How to Create Memorable Events that Drive Pipeline (with Kera Wright, Founder of Planner Pal)

I think a lot of people don't think about the actual programming and the offer. I love this idea of like coming up with these mini roadshows. We did a roadshow, we did like once a quarter and it was very like low budget. We just picked a couple cities where we had a high base of customers.

Yeah, using partners is a huge. And that was something I basically, especially at aircraft, for every event, try to find a partner. Because when you're doing your own hosted event, like the benefit of a trade show, is that the audience is there.

Kara, I want to do an event this year. What do you think about that?

I think it's always a good time to do an event, but there's a lot of questions. There's a lot of questions that need to be answered and I'm always curious about, like what, what people want to get out of events.

All right, let me tell you my hypothesis and why I want to do an event and goals for doing it. So I run this business called Exit 5. And Exit 5 is a membership site for B2B marketers. So it's a place where people join to connect with their peers, to share feedback, get advice. Majority of the audience is B2B marketers. And the response has been amazing. This podcast has become popular. We have a newsletter with 15,000 subscribers. We have 3,000 paying members in our community. And it's been a couple years of this. The response is there. It's very clear that we have like, we have something, we have product market, fit. So many people have said, when are you going to do an event? When are you going to do an event? You should do an event. Like, this is the perfect. There's plenty. There's been events. Marketers love going to events. But then there's also. It's a community based business. People want to connect with their peers. Right. Or like talk to each other. They hang out online, they want to hang out in person. I finally have mustered the courage to say, let's do an event. I have been putting it off because in my past life, life as a CMO and a VP of marketing, I worked at a couple companies and we would do big events and it was always like, it's the reason I have no hair anymore. It's very stressful, you know, trying to get hundreds of people there, trying to make sure you make sales team happy sponsors, happy content, speakers. It's, you know, this is your world. It's. It's chaos. But I decided that this would be the first, this would be the year to do It. So I've decided we want to do it. Where would you start? I'm so early in this process now. I know, I know roughly when we want to do it. We want to do it in September. I also know where we want to do it in Vermont. So I moved out of Boston. I live up in Vermont. It's not where everybody is, but I think that that's what makes it cool for a reason. And there's a story that connects it to Exit 5, which is the story about Exit 5 as a business is related to Exit 5 off of the highway going up to Vermont. I want to do like 100 to 200 people in Vermont in September. That's all I know. I'm literally going to visit a venue this Friday. But we, we want to make this happen. What's your initial reaction?

Well, that's exciting. It's always exciting when you have your audience asking you for an event. So that's a good start. My first question is, what do you want to get out of this event? Like, what are your business goals here? Is it just purely to like fulfill a demand because people are asking you for it? Does it feel like the natural next step in terms of like building more communities there? A brand builder. Are you trying to make money?

Good questions. All I would say there's some part of all of them there. I think. I don't want to, I don't want to do an event to lose money. But I would say that like the real reason is I feel this response on online, you know this. But like being at an event in person, whether it's meeting up with your friends you haven't seen in a while, an industry event or going to a concert, there's just something different when people connect in person. And so even if I just break even on the event, I want to make that investment because I feel like it will boost the brand in some ways. It'll create deeper connections. I want people taking pictures and posting them all, all on LinkedIn. I want it to fuel months of excitement and interest in the community. Like, I want people on LinkedIn to see a picture of 200 people having a great time at an event. Be like, wow, exit 5. Like they did an in person event. I want to make those in person connections. I think personally it's great to have this online community, but even if I just go and meet 50 to 100 people who idea, you know, who are customers, that's gonna, as I say, our, our kids like to say like, what filled your bucket? It's Gonna fill my bucket. Like, I think it'll fill my bucket. I think in addition to that, there could be other relationships and networking opportunities that, that come in. But really I see it as like a, as a brand investment. It's, it's more of a way to connect people in person. We've already had that experience online. I want to give away a ton of value. So I wanted to be really, I want it to be like a really tactical and informative day for people. I don't just want it to be like, hang out and schmooze and have lunch. I want someone to be like, I met some, I met Kira at this event and now we're super tight and we're doing this project together. Or I got unstuck on this idea and I got a new, you know, this is going to help me for the next six months at work. I want the value to come in that sense. I don't really see it as like, oh, I need to close, you know, different than like a B2B SaaS company. I don't need to get 10 customers from this event. I do think we have lots of digital sponsors already and so I think like, it would be pretty easy to have a couple sponsors do things like pay for lunch or sponsor, you know, some type of interesting experience for people. But I say it's a long winded way of saying it's mostly a brand. It would be most like a brand type of event.

Okay. Brand community building. My. Okay. My initial reaction is like, you want to do an event, people are asking you for an event. Like, yes, do an event. But does it have to be go big or go home? Because you're going really big, you're doing it in Vermont, which is like out of the way for most people. You probably don't have like a huge concentration of listeners in Vermont. So like now we're asking people to travel for your first event ever. You're talking hundreds of people for the first event ever without ever doing. I'm assuming you've never done like a test event. So my first like flag that I would raise is, does it have to be so go big or go home? And maybe the answer is yes. But also maybe you could consider starting off with like smaller, more intimate events. Test out a couple different cities, sort of like really get a, get a feel for the people in person and then decide like, what does going big look like or what should it look like? That's like my, my like initial gut reaction.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think there's definitely the risk that nobody comes up here. I don't think that will happen, but it's definitely a risk. I think on the smaller side.

What.

So if, let's say a hundred, let's say I want a hundred people, what would be a smaller version of that to you?

Okay. And when you talk about, like you want people to walk away with value, you're saying that, do you, do you plan on there being programming for the event and you just want people to have valuable connections?

No, no, I want to have, like, if people are going to, if we're going to do, if we're going to do this, it's going to be. There's an agenda, there are speakers, there's a reason to come and buy a ticket. I believe that one of the biggest mistakes people make with events is the programming in that speakers matter, the content matters, like what you're going to invest and show up. And so if I'm asking somebody to take a day or two off of work to somehow find their way to Vermont, I need to sell them on something bigger than just networking. And so this would be like a one or two day masterclass education. Five or six different sessions. We'd bring in speakers, we'd have speakers, we'd have breakouts, we'd have small roundtables. It would need to be fully programmed out. I don't want to, I don't want to do this just to have like a 20 person meetup. Like, I could definitely, we could definitely do that. And we could just be like, hey, I'm going to host a dinner on this day and open it up to 10 or 20 people. I kind of want to make it like we've had such a good response to our content that another reason for doing this event is that it's a great way to get content for a couple months or for the rest of the year. And so all of the videos and recordings from those sessions can be content that is available for people in the community. We could run them as podcast episodes. I see it as a day of like getting valuable content at the same time. So the programming would be a big piece of this.

That makes sense. That makes sense. And what was your question? Like, what would a smaller version of that be? Yeah, if you're committed to doing it in Vermont and you're committed to like having it be like multiple sessions and like at least 100 people, a smaller version of that, I think is not necessarily compatible with the things that like, are like a hard. Yes.

Yeah, let me so so maybe, maybe it's kind of like this, this, this is happening. So maybe it's a different flip on the question, which is like this is happening with, with those Gargo. This is. I want this to happen. How do I, how would I go and how, how, how. What do you think I can do to best increase this, the chances of making this successful? Then if I. We know all the risks, we know all the kind of the red flags, like, will people come? Is this too many? Yes. I've signed the consent form, like, risk accepted. Risk accepted. What can I do to stack the deck based on your experience with events? Like what, what can I do to stack the deck in my favor to make sure that this event is successful?

I think even if, okay, and I'm sorry, I'm going back to this. I think even if your first event, your first like official event is going to be this big event, like meeting, getting small groups of people together in person could still really help you inform that event. Or even if it's not in person, just like talking to people, like really talking to people and getting a sense of what they would want in an event. And people don't always express exactly what they would want, but just, I don't know, I think just like being really in touch with your audience, if you can meet with them in person, if you can have like smaller intimate conversations, then that would be like a great way to inform because you can just think like, yes, this is it, like this is going to be that. But until you like start talking to people and getting real feedback, you don't really know. So that's what I would say. Just like getting a sense of what people really want from this event, what type of programming they would like. If they really do want more programming than networking opportunities, because content is content and if you're like sitting there watching someone speak for an hour in person versus like listening to a podcast, like how different is that experience if it's just a one way conversation? So like just getting feedback from people on the type of interactions they would hope to get from an event like.

That, that's one of my, that's one of the stressors too is like when you, if you've done an event and you're looking as a, as somebody's on stage presenting, you're like looking around the audience and you're like, are people into this? Or are they like looking at their phones or like they, you know, tapping their leg or something like that. I have a strong feeling about which content would work. So I Think the right indicators are there. Talk about you've been in this event marketing role and you're going to start your own business doing event marketing on a freelance basis. How do you describe what the role of an event marketer is and does and should do? And there's a lot of overlap between like, it can be hard to be. To me, there's a difference between like a marketer and an event planner. And the event marketer has to be like a hybrid of both of those things because you could be great at the event planning part. But like, as you and I were talking before we started recording, like, there's a whole element of like, collaborating with the business, working with sales, understanding how to drive demand at this event. So tell me about your, your, your backstory and, and just your experience in, in events.

It's funny, I first got started in events just as like a side job in college and like hand out flyers and like hand out samples and it was just like side money. But I thought it was pretty fun. And I was already studying marketing, so once I graduated I kind of just worked towards that. Like, I think I want to work in events and that just kind of set it off. So I've worked for like a catering startup, I've planned events for local politicians. I've been the event marketer at an architectural and engineering company. I've worked in sas, did a brief stint in the advertising industry as well as, like, had some freelance clients. So it's been all over the place. But consistently, like, across all the roles, the qualities that I think one needs to have as an event marketer, you need to be a master communicator. People do not read your emails. You really have to be able to get information through people's heads and be able to do it in multiple ways so that one of those ways reaches them. So communication is big. You're a project manager because you yourself are not doing most of the things that bring an event to life. So you're like bringing in those resources and making sure they deliver on the things that you need. And you're a marketer, like an event marketer is a marketer. You're usually writing copy. Like you said earlier, there's business goals that one has to answer to. So you're making sure that all this coordination, all this communication funnels into the goals that you're trying to get for the business. So those are the really important things.

You worked at Air Call and you spent a bunch of time working on events there. Take me into some of your Experience working with the marketing and sales teams there.

Yeah, Air Call, I would say, is the experience where I blossom the most in terms of like really getting the system down on how to work with sales, how to communicate with them, how to like get trade shows done.

And is that, is that of the events. Can you just first explain, like, what types of events were you doing? Like what, what was the, what were the goals for the company and where did events kind of fit in the, in the marketing strategy?

Yeah, so go like marketing. Basically, for events specifically, my golden number was qualified pipeline. So like opportunities that came in and that were indicated by the sales team to be worth working. So qualified pipe and like the number mostly like the pipeline, not even so much the number of opportunities, but qualified pipe is like my golden metric. Of course. Like, you want to track it down, funnel to see what actually closes. But that's kind of where like, you know, I passed the baton, of course.

Wait, so let's, this is great. People are going to love this. So let's, let's keep going on that thread. So the goal of doing an event is generate qualified pipeline. How do you, how do you work from there? How do, or how did you and the team work from there to figure out like, which types of events should you do to generate qualified pipeline? Because you could just have a lunch or have buy free tacos for everybody and you're not just going to magically get the right people to show up for that. So how do you use events as a way to actually drive qualified pipeline?

Yeah, and let me say that's like the golden revenue metric, but there is a brand component, there is a like overall marketing component where you want to get the, the company name out there. But that's just the main like number. But in terms of how to sort of pick, if I'm understanding the question correctly, like, sort of how did we determine what the event mix should look like in order to meet those. That goal?

Yeah, I, I think that's like the most actionable. I think people like the most. That's the most actionable advice. Like, let's do an event to generate qualified pipeline. Okay, shoot. Tell me, tell me how you did that. Like, that's the stuff that people are. People like to get.

Yeah, I think for Aircall, but for most companies, like, where you should kind of start is where are your customers already coming from? At Aircall, there was a big, like our partnerships was a big deal. So like, basically a lot of the customers that were there were using certain technologies, technologies that Integrated with Air Call and the biggest customers and the best customers were integrating with like certain partners. So we know that like if a company already uses Salesforce, if a company uses HubSpot, then like they could potentially be like companies that use these technologies will probably find a higher concentration of like good fit aircall customers. So like going to Dreamforce, going to like the Salesforce trade shows, going to Inbound was like a good sort of, that was kind of our event skeleton. Like we're getting a lot of customers, we're getting a lot of referrals from these partners. Where can we meet more potential referrals at these partners events? So that's the first step, I would say.

Got it. So as opposed to being like, we need to create and host our own event, like part of the strategy is like what should we, which events should we select that we should go to and do something there.

Yeah. And I'm not saying it's an either or thing, but like as you're building out an event calendar, that's a good place to start. Like where are they coming from? Where can you meet more people like this? Is there an existing concentration of people? Are there events that already exist that we can sort of tag along to?

Yeah.

So that's a good starting point. But then you start looking at sort of your customer avatar, like what are our customers like? And based on that you can create experiences that would attract them. So you know, we were selling into a lot of customer support teams. What does a customer support leader look like? That's like an ideal Air Call customer. They are at like an e commerce company. They are like a senior level support director. They are based in certain major cities. Their personality type, they tend to be like introverted, very empathetic. What do they care about in terms of content? And then you build an experience around that that to attract those people to your event. If you're doing a hosted event.

I like that. I'm, I'm just looking you, you. I'm digging through something that you have posted on LinkedIn and you created this series at Air Call that was Burger, Burgers, Beer, burgers, beer and B2B sales, three city roadshow, 900 registrants, 30k in sponsorships. I love, I love ideas like that. Right. It's like, okay, yes, we know we should go do something at Dreamforce, we know we should do something at Inbound, but what can we do? What can we do on our own? And to your point, like how do we. And even to what we were talking about with the Exit 5 event events to me are content, right? It's like, what's the reason? Why is someone going to show up? And so how can you program that event? I think the number one thing that matters in marketing is like, is the offer. And in an event the offer is, well, why should I come hang out with you on Tuesday from 5 to 7? Or why am I going to go all the way up to Vermont to spend a day up there? I think a lot of people don't think about the actual programming and the offer and the value of attending that event. It's typically like, yep, we got a booth, we're going to scan your badge, we're going to give you some branded swag and that's our event strategy. We're going to move on. But when you truly take this, like offer this content and offer first approach, you can do events that build meaningful relationships. And so I love, I love this idea of like coming up with these mini roadshows. When I was at this company, Drift, we did a roadshow. We did, we did three. We did like once a quarter and it was very like low budget. We just picked a couple cities where we had a high, high base of customers and we found two or three companies that we could partner with in that city where we didn't have to spend all the money, but like they like, Air Call was in this was in this city, they had a space, hey, let's do this joint event together and we'll do it as co marketing. And that was like a really low friction, low cost way to test into, into doing roadshows as opposed to like renting some huge venue trying to get hundreds of people there. I love the idea of doing events through partners too.

Yeah, using partners is a huge. And that was something I basically, especially at Air Call, for every event, try to find a partner. Because when you're doing your own hosted event, like the benefit of a trade show is that the audience is there. So like, you don't have to worry about like finding the people. You just need to worry about your presence and how you're gonna like get them to engage with you. When you're doing your own event, it's like the presence, the experience is gonna be cool, but like, you need to get people there. And yeah, working with partners is an amazing way to just share that responsibility and expand the reach of the event. That's actually how I know Chantal. Yeah, we worked together on an event and it was a lot of fun.

What event did you do?

We did so Back when she was at Maestro qa, who also would target customer support professionals, we did an event that was all about live customer interactions and how to empower your team. Because being live is a lot different from being on an email or just something where you can respond asynchronously. It's a little bit higher pressure. The event was Broadway themed. Just to play into that live aspect. We hosted it at a theater. We gave away Hamilton tickets. We had a lot of fun and it was a great event. Chantal did a great job bringing in, like, really high quality guests. She also, she hosted the panel and then I did all the behind the scenes, like, logistics. It was a good team effort.

Love that. She's awesome. I do think a lot of the small details matter at events too. Like, we've all been to events that, that maybe the content is great, but the food is bad. Or the food is great, but the content is bad, or there's only one bathroom or there's no ac. There's always some issue. And a mentor of mine once told me, when you think of an event, it's easy to get caught up in all of the details from the event as having to be flawless. But really, how do you get people to. And tell me if you agree with this, but like, how do you get people to have one or two moments where they're like, yeah, that event was great. Like, it's going to be one or two. It's going to be one speaker that gives you that break that, that, like, big takeaway. It's going to be one relationship that you made. It doesn't need to be from top to bottom. This, like, blew you away. Everything is the most insane experience, but it's about finding one or two key moments and that's what people are going to remember from that event and from that day.

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that as you're planning an event, you need to make a conscious decision about what those moments are going to be and what they're not going to be. Because you can't be 100% in every single aspect of the event. Like, you'll drive yourself crazy. Especially if you're planning multiple events and you have a full calendar. Like, sometimes you go into an event like, okay, this is not going to be the most sexy, but my sales team is going to be prepared to have the conversations they need to have. Or, you know, this event is all about the guest experience. So, like, all the logistics, everything is going to be on point. The panel discussion, maybe it's not the most important part, because I know these people are here to mostly network and they want to have one on one conversations with the panelists. So we're going to keep it short and sweet on the panel discussion and like have more time for Q and A. Like you need to be very conscious about what those moments are so that you can focus on that and not worry so much about the things that, that aren't going to be 100% perfect.

What do you think the different, there's almost like different flavors of events and you kind of have to have that goal coming in, right? Like you might do an event for customers and that the goal of that event is literally to just get 10 or 20 customers in the room, connect them with each other, get them to, you know, be more successful with your product. You might have do an event specifically for pipeline. This is this. The goal of this event is we, we need new qualified pipeline. Then the third bucket is maybe brand. Do you typically do those things separately? Can an event be all in one? If you do all in one, is it harder to drive one of those metrics? I've struggled with this in the past of like the event was amazing, the brand response was amazing. But like social media was buzzing. But like we didn't generate a ton of qualified pipeline from that. Do you have any experience like doing both or would you separate them out?

Yeah, I think most events are multifaceted in the goals, but I think where a lot of people sort of neglect to like get clear is on like kind of like weighting the goals. So if you have an event and you're setting goals like of course have a number. Like, okay, we want to generate like X amount in qualified pipeline. We want the brand response like have a number if you can attached to it and sort of go into it telling your team like what is the most important goal and like what is the secondary goal or the like tertiary goal. So like if, if you're going into the event and you have like a pipeline goal, you have a brand goal, you have a this goal. Like are you communicating and are you like conscious about like our number one goal is pipeline. That's you know, I'm waiting that at like 75%. So like yes, we want a brand response but like that's a 15% goal. Like so I'm saying what would you.

If that was the goal, if you wanted to do an event specifically to drive pipeline, what would be different about that than doing say a brand event in your, in your execution?

I think generally hosted events are not the best avenue for pipeline driving. I think that like your own hosted events are mostly valuable for pipeline acceleration, brand building and like top of funnel metrics. So I think the best events for pipeline tend to be. There are some companies where if they invite prospects, they're signing deals. I find for the most part that's not the case. So if you want to generate pipeline.

Yeah, that would be a nice dream for everybody. Let's just do an event and have our customers come out ready to sign. Right, right.

If that's you, please message me. I want to know your secrets. But most of the time I think pipeline Dr. Driving events tend to be like trade shows. And I think trade shows get a lot of slack. Like, yes, they're expensive, yes. Like they suck sometimes. But people kind of, when they're walking a trade show floor, they're kind of expecting like more transactional interactions. Not saying like to treat people like, I don't know, like, like they're not people, but like they're going around to learn about products. So it's, it's a more natural transition to have those conversations as opposed to like, let me invite you to a dinner and then I'm selling you. Or like I'm selling you.

I get that, I get that that's some of, that's part of the job if you're in sales. But one of the first startup that I ever worked at, we were selling into restaurants. And it was a very small team. And so we all went to this big event. The, I think it was like the NRF National Restaurant F, whatever F stands for. And we had a booth and it was like this humongous expense for the company. It was like a big risk. Like we're going to spend 50 grand or whatever. We don't have that kind of money, but we're going to spend it on this booth and we better go make pipeline. And they, the team, the whole company was like six people. We were all at this event and it was straight up like, there's someone, there's a, there's a human walking by, like, go talk to her. And that was awful. And I never, and I was like, man, I never wanted, I never want to do that. Some people live for that. I know some people in sales, like, they love that type stuff. That's. That was not for me, my friend.

Yeah, no, that sounds stressful. I wouldn't particularly recommend that, like be chill. But yeah, like take advantage of the people walking by.

I like, I like the frame, I like the frame of how you Said hosted events. Right. And so like if you're going to host your own event, typically that's going to be more of a brand thing. Like, hey, we have a big, we have a product launch. We want to invite some customers. We want to do this rah rah thing for our company. Like that's going to be more of a brand, brand event. But if you were, if, if it's qualified pipeline that you're after going to set up shop at the place where all your customers already are, like Dreamforce is, is a, is a, is a great idea. And I guess I've never thought about like splitting those two things out as part of the, the strategy for.

Yeah. And even when you go, if you're going to wear like a large concentration of people are. You don't have to have a booth. Like you could kind of like hybrid it and do a hosted event but like tagging on to the trade show also, like if you're doing your own hosted event, it's not saying that you can't get pipeline out of it, but I just think you're not typically going to see that from a cold contact. Like maybe you can move people down funnel, like you've been in touch with them, then you invite them to the dinner. Like, okay, but as a first, like touch. I don't think, yeah, I don't think hosted events are going to be like a primary pipeline driver.

So tell me about what's next for you. You don't want to go back in house, even though I'm sure there's people listening that would want to hire you. You don't want to go do that dance again. You're going to start your own business, build out an event marketing consulting business. Do you have an idea of which type of companies you're after and what you want to go help them do?

Y company I have a name is it's called Planner Pal. I didn't tell you that before, but it's called Planner Pal and how it all came along.

Okay. Planner Pal is pretty good.

Yeah. So basically I just remember when I was a like full time event marketer, typically just a team of one, responsible for all the events, responsible for all the things that go into events. Like most event marketers are so overwhelmed. There's just so much work that has to be done and a lot of times like there's no plans to add on headcount. So you just kind of have to power through, keep begging for like, hey, can we hire someone? Or you know, eventually burn yourself out. So the whole concept behind Planner Pal is just on demand event marketing help. It's all task based. So it's not a situation where you would just hand me over your program. It's the way that I will work with clients is you assign tasks to me and then how you pay for that is you just buy a package of hours so you don't have to worry about like commitments or like long term. I find that working with agencies can typically be like a hassle where you have these like long term commitments. But it's basically like you pay for what you need, you assign the task that you either don't want to do or don't have the capacity to do and it's from someone you trust who's been in your shoes. So. So that's what Planner Pal is all about.

I love that. Good, good. I hope someone, if you're listening and you need a Planner pal like Kara in your life, I hope you go and go to her LinkedIn and send her a message. Do you have a preferred stack like of tech stuff for an event? Like I'm going into this, going to figure it out as I go. Maybe I'll have to hire you as my Planner Pal for this but do you have tools that you prefer to work with?

Yeah. So I think everyone should have some sort of project management. I love Monday, I'm a Monday girl. But like Asana is great. I mean you can use ClickUp, you can use whatever, but I think one place where like all the tasks live and you can easily assign those tasks and know who's doing what when everything's due. I think that's like a must. I also think in terms of like spreadsheets, I feel like event managers are notorious for their spreadsheets but like have some sort of like central document where like information about the event lives. So there's like a live document that's like where you're collaborating and then there's like an information document. I call it the key info doc. I got that shout out to my old manager, Erica Carly. She introduced this concept to me and like I've kept it ever since. So you have a key information doc where like people know this is the source of truth about the event. I typically put it in like a Google sheet, but really it could be anything. And then what else? I mean you have Slack. I like Slack for like instant communication. Email serves a purpose. I know I said earlier like no one reads your emails but it does serve a purpose. So like whatever your email client is, but in terms of tech. I mean I think really just like having a project management tool is like my main. Like yes, you need that. It's worth it.

Yeah. I feel like after that the most, as you get closer to the event it becomes, well, depending on the content. Like if it's an event programmed with speakers and breakouts and all that stuff, the other doc that becomes so key is that run of show doc. Like okay, this time 9 to 9:08 9:08 to 9:20, the breaks, all that stuff becomes so essential for the timing of the day.

Yeah, for sure. And I would even say you could fit that into the key info doc so it's all the more you can congest it, the better. Oh, and then in terms of registration, I love Splash, but that's typically for like, I would say not necessarily events with like multiple sessions or multiple tracks, then maybe like visible would be a good, a good fit there. They're, they're a great team. But yeah, Splash Visible in terms of like registration and signing people in. Those are great.

Are you happy to be back doing in person events again? I'm sure it was challenging to have in person events be such a part of the job. Then like for a couple years every event marketer is forced to pivot to managing virtual events and webinars and now you get to go back and do what you love.

Yeah, there is nothing like in person and it is very validating to see how the rest of the world gets it now. Like events are important. It's important that we get together. Like just because it could have been an email doesn't mean there's no value in us sitting down face to face. Like yeah, virtual was. It was a doozy for a while. At first it was kind of exciting and then it just got old. It got old really quick. I think there's still a place for it. But yes, I'm very excited that events are back in full force and that the rest of the world is as excited about it as I am.

Yeah, it's a great appetite for it now and I think your point is exactly it, which is like it's maybe the content on stage and everything if you have presenters, but I think it's the, the, it's the breakouts, it's the networking. A friend of mine, Pep, he runs this company called Winter and they did a great event last. He's doing another one now in. I think it's in Austin in April called Spring. He dent. He did one a year or two ago. Yeah, it was last fall and it Was awesome. He had, like, five or six speakers. I was a speaker, but my talk was, like, 20 minutes max. He's like, it's gotta be 20 minutes max. But then what they did is in between every Talk, they had 10 to 12 people at, like, a roundtable. And there was maybe 20 tables in this venue. And they paired everybody up by, like, topic. And so they said, okay, this is Kira. Kira's interested in events, product marketing, and, like, career mentorship. Right? And then, like, you go to the YouTube, you. At like, 11, 15, you. There's nobody on stage. Everyone goes to that table and you. So you sit around a table with 10 to 12 of your peers, all, like, talking about a specific topic, or everybody's struggling with one challenge in the business. And I feel like people got so much value that the speakers were great, but so much value came from those little breakouts. And that's something that I really want to do with this Exit 5 event is like, oh, all these people are. Are, let's say, solo marketers. Let's pair them up and, like, do a breakout session where, like, there's no. There's no structure. There's no speaker for that. But, like, if we can get these 12 people, like, just sitting around having lunch together, that's where the huge value in the event is going to be. And I think that that's such a cool thing that he unlocked with that. And I want to make sure that we do something like that. All these people, hey, you're. Let's say we got 12 event marketers. I want to pair them all up together. And like, like, you all go break out and have a session, because that's you. You meet two people that you can connect with for the rest of the year from that session alone, you're going to associate our brand with that. That alone is worth, like, coming. Coming up to Vermont for the event, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I. I love the idea of lightning sessions. I've seen that a couple times. There's a couple people that are, like, doing that consistently. People's attention spans are just not. They're not long. I think 20 minutes is. Is great.

And then I like that lightning sessions, like, really, people, it's okay. So there you're onto something, because people. What people like about this podcast and some of the Exit 5 stuff is a very tactical stuff. Like, what if we had speakers? But the speaker was like, I'm gonna give you one lesson. It's not gonna be a whole thing. It's gonna be like, I'm gonna tell you how to do how I did this one specific thing that could be cool.

Yeah, yeah. And it's all about like, I think what made that event successful and what's gonna make your event successful is again like just being intentional. Being very intentional. Like that organizer knew. Okay. What I really want my audience to walk away with is having made connections or having had meaningful conversations about the content that the content just doesn't get presented and then disappear. Like I want meaningful discussions to happen around the content and then you can get as creative as possible. Like you can do whatever to make that happen. But just knowing what your intentions are and the goals that you have for your audience and for the experience, like that is so key because that is the basis of which you engineer like everything and make all the decisions around your events.

People think that I'm crazy. Including you. I saw that look of people are going to come up to Vermont for this event maybe. But one of the cool things about doing an event in a off market location is the cost. Like I can get an amazing. I'm looking at this place on Friday. It's like an amazing venue for a day and it's like 1500 bucks or something. Like something, something silly. Right. And although people, on the last episode, people were giving me a hard time because I said how I didn't want to do an event for something about the cost and my math was like way wrong. I said, do you know how much it is to buy a hundred people lunch? That's like at least 30 grand and like 10 people. DM me. It was like, buddy, your math is way off there.

But I don't know. Some, sometimes, sometimes these places are really ridiculous.

Well yeah, if you're dealing with, if you're dealing with a place that has like a minimum. Like if you have to do everything that, that can be the hard part. Like you have to do everything through this venue and there's a minimum. Then yeah, you're buying lunch for everybody and it's 30 bucks for some like half ass box lunch, you know?

Yeah, hotels tend to be like major violators in terms of like your wallet. But yeah, there's, there's a lot of benefits to trying it out. And then, and I don't know what, I've never been to Vermont, but like are there cool things about Vermont like the location or like something unique to Vermont that like is it Ben and Jerry's? I don't know. But like what something like unique?

Yeah. So exactly, exactly. So we want to do something like that. So Ben and Jerry's is right down the street. And so like, either go there or have that be like, instead of alcohol or something, we'll have Ben and Jerry's. That's a. That's a nice thing also. It's going to be in the fall. It's going to be lovely. I like to be outside and do things outdoors. And one of the things that I don't like about going events to events is when you sit. When you feel like you're sitting in that hotel conference center for 12 hours and you walk out of there and you're like, you know, you need some fresh air. So I want to bake in. I want to bake in. It can be optional, but like, you know, imagine like a run or a walk or a hike or some outdoor activity like that that morning or that afternoon. I want to bake something like that into it also.

Yeah, that would be cool. Sometimes I feel like events can be like, have you ever been in a casino for a long time? They have no windows, no natural light. So when you leave you're like, what time is it? Another thing I would say to think about is so like fall is. There's a reason you want to do your event in the fall because it's a great time for events. But it's also when everyone does their events. So just keep that in mind too. There will be competition. It tends to be a busy season. I know as an event manager, Q3 was always a marathon. Like it was back to back trade shows, everything. Everyone is doing everything in the fall.

I hear you and you're right. It's also in my risk bucket. But how do you, how do you manage that? Like, if I do it during a slow time, oh, let's do it in July. But then people don't want to come for a work event because it's the summer. They got summer plans. Like, is it, isn't it kind of just the game of events? Like it's never going to be. Tell me if I'm wrong. This is my perspective. Isn't just gonna be like, there's never a perfect time. And so I kind of just gotta pick a date and just go and hope that people, you know, plant my flag and hope people come. Or is there a time? It's like, is there like a LinkedIn? Like, the best time to post is.

Tuesday at 8am the event calendar algorithm.

Yeah. What does the event calendar algorithm say?

I think I mean for your location, because it's like it has to be Vermont. So I feel like that kind of you may be, like, already ruling out extreme weather times, and then the summer may not make sense events. It's just a consideration. Like, if it's a risk that you're willing to accept, then cool. But maybe, like, let's say if. If I was going to do an event and I was looking into, like, maybe, like, warm weather destinations, like, oh, I want to do an event in Puerto Rico, then, like, I could potentially make that a Q.1 thing. People are back from the holidays. People are, like, energized. They maybe they're interested in doing stuff. Things aren't as intense as they would be in the fall. Like, like, just. So it's just a consideration. It's not like, yeah, you're gonna accept there's gonna be risks no matter when you choose, but it's just like, you know, just know the risk when you decide the date for your event.

That's. That's what's hard about this. I mean, this kind of anything in business and marketing, but, like, there are a lot of variables that you can't control, and they're never gonna be perfect. And so it's kind of why I just said, like, yes, let's do it this year. Let's do it in the fall. Let's do it in Vermont. Just to kind of be like, look, we just have to, like, make. We just have to go forward at some point. Otherwise I'd be like, well, what should I do at this time? This time it's never going to be perfect, right? Like, yeah, just kind of do it.

Decision fatigue. And that's just a. That's a life thing. Like, you learn the most from getting stuff done and just taking notes from that and iterating. So the fact that you're doing it, I think it's a good first step. Like, you'll learn. You'll learn the most. Like, you can speculate as much as you want, but the most learnings will come after the fact. Once you see what happened in real life and how to fix things moving forward.

Yeah. And the buzz of that. The buzz of that morning when people start showing up is tough to beat. It's way better than. Hi, who just joined my webinar.

It's nothing like it. Oh, gosh. Event day.

That's great. I have to get some respectable clothing. I haven't left the house in a while. Have to, you know, get. Get some presentable. Maybe wear a suit or something like that. But anyway, Cara, well, maybe we'll have to get you up. We'll have to get you to be a part of this somehow. But thanks for hanging out with us on the Exit 5 pod. People can find you on LinkedIn. We'll. We'll put your link in the, in the show notes to all this stuff. And so maybe if somebody is thinking about doing an event this year and they need a. What did you call again? Planner pal.

Planer pal.

And they need a planner pal for an event, they can, they can hit you up and get some of your event marketing help and expertise. I've had a nice little afternoon talking to you. I appreciate you coming on the Exit 5 podcast, and I'll see you era.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Exit. Exit.