Does Your Events Organization Need a Post-COVID Check-Up?
1) Are you closer to your customers than you were in 2019? 2) Are you closer to your staff than you were in 2019? 3) Is your sales team firing on all cylinders? 4) Have you raised prices, justified only by inflation? 5) Are your customers still getting value for their money? 6) Have you […]
What is the Future of Digital forEvent Companies?
Our event industry has been riding a roller coaster since COVID’s impact began in March 2020. We’ve gone from having no face-to-face events – with almost total dependency on digital or virtual events – to the recent return to face-to-face events with little to no digital participation. Given that recent history, it’s fair to ask what’s […]
In What are the Characteristics of a Top 5% Event
I’ve had the fortune to run a world-renowned event – Macworld – and have managed several others that have come close to ranking amongst the upper echelon (the top 5%) of events. They are the types of events whose presence commanded attention – and attendance. We are now experiencing significant pent-up demand for in-person […]
How to Find – and Keep – the Best Salespeople
I am frequently asked if I know any great salespeople who would be interested in a new opportunity. Given the frequency of the question, I thought I would outline what I feel are the common elements for a successful effort to hire (and keep) a great salesperson. When speaking at the SuperNiche Conference last April I stated […]
How Finding Your Addressable Audience is the Difference for Success and Failure in Events: An Interview with Marketing Guru Shauna Peters
Since my March interview with Shauna Peters, vice president and marketing strategist for mdg, a Freeman Company, I’ve heard a lot about the ‘addressable audience,’ which I believe is a key concept that every event marketer needs to embrace to maximize their event attendance. Since a lot of the ‘buzz’ on this topic is coming from mdg, I decided to […]
Is the Future All About Going Back to The Past for Events? Interview with Industry Veteran Rob Weissman
Rob Weissman has had a long and varied career since he started in the tradeshow business in the eighties. He’s produced shows for National Expositions, Blenheim, and Tribune Schwab Fox/Atwood New Media, consulted on dozens of major exhibitions, and run two of his own firms, Century Exposition Management, and, Alliance Media Strategies. He has produced […]
Have Conversations with 100% of Your Sales Prospects
Most event salespeople are transactional. Their outbound phone calls and emails, whether to sell a booth or a sponsorship, tend to approach the sale as a transaction – a one-time thing. And then they wonder when these attempts don’t generate the successes they desire. Why? One key factor is that the salesperson is choosing the time, […]
The Seven Conditions for Successful Event Sales
If you are good at it, there is nothing more satisfying than being a salesperson. You have few of the mundane tasks often required in other kinds of roles and your individual performance can have a direct and immediate impact on your (potentially unlimited) income. The sales role also rewards an entrepreneurial mindset, as the most […]
Are You Guilty for Sending Idiot Marketing Messages?
Launching an Event: How to Avoid Financial Disaster
In theory, launching an event should not be too difficult. The steps of a launch can be laid out much like a pilot’s nighttime view of an airport runway’s landing lights. If you are methodical in execution, analysis and do things in the proper order, you should be successful. That typically is how it happens, […]