How To Get The Krabby Patty Recipe
Before we get started, let me tell you a true story. When I was in college and Facebook was only accessible to those who had a college email account, there was this girl I knew from around campus and she would post pictures from events she worked. Like FUN events! At first, I thought these photos were of events she was attending, hanging out with friends. But eventually she started putting up captions with the photos like, ”I love my job”, or “I have the best job ever”, etc. Every caption was soooooo evasive though.
Now to paint a picture to what Facebook was like at this point in time, newsfeed wasn’t even a thing. When you logged into Facebook, it opened up to YOUR profile and you proactively went to your friend‘s profile to see what they put up. So it’s not like there was a newsfeed that her photos kept popping up on. Yet, going to her page it was like you missed out on so many happening things because her profile was filled with pictures from events. So people started commenting, “where do you work?”, “what job is this?”, “how did you get this job?”.
Guess what y’all. SHE NEVERRRRRRRRRR ANSWERED THESE QUESTIONS. She never once replied back what kind of job she was doing or nothing. She would answer every other comment EXCEPT comments asking about the job she had. Fast forward to now when I was told about the industry, after I was booked for a few different events and started collecting my photos of me at the events, it dawned on me. She was a promo!
Knowing what I know now, it was not that deep for her to be like that. She could have at least said that she gets booked through an agency. But she never gave any type of answer. Ugh! Anyhoo...
How many of you have experienced something like this. You get to an event and you all are talking about companies you love working for but there’s that one person who gives you vague responses. Or they avoid the question or just flat out tell you that they don’t like telling folks who they get bookEd through. Hopefully no one is acting like the girl from my story, but team members keeping these “secrets” isn’t something new. Just saying. However, many have their reasons why they don’t share this information. Here are the top three to consider:
1.) They Feel It Will Lessen Their Chance For The Next Booking
By clueing you in on the great agencies or marketing companies they book through, they fear you may end up getting booked for events they would have gotten booked for had you never been told about the company.
#2) You Don’t Do Anything With The Information Anyway So Why Even Waste My Breath
I used to be like this sometimes. You give folks the scoop and they don’t even use the knowledge. How do I know? Because they come back asking questions I already answered and they ask the question as if it’s their first time asking me. How else do I know? Because I would submit for an event through a company and reach out to someone I talked to and they didn’t even go sign up to be on their roster yet. See how this can be annoying?
Next time you run into people like this, refer them to my blogs.
#3) They Want You To Do Your Own Research
In this industry with the way it’s set up, there are companies who are good apples and others who are bad apples. Working for a bad apple can leave negative affects, which is understandable but some feel that there was no one who saved them from that experience and so they don’t mind having you wade the waves on your own.
BONUS: #4) You’re Work Ethics Is Trash
I didn’t want to add this one in this blog, because I don’t want you to give the side eye to people who are secretive about giving information. But after I wrote this blog, I made post asking about this topic and this was a repeated response. So I added it. The concern is that you would them as a reference and that’s a bad look on their behalf.
By all means, don’t take it personal. These reasons may seem petty to you but it all done to protect oneself. PLUS, you’re not entitled to information they don’t want to personally give you. 👈🏽KEEP THAT IN MIND.
Also, keep in mind that not everyone is like this. Those who are secretive like this are the smaller percentage of team members. There are plenty of people who do mind sharing information with others. But no one wants to feel like they are being pumped or leached for information.
So How Do You Get The Information Anyway?
First let me say, you have to start paying attention more. These answers will not automatically come within one sit down of lurking. It is best to approach this task as if you are looking for Carmen SanDiego. Did I just show my age again? LOL.
Nonetheless, there is something I want to point out about our secretive friends, they are more inclined to tell you who they don’t like working for. Take mental note of that information, because it has been my experience that most of these secretive people only tend to book with companies who send the paycheck when they say they will. But that’s just my experience though. I will give you three methods to help you find out this information:
#1) Six Degrees of Separation
When you notice a person like this. Don’t sweat it. Start to focus on what other team members they’ve worked with before. This is a clue, especially if that person ends up being a person who doesn’t mind telling you who they love working for. An easy, “do you know anyone here?” or “have you worked with this company before” or try “I seen you did *insert an event* with *insert a name*, they seem real dope”. What you want to do is cross reference the information you gather. If you end up knowing or having a connection with someone our secretive friends have worked with, find out the event. Then go ask that person who booked them for that event. But don’t be weird about it though. A simple “hey I notice you worked the *insert event name* for *insert the brand* and I wanted to ask, what company did you book through?”. If our secretive friend won’t tell you the scoop, that doesn’t mean people they’ve worked with will be the same. Network.
#2) Context Clues
Another thing to ask in conversation is the actual event they worked for. Sometimes you can figure this out by going on to their Facebook and looking at their photos from the event. Some people don’t mind mentioning the event name in their caption or listing the location. You can then go to a correlating Brand Ambassador Facebook group and search the event name in the search-bar while on the group’s page and see which posts popped up to narrow down possible guesses.
#3) Network Your Circle And Social Media
This seems like it is obvious but I’m starting to think it’s not. If you have a good percentage of followers on your social media that are in the industry, a simple status “what company booked for the *insert event* for *insert brand*?” should do. Post the question in these brand ambassador networking Facebook groups if the admin says it’s ok. Send out a mass text message to your promo friends “hey, I’m trying to figure out who booked the *insert brand* for the *insert event*, do you know someone who knows?”. Notice how I composed that text. I didn’t ask, do you know. Because if they don’t know then that’s the end of the conversation but if you ask your friends if the know someone who might know, this may encourage them to send out a few texts to find the answer for you.
IN CONCLUSION:
Is it worth the trouble? Is it really that deep? Well... that is truly up to you. You’re the business, remember? Make an executive decision. Now I’m not saying to crack the code on everyone’s secret bookings. I just wanted to lightly touch on reasons why some are secretive in their defense and how to maneuver around it. Although I only scratched the surface of this topic, I hope this blog at least gives you some sort of clarity. But most of all, don’t take it personal.
WANT TO JOIN THE CONVERSATION? What’s your 2 cents. Check out my Facebook post on this topic.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10157619886108688&id=551853687&comment_id=10157621733353688¬if_id=1572097624179584¬if_t=feed_comment
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