MBA960 Q&A Wednesday: When is the best time of year to run a conference or event?

Hey O. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show, the business podcast that has been helping you and your business get better since 2014 with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a complete business training and community online. If you're starting your business, if you're building a new product, a new service, you want to make sure that people actually want what you're about to sell them. You want to make sure you have a killer product on your hands. And the best way to do that is through an idea validation process to validate if people actually want to buy what you have or what you're creating. That's why we created the five Steps to Idea Validation Online course. This is one of the most popular courses that we offer at the $100 MBA and right now we're offering it for free. Yes, you can enroll this seven part video course with the workbook for absolutely Nothing. Just go to 100mba.net and just provide your name and email address and it's all yours. Today's episode is a Q and A Wednesday Episode. On our Q and A Wednesday episodes, I answer a question from one of our listeners. Today's question comes from Malcolm and Malcolm asks, when is the best time to run a conference or event? Great question, Malcolm. If you're running a conference or event for your business, you want to make sure you choose the right time because you want to make sure you have the maximum number of attendees possible. I remember when we ran Webinar Ninja Live, we really studied this question. We really made sure that we chose the perfect time to run the event. Now, often it depends on what kind of conference you're offering, but there are some main rules that you need to follow that I want to share with you in today's episode. And planning an event or conference can be tough. You need a lot of lead time to plan accordingly so the earlier you can lock in a date, the better. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's episode of the $100 NBA show is supported by the Jordan Harbinger Show. This is Jordan Harbinger's all new podcast and it's a huge hit. Jordan teaches everything from what you do in a crisis, how to cultivate resilience and grit, how to handle uncertainty and instability, and how to protect your mindset so you're always performing at the top of your game. Every episode is loaded with practical insights and material. So if you love this podcast, you will love the Jordan Harbinger Show. Subscribe today on itunes. Stitcher Overcast Whatever you use to listen to podcasts, this has become one of my must listen podcasts. Subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger show. So, Malcolm asks on Q and A Wednesdays, when is the best time of year to run a conference or an event? First of all, Malcolm, congratulations for deciding on launching your conference or event. I know you got a ton of work to do, but I know from experience it's a lot of fun the day of the conference or the days of the conference. And that experience really, really is like nothing else. But you got to make sure this thing goes well, right? You got to choose the right date. So let me give you some advice when it comes to choosing the right date, the best time of year for your conference. Number one, let's talk about what dates are a bad idea. Any major family holidays are not a good idea. When people have to choose between going to a conference for business or spend time with their family for the holidays, they will not choose you or they shouldn't. At least don't make it hard for people to choose your conference or to go to your conference. So obviously the months of December and even January are tough months to run a conference. If you have to run in January, I would go towards the end of January. Why? Because for a lot of people, it's school holidays. It's Christmas, of course, it's Hanukkah, it's New Year's, and a lot of people take extended, you know, vacations during that time. They go away and it's just not the best time to go to a conference. I would even bundle in Thanksgiving time in the US and the Thanksgiving that's celebrated in Canada as well, I think that's in October. That's a major family holiday. People just do not do anything other than family time on those holidays, especially in the States. It's just a hard time to sell tickets. Now, having said that, I would also include some summer months in there, especially if you're running your conference in Europe. August is a month of vacations for Europeans. They go away, they have a great time, they relax. Not the best time for a conference. Remember, it's school holidays for a lot of people around the world, around August and July. So just keep that in mind. People often time their trips, their holiday vacations during the school holiday months. So having said that, what are the great months for conferences? Well, I found in my experience that the shoulder months of These holidays are great. May and June are great. September and October are very good. And I would also say the beginnings and the ends of those months. So I would say, you know, the end of April as well as the beginning of November, that first week in November. To me, those are the sweet spots for a great event time. If you go too early in the year, sometimes people have a busy agenda at the start of the year, the first quarter, it's really demanding and it's really hard to kind of buckle down and commit to a conference. But something like April, May, June or September, October, even the start of November, those are great times. Now, having said that, you want to be a little bit flexible, especially if you're dealing with a venue that is really popular. Often when you're booking a conference, creating an event, you're looking for a great venue, you might have one in mind. And if it's a popular venue, it's hard to book. So you gotta be a little bit flexible. Now, the more lead time you give yourself, the better. So if you're shooting to do the event this year, I would definitely shoot later, like September, October or November rather than May or June. This gives you more time and gives you more of a chance to book the venue you want. It also allows you more time to sell tickets. People don't realize it takes a while to sell tickets to a live event, especially if you're selling hundreds of tickets. In fact, if you're planning to do your event anytime before June, you're cutting it really close. To sell tickets, you really need a good four, five, even six months to sell tickets. This is why people offer all different types of tickets. Early bird tickets, discounted rates, and the price just keeps getting higher and higher as they get closer to the conference. The other thing is that if you're running a business conference, a lot of people plan out their calendars well in advance. Their whole year is kind of planned out. So you want to make sure you're in their calendars, that you're part of their calendar. Your and one of the best ways to do that is to give them as much of a heads up as possible so they can pencil you in before they pencil somebody else in those time spots or the dates that you have your conference. This is especially important if you're running your conference somewhere outside of where your main contingent is going to be. So if your main audience, say, for example, you're selling tickets to people that live in the US but you're running a conference in Thailand, maybe you're having some Sort of exotic getaway or a tree or just a really amazing backdrop. You need to really plan that out. You need to give them a heads up because, hey, they got to travel long distance, they got to travel overseas, they got to get their affairs in order, make sure that they got everything in place. Some people need to renew their passports, things like that. The other thing you need to consider are other events. Are there competitors in your space when it comes to your event? So let's say, for example, you're in the online business space. Take a look at your audience avatar. What other conferences would this avatar go to? Would they go to Social Media Marketing World Great conference run by Michael Stelzner? Are they going to go to New Media Expo? Are they going to go to World Domination Summit? All these different conferences for these types of entrepreneurs, these types of demographics, Would your audience member be interested in going to these conferences as well? If so, make sure they're not the same dates. If your dates are close, let's say, for example, this other conference, their dates are November 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The only thing I would recommend if you want to get close to those dates, is if you're in the same city. That was the only way that would make sense. Because if they're going to that conference, they may want to hang on later and go to your conference. But only, of course, if they're in the same city and you know your venue is not too far from their venue. But if you do decide to do that, make sure you contact the other conference's organizer. Make sure you let them know that you might be doing this. You want to make sure they're cool with it because, hey, you want to make sure you don't unintentionally steal their conference thunder. Maybe you can collaborate together and help each other sell each other's tickets. The point here is that just don't do it without contacting the other conference. Make sure it's clear, and if they're not happy with that, they don't like it. My opinion, it's just not worth you trying to make it work. Choose a different day or location. And if they're not cool with it, my advice, don't force it. Say you completely respect that and just move on. Choose a different city, choose a different date. But you never know. You never know until you try and ask. So it might be a great way for you to boost ticket sales as well as for you to collaborate with them, get to know them and help them as well. Guys, I got more on today's topic. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. Pitney Bowes is the industry leader in mailing and shipping solutions. No matter what you send or how often, Penny Bowes makes it easy to save time and money on your office mailing and shipping. 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If it's scorching hot or it's monsoon season, it may not be the best idea. Now obviously sometimes you can't help that. But if you have a choice between better climate or worse climate, make sure you choose better climbing. Just keep that in mind. This is especially important if you're planning to do any kind of outdoor activities at your event, even something simple like outdoor lunch with food trucks. That could be a complete bust if it's just the rainy season in that part of the world. Lastly, take a look at what's going on in that city during that time. Why? Because you're going to get all your attendees to come to the city for this event. You want to make sure that they're going to have an easy and comfortable experience, including booking a hotel. And for example, if you booked your event in Las Vegas and there's a major heavyweight champion fight going on that weekend, it's gonna be hard to find a hotel at a decent rate. Plus, it's gonna be super crowded. If you can avoid major events in that city, it's gonna help you save money, help your attendees save money, as well as save a lot of headaches when it comes to traffic and crowds and One more piece of advice. When you're shopping around for venues, sometimes you're gonna be choosing, you know, a theater or maybe you're choosing a hotel. These people that work with you can advise you. You can ask them, hey, when is the best time of year to run this type of event? These are the things I'm kind of worried about. These are my dates. These are my date options. And they can help you out. They know they've been around the block. They run an event every single day. They want to see you succeed and be happy. So it's in their interest that you actually succeed and be happy with the result of your event. All right, that wraps up today's Q and A Wednesday episode. Malcolm, I hope the answer to your question was when is the best time of year to run a conference or event? If you have a question that you want to ask here on the show, just email me@omar00mba.net I would love to answer your question. We do this every Wednesday, so make sure you email me if you have one. That's it for me today, guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. Running an event is a blast. It's a lot of fun. But one of the best things that we did when we ran our live event, webinar Ninja Live is, is that after the event was immediately over, we sat down with a paper and pen and we debriefed. We wrote down everything that went well. What didn't go well, what we'd rather do next time around while still fresh in your mind. Don't wait till the next day. Lock yourself in your hotel room and you know, meet with your team or with your business partner and write things down or even just with yourself. It might be the best 30 to 60 minutes you'll ever spend for your next year's conference. Alright, thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. I'll check you tomorrow where we discuss the question, why are you not getting enough press? A lot of people are looking to get more press, more articles written about them, just more exposure. Why isn't that happening? We talk about that in tomorrow's episode. Hit subscribe so you don't miss it. I'll check you then take care. Of sam.