The Future of Events, and the Secrets to SaaStr Annual's Success

Everyone, welcome to another episode of Office Hours, where we teach you the things they don't teach you in the classroom. About creating memorable one-to-one experiences for the folks that you wanna do business with. I'm pumped for my guest today for two reasons. One, one of the best experiences I've ever had as a speaker was right here, had with Amelia and her team at Saastr. But I am also super excited because Amelia knows what, what all event marketers need to know about creating really good events experiences. So Amelia, who is the GM and SVP over there at Saastr. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Office Hours.

I am stoked. Thanks for having me.

So I am thrilled to chat with you today because events have been like this, the secret weapon for a lot of marketers who were completely thrown off guard by last year's pandemic. They were trying to find new meaningful ways to build connection, build community with the folks that they wanna do business with. And there were some folks that like totally crushed it and some folks who created additional noise for the rest of us to have to compete for eyeballs for. Is that what you're seeing on your end as well too?

Yeah, for sure. Right. Like we not only just asked to have its own community, right? So we, we've done in-person events, which people know us for. We pivoted to doing online. Now we're making a return to do both in-person and digital. But we also work with a ton a ton of companies like yourself. Um, at Alice, we have a lot of sponsors who participate in our community. So, you know, we're talking to hundreds and hundreds of SaaS companies who either did their own events or teamed up with SaaStr. So, you know, that's really what I found too, right? It was like, first there was sort of a lull of what are we all gonna do, right?

Yeah. Like we were even looking around like, what are, what are, what are we all doing here?

What's, what do we do now? Suddenly you have all this demand, right, of people who are trying to figure out what to do next. And you have all this budget, like all this field marketing budget that was either already earmarked or, you know, set aside for things like field events, whether it's SaaS or others, you know, Dreamforce. And then suddenly you can't deploy that capital there. And people do use it to your point, right, as a way to drive connections. Like Usually they're in different areas, you know, different locations. You can do a lot of things at events, right? It's not just, oh, let me grab somebody who comes by the booth, have a really good conversation with them. Like, that's part of it, right? But I see that as like baseline. Like, you also want to do something with your customers. You want to talk to the people who are already in your funnel, right? Like, get some pipeline acceleration going. Like, close those deals that you had pending. Um, there's so much more you could talk to the other sponsors. Like, our sponsors love talking to one another, right? They're always like, yeah, I went over there and talked to like Bendo, or I talked to like GameSight, and suddenly like we're teaming up too. I'm like, great, like make connections, right?

Yes, I call that the professional meet cute, you know, like when you just like happen to be stationed next to somebody else's booth and you're like, oh hey, what do you do? That's so cool, we should find a way to like partner.

You're in line, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're in line for coffee. Yeah. Whatever it may be, right? And I love things like Alice because of the gifting element, right? Like one of our companies brought something where they were like, oh, we brought gifts for all the other sponsors who are our neighbors, right? We wanted to like foster this meet cute that you're talking about and like make it stick with them. And they're like, we got so much ROI from it just by like talking to our neighbors who had a neighboring booth. But anyway, right? Like there was this, there was this pent-up demand of like field marketing budgets and people were like, okay, what are we gonna do next? So For us, right, because we work with a lot of different SaaS verticals and companies, we saw like a 100x increase in like digital media, right, at SaaS and for other brands. And that encompasses everything from like newsletters, digital events, which obviously Emerge is like a top contender, smaller virtual, like either happy hours, cooking classes, interactions, right, some small group online activities. Um, but everything digital sort of just exploded in the last year. Yeah.

It's, it's been really interesting too. And I like that you brought up a couple of these more non-traditional, like person-based experiences, not professional-based experiences, because I think one of the things we're noticing as well too on our end is that people aren't necessarily focused on the industry-based conference. They're also now starting to fold in like, what's the interest-based experience that we can create for folks.

Yeah. And I think that's, that's something we kept in mind, right. As we went from in-person to digital, like it's funny because now that we're planning a return in person, right. Like we're planning on having our SaaStrangel event this fall. I'm going to say hybrid loosely and put in air quotes for those who are watching versus listening, like loosely, we, we like to call it perpendicular, right. It's like two perpendicular experiences. Like there's one in person, there's one digital. They converge at some paths, but hybrid is really like almost like a lazy marketing, like, word I want to say.

Oh my gosh. We have to go into this. Wait, like, let's talk more about this. So hybrid, it's for the lazier marketers. Well, tell me more, unpack this for me.

All right. Let me unpack for you. I think hybrid has become this amorphous term. I've used it. I'm sure you've used it. We've all used this word of like, Well, hybrid meaning in-person and digital, but like where those paths meet is so different for everyone. Like the definition's different. Like the bar is different, right? Like what does this mean? Like I've seen other like commercial things go hybrid now, right? Especially like if you watch sports, right? They're sort of doing mixed in-person with obviously you can watch it on TV, that sort of thing. Sort of some live events are doing that. Shows starting to like some smaller concerts that are coming back and doing that, right? Where it's like, okay, hybrid has sort of become amorphous. I think for me and for many marketers with streaming, it's like, oh, well, it's a hybrid event because I'm just going to stream whatever we're doing to the internet, right? Which I'm like, well, we've been doing that. Everyone's been doing that for years. Like a lot of conferences beam out what they're doing. Apple's keynotes are By definition, they've been hybrid for forever. Right. It's always like, right. They've got an audience in front of them and then everyone else on planet earth is watching it online. Right. So I'm like, okay, that's, then that's a hybrid event. I think hybrid and streaming have become so synonymous that we don't like to use this term when we do our event planning. Right. 'Cause I'm like, fine. Yeah, sure. It's hybrid. There's, we're gonna stream the speakers from the stages to the digital component. Right. So people can watch if they can't make it. Maybe they can't make it for various reasons now versus before, right? Maybe before it was budget, but maybe now it's, they're still in lockdown, but you know, we're fully allowed, or they're not comfortable yet leaving their house, or just maybe they want to leave their house, but they don't want to sit next to, you know, 4,000 other people. Comfortability levels are different, right? Yeah. So I think that's, that's become sort of a lazy synonym, right? Of like hybrid and streaming. So for us, we like to think about it more perpendicular events, right? Like there's a digital component, there's an in-person component. Yes, they're gonna meet at certain places and yes, we're gonna stream what we do in person online, but also like we're already planning for our fall event to have one complete digital-only day. So like the people who can only tune in and the people who are there, right? Doesn't mean like we won't throw it up on the screen and like have people watch, but I think you need something like this where you think about both experiences. Experiences. I think otherwise, like, it becomes sort of like just either just streaming or something sort of in the middle. Whereas I feel like perpendicular is like, you want to have a good experience for both parties. Like, whether it's an attendee who's just watching it, or it's an attendee who's there in person, you want them both to feel like they got, you know, for us, the Saks Tour experience, right? Like, they felt like they were part of the community, whether it was, in person and they saw content and speakers and got to ask their question, or it was digital and they tuned in and there was some only digital content that they— and there was some digital networking, right? There's networking at both, which you have to do differently these days. Like that way they feel like they got a good experience. I feel like hybrid sort of becomes this lazy term for streaming where you can get away with just streaming it and that's good enough, right? Where I'm like, that's not good enough. That just means people are watching it. But like, if there's no networking for the online audience, if there's nothing exclusive for the online audience, I feel like they're gonna, yeah, it's like, it's not as good, right? Like you gotta make both good. You gotta make both really good.

So are you gonna be so bold as to say that the future state of a field marketing team or an event marketing team is going to have one digital event marketer focused on the digital experience and one in-person event marketer focused, or like a team that's dedicated to both experiences?

I think a team dedicated to both, right? Like we're literally, we have an events team now and our events team has worked on both, but as we're ramping up our scheduled events, right? Of like, okay, we have a full schedule of digital events and we're ramping up to a mostly full schedule. And then next year, a full schedule, right? Of in-person events. Like I'm literally hiring. You can look on our website. We're literally hiring for like a head of, a head of event ops, which is like, you know, in normal in-person events. And I'm hiring for a head of digital events. Like I'm literally hiring. Seperate people for these things so that they can both deliver on their goals. Right. And like, obviously there'll be some crossover, there'll be some meeting in the middle. Yeah. They'll, they'll play nicely together, but yeah, I do think it's going to be a separate team for each and then they'll come together. But I think to do both well, you have to, right?

Yeah. You have to, because one will end up being the afterthought, right? Like one will end up being something that you're like, and then we'll just kind of like throw them a bone. In this experience like that.

Right.

And that is the surefire way to make sure that people do not have the right experience at your event.

Right. Interesting.

Speaking of experiences, and you referenced the SaaStr experience, and I would be remiss if I did not talk about the experience I had when I got to meet you and your team for the first time as you prepped me for the content.

Yeah. It was the first time I met you.

It was the first time we met. I was so blown away by how thorough and how well prepped I felt walking away from the conversation. But I think it's because you did not at all compromise— sorry, my dogs decided to chime in in this, this portion of today's reading. Cody doesn't chime in regularly, but she's really feeling this, this one, this one concept. Um, but the, the content, that was the key right there. Like, yeah, I have been treated very well at all the experiences, and people have been so appreciative and so grateful and so helpful and kind, but it was It was your emphasis on what content is going to make the experience meaningful that really stuck out for me. Like, talk to me about that. How, how did you come to use that as your due north for creating the attendee experience?

It's, it's something where like SaaStr has always been known for its content, right? Like in the early days, like Jason had the first— Jason, who's SaaStr CEO and founder, he, you know, he started SaaStr in person back in 2015, right? So Back then, it was bringing folks that he knew or folks that were up and coming at the time, like Stuart Butterfield, David Sacks, which are all hip. If you go back and look at the 2015 website, it still exists on the internet. I'm like, all the heavy hitters who became heavy hitters— Get out there.

The Wayback Machine.

Let's all check it out. Yeah, exactly. Wayback Machine. All the heavy hitters in SaaS were there. And so we sort of synonymously became known for like content. Because like year after year, it's like, okay, we brought back heavy hitters. We got all the celebrities of SaaS, if you will. We literally call them SaaS celebrities at SaaStr. Like all the celebrities of SaaS like kept coming year after year, right? It really became this place where we became known because not only were they like heavy hitters, but they were being honest, right? They were sharing their playbooks. They're being more open, right? We don't do— one of the rules, like you were talking about, right? When you refer to our content planning is we have a very lengthy, like, submission guidelines. We have very lengthy, like, content guidelines, as you now know, right? Like some of the things we have is, you know, we talk formatting plays a role and a part of it, but You know, we have a lot of these guidelines now that we've developed over the years to keep the content really good. And that's how like we sort of became known for content and like, it just ramped up from there. Like everything we did added to the value of our content as a whole. And we just kept like, sometimes it's hard, right? Cause you're like, oh, I have to up myself now. Like I gotta keep upping our own game, but because we follow our own guidelines, right? We, drink our own tea, sip our own champagne, right? Like, it's— we keep ourselves to this higher bar and we keep trying to continually improve it. So like, the process you're going through with Alice is one where it's like, we've worked on that process continually over the last, you know, couple years with not only the community but also with sponsors of like, okay, what, what are the guidelines? How can we distill this down? How can we work with you, right? We make sure that there's No repeats, right? Like, so if Stuart Butterfield is speaking at SaaStr and then, you know, going to Dreamforce, we're like, it's gotta be different content, right? We don't allow anyone to really do like a roadshow piece where it's like, you know, they're doing SaaStr and maybe—

Oh, here we go again with this.

Exactly.

Yep, exactly.

So it's like, and sometimes, right, we have some of those players who are like doing that type of thing, right? So we work extra hard if it's like, you know, I know like in the last year, a lot of the heavy hitters came out with their own books, right? Like Rob Bernstein from Coupa, Jeff Lawson from Twilio, Todd Lemkin from Okta, like they all came out with their own books, right? And they're like, oh yeah, we wanna promote this out to the SaaS audience. We're like, okay, but you can't come on and do a book tour, right? Like, 'cause you've already done that. And like, imagine being on this side of the fence and telling, you know, Jeff Lawson and his team, like, Yes, but no, right? Like out of my brain, I would be like, I don't know how I would work up the courage to say like, thanks, but no thanks. Exactly. It's like, it's on a no, but we're like, yes, of course we want Jeff Watts. Like, how do I break it to you that like, I want, we want to do something original with him? Like, okay. He's obviously talking about like, you know, how to work with developers, but how do we actually put a spin on it? That's more SaaS, so it's a new piece of content. Right. So like, Jeff's a great example where we've been doing— Jason's been doing like these 5 interesting learning pieces on sasr.com of like 5 interesting learnings about like the top cloud companies. So like we took that and combined it with like what he wanted to talk about in the book and made it like a brand new piece of content, right? So like they chatted about it together. It was not something that he had previously really been talking about because, you know, we basically put our own content in about where we see Twilio going. And like bridge that gap there and made a new piece of content, right?

So it's something where it takes a lot of guts, right?

To tell these people, thanks, but let me, like, yes, I really want you. I think sometimes, right? It's hard because you're like, I really want this speaker. And like, I want to say yes to whatever they want under the sun and planet Earth that I could possibly give them. And usually that means you're taking whatever piece of content they've already like ran or something they, you know, their PR team has said yes to, or something that like, there's been a few times, right, where we've worked with high-profile staff speakers and they're like, okay, these are like sort of the approved areas you can go down. And then, you know, we get on with them and it's actually less formal than that. We try and get like, you know, still the tactical bits out of folks. So it's something, again, like we've built upon it. Obviously ground tested it. We know our audience, right? So we always stress like, okay, like, let's work with you on crafting a topic that's new, original. It's inclusive, right? We have a strict no manels rule, which, you know, like, like all that stuff, right? When we try and get new voices, we have a new voices rule internally. We're like, okay, if it's some repeat speakers and some heavy hitters, we have to make sure we're also bringing in new voices. We've got to make sure you know, or sometimes we pair people together that they sometimes they don't know each other before we pair them together for a session. We're like, hey, we want to pair this new voice with someone who's like more of a heavy hitter. Like, what do you guys think about this sort of curveball topic? So it's a lot of content planning and meeting. You know, we have a, we, we have a cred PR who helps us on our content side. We have like an internal, internal teams involved in content. And it's also something where it's like, I've instilled it in everyone. Right. Like, I think something you probably noticed with us is like, I was on your call because you guys are like, sometimes the content team and I like to bite and conquer some things. And yeah, we've been doing these sort of prep calls. We made them mandatory as, you know, last year sort of happened because before when it was in person, it's right, you can meet up, you can go over it with them, like people in the green room. Right. You can just, it's kind of easier for in-person events to like sort sort of do the talking points on the fly. So it was a rule we implemented starting last year and then going forward of like, okay, no, everybody and everybody has to do a prep call, right? Like, doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter what level, like we make sure everybody does the prep call so you feel ready, you understand our audience, you understand what works, you understand the formats, you understand what people want to hear, right? And that's, that all takes time and effort and energy. And I have to sell that down to everyone. Like content is top of mind for our whole team. Like the whole sales team knows knows our content rules and guidelines. Like our SDR knows the content rules and guidelines, right? Like our head of finance knows the content rules and guidelines. Like literally everybody knows them org-wide, right? And so I think putting that emphasis on content has really helped us build it out. And then we continually evolve it, right? We're always like, oh, okay, like we saw like this format worked a little better. Oh, or oh, this speaker did it this way that worked really well. Like why don't we try that idea with other speakers, right? So We just keep raising the bar. So it's, it's sometimes it's hard to top ourselves, right? We have this in-person event coming up in September and I was like, we've literally had almost every high-profile SaaS speaker come and speak at a digital event. So like the bar to come speak at our in-person event has gotten like so incredibly high.

But makes sense, right? Because the hardest part right now, and I think the first point that you brought up about the hybrid events and this part about your cultural norms, about the standards of quality in your content are hitting on two really important things is that you are not gonna take the easy way out.

Right.

Because the easy way out is a surefire way to create a subpar experience for everyone, for the attendees, for your sponsors, and for your own team as well. Yeah. And it's, It's especially with access to now that people really tap into digital, like everybody and their mother has a podcast, myself included now, obviously. And so content, digital content has just exploded in the last year. I say we've been sitting at and staring at the same four walls for 365+ days. And so it's the teams that focus on that quality and do and keep themselves disciplined around the markers of quality, especially quality for their audiences. Those are the teams that are winning on the experiences. Those are the teams that keep getting people to come back year after year after year, or multiple times throughout the year to the events. And I think it, I think the word you used earlier was lazy, but like, yeah, like you can tell the difference between a team who's taking the easy way out, the faster way out versus the harder work being invested, but the much higher quality output on the other side.

Right. And it's, and it's sometimes it's hard, right? Like, I don't want to say that, like, I don't want to buck it and give the wrong impression that like, oh, if you're a lazy marketer, that's why you're not winning. Like you could just work like 10x harder. Like it is working 10x harder, but it's also like, you know, to what I just mentioned, it's just scaling that down across the entire org. So like everybody gets why content needs to be this good or why experiences need to be so good. Right. It's like, If one person has buy-in, sure, I'm sure you could make one really good event, right? And be like, wow, blows the room out of the water. And then sort of revert back to just like, okay, spooling up a webinar or whatever it is and calling it, and like, you know, calling it a day. So I think pushing yourself to be innovative, it's tough, right? Like there's no perfect events platform out there for digital events. There's no perfect way to get the recording right. Like there's dogs, there's babies, there's kids, there's lighting issues. There's sometimes we've literally had speakers drop off in the middle of their session because their internet went out. Right. It's like, there's all these other like being live factors that can go wrong. Right. And I think I'm not a fan of prerecording content either. Like, you know, in this day and age, I think especially now in the middle of a prerecorded content, it's fine. Don't worry about it.

Let's move on from it and pretend like this is not happening.

But for like a live event, right? Yeah. Again, I'm kidding. Yeah. Yeah. For like a live event, like, I just think it's hard to foster really great engagement if like, you know, there's no chance for the audience to engage or there's no chance for people to ask questions or for people to interact with one another. Like one thing we've become fans of is we use Zoom for like a lot of the speakers, because obviously It's hard when you have the scale that we do, right? To like teach hundreds of speakers a year to use a different product than something they're already used to. Like sometimes it does become, sometimes it will turn a yes into a no if the tech becomes way too complicated, right? So we try and keep it simple too from that sort of production experience. So we use Zoom and then we pipe it to different places, right? We've piped it to different event platforms. We've piped it out to livestream. Streaming. But something we've become a fan of is like Zoom, instead of doing a webinar, we'll actually just do a large— Zoom has this large meeting feature where you can actually like, you can let the speakers in first, you know, we get them all prepped. And then you can actually let the audience in, like you let them in, they can see them, they literally turn on their cameras and ask their questions. They like will be like, oh, that's such a great point. Like, what about this for my company? Right? It's like, It's kind of like you're doing a small group thing.

I was just gonna say, yeah, even admitting people into a room, it's just like going to the massive conference halls while everybody's like waiting anxiously outside so they can get the best seat to sit in front of this, the moderator or the speaker.

It's so funny too, that's the amount of times we've had like audience members be like, oh, I know that person, or like the speaker be like, oh, I know this guy.

It's like it's a plant in the audience.

It's really not, it's unplanned, right? But like, I'm getting questions, it's like They know each, like the audience members start to know each other or they see the same person like you would in IRL, right? Like you see the same person in a session and you're like, what are you up to? I've seen you here like all day here.

Exactly. That's professional meet-cutes. That's what I'm talking about.

They happen all the time. I totally get it.

I get it. I totally get it. And I think, so my team, if they're listening to this, are going to roll their eyes, but like my life philosophy is work smarter, not harder. Right. And so what you've also just described is You talked about your team's cultural norms around like content is king and the experience is king or queen. And so those are the two things that you'll always prioritize and then not making the experience difficult or cumbersome for people who are helping to join forces with you. And if that means using Zoom and the tool that like, you know, is not known necessarily for its massive event, digital event experience.

Right.

But if you can then engineer an experience layer on top of that, that your speakers just have something that's comfortable, that's normal, that's just the run of the mill for them, so they don't have to be stressed. Like, again, those tiny details make a big impact on the experience.

Yeah, it really does, right? It's like something you said that like, I, we always, we always try and innovate on is right, like, okay, where, where's our audience now? Like, where, where are they going? Where do we think they're going to be, right? Like, where do we think events are going? Where do we think they're going to be? And how can we manufacture that experience so that there's different experiences of different sizes, right? Like, yes, we have keynotes at our events, right? We have smaller, but then we have smaller workshops that are more like a couple hundred or like A few, like one-to-few, one-to-many, like, you know, we want one-on-one. We've always had like networking via several different apps, right? Like we've had networking for years to foster like more one-on-one personalized engagements. We've done things like, you know, speed networking, we've done recruiting fairs, like try and get, you know, more people to have sort of those professional meetcutes you're talking about, right? So it's like, yes, you're going to to this community gathering at SASCA, right? And yes, there's going to be times where there's more people around. There's going to be times where there's less people around, or there's going to be times where you go to a one-on-one meeting or you go to a meeting with 20 other folks, right? It's like we try and just think about making sure that as an attendee, whether it's in person or it's digital, you feel like you've gotten all three of those at some point, right? Like not just Oh, I only had one-on-one meetings, or I only had small group, or I only had one-to-many, right? We try and manufacture it so that it's really— the attendees can pick their own adventure. But like, if they wanted to, right, they can have each of those experiences and curate it the way they want to so that they could get the most out of it. Like, if they're hiring, we have like, we do like these job boards things where, you know, we facilitate some of that in our networking app so that people can find interviews, like People have literally hired people at SaaStr, or people have gotten funded at SaaStr. Like, they did a bunch of VC meetings, right? I'm like, you really pick your own adventure, and like, whatever your goal is, probably achieve it, because it's like 3 days and thousands of people. You can meet the right person, right? It's— I know for some folks, right, it feels intimidating, especially going from being in the same home to like being back in that sort of community environment, but I do think, you know, people are gonna want it. I do think people are gonna want both, right? Like tying back to sort of what we were chatting about earlier, I do think the future of events is really both, and it's really crafting these great experiences for both audiences, right? And making sure that they have those connections and that those connections get fostered continually, right? Like some of the magic of SaaStr is like some of the folks who have gotten funding have come back and spoke, or some folks who have like, you know, moved companies but are still within like disaster ecosystem have come back and spoken or come back and sponsored or come back and participated in some sort of way, right? Or like become a mentor to someone else in the disaster community, right? I think that sort of stuff will sort of— there's always been that need for it, right? So it's not anything that's going to go away. It's just nailing the format and pushing your teams, right, to really think about how to do those engagements and just holding yourself to it, right? Whether it's via content or an experience or networking or whatever it is, it's like, it's just such a high bar. Sometimes it's hard, don't get me wrong. I'm like, okay, how are we gonna, how are we gonna talk ourselves through it?

I could take the easy way out here and just say yes, but instead I gotta say no, because we know that that is going to make the experience that much better.

Right. So it's, you know, we always try and start like role play of scenarios. Okay. If I'm this kind of attendee or if I'm this kind of SaaS company, or if I'm at this company stage or if I'm at this level professionally, like what are some of the experiences I'm going to want? So I feel like I got something out of it and then I'll want to come back and like continually be a part of this. Yeah.

I mean, it sounds to me as you're describing this, that like you've gone back to basics. In marketing, which is know your audience, right?

Exactly. Like know your audience and go to where they are.

Yeah, man. Meet them where they are, right? Like create experiences and, and have empathy for them as they go through this experience and always be thinking and seeing the world through their lens and through their view and not starting with the self. Yeah.

I mean, for, and a lot of that's true sometimes too, right? Like I have to do that a lot because not all the content at SaaS is for someone like myself, right? Like I came up via marketing, although now I'm more of like a GM, so I wear a lot of hats, right? So it's like in the early days when I first started, like I was doing like just marketing and I was like, well, this content is not for someone such as— it's more like CEO founder focus. You know, revenue leaders, VPs of marketing. I was like, I'm not a VP at the time. I was like, you know, how, how do I get, how do I get through to these folks when like, I'm not personally like attached to what I'm seeing and what we're producing. So it is like, you know, understanding your audience and talking to them, understanding them, understanding what makes them tick, like why they get up in the middle of the night, like what drives them, right? And like where they are. Like one of the things we've done in the last year is like, yeah, you know, to the point of simplicity of using Zoom, we pipe Zoom into many other layers, right? It's like we do lives, we've done things with like Restream, we pump it into like different live streaming platforms. But it's because like our audience is already on social media, right? Like they're already on their phones, they're already on Right. They're community tools, right? It's like, why would you force them to go through like a more traditional virtual events platform if they don't want to, right? Not that we don't have, we've done that experience too. We've done that too. But like the last event we just had, Zaster Build, like we did it all the ways, right? Which pisses any virtual event platform off. Cause they're like, why are you using us and you're live streaming and you're streaming to YouTube? I'm like, well, Our audience is there, right? And like, yes, we have thousands of people who sign up for the event formally and like sign into, you know, these platforms because they want that experience. They like the networking component layer, right? They like having it all in one place. But some— the majority of our audience doesn't do that. They just want to watch it on social because they can watch it on their phone, they can watch it on the background, they don't have to sign into anything, they don't have to worry about their Zoom password. Like I'm like, yeah, we're going to do both, which like they were, they were, they were continually frustrated by this. Right. Where again, it's like, to the point, you just have to stick to like, what is your core value? Like, is it content? Is it going to where your audience is? I'm like, yeah, but any vendor is going to be a little peeved at you, but like, just do it anyway because you know your audience. Right. And like, at the end of the day, it'll actually be better because more of your audience will be like, oh, there's a networking component and you're like, yeah, but you sort of have to sign in to do some networking. Like at that point you choose to sign in. Right.

There's a trade-off there. Right.

There's a trade-off. A small one.

People are okay with that.

Yeah. A small one, but a trade-off. Right. So it's like understanding that like we still do all these things and sometimes we do multiple things or sometimes, you know, I can't even tell you how many times for an in-person event, our events agency is like, well, why do you do it this way? Or why do you do it that way? I'm like, Those people are different.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's just simple, right? Like it's just humans are hardwired this way. And that's where I find a lot of folks are, you know, there's that saying, if you build it, they will come, but yeah, that's not the case for events. Like you could build the best experience possible by your own definition of the best experience possible. But what matters is your attendees' experience. Experience and making sure that that is what you build, and then they will come.

Yeah, I, I agree with you, right? And I think what you guys are doing over at Alice is super important, right, of making it personal, getting people to come, thinking about experiences, right, or traditional, more traditional gifting the way you guys have done it. Um, I think that's all important because to your point, like, nobody has to use any SaaS platform out there, right? Like Nobody has to use Alice. Nobody has to come to Saastr, but they do. Because if you build these experiences and people have a good one, they'll want to come back, right? They'll want to, they'll want to reengage with you. Like for traditional, more traditional SaaS platform like yourself, right? It's like, yes, marketer turnover and marketing is tough, right? Because you're, you're continually having to resell not only to the business, but then to that person, right? So if that person has a good experience, the chances they're gonna want to buy Alice and use it at their new company is higher, right? If they had a good experience the first time. So then you actually expand upon this sort of high turnover marketing because you've won that business that they used to be at over and you've won their new business, right? So I just think crushing it from the experience side has so many benefits.

Well, and as you said earlier too, you have speakers who attend SaaStr year over year over year expecting to be speakers and they, they level up their game year after year after year. So that flywheel effect comes in for speakers and attendees. It comes in for folks who are thinking about their business in that way to then just build better momentum. The way we think about it is like the more moments you make that are personalized or personal, the more momentum you have in that flywheel, the faster it's gonna spin and the more efficient that it's gonna spin.

Yeah, can't, couldn't agree more. Excellent.

Well, before we hang up, I have one final question. And of all the things that we've talked about today, I can imagine someone is reevaluating their approach to their events, but they might be feeling a little overwhelmed. Where, where should someone start if they really do wanna evaluate this experience?

What's, what's that starting point for them? Yeah, that's a good question.

Right?

Like, I think that's a, Great final question, but just a great question overall. It can be overwhelming sometimes, right? Like sometimes we have meetings that I'm like, that was a tough one. And sometimes, you know, I get on as many speakers and content calls as I can because I like to just hear, I like to hear, right? What the stuff that the team really gets in all these circles. I'm like, they could figure, they We've been here long enough where like, like I said, right, everybody knows sort of the bar for content. So they've all gotten well-versed on it. Right. So I'm like, you don't really need me to come reinforce that, but like I can. But sometimes, right, people come and they don't have a topic ready or they want to do something that's a repeat or they want to do something that's too commercialized. Right. So it's like, how do you delicately say no to these folks? Like, wait, and how do you stick to that? And where do you start? Right. It does get overwhelming sometimes if you're like, okay, like this day I had a day of all bad content calls and this day I had a day of all good content calls. Right. Like it, it can be tough or because there's not the perfect events platform out there. And because it's hard because there's so many events out there now. Right. Like there's so many podcasts and events and everything. There's a lot out there. It's like, How do I make sure mine sticks out? Right. And it's, I think, you know, we did ourselves a service in formalizing all of this, right? Like, it's not like we did a meet your mom. Like, I don't really love those, but you know, we, we wrote out our content guidelines and they're our Bible. Right. And like, we update our Bible of, okay, here's our speaker content and guidelines. Here's what we consider a great piece of content. Here's what we consider a bad piece of content. Like, let's start there, right? Like, however you do it, maybe you're a fan of B2Moms, like, no, if you write it out in Notion, whatever it is, right? I think if you write it out of not only where you are, but where you want to be, right? Of like, okay, like, this is where we are today, but this is actually where I want to be. That will help you with your north star to plan everything else, right? This is what I do when You know, I've been, I've been interviewing a lot of event, events professionals, a lot of marketing. We're hiring like crazy at Faster. And they're always like, oh, well, like, what's your North Star? And I'm like, well, it's either this or it's that for marketing, like for marketing, right? I'm like, marketing has a KPI. That's our North Star. Events, right? I'm like, event content has a North Star. It has a KPI, right? Like it's, It's a little harder to quantify, but we have a KPI that's, you know, I sort of referenced it a little earlier, like percentage of new voices, percentage of inclusion, different types of, you know, titles is not just like founders, but also like VPs who are in the trenches, up-and-comers, right? Like we look at content diversity between like how much founder content is there? How much marketing content is there? How much sales content is there? People love sales content faster, right? So I'm like pushing my own VP of sales to do more sales content, right? I'm like, we always try and make like engineering content has really blown up over the last year. Like we always try and make sure like, okay, like these are our metrics. This is where we are. This is where we want to get out for our KPIs and our north stars. And then we start there. Like, honestly, it's, it seems hard and it could seem overwhelming, but if you have a metric or North Star or KPI for every section, right? You can't have too many because there's like conflicting goals. But I think, you know, if content has one, the content team knows what they're working towards. Sales has one, sales knows what they're working towards. Marketing has one, marketing has a revenue commitment. I'm like, they know what they're working towards, right? I'm like, everybody has either a number in some format that they're working towards, and that helps distill and inform all your other decisions. Because if you're like, Oh, what am I doing today? Okay. I'm doing this. Oh, that actually doesn't help this goal. I'm trying to hit this number. I'm trying to hit it. Doesn't help me increase it. It doesn't help me, you know, then you're not going to, you're going to be like, oh, then I probably shouldn't be doing this. Right. So that can help with the overwhelmingness and like of a lot of spreadsheets. Right. But I think distilling it into like simple KPIs is really what I found to work across many different scenarios. It's like, Just spreadsheet it out for yourself of like, this is the goal I wanna hit. Here's how I think we could get there. And you'll do it. Right. It, it will help you.

Yeah. So just having clear focused goals. And I think the word you used earlier was core values and then knowing what those core values are to support the execution of those goals.

Yeah.

Without those two things, the experience is gonna be lackluster and that flywheel effect will end up just turning into just One flat line.

But great, yeah, excellent.

Amelia, I just want to thank you so much for your time, for your energy, for your thoughtfulness. If folks want to learn more about you, learn more about SASTR, want to like pick your brain on more marketing events and running an event, especially as large as SASTR, how can they find you?

You know, I'm quite easy to find. I'm on LinkedIn, you guys can DM me, or you can feel free to email me. I feel like everyone on Planet Earth has my email, but I do try and read. Every email, I'm just amelia@saastrinc.com. I try, you know, the best way I would say is to come to a Saastr event, whether it's in person or digitally. I always try and make time to chat with folks there, and I try not to be so behind the scenes at our events so I can meet all of you, see if you'd be a good speaker for something. So yeah, that's the best way.

Always be closing, I think, is also part of your DNA too.

So we can get to close more speakers.

Close more tendies. I love it, Amelia. Well, thank you again so much for spending time with me here on Process Hours. It was such a great conversation, very enlightening and very invigorating too.

I can't wait to get to partner with you more. Same.

Excellent. Thank you.