April 8th, 2007
Building Your Next Event - Pre-Event Plannin By Kerri Scarbrough
Never underestimate the power of your corporate events. Most direct sales and network marketing companies share the philosophy of "building to events." This means that everything you unveil or announce at your event will take your company and your distributors through to the next event. Because events play such a major role in your overall business plan, it is important to invest time and energy into your pre-event planning.
Your in-house event planner isn't just busy during event season, but throughout the year the event planner has many details to work out before some of the more obvious decisions can be made. In my event experience, I have noticed that those who spend more time in pre-event planning are most consistently the companies that better adapt to necessary changing on-site, stick to their event budget, and increase the creativity put into an event every year. The results of planning are a great overall experience for your attendees and an increase in attendance at the next event.
Here are some important, but often overlooked, pre-event planning elements to save you time and money on your next event:
Theme: When planned in advance, your event theme can be used in marketing materials all throughout the year to help drive distributors to your event. And the theme doesn't stop at the designing of an event logo. Spend time brainstorming your theme. Does it communicate the message you want your distributors to take away from the conference? Will it provide a good topic for your speakers to build a speech around? It is short? Does it tie in with the location or events happening in your company at the time of your conference (i.e. anniversaries, the culture of a location)? The event theme can also help you in deciding your stage design. It will also help in deciding your graphics, and it may even help you decide on a guest speaker. A few years ago, I produced an event for a client who was holding an event in Houston - a location for NASA. The guest speaker was Gene Kranz, the Director of Mission Operations at Johnson Space Center. The guest speaker tied in perfectly with the location and theme of the event. Event themes can be as powerful as a tag line when used to tie all your event presentations together, as well as used to set up and promote your event.
Location, Location, Location: Yes, your location is important. Most companies know what to look for in a good location, as in city and a good hotel with nice rooms and enough space to hold your group. However, an important and overlooked detail is the specifications of your ballroom or hall. When you make your site selection, be sure to involve your Show Producer. There will be specific details about the ballroom that, when negotiated at the time you make your contract with the venue, will save you a lot of money. Some big elements to consider in a site selection are ceiling height, noise volume and load in/load out times. (There are more, but these are the ones that could affect your budget.)
Ceiling height is important. It affects how your audio/visual can be hung and how the overall set design will look in a room. Do not trust the printed specifications for a room. These specs do not take into account chandeliers or other hanging objects. On your site inspection, look for ceiling heights that are high enough to accommodate your audio/visual. An 18 - 20' ceiling is a good minimum to start with for an audience of 500 or less. The larger the audience, the taller the ceiling. Does the space have hang points and do you need them for your set design? Are there windows that will need to be covered by drapery? If so, will the hotel cover that expense? Not all hotels build meeting space with audio/visual in mind, so be sure you understand up front the limitations of a room you are considering. Your Show Producer can assist you on your site inspection with selecting a good venue.
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Conferences and events are where dreams made into reality are seen and experienced.
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Another location item to consider is noise volume. If you are not the only group in the location, you may run into the problem of other groups at the location complaining about noise. In general, network marketers like to have fun and will generate a lot of excitement and noise. To protect your group from having complaints and constant interruptions from the hotel to "quiet down," communicate up front to the location that you are a very loud group and that you will be loud during the event. Let them allow other groups they may put in the room next to you make the decision if they want to be next to a loud group. In my experience, when the hotel plans for your group to be loud, they do not put a group next to your event. This helps you maintain control of your contracted space and have the latitude to be as noisy as you want.
Load-in and load-out times can kill your production budget with crew overtime if you do not plan for proper load-in and load-out times up front. Let the hotel know your meeting schedule and then let them know the time you want to set up. Work with your Show Producer to establish a good load-in time. Then, after the contract is signed, you can request from the hotel that you begin load-in the night before. Most venues will have the room available at 6:00 p.m. the day prior to your event. So if your contract load-in is a Wednesday morning, you can ask the hotel if you can at least drop off your equipment the night before. This should be no expense to you. The benefit is it will help your crew get everything off the truck and ready for an early morning set up.
Negotiate with the Hotel: Nearly all hotels will have hidden fees. There are reasons they are hidden, but if you know what they are, you can contract them and save thousands of dollars. One hidden fee is risers. Be sure to have stated in your contract that hotel risers are included in the contract amount and specify the stage size. Most hotels do provide risers free of charge, even if you bring in your own AV company. However, some venues will hit you with an additional fee if this isn't discussed up front. Another negotiation item is power and rigging fees. Ask up front what the fees are and what personnel are required. Again, this will help you plan your budget as well as understand what the hotel requires you to use from their pool of services.
Plan your agenda: The best agendas are those that are planned in advanced. An agenda entails more than just a list of speakers. It should also account for the time to get speakers on and off stage, exact topics of speakers, who will be using multi-media, where breaks are and when the day will begin and end. As you look at your agenda, you may discover that you don't have enough time for your attendees to have lunch outside the venue and be back in time for the general session. Or you may have too much training in one session from important, but less enthusiastic, speakers. When you plan your agenda, you must keep your audience at the forefront of your mind. You don't want them to get bored or tired. They are there to learn, but don't over-do your agenda. Sometimes, less is more. Your event will only feel crammed and rushed if you pack every minute with intense information. Everything on your agenda, including your breaks and entertainment, should serve a purpose. If you don't outline your agenda in advance, you eliminate a chance to analyze your agenda and improve upon it.
I was recently working with a new company on developing their meeting agenda. They presented their draft agenda to me for feedback. My first question after reviewing the proposed agenda was, "What is the purpose in having an activity or event each night of your two and a half day conference?" The response, "Well, we are a new company and we think it is important for distributors to spend time in a social situation to get to know their upline and downline." By booking all the attendees' time for them in sit down presentations with little entertainment, this company didn't realize they had just created exactly what they didn't want to happen. The solution was easy: plan nothing for the second evening and promote the idea that they spend time around town with their upline and downline that night.
And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, always be honest about your attendance and budget with everyone you contract with. This will let your event team know exactly what dollars they have to work with and the number of people to plan around. Your team will be better at alerting you of any potential increases if they know that they only have one number to work with.
Conferences and events are where dreams made into reality are seen and experienced. There is no event quite like a network marketing event. The training, recognition, product announcements and energy felt can leave a lasting impact that will carry a distributor through the next year. Take time now to pull together the right event team for your next event and begin planning.
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Kerri Scarbrough has been providing creative services to network marketing companies for nine years. She specializes in Event and Multi-Media Producing for network marketing companies and creating marketing tools to support a company's sales force. She is Vice President of Dream Builders, www.dreambuilders.com .
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