Posts Tagged ‘event vendors’
5 Annoying Things About Finding Vendors May 4th, 2009
A question I get often is “Where do you find your vendors today, and more importantly, how?” Because the idea of smeepe came from our own need of wanting to find quality vendors, we’d like to share how we’re contributing to helping all users find the vendors they need with the help of smeepe.
The five things that annoy me most about finding a vendor are:
1) Having to search all over heck and back to find websites or contact info of potential vendors (some of whom don’t even have a website!)
As much as I love search engines, I find it somehow impossible to find the right vendors with them. I get a lot of results but not the ones I’m looking for. Maybe it’s just me. Nonetheless, smeepe is here to be the Amazon of services. Our search technology and directory service allow our vendors to be easily found based on ratings and relevancy and filtered based on location(s), if desired. Plus, for those superstar vendors or fresh startups who don’t have a website for whatever reason, your smeepe profile can be your mini-website.
2) Calling all the vendors and asking the same questions over and over again
Because the smeepe vendor profiles all have the same format, it makes comparing and pre-selecting vendors much easier. And ideally, all vendors will have written a fantastic description of themselves, which also helps you answer those questions you’d normally ask when calling.
3) Finding fantastic portals that might have the info I need, but have to register or pay for the info or am forced to send a quote form to the vendor…UGH!
This is the most annoying thing ever. These types of sites lure me in, get me searching and finding the vendor I need, then I get blocked as soon as I want to see the company name and contact information. At smeepe, you can see all information WITHOUT being forced to register or pay anything. You only have to register as a member if you want to rate, comment, share, or save a listing.
4) Having to connect and be everyone’s friend before I can see their information
There are a ton of social networks out there. We don’t want to be “just another social network.” As a member, registered or not, you can simply search for vendors and see their information without being “connected” to them. Plus, in the near future, we will be implementing a chat widget in which vendors can choose to activate on their profile. This will allow members to chat directly with potential vendors without having to download anything or register. Plus, if the member decides the vendor isn’t the right choice, he/she can just close the session and that’s it. No adding to lists or connecting. Easy and anonymous for the member.
5) Booking a vendor who sucks
I’m sure we all agree that when you book a vendor who doesn’t meet your expectations, it just sucks. That’s why we’ve built in ratings and comments. This will enable you to book with confidence and know what you’re getting into. Plus, as part of our phase 2 features, we will be adding more standard information to the vendor profiles as well as the ability to track social keywords about vendors that will help in your decision-making process.
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We just need all you superstar vendors to sign up!
Tags: amazon, event vendors, it vendors, quality vendors, social media vendors
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smeepe launch – why I’ve been so quiet lately. April 22nd, 2009
I’ve not only been pretty quiet on twitter lately, but also in general. Although I do indeed have a lot to share, the preparation and launching of our latest project has taken over my life for about the last six months to a year.
The project I’m referring to is smeepe. smeepe is officially in beta, was launched on April 8th, 2009. smeepe is used to match users to the most suitable vendors they need for their project, worldwide (starting in US, UK, Germany, Switzerland).
We came up with the idea for smeepe by recognizing challenges in our daily business at our sister company, expacklyMondo. Sonya and I founded expacklyMondo back in January 2007. expacklyMondo helps customers plan the event they actually want to plan themselves. As we continued to work together, fusing my almost 10 years of IT background with Sonya’s almost 13 years of event management experience, we came up with a solution to a problem we face literally almost every day: where do we find vendors for our projects and how do we know they are of GOOD QUALITY and suit OUR needs? Since Sonya’s been in the event business for a long time, she’s faced this problem much longer than I have. All I did was notice that something like this could be fixed with the help of a software solution, since, coming from IT/software development, doing things manually more than once is a pain, especially when you know it can be automated.
I sketched out the idea for Sonya back in November 2007 and she said, “I’ve been wanting to have something like this for years. I just didn’t know it was possible!” And I said, “with software, we can make just about everything possible.” And from that day on, smeepe was born. We began development almost a year later and here we are, ready for spring with our beta.
Original smeepe Sketch
What can smeepe do?
Well, for vendors, smeepe is a great platform to market yourself. You can fill out a profile, similar to a bunch of other sites. But here, users can contact you directly, rate you, and comment on your services. This helps new users feel more comfortable with their choice if they can read about experiences from previous customers. For users, you can search for various vendors in multiple locations, then view, contact, rate, comment, save, or forward the vendor listing.
Honestly, there are a ton of sites and portals out there where you can search for vendors or freelancers. But,
- how many of those sites are free? We had lengthy discussions with our team and finally came to the conclusion to keep is simple smeepe (the new K.I.S.S.). Member accounts are free and vendor accounts will cost much less than a plain old phone book listing. And to sweeten the pot, we’ve decided to give the first 5,000 vendors a year subscription free!
- how many of those sites show you all vendor information including contact information, ratings, and reviews without forcing users to register?
- how many give you commission-free referrals? We don’t track how many customers you vendors get through smeepe and slam you with a commission charge. We’ll just charge a yearly flat subscription fee, that’s it.
- how many of those sites display their search results only by rankings and ratings versus how much advertising money the vendors pay? Vendors can’t pay us anything to bump up their listing, period. The better your profile and service, the higher up you’ll appear on the search results, getting you more clicks and hopefully more customers.
Those are just the basics. There is definitely a lot more to come at smeepe that’s already in development, but we need your feedback so we can come out with the features now that you need most!
Right now, event and IT/Social Media vendors can register at smeepe. We are, however, continuing to expand to other industries, countries, and languages. If you have any suggestions which industry should come next, let us know!
In closing, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude. This project has demanded a great deal of time and energy from me and our entire team. I know this is going to sound like I’m at the Oscar’s here, but it’s important to me that everyone in my life knows how grateful I am!
First, I want to thank our developers, Mark & his team for the fantastic work they’ve done. They’ve been able to implement so much so quickly. Craig, thank you for your continuous technology guidance and advice, this has helped us more than you know! Artur, Nadine, and Michele, thank you for all your hard work on getting our brand developed, marketing strategy in place, and PR plan going. I’ve learned a ton from you three! Thank you to the twitter community for your feedback and helpful suggestions!
There are two people I’d like to thank, however they’d prefer to stay anonymous. You know who you are, without you, this couldn’t have been possible at all. We’ve learned a great deal from both of you and look forward to many more years of business together.
My family and friends. Thank you so much for supporting me through this. I know I haven’t been very responsive lately because of the gargantuan workload, and just want to express my gratitude for your understanding. Thank you also for all your tips and helpful feedback!
Sonya, my business partner and very good friend, thank you for everything. I certainly could not have co-founded and developed smeepe without you. I think we make a great team and couldn’t have asked for a better partner!
And last but certainly not least, thank you to my husband, Toni. Thank you for supporting me in all of this and being understanding of the time and energy this project has demanded from me (and also for not being annoyed with my addiction to my Blackberry!). I could not have done any of this without you.
Tags: event vendors, launch, smeepe launch, social media vendors, twitter
Posted in smeepe launch | Comments (5)