It is not JUST About the Fun Stuff
While attendees may remember the outstanding party, the great food, the unique entertainment at your event, those things on their own are not what is going to move your company’s goals forward. If one of your primary objectives for a meeting is to sell a product, and the participants had an outstanding time but no product was sold, did your meeting accomplish it’s goal? Of course not. In some circumstances maybe that’s all you want is a great time to remember such as a client appreciation event. But in most cases there are other goals and actions that businesses want meeting or event attendees to take. And even a customer appreciation event should have more goals than just having a good time, such as goals around inclusivity and retention.
If you can not articulate the value of your event both in terms of why it matters to your business leaders and the desired outcomes as well as why attendees should want to participate, then you will have a difficult time advancing your career and being viewed as a subject matter expert. For each event you are planning, take a few minutes to write down the key values both to your attendees and to the business leadership hosting the meeting. If you’re an independent planner, you may also want to think of it as both for yourself and your own business in what you are bringing to that event and business as well as the value your client has in the event.
How do you help yourself to be viewed as being capable of more than just throwing a fun party or virtual event? You need to be able to set goals that have strategic value to the organization (ie align with the company’s goals for the year or 5 year plan) and you need to be able to measure them, and keep improving your goals and your events. You have to develop an understanding of what the purpose and value of the event is to each stakeholder and be able to talk about that versus just sharing what the food or entertainment is. And most importantly, you have to be able to succinctly communicate all of that to your leadership or client.
The good news is, these are all skills that you can learn and incorporate if you aren’t already doing them. Goal setting, gathering and sharing data, and communication are three areas that you can put the time and effort into your own personal and professional development to help you move your career forward and your events forward. And Build Better Meeting’s Business Events Academy can assist with that as well!
If you take the time to learn the language that your business or industry communicates in, you will be able to speak the same language and use recognized terminology that will allow others in the company to take notice. If you start using terminology like Return on Investment or the Net Outcomes and don’t just relate them to simple monetary outcomes but the overall success and longevity of the modified behavior of your attendees, others will take notice. These are things that take time to understand and learn but find a mentor within your organization or within the industry that can help you! Or advocate for a consultant, such as Build Better Meetings, to help move your department forward! There are a number of ways that you can demonstrate that you are more than just a party planner, if you want to. And don’t forget, all of this is still applicable to your meetings and events regardless of the frequency or the format!