Marketing Genius

I have been meaning to blog all week, and today is the day that something moved me so much, I had to drop everything.  I just talked to the marketing person for a company that will be coming to an upcoming show and wanted to know what opportunities were available for them to make a splash.

Unfortunately, with the show in less than two months, I don't have anything that could really help him accomplish everything he wants to do, but I do have some things available that can definitely raise the visibility of the company.

This boy, and I believe he is young enough to be called a boy, told me:

"I am not one to talk highly of myself.  I'm not cocky or anything, but I am a marketing genius".

Yes, those are quotes because those were his exact words...and he was serious!  I had to get off the phone with him quickly because I was worried about the uncontrollable laughter bubbling up inside me.

People, I think I am good at my job.  I think I am smarter and better than the average person in my position.  However, this is not an opinion I share with random people, and I have NEVER called myself a genius.  Well, I have, but not with a straight face. 

I cannot wait to meet the boy onsite.  I am putting him on my must-see list for this conference.  Stay tuned for that.

Hiring & Firing Authority

I am not the best sales person ever.  Mainly because I really hate making sales calls, but I get over it and do it...because that's my job.  However, I am 100% better than the dummy I talked to yesterday.  I contacted him via e-mail more than a month ago about getting pricing information on some electronic signage.  He responded that we needed to talk before he could send the information.  Fine.  I have tried to set up several calls with him over the past month and he has either not responded, or in one case, did not call me when he was supposed to.  I would have called him but I only had his e-mail.

Finally we talked.  And I wanted to scream at him.  How hard is it to tell me that the cost is $750 per day?  The reason, it turns out, that he needed to talk to me was to explain that they can sell advertisements in this program to our sponsors/exhibitors and they will share revenue back with the association.  This took him 20 minutes.  "Hi sir...this isn't my first rodeo.  You could have explained that via e-mail too...I am familiar with revenue sharing programs."  I wanted to fire him right then and there, but sadly, lacked the authority.

Thought for the Day:  "You don’t try out for West Side Story because you’re awesome at discus." – Christian Finnegan

Credit Applications

I miss being an exhibits manager.  As nutty as exhibitors can be, they are the poster children for sanity compared to hotel sales departments.  After being stalked endlessly for December 2012 contracts, which finally made it through legal and were signed, now I am being stalked for a credit application.  What?!  Are you being serious?  You need payment information for a meeting in 3 years?  I'm annoyed.

Mainly I'm annoyed because I did not catch the line in the contract that said that the contract is not complete unless accompanied by the payment.  Live and learn I guess, but it does make me miss arguing with exhibitors.  Usually at the end of the day I could talk an exhibitor into being resonable.

This whole episode really makes me hate this hotel brand, and I have no desire to ever plan another meeting in this particular city again.  In the interest of not dragging names through the mud I won't mention either, but please compare to the City of Monterey, California.  The conference center and hotel folks in Monterey have been nothing but accomodating and helpful. 

Being new to this group, I don't have the hotel and bank references off the top of my head and I don't have ready access to those files.  So, my day came to a complete stop so that I could research...and add one more thing to my list of things to watch out for in hotel contracts.

I Heart Decorators

After a long 5 months of being involved with a brand new local food and wine event, it was a huge success today.  It was my first local event and my first consumer event.  I'm not a huge fan of either one.  Give me a B2B trade show any day.  And this, friends, leads us to today's title line - I Heart Decorators.  As I was climbing a rickety ladder to hang a banner I was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to call my Champion rep and let her know I needed a banner hung.  That's why I love decorators...they hang banners...so I don't have to.

When A Meeting Planner Says You're A Problem Attendee, We Are Not Flirting

I have always worked for male dominated organizations in my career so I have had my fair share of dealing with unwanted advances and drunken stupidity.  The conference that I am working on this week is for a group of younger people (ages 18-35) of an association.  It's a great group that helps builds leaders for the association.  I first met one of the attendees at last weeks conference when he was being a small problem.  Nothing major, but I told him he was trouble and that he needed to do exactly as I said.  To this man, I was flirting.

At this evenings event, he walked past me and grabbed a part of my anatomy that he had no business grabbing.  He was very drunk, so I kindly told him that in order to keep his hands, he needed to keep them off of me.  He was very apologetic at that point...more or less...but that's when I realized that he had taken my words the week before as my special way of flirting.  It wasn't.

To be honest, I was feeling kind of bad because I really hadn't been that nice to him the week before.  He's just one of those attendees that didn't pay attention to anything that had been sent and, more importantly, didn't care.  I'm against this behavior and try to do my part to discourage it.  Evidently I'm a miserable failure at that.  I will have to work harder.

I was probably a little meaner to him tonight than I needed to be when I told him only special boys get to touch me and he wasn't special enough.  He was sad and said "I'm not special?" to which I replied "you're don't eat the paste special, but that's not special enough".  Tomorrow should be fun.  With any luck at all he'll have forgotten the incident and we can move on with everyone's hands where they belong.

New rule for attendee packets: when the planner tells you to do something, it's not a pick-up line; we actually want you to do it because you are either being an obstacle or about to be an obstacle to our success. 

Welcome To My New Blog

The new blog December and January found me with a lot of time on my hands and my blog suffered.  February and March are killing me, but I have a lot to say...so I am back to blogging.  For those new to the blog, I am an event manager, specilizing in business and associaiton events.  I don't do weddings! 

I have taken on a new client that has seven events this year, five of which are February through May.  The group is going through some transition internally including their meeting planner retiring after many years.  Luckily for me, she left behind great files.  But with their transition comes a lot of new ideas to try, so they are keeping me on my toes.

My first event with them was last week in Sacramento and I learned a lot about the group. 

1. Always have coffee available.  ALWAYS.  For free or for sale, it doesn't matter as long as they can get it.  
2. If on a budget for a reception, you must do passed hors d' ouevres.  If given access to a station, they will pile their plates with appetizers as high as they can...and they can pile high.  It's like a circus act.
3. Need to solve the lunch crisis on committee days.  Attendees who don't register (because there is no cost and no penalty) come out of the woodwork, with spouses in tow, and there is no way to guess how many people you will be feeding until they show up in the buffet line.
4. You cannot be overly direct or go over the agenda too many times with key staff.  Eventually they will tell you the plan in their head that doesn't jive with the actual plan and you can fix it.  Hopefully this happens prior to the meeting, when you hear "another group is in our meeting room, where should we go".  What?  You should go back in time to tell me that you needed another meeting room and that you had a room picked out in your head. 

 At the end of the event, no one knew the issues that arose and the bandaids we put on them.  You just have to laugh...and have a Plan B in your pocket.