For the past three years we’ve exhibited at the North Lancs Expo. Organised by Lancaster Chamber and held at Lancaster Brewery across two days in September, the first day is marketed as the B2B day and the second has a focus towards local people and employment/training opportunities.
In previous years we enticed people to the stand with local ale and meat pies but we chose to take a different approach this year. We wanted to portray our ethos of ‘care‘ in our Trust, Care, Compliance strapline. We know it can be daunting speaking to an accountant – you feel like you should be confident with your numbers and know all the acronyms they’re using when in fact it’s ok that you don’t and that’s actually where we can, and want, to help.
Our 3m x 2m space gave us the opportunity to create a welcoming space with two chairs, a coffee table, a couple of books, there was even a copy of The Happy Newspaper. We replaced the half-pints of ale with nutritious juice shots from NT Juice based in Heysham. As a company, we’re committed to working as closely with local companies as we can. The branded biscuits were a collaboration between Kathryn from Etch.etc and Bex from The Brinscall Baker – we can confirm they all tasted as good as they looked. It was great to see children enjoying the juice shots and were a welcome alternative from all the other sweet treats on offer. The space also gave us a chance to sit down and talk about the opportunities available to people that may like to work at ICS. Thanks to our partnerships with Lancaster City FC and The Dukes, we were able to give away a shirt, match tickets and a family pass to Alice in Wonderland as the play returns to Williamson Park in 2020.
We know the value of fostering strong working relationships so although at many exhibitions you hope to come away with some leads, what you also want to do is start to build or reinforce those relationships. The two days allowed Sam, who heads up the SME Accounting team to not only chat with potential clients but also catch up with current clients and get some meetings booked whilst everyone had their calendar to hand. Tom, who takes care of the marketing at ICS was also able to chat with marketing partners that may be able to support us in the future and Dan, our Head of Sales got his 5 seconds of fame as he went LIVE on Beyond Radio.
On the Saturday, our team got involved with Steve Cody’s Cha Cha Plank Challenge, a fantastic, unique fundraiser in aid of Cancer Care. If you haven’t got involved yet there’s still time and you can donate here.
If you’d like a copy of our SME brochure or want to know more about the range of roles available at ICS, please get in touch. You can email marketing@icsuk.com or call us on 01524 580720.
