Top 7 Places to Close a Deal at Fashion Week

Mercedes Benz Fashion Week is Located at Lincoln Center and Runs This Week

Editors note: Fashion Week takes over NYC and these are the best places to close a deal, get an internship or increase your likelihood of a serendipitous meeting. Larry Chiang takes you way behind the scenes as your tour guide to help you close a deal. Harvard Business School’s, Harbus, featured him in a cover story that shares the same title as his book, “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School“. He launched the book on Sept 9, 2009 from the New York Fashion Week runway.

By Larry Chiang

NEW YORK, New York

(Lincoln Center)

Innovations and new adoption of social media now allows the public to access Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. Twitter streams in a tidal wave of pics. Dropbox and Box.net host entire portfolios of pictures debuting the Fall 2013 lines. YouTube even broadcasts shows live from a seat that is better-than-front-row (their camera is at the end of the runway where all the credentialed photographers sit).

Having this social media access is enough but taking the last step and making that access convert into conversion is the tricky part. By conversion I mean going from fashion week observer to fashion week participant. By convert, I mean going from design school student to post graduate intern or associate.

**** DISCLOSURE ****
I financially benefit from being Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at MIT. In that role, I financially benefit from guest lecturing and facilitating MIT Entrepreneur Week. It debuts annually in Texas at SXSW.
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Here are the best places to close a deal at New York’s Fashion Week:

1) In the Lobby of Lincoln Center

Access the lobby with a legitimate invite to a show. Photo GIF files are everywhere on Pinterest, Twitter and FourSquare (pictures). The invite printed out or shown on your smart phone is good enough to get in to the lobby but not legitimate enough to get you a seat at said show.

Now, execute, “Networking in a Room that You’re Not Invited In To”

2) Backstage

Carry a camera and get a notepad that reporters use. Then grab a person with a headset and ask, “Can I come backstage?”

They will tell you to wait.

You wait patiently and with the proper patience, you’re in. By proper patience
1) do not stare down the person wrangling others
b) be close enough to be near but do not encroach
c) ideal distance is a half-step and an arm length away from person with headset and clipboard

3) Lobby bar of the Empire Hotel

The key to networking a lobby bar (or room that you’re not exactly invited in to) is to put your bag and winter coat away. I recommend checking it with a bell hop. I tip one dollar per item in and again one dollar per item out.

It is critical to ‘get home field advantage on the road’ or home field advantage in a strange setting. You litterally lose home field advantage when you are looking like a visitor. The lobby bar is packed like a trout pond with VIPs wanting to escape the Lincoln Center lobby and get an adult beverage. When I was launching my book from a NYFW runway (it hadn’t been renamed “Mercedes Benz Fashion Week”) I carried a six-prong plug loaded up with iPhone chargers.

VIPs would look at me longingly the way a model looks at my 6’5″ frame when I replace hair gel with bacon grease. The alpha males would sheepishly say, “Charge my iPhone??”

I’d say $8. Eight dollars for a full charge. Five dollars for a half-charge.

They’d say: “Really”

I’d say: No, I am kidding. BUT YOU SHOULDA SEEN YOUR FACE. Its free buddy. They’d grin like they just got nominated for an Oscar and strutted the red carpet at Kodak Theatre with the latest from Prabal Gurung

Photo credit Kris Krug. He gets credit for best photo ever used in my article “What a Supermodel Can Teach a Stanford MBA About Failing Forward”

4) Mandarin Oriental

It is hit or miss here. Rumor has it they are doing an unofficial show Fall 2013 for ‘Spring 2014 Collections”. I will let you know when I know. Or subscribe as my Yahoo fan and you will be notified when I write that article.

5) The American Express Booth

I could move in to the Amex booth. They have drink and places to sit. There is also an extremely cool coat check that uses Steve Jobs’ iPad device. Network with VIPs who check their coat and ask for a picture with them. Inside of the Amex booth, few celebs and VIPs will say no to a picture.

**** Disclosure ****
I financially benefit from selling American Express via Duck9 on college campuses.
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6) PJ Clarke’s
While Fiber One has been a staple for us male supermodels, at some point we are going to need a salad, hold the dressing.

These salads are sold across the street at PJ Clarke’s. It is next door to Empire Hotel. The entire restaurant has people still wearing their MBFW credential.

Starbucks on Corner by Empire Hotel is similar

7) Gmail Alert People from the Comfort of Your Accelerator Incubator or On-campus Computer Lab

One of the best ways to network with people is to Gmail alert them via a wordpress blog post. When you write about a person or mention them, they get an email from Google stating that their name was mentioned. Many of you reading this are students or are just starting off. You can “Engineer Up a Tidal Wave of Momentum” for yourself by leveraging social media and orchestrating it to close a deal.

BONUS.

8) Host an AfterParty.

When I say host an afterparty, many people think thousands of dollars and hour-and-hours of time party planning.

Nope.

You can pattern replicate doing a ‘Minimum Viable Party’. A party that lasts eleven minutes has the same social media halo and promotion momentum of a two-hour, open bar party. Many of these terms are ‘inside baseball’ and the article is not written at the fifth grade level. But then again, that is why you read my stuff because you want to get the knowledge of an MBA without having to pay $200k.

Omg, I just rhymed MBA with 200k.

This post took me hours to compile and summarize and you get all the best nuggets in seven minutes or less. If this were of value to you, cut and paste this as if you wrote it because it is not copyright protected.

If you’d like to meet, come to my press conference that I am doing in the Tresemme photo booth at IMG’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, Feb 14. at 8:05pm. It will be a fun time because doing a press conference in a photo booth is #hiLarryAss Email me and include your cell in the subject line.

If you liked this, you may also check: Larry’s mentor Mark McCormack wrote this in 1983. His own book comes out 09-09-09. It is called ‘What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School‘. Larry’s book releases 09-09-09

This post was drafted in an hour and needs your edits… email me if you see a spelling or grammatical error(s)… larry@larrychiang com

Larry Chiang started his first company UCMS in college. He mimicked his mentor, Mark McCormack, founder of IMG who wrote the book, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”. Chiang is a keynote speaker and bestselling author and has testified before Congress, World Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank about credit.

Text or call him during office hours 11:11am or 11:11pm PST +/-11 minutes at 650-283-8008. Due to the volume of calls, he may place you on hold like a Scottsdale Arizona customer service rep. If you email him, be sure to include your cell number in the subject line. If you want him to email you his new articles…, ask him in an email