Program Management

0:00 OK, Sean, I have a couple more questions for you.

0:03 Today we are going to be talking about program management and I have three questions.

0:11 All right, OK, the first question, how can event managers manage multiple trade shows without burning out?

0:20 I mean, the short answer is with the great support team, you know, the reality is there's the program itself, right?

0:26 And that's kind of like looking at the whole entire chess board.

0:29 And, and then within that program are the individual events which require you to be pretty laser focused on the execution.

0:36 The danger is taking a real keyhole view of the event without the context of the rest of the program.

0:43 Yeah.

0:43 What I mean by that is there's things in the planning and in the design phases that can, if you understand the bigger picture, can really help you execute not on on a really acute level at the project or specific event level, but could add a lot of value to the program as a whole.

1:01 Yeah.

1:01 And so on the supplier side, you just have to make sure that your account team is constructed in a way that fits the particular brand or client.

1:10 These programs are different amongst all of the clients that we see and I'm sure anybody else would see.

1:15

I think the appropriate approach is to make sure that you understand the overall plan, that full chess board view so that you can be even more effective on that individual event or project.

1:28 Yeah.

1:28 And having the right account dynamics allow you to do that, whether that's multiple project managers, account managers.

1:35 And then of course, you want to do that in a way that the information flowing to the event manager feels really well organized, right?

1:42 People on our side of the fence should not be here to create any more work for the event manager.

1:46 They have enough fires that they're putting out on their side.

1:50 So I think how the information flows to your partner to and from your partner is also something that people should be very thoughtful of.

1:57 OK, next question.

1:58 What should event manager expect from a full service exhibit partner?

2:05 I think the event manager has to define for themselves what full service means to them because like there's going to be a variety of capabilities and services that companies like ours and others are building out.

2:18 And some of those might be built out specifically for the client base that they have.

2:23 We may also build out capabilities in anticipation of the needs that we see happening in the marketplace.

2:30 And so I would imagine every suppliers got a sort of a variety of capability which all together could present full service.

2:38 There might be a bunch of things that a particular brand or event manager they don't need.

2:43 Right.

2:43 So everything feels full to them.

2:46 Yeah, because whatever it is that they want should feel full service, even if it's a fraction of what the supplier provides.

2:53 Does that make sense?

2:54 Yeah, OK.

2:55 But it should feel full to them most importantly, I think so.

2:59 OK, last question, What happens when an exhibit strategy becomes a core part of an organization's growth plan, not just a marketing plan or a marketing expense?

3:12 Well, hopefully it is a core strategy to an overall business plan, hopefully as opposed to just, oh, we go every year because we always go rinse and repeat.

3:22 And that's kind of an apathetic approach to take to something so powerful like live events where you're meeting your customers, prospects, media, investors, all these things.

3:32 We learned that from COVID that without that as part of the mix, businesses really struggle to connect with those people on a human level.

3:40 So my hope would be that it is core.

3:42 Now, what does that mean in terms of executing on that is I think you go back to the overall field of play chess board analogy, right?

3:49

Which is instead of us looking and focusing on one show without any context as to what's around it before, during, after, I think that's important.

3:59 And as I think we mentioned in one of our previous conversations, the events, while they individually might fit together as part of the strategy, they may not be equal in their importance and therefore may not be resourced an equal way by the organization.

4:14 And oftentimes, this is where the event managers really left in a lurch because somebody or through their own process, they're not going to resource this particular event like the other ones.

4:24 But the expectations from the internal stakeholders are just as high.

4:28 Yeah, if not higher, right.

4:31 So there's no downgrade in what the experience can be or what the execution could be, fit, finish all those things.

4:36 And so I think if you have a partner, they should be looking at that whole field of play to understand how to make the most, regardless of what the resources are.

4:46 I think we touched on that in another conversation as well as like, money's always an issue.

4:50 Yeah.

4:51 OK, Thank you.

4:52 Till next time, bye.

4:53 Bye.