that mag nation sells mag wheels (we still get calls about this).
We think it is a little premature to place us in the Love category (hopefully one day we will justify this tag). That said, I will do my best to talk about how we try to engage our customers. The problem with this is how do you talk for 15 mins on the following points:
• We talk to you
• We listen to you
• We respond to you
• We enjoy ourselves and let you be a part of it
• We are honest and open
The first 3 points are customer service 101. There is absolutely nothing new in any of that. Perhaps the greatest impact has been the last point. We constantly get told that we are really open and that people like this as it gives them insight into the personality of who mag nation is. We received massive amounts of feedback both online and offline from our first blog post, and perhaps this is the sort of thing we do a little differently from other brands.
In any case, I better now work out what I am going to say tomorrow. I think it will be a pretty discerning crowd, and 5 bullet points ain’t going to cut it. If anyone has any suggestions about what works (or doesn’t) in terms of our engaging with customers, please let us know. A very dangerous thing to ask in light of this particular post, as it will smell really bad if we get zero comments, but perhaps this is all part and parcel of us putting ourselves out there and taking risks.
