For the past 1.5 years I have being organizing monthly special events and social gatherings for an invite-only international social network dedicated towards expats and individuals who work and think globally, InterNations.org. Generally about 300 to 500 members attend the events. The largest attendance was when we celebrated together with the Consul General of Iceland their 65th Independence Day, where we had about 800 guests.

Every month I run into the same issue of event locations not returning emails, voice mails or calls. Even places where I have done business in the past and they have asked me to return, e.g., one location even put 7 people on CC when replying to my request. After 11 days and 22 email exchanges still no event date was provided, so I moved on again. This was the fourth such attempt with them. I have already done four events with them and every time it took a lot of unnecessary time to set up.

Since I began with organizing these events I have contacted well over 300 locations. I found that it doesn’t matter if they are a five stare hotel or a regular bar they all don’t return emails, voice mails or calls.

However there is one exception and that is 230 FIFTH. They are by far the easiest to work with. Whatever we agree on happens and there are never any unpleasant surprises. It takes me no more than 20 min. to set up and event deal with them. All I have to do then is show-up and everything is taking care of. For me that is a very well run event location. Next on my list is Hudson Terrace. My contact is always very responsive and always willing to help me out with any questions I have.

In today’s business climate where every Dollar counts and many locations are hurting I really do not understand how locations can afford not to respond to a business request. Some locations are even so “arrogant” that they ask for unreasonable bar minimum guarantees of up to $40,000, for a Tuesday or Wednesday night.

It is very obvious that none of the locations understand the concept of Life Time Value (LTV) of a customer. Almost all past locations have received event business from our members, or have frequently been visited by them after our event.

Natural Born Killers T-Shirt

Back in 1995 when I lived in the Dominican Republic I had this social business idea of bring conservation awareness/support and fashion together. Until today I still have not forgotten about this idea. Living then in Cabarete, which is a great water sports town, the oceans and its creatures were of interests. We picked sharks as we felt, already then, that they needed protection. We named our wannabe company “Natural Born Killers”. The naming philosophy was based on that most of top predators were endangered or were soon going to be on the list. And, from the creatures perspective we humans were the ultimate predator, so the person wearing the item was, in a way, a natural born killer.

As sharks and surfers have a special relationship we would develop surfer and beach wear. A percentage of each sale would go towards the conservation of sharks. We would work in partnership with very particular and selected organizations, mostly local ones. We even had a very special plan in place for restricted and limited shark teeth and bone jewelry, which would need to be certified and be a local run business. The animals were not to be hunted and/or killed for jewelry.

We did produce some T-shirts and shark teeth jewelry, and they did sell very, very well. Then we all started to move on and that is how it ended.

The idea was not only limited to sharks and surf wear. We also had other animals and fashion lines in mind, e.g. [grizzly] bears for trekking wear, [rattle] snakes/pumas for hiking wear, lions for safari look, polar bear/orcas for winter sports wear, tiger for jungle wear, etc. There were much more ideas then just a fashion company, there would also be local community activities in each Natural Born Killers Hub.

I still do really like this idea, of people supporting endangered animals by doing what they love doing in the creatures habitat. On the end, people do vote with their wallets and if they would buy NBK they are making a statement and giving back.

 If anyone is interested in the idea please contact me. I'll be 100% on board!!!....