We interrupt today’s wall-to-wall social media coverage to bring you this bit about something old school in the way of promotion: The human billboard.
We’re not talking here about the sandwich sign guys or even the athletic sign spinners you see on street corners pointing to check cashing businesses, tanning salons and new home developments. (Though you would be surprised at how much the jobs pay and just how cutthroat the business is.)
Nope. We’re talking about the president and founder of a technology sales lead company wandering around the showroom floor at SHRM’s upcoming conference in New Orleans handing out $100 bills. All you have to do is find Clay C. Scroggins, a/k/a Claydough, walk up to him and say “Hi, Clay” to get one of the five hundreds he’s going to be handing out.
There’s a hitch. (You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?) You can’t be wearing the logo of any vendor, unless it happens to be CompareHRIS. You have to consent to having your picture taken with Clay, and having it posted to his blog. And you have to be among the first to greet him.
You’ll probably also have to listen to a pitch about CompareHRIS. In the long run, that could be worth more to you than the $100. CompareHRIS makes its money from selling leads to HR technology vendors, but don’t let that deter you. The site has a wealth of information about systems, features, and the buying process. I wrote about it a few weeks ago. To be fair, it’s not the only site that lets you compare and select systems, but it is one of the better ones. And Scroggin is pushing hard to promote the site and a new sister site for Europe, HRcomparison.com.
So now, how do you find Scroggin? It won’t be easy, given the thousands of people expected at the conference. He’ll be the guy wearing a logo of CompareHRIS.com on his polo shirt.
I preferred his original idea, which was to wear an LED-laced shirt flashing the logo and whatever else he thought of. But at $5k to buy it, plus however much for training and support, Scroggin figured his money would go further doing something different. “No $5,000 t-shirt for me,” he confessed today from his office in Florida. He was a little more florid on his blog, “I’m so bummed.”
So am I. Ever since seeing this (below) little confection from Wales, which made the rounds of the canine herding lists a few months ago, I’ve been hoping to see the real thing. They’re available from a few places. Scroggin got his quote from Lumalive.
I now return you to the Social Recruiting Summit.