Jodie McLean 0:04
Hey, I'm Jodie Event Manager, business owner, educator and podcast host. I'm an introverted homebody want to be wine master. And I truly believe in the power of events to inspire delight and ignite human potential. Every week, I take you backstage into the wonderful world of business events, and give you the insider scoop on how to take your events to the next level. Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of the lands where we live, learn and listen. Let's get into it. Today uncovering seven questions to ask yourself when planning a business event. Now, obviously, there is a lot more that goes into planning an event than just seven questions. But I think these are the key questions that will really get you to think about the most important elements and ensure that you've thought through all of the top level stuff. So the stuff that actually impacts on the success of your event. Now, all of the small details of an event are important. But if we don't get these fundamentals, right, it really doesn't matter how good our attention to detail is. And I think that's where a lot of people go wrong. You know, we dive into planning before really thinking it through, or we forget to continue to look up as we're, you know, in the trenches of planning. And we forget to ask some of these crucial questions to ensure that we're on the right track, and that we can deliver on the purpose of the event. And that leads me to question number one, which is what are the objectives of the event? Now, I fully appreciate that, when we need to plan an event, we can dive right into, okay, I need to find a venue, I need to sort out a date. And then I need to get invitations out. We don't always have you know, the luxury of time to sit around and go, Oh, what are our event objectives here? What are we trying to achieve? But it is so important. You know, it doesn't have to be this big thing. But taking a few moments with anyone involved in the event. To specify the key objectives of the event is going to give you a starting point and a direction as to how the event will need to take shape and where you need to focus your resources. The first thing I do with any client is I go through my event brief template. And the first question on the event brief template is what are the event objectives? It's the first thing we talk about, because it really does then guide everything else. Now make sure you keep your event objectives to just one or two. Because when we try and achieve too many things in the one event, the risk is that we confuse the audience by spreading our resources too thin. And we don't actually achieve any of the objectives. So focus in on the one or two main reasons that you're holding the event and plan at around those. And then anything else positive that happens as a result of the event is a bonus. So that's the first question you need to ask yourself at the very beginning. What are the objectives of this event? The second question to ask yourself when planning a business event is why would someone attend? Now that might sound harsh, because we all think our event is the best, and that everyone's going to want to come? We've put in so much effort, of course people want to attend. But we need to seriously ask ourselves, why would someone attend? What's that one thing or maybe two things that's going to hook someone to attend our event, you know, when they're so busy, and there's lots of other things and other events that are vying for their time. This is where we really need to understand who our guest is, what they like, what they would expect, what they're interested in, where they live, what's important to them. And we need to marry up what we're offering at our event with who our guest is. Now, it doesn't matter whether your event is going to be by invitation only. Or you're going to be marketing it to a wider audience, the same rules still apply? Sure, it might be easier to get attendees when you've got that captive group that you're just inviting. But we still need to get them across the line to register or RSVP. So we still need to ask ourselves, why would they come? What is going to incentivize or attract them to attend our event. Now, depending on the type of event you're holding, it could be the actual location or the venue that's special. It could be the content. So a guest speaker or entertainer. It could be a VIP guest or host. Or it could be that they get something in return, you know, whether that's free gifts or access to something that no one else gets. There's lots of different reasons why someone would attend an event and lots of different incentives. The key is to make sure that we've got one or two strong hooks to ensure that we're going to have guests and the right guests at our event. So once we know what we're trying to achieve, and we know we're going to be able to get people there. Then we need to ask ourselves, who do I need to involve? And I'm talking here about everyone from internal team through to external suppliers. So figuring out who we need to engage, hire, collaborate with delegate to or outsource to, to ensure that we can make the event happen and make it happen smoothly with as little stress and chaos as possible. So firstly, let's look at our internal team, and who needs to be involved from inside the company. So who has a say in the event who's making the decisions, and who will assist with planning and executing it. So that could be everything from marketing, finance, graphic designers, it or if it's a smaller business, you know, it could just be you and maybe one other person. So then we need to look at external suppliers, and figure out who we need to engage. So venue catering AV, do we need a photographer? Do we need a welcome team of hosts? Do we need an on site Event Manager on the day? Do we need an emcee guest speakers, entertainers waitstaff? You know, the list goes on and on. But you get the idea. We need to figure out who is required to make the event happen, then the next question I want you to ask yourself is, how will my guests know, feel and respond. So this comes back to what we're trying to achieve from the event. Because it's all well and good to set out our objectives for the event. But if we don't think about and plan for the guests actually knowing or responding to whatever that is, then we're not going to achieve the objectives. So what are we doing before, during and after the event? to influence our guests at each stage of the journey? How are they going to know what's going on? How are they going to feel about it? And how are they going to respond to it? So a really simple example could be like a product launch. So you're launching a new product. And the goal is to get sales and maybe some media coverage. So how will your guests know about the product? How will they feel about it after experiencing your launch event? And are they going to be influenced to buy it, write about it, share it, etc. So we need to think about the event experience, the elements of the event, the guest experience, and then ask ourselves if that whole experience is in line with what we want our guests to know, feel and respond in order to then achieve the objectives that we set out. Now this next question, you might feel like I'm being really pushy here. But the better the event, the better the result. And events are such a massive investment of time, money and energy. So we want to make sure that we're really maximising it. So the next question I want you to ask yourself is, what else can I do? What else can I do? When you've got all of the big plans in place, you've got your venue, you've got your draft run sheet, the event is coming together. I want you to ask, what else can I do? What else can I add in? What extra touches can I add to make it special to make it that 1% Better, memorable, impactful. Now if you go back to episode four, way back to episode four, I did an episode on low cost additions to enhance your event. And there's a bonus resource which I'll link again in this episode's show notes, which gives you 30 ideas to enhance your event. And it doesn't have to the big things that you add. But every extra thing that you do add just adds to the guest experience and makes the event even better. So even if you feel like you've done a lot and you're really stretched for time or budget, just take a moment to ask what else can I do. And there might just be one or two small things that you can add in relatively easily and cheaply. Now my only caveat to this is Don't bombard your event with stuff that's just going to be overwhelming for your guests. Make sure that you keep the guest experience in mind and only add things that are in line with your event objectives and who your audience are. Okay, two more questions to go. This second last question is kind of important. We need to ask ourselves, what are my contingency plans? Now, no one likes to think about things going wrong, but it can happen. And I don't think we need to stress about it too much. Unless you're holding some massive outdoor festival and then good luck to you. I
Jodie McLean 9:15
don't envy you. But for the everyday business event. You know, it's usually nothing too dramatic that happens. In all my years of running hundreds if not 1000s of events. I think the biggest thing that's happened was a speaker falling really ill on the day and not being able to attend. She sent someone else in her place. So it was okay. And everyone understood. I mean, the quality of the event went down for sure. But thankfully, it wasn't a high stakes event. And the attendees didn't actually pay to be there. So we didn't have to deal with refunds or anything. And that's the only thing that's happened to me in over 12 years. Everything else was really small and insignificant. So we don't need to stress but we do need to have contingency plans in place for the what ifs The best way that I like to think about this is to just write down a list of all the things that you think could go wrong, then we want to categorise them into how likely they are to happen and how bad it would be if they did happen. And then we can just mainly focus on the ones that are more likely to happen. And that would be pretty bad if they did happen. And then we can just come up with a simple contingency plan for each. So if x happens, we're going to do y. That way, if it does happen on the day, you don't need to stress about it. You just enact the plan that you've already created and thought through and get on with the event. Okay, the final question to ask yourself when planning an event is, how will I measure success. So at the beginning, we set out our objectives for the event, what we needed to achieve. The only way we're going to know if we've achieved them is if we have a way to measure it. So we need to decide how we're going to measure the results. Now, if it's related to numbers, like the number of attendees or financial objectives, then obviously it's going to be fairly easy to measure. But if it's not related to numbers, it can be harder to track or measure. So you might decide to send out an event evaluation form, or you might interview some guests on the day to see what they thought. Or you might just get all of your company staff that were there to submit an evaluation or provide input into an event debrief. There's lots of different ways depending on the nature of your event, and your guests and what seems appropriate for the type of event that you're running. So there are seven questions to ask yourself when planning a business event. I'll recap them for you. What are the event objectives? Why would someone attend the event? Who do I need to involve in the event? How will my guests know feel and respond? What else can I do? What are my contingency plans? And how will I measure success? So make sure you check out the show notes for additional resources and ideas to help you plan your event, and then hit the five star button so that we can continue to produce this free content for you. Thanks for listening to this episode of the events Insider PodCast. If you loved it, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, share with your friends and I'll chat to you next week. Bye
