We’re back in the office and recovering from Linn Academy 2018 on Wednesday – and what a day it was! With over 800 attendees, (including many of our favourite clients and friends!) 15 speakers, 13 sponsors and even David Brent and Gareth Keenan from TV’s The Office(!) packed into the Vox Conference Centre, we were delighted to be part of such a great event. The team at Linn really knocked it out of the park this year, with a special mention to Gabrielle who was co-ordinating her first Linn Academy!
The fantastic line-up of speakers didn’t disappoint – We can’t put all the greatest ideas into one blog post (we’d be here for days, and so would you, trying to read all of it!) but with some fantastic ideas about strengthening your business, inspiration for growing globally, and a challenge to not only think about your company’s mission statement and not being afraid to make mistakes, there was a lot to take away from this year’s Linn Academy.
One of our favourite ideas came from Fed from Linn Systems themselves, pointing out that while they (and eBG) produce software to automate and enhance your business, 100 years ago we would have been producing steam engines and powered tools – The drive to improve how things are done, to provide better tools and reduce stress and wastage is part of us, only the tools change! Meanwhile, another great talk came from Jeremy Miller, who was talking about how creating and strengthening your brand can help you engage with your customers better, ultimately leading to better businesses and bigger profits, as long as you remember what’s important, and don’t turn inwards.
We think most people were most excited to see Deborah Meaden talk – we certainly saw many people getting photos and selfies with her afterwards! She had some great messages to impart, including how (shock, horror!) she isn’t always right and how it’s OK to be wrong sometimes – you just have to learn from those mistakes. We also now know that meetings before 11am are your best chance to come out ahead of her, and why she doesn’t think 6am wakeup calls are the key to being a great business person!
With over half of our team at their very first Linn Academy, we all had a great (albeit long and tiring!) day meeting so many sellers from exciting businesses with bright futures, as well as catching up with our existing, successful clients. And we were delighted to hear how many of you are keen to start incorporating DropShipping into your business model with Avasam.
As lovers of a freebie, we were impressed with the standard of giveaways this year – from the legendary Linn Academy hoody to less traditional giveaways like umbrellas and socks, as well as the highly applaudable Linnworks water bottles and refill stations to increase the sustainability of the event, sellers came away feeling well looked after.
Tejas was as in demand as ever – it was rare to spot him not deep in conversation at any given point in the day! He was absolutely buzzing, and said of the day:
“It’s always good to see our existing customers, and hearing their success stories makes me so proud that EBG has made positive contribution to helping them achieving their goals…
This year I can see online sellers are working smarter, not harder and have started adopting automation into their business… EBG is offering great tools to help sellers, so they should feel welcome to call us and discuss how we can help with their success story.”
The after party was a great event too (not just because of the free bar!) – there were even more new connections being made, and lots of catching up with old acquaintances. Jay and Dawn even hit the dance floor to show off some modern jive moves as the fantastic band covered Nina Simone!
We’re all very much looking forward to some well-deserved rest this weekend after some long days this week, before heading back to the office next week to prepare for supporting our sellers through the busiest time of the year. We’re also looking forward to attending the eCommerce Awards in just over a week, where we are shortlisted in three categories – keep your fingers crossed for us and we’ll update you when we know the outcome!