If you have attend VMworld in the past you have no doubt seen all the contests and opportunities to win this or that if they let you scan your name badge. If you haven’t attended please let the previous statement serve as warning or an invitation for you.
[notice]These tips are not guaranteed to help you win. They are just tricks I’ve picked up along the way.[/notice]
So how do you win the prizes in these events. Here is a short blog post on how you can put the odds in your favor so you can walk home with a cool piece of swag.
First tip of contest wining at VMworld is… you can’t win if you don’t play. If you are not willing to give up some of your work place information for a chance to win, you probably won’t find to many contests that you can participate in.
Tip two: make sure you can actually win prizes, some organizations and lots of government entities have rules about winning prizes from vendors. Check your job contract to make sure its not an issue.
Tip three: Have fun, if you treat these contests as serious work chances are you won’t enjoy it when you win it.
Tip four: Don’t be afraid to tell the booth babes (have an opinion on this but that another blog post some other time) that you are primary interested in the prize. As someone who spends time with a sales team you’ve got to dig though a lot of dirt to find a diamond, the booth babes get paid regardless of if you buy something.
Tip five part 1: contests where you drop your business card in a bowl or fill out a form have better odds. Why because it takes longer for you. When it requires a longer time investment fewer people are willing to participate.
Tip five part 2: anytime its a drawing from a paper (form, business card, etc.) crumple the paper up then straighten it out before putting it in the bowl, stack, etc. What this does is create a different texture of your card and who ever is drawing will be more likely to gravitate towards your crumpled up piece of paper and make you the winner.
Rule six: Get on twitter for the conference and follow the vendors who have the prizes you want to win. For example last year EMC held a #vHunt. If you completed the days tasks you were entered in a drawing for some very cool stuff.
Tip seven: look around for contest details prior to the event. Some have already started talking about what they are giving away this year along with additional ways to get your name in the drawing.
Tip eight: Get scanned in large groups. If you find something you really want you can get scanned once by just talking with the sales people at the booth. If you are there in a large group though most of the time the people scanning don’t pay attention to if they’ve scanned you before or not. That means you get in the drawings more.
Tip nine: The more work that goes into a drawing the fewer people will enter. Last year at VMworld SunGuard had a contest to take their stuffed animals (Olivia was the only one I got) around Vegas, show them a good time, and post the pictures to facebook. There were about 14 people who entered the contest, those are pretty good odds for a very nice apple product.
Tip ten: some drawings don’t end when the exchange closes. SunGuard’s drawing didn’t end till midnight of the next day following VMworld. That means you have plenty of time to get your entries in.
Tip eleven: you won that wonderful new toy you wanted. Take the time to thank them and take some pictures. Last year when I won a #vHunt drawing from EMC I spent 5 minutes to take some pictures with the sales team and tweeted them. I didn’t endorse the product or anything else but it gave them warm fuzzy’s that it was appreciated and it got their name out there, which is the two things they want. Five minutes for a gaming system seems pretty reasonable.
I hope these tips help you win that new piece of technology you wanted. Cheers
