1. Ignite Talks. Ignite talks are fun, fast presentations that have become an international phenomenon since first appearing about ten years ago. For this format, speakers build five minute, 20-slide presentations, with each slide automatically advancing every 15 seconds. During the session, attendees informally stand around the speaker – which makes this format easy to implement in a wide variety of event venues.

According to Ignite’s founders, these five minute sessions and informal set-ups mean “anyone, anywhere can learn and present their ideas and stories.” Consider using an Ignite-style talk for rapid-fire new idea or research presentations.

2. PechaKucha Talks. Similar to Ignite Talks, PechaKucha (Japanese for ”chit chat”) is a simple presentation format where speakers show 20 images for 20 seconds each – to deliver a six minute and 40 second speech.

PechaKucha talks are especially popular in design-based or creative industry events. Some event hosts even invite all attendees to give a PechaKucha presentation – and then use the ideas shared to jumpstart brainstorming sessions.

3. Campfire Sessions. This year, the Advocamp schedule included campfire sessions – small groups of attendees informally sharing stories and strategies with each other during breaks. Advocamp even added marshmallows to the laid-back setting to simulate campfire storytelling.

A campfire approach is an excellent way for attendees to network and learn from their peers – with no real fire needed. And one of the new event strategies we are definitely warming up to.

4. Unconferences. Unconferences feature participant-driven content. For example, many unconferences start with the attendees creating the agenda on-site—and then deciding who will lead various segments. This format is also characterized by open group discussions versus “soap-box”-style speakers.

This format is best for groups with similar experience or knowledge—where high levels of attendee participation are likely. For instance, unconference sessions have worked well at tech conferences in lieu of traditional breakout sessions.

5. World Cafés.The World Café methodology is a flexible format designed to facilitate large group dialogue. The typical set-up is to seat groups of four to five attendees at small roundtables equipped with colored pens.

The host kicks the Café off by posing an open-ended question or sharing a problem that needs solving. Each table then spends 20 minutes talking about the topic. After each timed segment, participants move to different tables. Either a new topic is posed, or the same question is repeated. Following the roundtable discussions, the small groups share their insights with the entire group.

The benefits of this format are that it increases participation and make attendees feel like they’re part of the problem-solving process.

6. Tech Café. No relation to World Cafés, the Tech Café format gives attendees hands-on experience with new technologies and an opportunity to “test-drive” different solutions.

One way to implement a Tech Café would be to set-up a dedicated space for hands-on play. Place a Tech Café in a coffee break space to spark conversation and collaboration among attendees.

7. Graphic Recordings. Also called graphic facilitation, this popular process distills key takeaways from meetings, seminars, workshops and presentations into colorful, engaging drawings. A graphic facilitator/artist listens to speakers and summarizes key information on a large poster or sign.

The visual representations shared by the graphic facilitator help attendees retain and use the information they’ve learned at the event. Plus, the highly visual representation makes great shareable content that can be socially shared within and beyond the event.

8. Sli.Do. Everyone has seen an event staffer sprint up the aisle during Q&A so attendees can use the handheld mic to ask a keynote speaker a question. Sli.Do automates this process by enabling all attendees – even the shy, silent ones – to ask questions. Sil.Do works like this: attendees submit questions as they think of them at any time during the presentation. Then Sil.Do aggregates the questions into a queue for the presenter – and even allows participants to up-vote their favorite questions so the speaker knows what to address first.

Door-to-door marketing is a canvassing technique that is generally used for sales, marketing, advertising, or campaigning, in which the person or persons walk from the door of one house to the door of another, trying to sell or advertise a product or service to the general public or gather information. People who use this sales approach are often called traveling salesmen, or the archaic name drummer, to “drum up” business. This technique is also sometimes called direct sales. A variant of this involves cold calling first, when another sales representative attempts to gain agreement that a salesperson should visit.

With the realization of telephone “Do Not Call” lists it is becoming increasingly more difficult to connect with consumers and business people. An emerging trend is the deployment of very professional, highly skilled door-to-door canvassers to drive product sales and brand awareness.

Coordinating, training and motivating these teams to produce results are at the very core of Fulcrum’s proven capabilities. Fulcrum has the knowledge and experience required to implement these programs, such as best days and times to canvass, who will sell the most product; male, female, young or mature and what geographics and demographics respond best to door-to-door marketing. Put Fulcrum’s experience to work for you and avoid the costly mistakes of trying to manage these programs in-house.

Hire and Train Door-to-Door Marketing Team

If you’re in charge of hiring people, that typically means that you’ve found success in Door To Door Marketing yourself. You know what it takes to be great, but now you’re stuck with an entirely new problem. How do you find others who will be just as good (if not better) and will stick around and grow into important influencers invested in the long term growth of the company? A great D2D sales company is a great recruiting company. So what does that greatness look like?

First off, you need to realize that you’re not going to hire a superstar every time. If you think you have found one, be careful. It’s not hard for someone to seem golden during one interview and you don’t want to be fooled.

Even if you think the candidate does have a lot of great experience working in the field for other companies, you have to realize that success doesn’t always translate. What worked for them at previous companies probably won’t work as well for you. In fact, their success will probably make them stubborn; after all, what reason do they have to follow your approach when they’ve figured out their own?

It’s also possible that the rep’s previous company might have had much better-developed training and selling systems than you do, and that system was the key reason they killed it. If you’re not developing a competitive system, what does that communicate about your company? The more dialed-in you are about a rep’s success, the more likely you are to attract and keep strong performers.