needs are, as well as the sales team, and we also work collaboratively with the creative team and marketing team, as well. We understand fully what drives the attention of our target audi- ence, and that’s what we’ve got to make sure we can never lose sight of.”
In addition to creativity, another impor- tant key to success in business is mak- ing personal connections with people.
“My resources are the people that I’ve worked with over the many, many years that I’ve been in the business,” says Fiore. “So it’s still the personal contact. It’s picking the phone up and it’s calling... all those different people that I’ve known over the years - whether it’s the lighting company, the sound company, the staging company - and talking to them and saying, ‘Here’s what I want to do, can it be done? How can I make this happen?’ So I’m still, fortunately or unfortunately, ‘old school,’ but the personal contacts for me are what, I guess, websites would be for the younger generation. That’s still the way I do it. It’s calling in a favor.”
Fiore adds, “I do a lot of public speak- ing in front of college students, and I say, ‘A lot of it is who do you know. Who’s your contact out there? Where’s your network out there?’”
For Rudder, personal relationships are his bread and butter, particularly with regard to meeting planners. “One of the things that attracts me to resort sales is the relationships that one creates with meeting planners. These planners gen- erally represent Fortune 100 compa- nies or different state and national associations who are, in generally, within a five-hour radius of our proper- ty. My main charge as director of sales and marketing is to steer and direct and support our sales team to find those relationships, and create brand recognition of the property I represent to that market.”
Keeping up with trending topics can be a challenge, but Fiore has a solution. “I’m an avid reader, and I may not be
94 September October 2013
reading these technology of the month books or magazines, but with the way authors write today, you’re finding out interesting things that you never knew about. And a lot of it is tied into social media. So you read, you find out about it, and you ask questions.”
With all this edge-pushing thinking, one might wonder if the box’s edge ever got pushed too hard, or even not hard enough.
“I wouldn't say I’ve ever pushed the envelope to where it’s been offensive... that we’ve gone out there with a cam- paign that really has flopped. Nor have we gone out there with a campaign that really was too edgy or offensive in any way. Because we do the home- work, we really have a good under- standing as to what [our audience is] looking for. We’re going into market, gaining the exposure, gaining the expe- rience, and gaining the knowledge of our audience as to how they need to be communicated to,” says Rudder.
Fiore explains that there have been times when he wishes he had pushed harder for more creativity. “I wish I’d have been more adamant about it. I wish I’d have been more forceful about it... and I wasn’t. Did I regret it? I don’t think so much as ‘regret’ it, but I learned for the next time.”
BCVB produces “Walk for the Wounded,” working in conjunction with the non-profit organization Operation First Response.
According to the organization’s website (
walkforthewounded.org), there are two goals for the event: “...1) to draw atten- tion to the plight of tens of thousands of returning soldiers who are wounded, and whose families are facing signifi- cant financial and emotional challenges as their loved one recovers; and 2) to raise funds to help meet the critical needs of these families, many of whom are in crisis right now - today, in home- towns all across the country.”
When planning for the event, a local university wanted to get involved phil-
anthropically. The initial concept cen- tered on using phone banks; students would place calls to an existing data- base of known patrons and raise funds. But Fiore saw things differently.
“I went to the professor, and I said, ‘You know, the way things go these days, it’s all about social media. I’d rather these guys and gals get on Facebook and Twitter and do what they do amongst their friends and get this thing to spread,” he said. Fiore thought the students could best give people information about how to donate or participate through these social media platforms.
Fiore’s university contact didn’t agree. “So I acquiesced, and we did the phone bank thing. We produced a database of names, and unfortunately it was the same names we have used in the past. It really didn’t create the success that I thought it was going to create because I didn’t push the sub- ject and say that we needed to do it this way.” Instead of trying to win new patrons and spread the word further, the phone bank only targeted existing patrons.
Yes, Fiore has worked on projects that he is plenty satisfied with. Right now, he’s working on a new location for the Delaware County (PA) Athletes Hall of Fame. The organization honors all the athletes in the county who played pro- fessional sports, were in the Olympics, or had notable collegiate athletic careers.
“I found a location for them in the Granite Run Mall, which is a gigantic mall just outside of Media, Pennsylvania in Delaware County. And it’s going to be fantastic.” The foot traf- fic from the mall will be a natural bene- fit for the Hall of Fame, and the hall itself will attract its own breed of follow- ers to the mall and potentially increase revenue there.
“That gets my juices flowing, seeing how we can make this work - because to me, sports is that whole team build- ing thing. Sports is the catalyst for all
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