Take Responsibility for Your Actions

Recently I have started to notice a trend where people will blame others for situations that are truly their own responsibility. You probably know what – or who – I’m talking about.   Can you sell or what? Typically, as a sales manager, I am fairly cautious when setting sales goals. Some would say that […]

The Power of the Increment

When I reflect upon the success I’ve achieved to date and consider the details, I’m always amazed to consider the origins and my journey so far.  Given different accomplishments, it’s instructive to consider how things got started. Everything that’s happened has done so in a series of increments, some of which have been positive and […]

Am I Important to You?

While on a recent a business trip, I continued reading a book, The Magic of Thinking Big, that I had first started reading a number of years ago. The book has many great insights, but one that particularly struck me was the recommendation to “treat everyone you deal with as if they are important.” The […]

The Blueprint for Launching a New Event

As it turns out, creating an event blueprint is pretty simple – at least in theory. These are the key components:   Idea You need to have an idea and that idea has to be better than what already exists. It must be smarter, more exciting, have better participants, or a new model that suits the […]

How to Get Your Freebies to Pay

Many of my publisher clients offering events have found that one of the main hurdles they face when launching an event is the challenge of converting customers – often accustomed to free content – into paying conference attendees. You may have also have this problem as a non-publisher if you are trying to upgrade expo […]

The secret to success is……

The secret to success is the ability to stand in another person’s shoes. That’s particularly true if you are trying to do business with that person.   An Old Tale Still Rings True Remember the story of the two brothers who had to share a piece of cake? The elder brother managed the situation in […]

Six things that you must do between shows

The show is over, and you can breathe a sigh of relief. If you are smart, you’ll also do these things before taking too long of a pause.   1. Clean your database You’d be shocked how many event companies don’t ‘sanitize’ their contact lists on a regular basis. Cleaning out the bounced emails and returned mail (if you […]

Is There an Attendee Acquisition Disaster in Your Future?

Having just read an article on GDPR that suggests a silver lining for the events business can be found in that new EU regulation, I’ve concluded that the author is right for the most part, if you have a solid data strategy. But if you don’t, welcome to the nightmare. Why?  If you follow good […]

Ghosting Seems Cool, But It’s a Career and Reputation Killer…. Don’t Do It

You may have heard of “ghosting” referring to the situation where someone (a friend, business colleague, or prospect) with whom you believe you’ve established a connection, disappears without an explanation. There’s no notice of any kind, nor any response to phone calls, emails, or text messages. All communication simply ends.   The practice of ghosting […]

Are You Running a Reactive Event?

Unfortunately, the answer is likely to be ‘yes.’ If so, it’s likely that your event will be entirely forgettable for your attendees as soon as they leave. They’ll have learned nothing new and will be dreading the meeting with their boss when they must explain why they’ve spent $2 – 3K of the company’s money […]