11 rounds with the Canal And River Trust

[dylanwinter]

As some of you may know the Canal and River Trust adminster the license system for many of your waterways.

I thought that they might think that a few films about journeys on 'their' canals and rivers woud be good for business

so far the Humber films have had 37,000 views between them

they seem to be spectacularly lacking in interest in free promotion of thier waters

Anyway... I have posted the whole email exchange

http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/blogs/10-rounds-with-the-canal-and-river-trust/

so if any one has any suggestions about persuading them before I throw in the towell

and spend the winter sailing the lower Humber before doing just brief trips up to Leeds, York, Brigg and Beverely within the 30 day license - £105

Dylan

 

[prv]

First impression is a lot of long rambly emails about what you do, from which it's not clear what you're asking for. I know you need to establish credibility, but to my mind that was done by the time you got to "I am also a BBC freelance working for the Natural History Unit in Bristol" and after that it just became a distraction.

They probably get a lot of long rambly emails from assorted loonies and crackpots, and you need to make sure you're not mentally filed among them in the "polite response and move on" category.

Pete

 

[Lakesailor]

Forget e-mails. Too easy to ignore. Get on the phone. Make appointments.

 

[dylanwinter]

did the phone thing

Forget e-mails. Too easy to ignore. Get on the phone. Make appointments.

I did the phone thing

right at the beginning

very frosty from the word go

offered to phone in round 8 I believe

offered to meet in MK or Leeds as well

all the same response

talk to the hand

I think it is fairly short sighted of them as they have almost nothing to lose and could gain quite a lot - some pretty decent stills at 1080 x 1920 which they could use to brighten up their website with and around 40,000 links to them. All this even if no sailors at all decide to have a go at going inland as a result of watching the films.


Dylan

 

[zzyyxx]

Letters might have more impact, make sure they look like they expect a response and have in impressive crest on the letterhead.

 

[fireball]

yer - but if they think you're going to go up there anyway - what's there to gain for them?

Or perhaps they think you're not really Dylan and you're just trying to blag a freebee ...

Or - perhaps they think this is your business model - and you get paid in real terms for the videos you create - so you're just trying to reduce your costs ... and they miss out on their £105 ...

But on the plus side - they will tweet about it and possibly even link to your videos if they're good enough!

 

[dylanwinter]

all you say is true

yer - but if they think you're going to go up there anyway - what's there to gain for them?

Or perhaps they think you're not really Dylan and you're just trying to blag a freebee ...

Or - perhaps they think this is your business model - and you get paid in real terms for the videos you create - so you're just trying to reduce your costs ... and they miss out on their £105 ...

But on the plus side - they will tweet about it and possibly even link to your videos if they're good enough!

what do they stand to gain?

access to the professionally shot rushes and any frame grabs - their website is in desperate need of more images

40,000 links to their site

a quarter of a million sailor eye minutes on films about their system

granted they will get the films anyway - but they would focus on the history and motoring up a canal

as opposed to the tranquility, the peace, the birds, the hanging mists

the films with added tranquility and good shots only have to be good enough to convince four small boat sailors to invest in a week week license each and they are ahead

I am trying to get them to swap me a license for the footage to use as they see fit

as opposed to at most being able to embed them

as for a tweet from the Trust

no where near as valuable as 40,000 links

Dylan

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

Seems to me there was no simple business proposal to them, and in the absence of that they wrote your idea off as someone trying to blag a licence.

I lost the will to live during the first email after several web links.

Business proposal should have come first.
Credibility statements should have been second.

Once they wanted you to do it the licence wouldnt have been given anyway - no blag required.

I think they saw you coming a mile off.

 

[dylanwinter]

tell me more

Seems to me there was no simple business proposal to them, and in the absence of that they wrote your idea off as someone trying to blag a licence.

I lost the will to live during the first email after several web links.

Business proposal should have come first.
Credibility statements should have been second.

Once they wanted you to do it the licence wouldnt have been given anyway - no blag required.

I think they saw you coming a mile off.

what did they see coming a mile off?

what should I have done to convince them that I have something to offer?

of course you may beleive that there are no sailors out there who might be more likely to go for a trip on trust owned rivers as a result of seeing a film about them

or more specifically my film about them...



incidentally.... they obvioulsy think youtube hits are worth having

they have their own site

http://www.youtube.com/user/britishwaterways?feature=results_main

26,000 views - 44 subscribers

KTL you tube

- 500,000 hits and 1300 subscriptions

of course it is always conceivable that they might have decided that they do not want sailors taking thier boats on their canals

which would also be a perfectly good position to take


Dylan

 

[Plevier]

Seems to me there was no simple business proposal to them, and in the absence of that they wrote your idea off as someone trying to blag a licence.

I lost the will to live during the first email after several web links.

Business proposal should have come first.
Credibility statements should have been second.

Exactly.

You must capture their attention first, then give the supporting information - which is of no interest until they know what it's all about. Also I think they are confused - don't they think you're asking for money for a license for them to use your films, not a free river license? I'm confused, i just couldn't follow it all without spending too much time and effort on it!

As the extreme, think Dragon's Den.

Something like
"I am offering you the chance of (valuable extra publicity to many thousands of river enthusiasts). I am not asking for payment, just river access."
Then a brief explanation of KTL.
Then your credibility/credentials - briefly.

 

[dylanwinter]

you speak sense

Exactly.

You must capture their attention first, then give the supporting information - which is of no interest until they know what it's all about. Also I think they are confused - don't they think you're asking for money for a license for them to use your films, not a free river license? I'm confused, i just couldn't follow it all without spending too much time and effort on it!

As the extreme, think Dragon's Den.

Something like
"I am offering you the chance of (valuable extra publicity to many thousands of river enthusiasts). I am not asking for payment, just river access."
Then a brief explanation of KTL.
Then your credibility/credentials - briefly.

I think the what I have to offer came in the phone conversation

but in the email I have put the cart before the horse

I think that I assumed too much understanding of the web and the way that it works from the other end.

That was clearly my fault

however, I would have asumed that by the third email they would understand what I was suggesting

the mention of not a single brass farthing might have helped

but perhaps that is old language

as I said though, right from the get go I could hear that he was massively disinterested right from the start

It felt as though I was trying to sell insurance compensation

Dylan

 

[Plevier]

I think the what I have to offer came in the phone conversation

Memories are short. Email recap -

"Dear Joe

Thank you for your time on the telephone yesterday. You will recall that what I am offering you is ......."

The third email is very unlikely to have any effect if it wasn't clear from the first ... or the second ...

How did you try to catch people's interest in the first KTL? Talk about all the different irrelevant things you'd done in the past? Or talk about the relevant thing you were going to do - sail round the UK in a little boat with a difference from how lots of other people have done nominally the same?

 

[prv]

however, I would have asumed that by the third email they would understand what I was suggesting

By the third email (actually by halfway through the first) they have written you off as someone they would rather just went away and stopped bothering them. They may or may not understand (depends whether they're actually reading in any detail) but they're hardly in a receptive frame of mind.

Pete

 

[dylanwinter]

excellent advice

Memories are short. Email recap -

"Dear Joe

Thank you for your time on the telephone yesterday. You will recall that what I am offering you is ......."

The third email is very unlikely to have any effect if it wasn't clear from the first ... or the second ...

How did you try to catch people's interest in the first KTL? Talk about all the different irrelevant things you'd done in the past? Or talk about the relevant thing you were going to do - sail round the UK in a little boat with a difference from how lots of other people have done nominally the same?

I shall remember that next time

 

[AntarcticPilot]

It's a difficult one - I can see why you took the approach you did, but I am not at all sure it was the right way round. You have to view this a a business case, and your qualifications and so on, while obviously relevant, aren't the first bit of information needed. And, although your email isn't very long, it may be too long for the medium; I would agree with those who say that a two-page PDF would have more impact. The headings should be, roughly,

1) Introduction - brief summary of what you aim to do, what you want from BW and why it is a good thing for BW. This is probably the only bit that will be read by senior, decision making people! The rest of the document is making sure that it get passed to that level by people who will recommend a yes/no decision. 100-200 words - no more!
2) Detailed description of what you are doing - less than a page of text (500 words max)
3) What you are asking for
4) Costs
5) Benefits
6) Risks (yes, I know - none, but what if you died of food poisoning and the press got hold of "supported by BW"? Or Katie-L got run down by a barge?). Every risk should have a mitigation strategy.

Up to here should fit on two sides of A4, or not very much more

7) Your CV, as a separate supporting document. You can refer to this in the rest of the document.

Remember if successful this will have to influence business people, not PR people, and not boating people.

I'd also suggest that a more continuous writing style would serve you well.

As others have pointed out, the snag is that you may welll intend to do this anyway, and they may say "Ok, why should we give you a free license if you'll do it anyway?". So, I think that you have to emphasize that you will be able to do a much better job if you are not time limited!

PS, I'd also try and go in at the top! If you (or anyone on here) can get a personal contact with a director of BW, then that would do you a lot more good than an employee.

 

[boguing]

I wonder if they treat the License as something other than an earner.

If they have rightly set the cost at the level reflecting the cost of operating the system, then there is no benefit to them in having more users. We would all hope that this is the way that all licensing of this type is operated.

So, I'd talk to the relevant council and offer some numbers for the number of people, not just boats, who will spend in car parks, and the key, local businesses.

They might well see the benefit and cover the cost for you.

 

[A1Sailor]

Hope you don't get sued

Dylan,
Do you have their consent to put private e-mail correspondence into the public domain?

Douglas

 

[dt4134]

Seems to me you didn't identify your target. First thing you needed to do was find out who could give you a free licence. You may have got closer to that person somewhere during the exchange, but by then you were bouncing around a lengthy e-mail chain that they probably weren't inclined to spend much time on.

You also have to remember that it isn't a business, it's a recently ejected lump of the public sector. Hopefully they aren't now so disorganised that they don't have any "Free Licence for Film-making Circumnavigator" forms left, otherwise you're stuffed.

If you know anyone who is good at cold calling get them to phone up and track down the right person to talk to. You may not have disturbed them too much so far, so you might still stand a chance.

 

[Bru]

I'm afraid the simple fact is that the C&RT / BW press office and marketing departments receive dozens of such proposals every year from people offering to market the canals in return for a free licence

Frankly, I'm only surprised that you actually got so many responses by email at all. I wouldn't have been particularly shocked had you posted that they had ignored you altogether

BW / C&RT are not in the business of giving away licences and this is more than a simple financial / business decision. There is a whole raft of legal and political implications to giving away free licences. They simply don't do it lightly if at all

So, whilst I can see where you were coming from reading through your emails, you were on a bit of a hiding to nothing from the word go and to make matters worse if there was ever going to be a chance of a deal being done you needed to be dealing with Simon Salem and the marketing department not the press office or the local office

(And if you do approach Marketing, come up with a proposition that *doesn't* include a free licence and put together a really good concise pitch otherwise it'll be filed under "W" PDQ)

 

[Mark-1]

they seem to be spectacularly lacking in interest in free promotion of thier waters

Do they want more traffic? I would have thought that it's just as likely they would want to limit use of their waterways and perhaps even use licensing as a way to reduce useage.