0257: Creating Real Experiences Through Virtual Events with CEO of Accel Events Jonathan Kazarian

Hey, this is John Kazarian with excelevents.com and you're listening to EA interviews, EA.

Interviews, episode 257, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week. Join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview. You may have spoke on stage, but have you ever thought about having your own event? I have and I've done it.

But what do you do when you can't do it live? What do you do when your only option is virtual? What if you have the option of doing both? Are you taking advantage of it because there's people who might not show up in person just because of distance, just because of, you know, whatever reason, timing. But when you do it virtual, the whole world is a global marketplace that you can serve. That's why I'm excited to have Jonathan Kazarian on the show today. And we're going to be talking about how you can capitalize on online events, both online and offline for now and most importantly, into the future. I'm going to bring him up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's free businessbook publishingcourse.com Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Kazarian. Jonathan, how are you feeling today?

Doing well.

Thanks for having me on.

I'm excited to learn more about what you know because so many people are doing online events now more than ever. But I'm also excited to learn your thoughts on what's going to happen when we can go back to doing in person events. And I would just want to ask you right now to get it started. Do you think people should be doing hybrid events?

Absolutely, but not yet. Once it becomes safe to do so, that's certainly going to be the format of the future. But that said, virtual events are very much here to say and the entire event program is going to be a combination of the two.

What have you noticed over the last year, since last March, in the online.

Event world, it's been a huge learning curve for everybody. But I'd say the biggest holistic change in the way that we think about events is the frequency at which those events are going to be taking place in the future. There are so many costs to hosting, facilitating in person event that are just gone when you're hosting that event online. I mean for the cost of providing coffee for every Attendee in person, you can provide them a virtual event platform and experience that you can use to deepen that community that you're building with your. With your attendees.

Now, what are some of the first things you should consider if you're thinking about doing an online event or you've done in person events before and you want to bring them together and make it cohesive?

Yeah. The first question needs to be what are the goals of hosting this event and who are the parties involved? What are we trying to accomplish? And once you've identified that, then you can start to think about, okay, what is the format, what is the platform that I need in order to accomplish that? And that could mean anything from a smaller gathering that's purely networking. It could be a educational event, or it could be a global conference with 10 different simultaneous tracks and breakout sessions.

What type of events have you been seeing or having the most success?

Yeah. So the three categories that we've seen the most. Well, the heaviest usage in has been higher education associations, which have franchises or different groups geographically located around the world. And then the third has been conferences, and those tend to be user conferences or software conferences.

Is there any certain number of attendees you say is a good fit? I mean, if someone has 50 to 100 versus 500 to 1,000 or 10,000 to 50,000.

Yeah. So any size event, any gathering is worthwhile. But that really goes back to what is the right format? What is the right platform to pull that off? There's certain networking components that require critical mass in order for them to be successful, whereas a smaller event might not necessarily need those different elements of the event. In terms of the events that we work with, the average size is around 300 attendees just north of that. But we've seen events that are 25 people and we've seen events that are 25,000.

Wow.

What do you do to tell me about your platform and how it differs from the others?

Yeah, so there's a wide range of different platforms on the market. The way I think about it though is that you've got basically three different buckets. You've got one bucket which is a platforms that are kind of out of the ticketing space and they're really there just gating, say like a Zoom or YouTube Live link. You've got the bucket of platforms that do the kind of 3D reality kind of looks like the Sims from 2002. That's not where we play either. I think that's a really interesting space and it's going to be awesome in the future. But we're not quite there yet for a number of reasons. And then there's the third piece of it, which are the platforms that are focused on building human interaction through live video, through interacting with people the way you and I are right now, and then providing a way to facilitate and engage that whole audience while bringing in exhibitors and sponsors, while orchestrating all the content from the event and giving people a way to communicate with each other. And then when you're thinking about that realm where we play, it's looking at which are the providers that are again, kind of just stacking an organizational structure on top of Zoom versus the platforms that are thinking about the holistic experience and again, bringing it all under one roof. So your attendees, your speakers, your exhibitors are not juggling different tools in order to participate.

So what you're saying is the best experience is where you can make it cohesive and you just go into one area and it's not log into Zoom here with a passcode here, and then pop over here to chat and then go over here to check out this single page website for the sponsors, slash exhibitors.

Right, Exactly.

What would you say? I want to talk about the exhibitors. What would you say is a great advantage of doing it online versus walking up to the booth in person?

Yeah.

So this kind of brings me back to March, April, and at that time when virtual events were really hitting the scene, there was so much publicity saying that there's no way that sponsors and our exhibitors are going to be able to get value out of a virtual event. And we just set out with the mindset of let's dispel that rumor. It's not true. And when you think about what it takes to participate at an in person event as an exhibitor, first of all, you're paying some astronomical amount, like $7,000 for a 10 by 10 booth and then $250 for power and everything else that adds up. Not to mention, you got to fly a team out there, they got to buy steak dinners every night, one thing after another, and you're $100,000 into it. In order to reap that side of that term benefit, you have to have so many meetings, interactions with people, and it doesn't just mean taking a T shirt or rubber ducky off your table. It means actually building real relationships and interacting with people who are potential buyers in the virtual world first, right off the bat, your costs are substantially lower. The sponsorship fees alone to participate in that event, let's assume those are the same or even greater. Since The ROI is higher, right? That's really your only barrier.

Yeah.

You have to staff somebody to run the virtual Expo booth for a day or two, or however long the event is, or maybe a couple of people even, but you're not blowing a day or two of travel on both sides and putting them up at a hotel room. And on top of that, as the exhibitor within that event, I'm there, I know every interaction somebody's had in my booth. I know when they come, they watch a video, they download a PDF, whatever it is, instead of just walking by my table, grabbing a document and I never see them again. I know who they are and I know when they come back. And I can interact with them either through chat or video, or book a meeting or whatever it is that I need to do to have that meaningful relationship. So at the end of the day, it really comes down to taking the human element and delivering that in a format that is virtual, but with all that data that goes missing in an in person experience.

And as a result of that, we're seeing these ROIs that are just never seen before from in person events.

How long have you been offering virtual events for?

It's been about, I guess about nine months now. So we, we did make a quick pivot into the virtual event space. We had a lot of the building blocks, the framework in place that allowed us to make that quick pivot. But our background in the event space I think really positioned us well to be able to understand what, what is the areas that we can provide the most value to our event organizers. And we took that and all the feedback that we've collected from them over the past nine months and.

We'Re a scrappy team and that allowed us to pivot quickly.

I think you're doing a great job because I attended an event even before we got connected on here and I was very impressed with your platform and it's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on because you not all of them are the same. And I've spoke at many online, offline, whatever, still do. And like you're saying, some of them, it's just nothing more than zoom, which is okay, but I don't even do my own show with just zoom. So to the point of paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for ticket for an experience, when it feels like we're just watching YouTube all day long, that's a tough sell, I personally think. But when you can have people in a chat, you can have them in the exhibitor space, you can have them, you Know the replay area. It's great, I'll say. Because I was speaking live in Florida at an event, PodFest, which I highly recommend, two days, March of 2020. I flew home on Monday, voted on Tuesday. The world shut down here in Michigan on Wednesday. And it was very surreal because it was one of the last events before everything shut down. And there's all these people and all this stuff. But one of the biggest things I noticed was when I'm speaking or just talking, like, you know, I want to connect with you, maybe we grab lunch, dinner, whatever, just go talk by the pool, whatever the case may be, it's hard to make time to see all the sessions and connect and go to the exhibitors. One of my favorite things about the virtual is exactly what you're saying. You can go make sure you make all the talks throughout the day. Well, guess what, the Website's open for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 days, maybe sometimes even longer, where I can check out everyone beforehand, during and after. Even after the event is quote unquote done for the day. That's what I was doing in the evening, just, you know, relax and go check them out. When you can actually process what's going on. How have you seen in your numbers and metrics, have you been noticing that people do go on more at night, in the morning, in the daytime? I mean, you said overall it's increased online, but do you have any hard data on when people are visiting? At the most?

Yeah. So we tend to see a lot of follow up in the evenings and especially the week after an event. But going back to your point around interacting with somebody, maybe around the pool throughout the day, the amount of time that you spend just maybe walking around the venue, yes, there's opportunities that you run into people and start conversations that way. But there's also so much lost time.

With venues, with transportation, everything else there that is recaptured in a virtual environment. And you can meet so many more people. And if you want to have that deeper connection, a deeper conversation with them, there's time to do that too. And then you don't feel like you're missing out if you do want to continue that conversation instead of participating in a certain session. And you can always go back and watch that. Now as an event organizer, some event organizers want to encourage that type of behavior. Others want to shut it down for certain aspects of the event and make sure that everybody is watching that keynote. And that's an option for the event organizer as well. I mean, it's just a much more flexible environment than what we've historically had.

Yeah, and I, I think that's a good point because there's been many times I'm just looking for the room or trying to figure out where the heck it is to go. And I remember I was speaking in my own room and I was like, where the heck is it? Because the map was wrong and the hotel had just shifted something around and walking in circles. I'm like, I have six minutes. So I decided to do a live stream and I'm like, okay, if anyone's here and can help me, because, you know, I don't have time to call someone or ask the front desk or whatever. I'm just like praying, you know, and literally running. I got to find that video. It was hilarious.

But to your point of the lost time, you can just literally get lost or be in the wrong area or, you know, the other thing is, I don't recommend showing up late or, you know, leaving early or whatever, but if it's virtual, you can step away from a computer that no one is. You know, you could have the cameras off. You can step away 10 times easier than literally opening the doors, knocking over the camera. I've seen people do that, you know, both from being on stage and in the room. And I'm like, dude, this thing started 45 minutes ago. And you're gonna. The doors are never lightweight. That, you know, those locks alone could stop a bank vault. And they're clinking around and everything. And I think it's just a lot more distracting because to your point, you can connect with people further, you can send messages to 30, 40, 50 people that there's no way you're doing that in the first day.

Well, also to your point, around sneaking out of a room, you might look at an in person event and see, hey, everybody sticks around for every session they go to. It doesn't tell you which of your speakers were great and which one you want to have back next year or which one.

Wanted to get out of there after four minutes. Now, you know that and you have that data and you know which speakers invite back and prioritize for next year or next week if it's a more frequent event.

Yeah, and I like what you're saying. So you're telling me, like, if I put on an event and I don't want anyone to miss the keynote at 4pm, you can literally shut down the expo hall, shut down the chat, shut down the. You can turn on, you can essentially turn on and off parts of the hotel that they're visiting, lock the doors. Wow. Did not know that. But that's interesting to know because now you can fun. There's been a few events I've been at where it's the only thing to do. And I think they kept the exhibitor hall open, but they didn't have 17 different sessions on five different tracks. It was like all of that got condensed to one main ballroom A and that's all was going on from 11 to 12 and then 12 to 1 and then it went back and clearly there was, you know, 80% of the attendees versus 10% in each room. But how have you found that's helped people? Do most people take you up on channeling it or do most of them keep it open the whole time?

It really depends on the type of event it is. In the off hours, we tend to see that they keep everything available so people can go back and watch playback or dig through the exhibitor booths and figure out who they want to chat with the next day. But when it comes to a type of event that might be, say, an annual conference and they're going to be doing a big product release or something else where maybe the CEO is speaking and they want everybody who's participating in the event to see that. That's when they'll take advantage of those opportunities to funnel everybody into a certain area.

Okay, I want to ask you a couple. What are a couple of things you would say to someone who's never done a live event that's going, this all sounds good. What is the first step I should do?

Yeah, somebody who's never done a live.

Event or an in person event, just.

An event in general? Both.

Okay. Yeah. So again, I always go back to what are your goals of hosting this event? Is it deepening your community?

Is it accessing buyers? Is it accessing a wider network? Is it educational? And when you start with that, it helps you to think about, again, the format. So once you've identified the format, think about who are the people that you want to be speaking at the event?

Who are the people who are going.

To be paying for the event? Are the attendees going to be paying for the event or are you going to be selling sponsorships and making it.

Free to the attendees?

And frankly, that's what we see about 90% of events do. They're, they're focused on getting more attendees in the door virtually and then covering those costs with the sponsorships. And they can charge their sponsors more if they can get a certain threshold of per participation. We even see them tiering sponsorship packages that say okay, if we only get this number of attendees, you pay X amount, or if we hit our target.

You have to pay a higher amount.

So again, it depends on the way that you want to structure your offering itself, how many days it's going to be, if you're going to have multiple tracks. But getting started is first the question of making those decisions around what you want your event to look and feel like. And I don't mean aesthetically, I mean the actual operational components of it. And then once you've done that, actually building that out on a platform like Excel Events, I mean that's as easy as clicking a couple of buttons. You can head over to our website and click the sign up button. The system walks you through it. It's here to make it as self serve as possible so that you have full control over the experience that you're providing for your attendees.

Do you have a minimum threshold of attendees that someone needs to have for an event or is it just you're paying by the day?

So.

We charge based on the number of attendees. That information can be found on the pricing page of our website. But there's a minimum of $500 to.

Get started with the platform.

Okay.

And that's for an unlimited number of events, but there's a per attendee fee. And then we also have obviously our enterprise plans as well for the larger.

Organizations that we work with where frankly.

They'Re just, you know, they're looking for a higher level of functionality.

Well, that's good. And I think that's a fair way to do it because I've seen different ones across the board and like I said, I've spoke at them and also attended them. And it's cool to see that there's a lot out there and there's more people making this whole community better like you are. But to the point of the threshold, you know, some of them seemed like, I don't know the exact pricing and I'm sure it'll change, but it seemed like you needed five to ten grand buy in just because of whatever the reason was. And for, you know, for a large company that's doing a large corporate event like Adobe or Microsoft or someone that's all well and good, that's dropping the bucket for them. But for someone who's never done an event or they've done smaller events, you know, smaller, a thousand or less people, which is not a small event, you know, I'd say this pretty good. You know, that's a big difference from 500 to 1,000 to 5 to 10,000 or I've seen some that are 25,000.

Yeah. And you know, again, it depends on what it is you're looking for. An event that's 100 people doesn't need the same functionality as that Adobe or Microsoft does. So there's a different price point. And we want to make the platform available to organizers who are hosting smaller scale events or just don't need that level of complexity. With multiple different breakout tracks and 200 exhibitors and all their whole partner network participating in it. It's just a different environment and it's, you know, it's essentially a starter. It gets you in the door and it helps them out. So that's, that's what makes the most sense.

Yeah. And I'll say that some of the smaller events I like even more because when you go again in real life or online, when there's 5,000 people there, who do you even figure out who to talk to? When there's 50, 100, 200, 300, it's like you, you can self identify a lot easier and connect with the right people more. And that's the whole goal.

Well, that is certainly the goal of an event is to identify and chat with people. But at an in person event, yes, it's easier to figure out who to chat with when there's 50 to 100 people there. But when you've got a 5,000 person event, chances are there's going to be somebody who's even more targeted or better for you to be chatting with. And technology can help you figure out who that person is and connect you with them instead of you having to cipher through 5000 names and profiles and figure that out on your own.

Are you saying the software or you could just tag them in the system where it identifies them easier than just, you know, they look like another person walking around.

Yeah.

So you can, you can either as the organizer or the attendee, self identify in certain groups, but you can also. The system also does its own matching and suggested matches the same way that Facebook or LinkedIn would to help you identify. Hey, I'm participating in this event.

I've got some, I see networking.

Who should I be networking with?

And it makes those Nice.

Nice. Well, that's new. Did not know that. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, yeah, that's because that's been one of the things because I'm heavy on the relationships and connecting with people. But you know, I'd like to think I'm good at what I do, but don't. The most I ever did.

I've never gotten four or five hundred contacts at the event. I mean, if you're good with follow up and I meet you and you introduce me to someone, I'd still count that as from the event, but there's just physical time and if the system can do that for you, that's huge because now it's knowing, hey, here's the best matches.

Well, not only that, think about how.

Many people you've met and you don't necessarily remember how you met them or you're connected on LinkedIn. And that's kind of it, right? You're connected on LinkedIn but you don't know how or why. And 80, 90% of people on LinkedIn you don't even know.

Think about this as almost like a CRM of your professional life where you have that audit trail, that track record of how you've met people, where you interacted with them, and having that persistent with you forever. It's a transparency layer on your own personal data that you don't have elsewhere.

Yeah, that's a good point. I want to ask you real quick, who's been your biggest success story? Out of all the people that you've helped do events with and everything, who would you say you've been able to give the biggest transformation for?

Biggest transformation? That's an interesting question.

So we've seen a very wide array of different types of events take place and we've seen everything from product launches to, you know, for like all terrain vehicles. I can't, can't say who, but you know, everything from that realm to motivational speakers on the platform to these software user conferences. I mean, in terms of, you know, I don't have a great example I can really walk you through because there's just been so many different cases where organizations and companies have pivoted into this landscape in a way that they frankly didn't realize was going to be as successful for them as it, as it's proven to be. And I'd also add that in addition to the attendees and the company as a whole, another big winner in this entire story has been event professionals. Because event professionals have often been looked at as a cost center to some people in an organization who don't really or fully appreciate the impact that an event has on building a brand, on building a community and affinity with a company. Today through virtual, there's now data to prove the ROI of those interactions.

And follow that forward in a way there never has been before. And it really helps tell the story of the importance of these Event professionals. It's kind of like this cohesion between event professionals and growth marketers that has been unaccessible before this.

Yeah, I know a lot of people who were hesitant about the virtual events just because, well, one, everyone's been doing it live for so long. But like I was saying initially, I looked at it going, well, we can connect way deeper and it's way easier. I mean, another thing is just the social interactions. Not during the event, but I mean, like social media. When you walk up to someone, if we meet in person, probably not going to be going, let's connect on, you know, 58 different things. You know, I want to get to know you. We'll talk, maybe we'll exchange cards, this and that. But on here, it's like I've had people blow up every single thing they can find after we talk just because it's really the only thing, you know, I mean, it's a different dynamic and it's. I'd say it's more socially acceptable than just, you know, me dumping, you know, entire book of everything I know on you. But on here, you just click the button and, hey, now we're connected.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean.

It'S become a norm. You have a great conversation with somebody, you want to follow up with them, you want to see their story, you want to hear what they're up to going forward as opposed to an in person experience where they give you, like their first name in their hometown and their high school mascot and you find them on LinkedIn or Instagram two days later. It's a little bit weird, but it happens. We've all done it, we've all been there. And this makes it easier to build those lasting relationships.

Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you for the great insight. I got one more question with the wheel of whatever for you and then we're going to thank our sponsor.

Oh, that's a real good spin. Yeah, the first one was kind of. The second one was. This is real good. So my question for you is, wow, that thing's like rocking.

My question for you is, what is an organization you'd love to work with that you haven't yet?

An organization we'd love to work with.

I'm a boater.

Nice.

I would love to host a boat show on the platform.

Oh, that would be killer. I love boating too.

We'll have to chat about that later. Another episode that's fit.

Oh, you could do. I would love to see that. Please let me know if you do. That'd be fit.

We've Done. Actually a couple smaller ones and a bunch of boating education events. But I'm down here in Florida now and it'd be fun to get like the Miami or the Fort Lauderdale show virtual.

I was just gonna say that.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, wasn't expecting that, but nice. All right, we're gonna thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours, and it's true.

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Hey, their words, not mine. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started now and I look forward to hearing your transformation as the next video success story. Once again, thank you. That's freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Jonathan, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Let's do it.

Three questions, 60 second or less answers. The first one is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Fast. A great product. That's an easy one.

Okay, number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Biggest problem our prospects are making.

Again, identifying the goals of the event because you got to go into it with the right objectives so you know what to measure and what you're trying to accomplish. Once you know what your goals are, it's easy to figure out how to get there. And if they start with that, then they're going to be all set.

Excellent. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

That would be customer success. It's all about relationships and people. If you keep people happy, if your customers feel like you're there for them and that they're important to you, then they're going to come back. They're going to tell you when they need help, when they're struggling, when they're disappointed because they feel like you're actually listening. And that gives you an opportunity to do something about it before they walk away.

Fantastic. What books would you recommend to Expert Authority World that have helped you?

I'm reading the no Rules Rules Netflix book right now. That's a good one. I also like outliers.

And where would you like people to learn more?

Excelevents.com, check us out on the website. You can Find us on LinkedIn, Twitter. You can also find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

John Kazarian all right, well, I have thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you for your time and it was a pleasure having you.

Thanks for having me on.

All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate and qualify leads while increasing profit for you 24 7? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With the Expert Authority Effect publishing method, it's easier and faster than ever. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started. Now, once again, that's freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.Com hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.