Carisa Bartelt:

People then get more excited when you are involving them and you're sharing that information and that impact. Then kind of just keep asking and keep justifying for their support, right. You're making them a part of the process and you're making that data work for you because you understand what they care about and what it means.

Alyssa Peltier:

Great events create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences, well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews:

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier:

And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Hello, everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Alyssa, and I will be your host for this week's episode of the Great Events podcast, a podcast by Cvent. Carisa, I would like to welcome you back to the show. We're going to be talking about some really fun stuff today. For those of you who have been previous listeners, Carisa has been a repeat contributor to the Great Events podcast. So we're excited to see what she's been working on in her product marketing role here at Cvent. Carisa, what's been going on?

Carisa Bartelt:

Hey, everybody. Happy to be back. Always good to talk to everyone. I think it's been kind of a wild year. It's been a couple months since I've been here. Think over the last ... We're about halfway through the year now. There's been this really intense focus on what are we doing and why are we doing it and how do we prove or justify impact or resources or anything going forward because I think there was such a fear at the beginning of the year. And now there's this opportunity to kind of reinvent, but there's still a little bit of caution of how much can we spend? What are cutbacks looking at? What's the economy going to do? So I've been doing a lot of work involving kind of understanding what the needs of event and marketing teams are to kind of survive and still execute decently and host great events within this current landscape.

Alyssa Peltier:

And I think we're here to discuss acutely what we need in terms of data, right. What data do we need to prove the impact of our programs? I know we talk loosely about that usually on every single episode in some capacity, right. But I think what's interesting about the work that you've been doing, and I'll let the cat out of the bag here, is that Carisa and her team and our larger marketing group have been working on a KPI framework that can help event managers, event organizers, event planners, event marketers all better calculate the value of their event programs in a more standard way, right.

We've seen kind of a lack of maturity in this space when it comes to data and proof of impact. And so I think the opportunity to have something that's a little bit more consistent in the form of a framework is advantageous to this profession specifically. So Carisa, let's dive into this KPI framework. I guess starting off with what are event KPIs? What are we even actually talking about? I think KPI is relatively widely known term, but there are organizations, associations, nonprofits that use different terms. So when we say KPI, what are we talking about?

Carisa Bartelt:

Data, KPI, these are all buzz terms that we all like right now. And I think the capability to understand what the heck they mean and how do I activate them is really something that we found as just a gap that a lot of us don't have. So I like to think of it in the sea of data, we can report on anything. Anything is reportable. I can give you numbers on anything that you want. And those things, what those are is really ... Those are metrics. Those are one single data point, right. It tells you something really specific, but it doesn't tell you something on its own, right. I can give you a number, 82 for this one thing that we tried to do, and you're like, "Well, great. What does that mean? What do I do with it? How do I improve it?" Right. And a KPI becomes then a combination of metrics or a single metric that you get a deeper analysis of that provides an insight to performance that matters to your business goals or your overall strategic objectives, right.

Alyssa Peltier:

So why does this matter now? I know we touched on this in the opening here. I have assumptions here related to the economic environment that we're in. But why now? Why KPIs for events in 2024?

Carisa Bartelt:

I hate to harken back to the last couple years, but events especially have been this untrackable thing that we just know works. We all do events because our customers like them and our prospects like them and they're great, and face-to-face connections are great, but now with so much of the digitization of just even in-person interactions and the ability to track things, all of a sudden now I've got all this data that I can report on. And my programs are getting cut or my events are getting cut. And I can't cut back on the experience at events because that is something that people in your audience tangibly feels. I think from a marketing standpoint, if I cut back on my Google Ad spend, my customers aren't going to notice, right. They're not going to feel that cut. But if I cut back on the food and beverage on my events or the types of events and the quality of the events I'm doing, they really, really feel it.

So for marketers and people in the event space in general, there's this pressure to ... You still have to deliver great events, but also, we want to give you less. And they need to find a way to justify, one, their impact, and two, the full scope of really the experience that they want to create. And now they have all this data everywhere, right, that's like, "Oh, I can report on how many people attended this particular session and what time everybody checked in. And did they have a great time? And did they like that particular activation that I did?" Are very, very granular. And events teams aren't used to dealing with that much data or dealing with them, that kind of granular nitty-gritty.

Alyssa Peltier:

But let's talk about dealing with the data and what this framework aims to provide, which is a little bit more consistency, a little bit more structure around how to organize that information. Because like you said, it is a sea of information. And part of what we've been lacking historically is a means to make sense of it and categorize it, right. So what are some of these kind of specific examples of these KPIs or even categories of data and KPIs that we're organizing to help event managers improve their programs, to make sense of their programs, to make sense of the data that's part of their programs?

Carisa Bartelt:

Yeah. From a really basic level, getting really simple, because I think data is such a complicated topic and it's very, very intimidating to put your arms around, we're trying to build this framework for us to understand what, who, when, and where each data point kind of fits. We've seen a lot of people out there and they're like, "Here's 200 things that you can measure." And you're like, "Great. But why? What do I do with that? Where does it fit within my understanding of it?" So we've got the what, right, which is what you're trying to accomplish. And we're trying to assign a what to each data point that you might potentially get from an event. Is it to help with brand awareness? Is it measuring the participation and engagement of the people on site? Is it really just a direct revenue financial kind of piece?

Those are all different things of the objective themes, the what that we're measuring. Then we have who. Who cares about it? A lot of different data points are relevant to the event execution team, right. The nitty-gritty tactical. Or the sales team. I want to know about pipeline. I want to know about lead conversion. Or even the financial team, right. And for me, when I have all these things I can now measure, I want to know who cares about what so I can have better conversations with my stakeholders. And then we have it broken down into when, which are these maturity stages, right. When can I start measuring this? You can start measuring it right away. Or you need the foundation of data. Before you can start measuring this, you need this baseline. And then after you start measuring that, you can start looking at year-over-year information or cross event information. And that's that maturity of your data kind of approach. And then where. I think-

Alyssa Peltier:

You beat me to it. I was like, "Am I going to get her? Can I give her the where question?" But you're good. You're on top of your stuff today.

Carisa Bartelt:

Where? Where? Well, I think that's the really important part, right. Okay. I can pull this data. And there's this kind of growth of events as a part of the marketing organization as a whole where we understand not all of these data points are tracked or able to be ... Live in just my event management program or my event software, right.

Alyssa Peltier:

I think that's an important distinction, right. Because oftentimes we get ... There's a lot of event data within a platform like Cvent, right. There's tons of that. But we started this conversation where KPIs are often dependent on multiple data points. And sometimes those data points come with multiple data sources. And so I think the where is very important because we often take a very myopic view within our event planning profession, which is, "I'll just go to my event technology provider," but oftentimes the scavenger hunt exists beyond the tool that you are actively in every day.

Carisa Bartelt:

As we try to grow, I think everybody right now, you want to grow your event impact, you want to grow your personal career, you want to grow the contribution that you have to your organization. That doesn't just live in your specific data segment, right. I want to show impact to the org as a whole. I need to look at data points across the organization or across marketing channel. And that's where you start pulling data from your marketing automation platforms or your CRM or any of your data sources, right, to really get the full picture of what's going on. Not just to optimize the execution of an event, but to really optimize and show the impact that it has on organizational goals and [inaudible 00:09:59].

Alyssa Peltier:

And I also think also when you're looking at the tools and the ecosystem of data that supports your event program, the who actually is oftentimes intrinsically tied to the tool. So for example, use CRM as an example. CRM is a tool that's most commonly leveraged by your sales organization, your financial organization, your marketing organization, those that are responsible for the growth and revenue for your company, your organization, what have you. And so it starts to become clearer what stories you need to tell with those KPIs, with those data points when you know what tools are being leveraged for those particular KPIs. And sometimes the path forward becomes a little bit more transparent as opposed to this kind of opaque situation that we've been in for a really long time.

Carisa Bartelt:

Well, I think too, when you talk about the path forward, I really like the concept too of you need more of these other teams to make what you're trying to do a success, especially because resources are getting tighter. You want them to care about the things that you're trying to produce just as much as you do. And you need to make their involvement easier. And if the data is in a way that they can understand and you're speaking their language, and then also you're pushing information to them so they can see it in their own kind of system of truth or their tool, that helps them feel more bought into the process and creates kind of more organizational alignment.

Alyssa Peltier:

Organizational alignment and opportunity for scalability, for growth of the event program. I think so often we're in a position of defense, right, to defend the program, to justify the spend. But how nice would it be for event professionals to be on the offensive? For them to be able to say, "Look at all the good that we're doing as opposed to look at all the spend that we're trying to defend," right. And so again, KPIs are really the secret behind that. But knowing who you're talking to, where to find that information, what KPIs are of importance not only to you, but also to others, I think, is where the industry is headed.

Carisa Bartelt:

And then you can also help measure how they are impacting what you're doing. And that's kind of that proactive offensiveness of you're giving everybody a nudge because they're all contributing to selfishly your own goal, right, but they feel like a part of the process and they feel ... They can see their own impact of if you participate or if we help activate the sales team here to help drive registration. Or we want better conversion at the end, how can we get better about our nurture programs? People then get more excited when you are involving them and you're sharing that information and that impact. Then kind of just keep asking and keep justifying for their support, right. You're making them a part of the process and you're making that data work for you because you understand what they care about and what it means.

Alyssa Peltier:

No, I think that's great. I think that's perfect. Okay. So I don't want to gatekeep on this framework here. So I know I heard really positive praise from a session that was conducted at Cvent CONNECT just over a month ago now that was related to developing a KPI framework for your own organization. And I do believe, Carisa, there is either an upcoming webinar or a webinar that was just done that might be available on demand. Can you talk about some of these assets that we have for people to learn more about developing a KPI framework and tapping into the KPI framework that Cvent is developing?

Carisa Bartelt:

Yeah. Absolutely. So we've got a webinar coming up, I think it's the first week of August, so two, three weeks, that we're hosting, outlining the framework and what they are, what all the different categories are, what we've identified as the way to categorize your data. We just did a really nice presentation with AMA at their analytics marketing conference. So we've got that also on demand. And then we're working on putting together an asset or a resource for people so they can see individual metrics and how we're tagging them to fit within these themes, these categories, these stages, right, and then where they can find it as a starting point, right. Here's how you can start thinking about it, and here's how we're thinking through where this point fits. But it's really all about the framework of the categorization so that you can learn how to take a metric and fit it in within how we are organizing and teaching you to understand your metrics.

Alyssa Peltier:

I love that. I remember seeing kind of in the chat from the session that happened at Cvent CONNECT. Obviously, this webinar will be an accompaniment to that, and also this conversation that we're having here today. But I think I noticed in the chat this is the best session and the most practical information at Cvent CONNECT this year. So when we see stuff like that, we're like, "All right. We need to continue this conversation." So listeners, I hope you dig in more, dig in a little bit deeper on the data conversation and the data goldmine that is within your event programs to develop those KPIs, to justify the spend, but more importantly, to grow your programs more than ever before. With that, I want to say thank you to Carisa, our repeat contributor on the podcast. We will be happy to invite you again, Carisa, as always, but thoroughly enjoyed this conversation today. So we will see you next week, listeners. Have a great rest of the week.

Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews:

And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you discover great events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

Felicia Asiedu:

Stay connected with us on social media for behind the scenes content, updates, and some extra doses of inspiration.

Rachel Andrews:

Got a great story or an event to share? We want to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM, or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

Felicia Asiedu:

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Alyssa Peltier:

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.

Tiffany Sanford:  So, I'm just starting to kind of dive into this personal branding. I'm definitely late to the game, and I would like to blame it on the fact that I had a baby seven months ago. But I think it's more of this imposter syndrome that you hear a lot of, and it's like, okay, you know, I, you know, lead demand gen here at Cvent, but how is my content going to be different than anyone else's? Like, how do I get started? How am I going to be this me it's that competition of these well-known b, two b marketers that you hear of all the time. And I think it's really just getting started—one and then two, being consistent.

Alyssa Peltier: Great events create great brands. And it takes a village to put on an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences to your brand. And we're that village. I'm Alyssa.

Paulina Giusti: I'm Paulina.

Rachel Andrews: And I'm Rachel.

Alyssa Peltier: And you're listening to Great Events, the podcast for all people interested in events and marketing.

Paulina Giusti: What is going on in the wide, wide world of events. My name is Paulina Giusti, and I am excited to welcome you all to this week's episode of Great Events. We've got a stellar cast of guest speakers on today's episode, and we're going to be talking about some really awesome topics, including community building, the power of personal branding, and really how combining these two efforts can create a community powerhouse by way of word of mouth and credibility, effective partnerships, advocacy, retention, all of that great stuff. 

And so, without further ado, I'd love to introduce two very talented marketers who are going to walk us through these two segments and how we're thinking about community and personal branding this year and into 2024. So I'd love to start with our guest, Katie Ray. She is the Director of Community at Metadata. Metadata is a company where she spends a lot of her time developing a truly member-first community. She's also focusing on events and partnerships and is now managing their SDR team.

Wow, you have a ton of free time, I can tell. And she's taking communities from 6000 members to 30,000 members in just a year's time. That is an epic stat. And I'd love to get into all of the amazing things that you've been talking about or shared with us pre today's podcast. But in addition to that, she spends her time learning new ways to grow communities, connecting with other community managers, and she's engaging with her own members. She recently received her MBA from Texas Tech University and she won…oh my gosh, I don't think I knew this...Cmxer of the Year in 2022. Massive snaps for this chicky here in her downtime when she's not living on all her dogs, who you all just missed out seeing. She loves to read and write and go on date nights with her husband, and play with their three adopted Huskies. So Katie, thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast.

Katie Ray: Welcome. Thank you. I'm excited. This is going to be such a good session, y'all. This is going to be great.

Paulina Giusti: Awesome. And our second guest she is a lady behind the scenes. She is what keeps this podcast running. She is the engine of Great Events. Her name is Tiffany Sanford. She leads Cvents demand gen marketing efforts. She is an absolute big believer in working smart, not hard. And a lot of that sentiment is around leveraging community-based marketing strategy.

She is a huge fangirl of Metadata where Katie Ray works, a big proponent in how Cvent has gotten involved with leveraging all of the key solutions that Metadata offers. And fun fact, this is her first time on the podcast, but I am willing to bet that it is not her last. So really, really excited to have you on the podcast today, Tiff. Welcome.

Tiffany Sanford: I'm excited. And actually, believe it or not, this is my second time on the podcast.

Paulina Giusti: I can't believe I misspoke. Was I on that episode? If so, it doesn’t count.

Tiffany Sanford: It was with Alyssa.

Paulina Giusti: Well fine. It doesn't count if I'm not on, right?

Tiffany Sanford: Yeah. First one was Katie. That's all that matters.

Paulina Giusti: That's true. This is the party. All right, well, let's get into the topic, right? The first segment that we wanted to chat about is really centered around community, and you know, as an event professional, community is at the epicenter of how I design events and experiences. And it's thinking about bringing together communities for an in person event experience, for virtual event experience. All of that is very similar to developing and marketing to and cultivating communities in sort of the marketing sphere. So I'm going to go to Katie first. 

What is community building in the context of events, from your perspective?

Katie Ray: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think one of the biggest things to highlight, kind of jumping into this conversation is the difference between community and audiences, right? So think about going to a concert. It's a big event and you're there, you're enjoying it, you're singing along, and that's great. But once you leave, you'll probably share some pics on social and that's kind of it. The biggest difference is with community, it's you're there, you're enjoying it, but you're also connecting. It's really the relational side, and you've got different activations at certain events that will really encourage and foster the relational aspect of the audience. And so I think that's one of the biggest defining factors. And so whenever we think through different ways to do community building, especially within events and conferences, as an example, specifically, it's really how do we convert people from just another person in the chair to a part of the relational building that comes through conferences or virtual events or smaller in person events as well? And so it's how do we think about engaging with them? How do we get our speakers engaged with each person that's in a chair? How do we get the attendees engaged with each other? How do we make sure that this isn't just a one off situation where a bunch of people came, they learned, they left, versus they came, they connected, they built relationships, they left, they continue to connect.

And so for me, that's really what is always top of mind whenever I'm planning out different types of events and the community aspect of them.

Paulina Giusti: I love that. I feel like we try to extend the life of an event by offering this sort of access to content or access to social, right? But there is this additional layer of beyond the constraints of the event, what are people doing? How are they continuing to talk? You work with me on a pretty daily basis, so I feel like you get sort of the event planner mindset, and you, being a marketer, how can others have as tight-knit of a relationship? How can marketers and event planners work together to build and foster communities? Like what Katie was just describing, are there certain tactics that we should be doing or things that we should be thinking about?

Tiffany Sanford: I'm definitely on the flip side, so I am actually like a community member. And I think I'll hit on Katie's point. It really does go beyond like a one-time event. And I think the goal is really to foster that ongoing engagement through the community, and it's where you share common interests or goals like related to the event or the audience. So I think that event planners and marketers can work really well together to build those networking opportunities, including anything on social media. How can we build the hype for this event? Who is maybe the face of an event marketer within Cvent? And is this person are they attending most of our events? Because if they're attending most of our events, they're going to kind of be that face of Cvent. So I think especially going into 2024, that's something that I'm hearing a lot of is like, you kind of have this advocate within your company that goes to the events and they build that relationship with other marketers or event planners. So I think that is probably going to be key going into 2024 is really honing in on personal branding and building those relationships and having that one or two kind of SWAT team that attends these trade shows just to build that familiarity. I can never say that word, so I think that's what's important.

Paulina Giusti: So I'm thinking about this from an event design perspective and only because it's super top of mind for our 2024 conference. But we're taking like a vertical approach, right? We're thinking about unique industries and fostering unique experiences for them. At the same time I'm designing an event for 4000 people, right? So there's a sense of balance. 

Katie, any insight or suggestions for those thinking about, okay, we're looking at this from a 10,000 foot view, but I've also got to look at it from a ten foot view based on unique subsets of our communities that are interacting together.

Katie Ray: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the biggest thing is really understanding what the members in those subsets really care about and what's most important to them. I really think for any type of community building program, you have to understand who are these people, what is most important to them, what do they actually care about? And then really hone in on that. So whenever you're planning a big conference like that and you're thinking, how do I get these different types of people interacting with each other in that subsect? As well as crossing the borders as well into other types of industries, you need to be thinking about, okay, well, if I've got a group of engineers, for example, they're oftentimes a little bit more reserved, a little more shy. They may not enjoy being forced to go and do like a networking game. That may not be the best thing for that group, right? I mean, hey, you may get lucky and they're as bubbly and lively as I am, right? But not every engineer is going to be super excited to go and chat with random people, right? So trying to create different types of activations for them while also thinking about, let's say I've got a group of marketers, we're all there to go network, and we enjoy it most of the time, but then it's also figuring out how do we cross those verticals? And so whenever you're thinking about these big conferences and you're thinking about the micro activations that are a part of all these large events, you need to be thinking about, once again, who is this affecting? Is this something they would even care about? Have we even asked them? I mean, I'm a huge proponent of so many times we think that, oh, this is going to be the most amazing idea and it's not. And that's okay. You test it and you say, let's mix it for the next one.

 But I always try and go to the community and say, what do you want to see more of? And give them options to fill in the blank, too. And same thing with different types of activations. One thing that we've done for our demand community events, whenever we do in person events that I am very happy that we get to is we always provide some type of an activity because once again, not every single person in the community is super comfortable just going up to a random person and having a conversation. So we've done activations at like a mini putt putt place or a ping pong bar and different types of activities where you don't have to be super vocal and loud to be able to participate. And it's really cool. One of the mini putt putt that we did in Denver last year, it was awesome because we did have folks that weren't super comfortable, but wanted to be there. And it was cool seeing them kind of come out of their shell because we ended up just grouping people and sending them down to golf. And they did better in smaller groups and they liked being able to focus on an activity if they didn't know how to participate in a conversation.

And I think that's something, especially when you're doing large activations. Now, you may not be able to send everyone on different micro events, but whenever you're planning, think about those people and think about how do they want to interact, ask them how they want to interact and really follow through with it too. Because then you're building loyalty at that point because you're listening and you're doing what they're asking. And if you can't make everyone happy, but you say, hey, we pulled X amount of people, this is where the biggest response was. So this is what we're doing. If you want to see something different, make sure you participate next time. And so I think that's what I would always recommend for people in that situation.

Paulina Giusti: I've got a quick follow up question to that because we've talked about designing experiences for extroverts, for introverts based off of personas or verticals, and thinking about sort of the grand scale in play. But when we think about some of the core KPIs of an event or of managing a community, one of them is largely growth. And when I was introducing you, you have this unbelievable stat of growing a community from 6000 to 30,000 and any event professional, ears are going to perk up and translate something of that nature to registration, right? Maybe they're promoting a cool new experience. And so that's activating that growth. Give us some context as to how you were able to grow so much so quickly.

Katie Ray: Yeah, well, I was very lucky. That was over at Sales Hacker, and at the time they were owned by Outreach. So of course the brand, and I know we'll probably talk about brand a little bit later, but the brand plays such a huge role in growing. I think that's one of the biggest things is you have to I don't even know a good way to say it, but it's tough if you don't have that well known brand, it's really tough to start growing. So if you don't, I'd say get out on social, get brand advocates, get people involved and excited and give them a reason to want to share it with other people.

Paulina Giusti: Would you say events?

Katie Ray: Yeah, get people excited, give accessible events too, really meet people where they're at, give other voices a platform where they may not have it in other ways. And so I think that was something at least with the DEMAND Community, whenever we got started that was really important for us, still continues to be very important for us. But at Sales Hacker, like I said, we had such a great brand recognition. But it was also and I just wrote about this in my newsletter one of the tactics I tried whenever I joined there was every day we'd get a whole new batch of people, hundreds of people, and I would spend hours individually messaging every single person in the platform. One, if they saw it in the platform, it brought them back into it. So I could count on some level of engagement in the platform. But I wanted them to feel welcome. And that's always something that's so important for me, is every single person I interact with, I want them to know like, hey, I genuinely care about you, I want you to be successful. I'm here to support in whatever that looks like. 

And I think that same thing goes with events. And I will say outreach has always done a really good job. At their annual conference, they'll have a whole line of employees like, we're so excited you're here. And it's kind of like a tunnel you get to run in and it's just a cool experience. But they labeled the name tags in certain color coding that everyone on the outreach staff knew. And so you knew who was new, who was a first time person, who has come before.

So you can say, hey, looks like you're new. Are you by yourself? Did you come with the team? Oh, no, let me introduce you to someone. And I think that is like a huge part of it. And just by making people feel welcomed, they'll probably want to share it with others of, hey, I had such a great experience, let me get other people involved in this too. And I think that is what really skyrocketed that growth as well as providing value. They loved our webinars. We did two webinars a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, every single week. And so the value that came from that content and access to speakers that they may not have access to before was such a game changer in how we grew. And I think the same thing with in person events as well. You have to have that listening to.

Paulina Giusti: Your personal outreach to the new members that very much sounds like you. That sounds very on brand for you. Someone who's going to be super proactive and engaged with their community.

Let's kind of switch gears here to personal branding. And admittedly so, I am at a complete crossroads of what my personal brand is. And I'm a host of a podcast and I feel like I do more events than a human typically should. So I feel like I should have a sense of what my personal brand is and how I should engage with the larger industry and community, but kind of at a crossroads, like I said. And so would love to hear how you've designed this for yourself, and Tiff jump in because you also are so intent on how you navigate your personal brand story and cultivating that for our own podcast host, minus yours truly.

Paulina Giusti: So would love to hear best practices from you both.

Tiffany Sanford: So I'm just starting to kind of dive into this personal branding. I'm definitely late to the game, and I would like to blame it on the fact that I had a baby seven months ago. But I think it's more of this imposter syndrome that you hear a lot of. And it's like, okay, I lead Demand Gen here at Cvent, but how is my content going to be different than anyone else's? How do I get started? How am I going to be this SME? It's this competition of these well known b2b marketers that you hear of all the time. And I think it's really just getting started. One, and then two, being consistent with it. Like, how Katie, you are all over my LinkedIn. So how did you approach that? For one, I mean, obviously you're a community pro, but how did you know what you were going to talk about? And then how are you staying consistent? How are you doing this on top of doing all the things that you do at Metadata? Give us some pointers.

Katie Ray: All the behind the scenes! So it's actually funny that we're talking about this. I literally right before hopping on here, of course, had some calls. But earlier this morning, I was like, man, I need to write a LinkedIn post. I haven't written anything since, like, Monday. And so I was just thinking like, wow, I'm really inconsistent with this. 

But I think the biggest thing, I think a lot of people get caught up with, what is my brand? Kind of like what you're saying. For me, I have no idea. I don't know what my brand is. I just want to build in public. I want people to see it is what it is. This is what we're doing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Because I have spent so much time getting so frustrated with LinkedIn influencers and thought leaders. I'm like, you haven't done this job in so long. What are you doing? You're a consultant, you're not even on the battlefield anymore. What is this? And I get so frustrated.

And same thing. That's kind of why we chose a lot of speakers we did for DEMAND this year, is because there were so many amazing speakers. But a lot of them, it's the same stuff they say at every single conference. And I don't think that's fair. There's so many great frontline people that are doing the damn job that aren't getting that exposure because they're not building on LinkedIn as much as they probably should in order to get that. So for me, of course, I have imposter syndrome, right? Like, there's always going to be someone better than me out there. And I think that's amazing. But what I know today is probably more than some people know today, you know what I mean? And so that's how I just think about it is I just want to build in public and hopefully it helps someone else.

Hopefully it gives someone else a leg up so that they don't have to deal with all the crap I've had to or they don't have to test in certain ways than I've had to. And so for me, that's all I think about. So when we were planning demand, I tried so hard to put like week one, here's what we did. Week two, things are on fire. But I'm also very honest with it, and I think people appreciate that because it's not all rainbows and daisies all the time. I mean, it's tough and it can be incredibly defeating. I think for me, that's what I focus on. So maybe my brand is just trying to be real, but I'm never going to be the one.

Like, I'm just being real with you. I'm never going to do that. And that's just me. I want to share resources, ideas. I just started my newsletter and that's the same thing. It's the exact same stuff of, hey, here's what I learned, here's what I did. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. Good luck.

Take it with a grain of salt because it may not work for you either, but that's what I do so but it's also like, I mean, there's always going to be someone out there better than me doing things differently, and I hope that they're sharing as well so I can learn too. And I used to be whenever I was at Sales Hacker. Scott Barker and I had a conversation about building brand, and he was like, create a schedule. Every Monday you post about this, every Tuesday you post about this, every Wednesday is this, Thursday this and Friday that. And it was really good. And I actually had as my background on my computer, and I've definitely strayed away from that, but I probably should get back to it.

Paulina Giusti: I love that. I think a lot of people listen to this podcast for tangible information that they can say, okay, I'm going to take that and I'm going to do it. And for me, hearing you say, okay, create a routine with it or add it into something that's habitual in a way that to me is like what I needed to hear to say, you know what, it doesn't have to be every week. Maybe it's every event and start give yourself small milestones. I think what's also a little intimidating too, though, is, at least for me, event professionals are notoriously behind the scenes creatures, and so, as extroverted as I am,  it doesn't feel natural for me to be promoting all of the learnings or the successes of something that I've been very much behind the scenes on the experience. So I think a lot of us event professionals kind of have to navigate that thought process a little bit.

Tiffany Sanford: But, event planners work their ass off and other people want to know how are they doing that? And I'm just going to call out, Paulina, that really awesome word of mouth event that happened at Cvent CONNECT last week.

Tiffany Sanford: If you want to tell that story, I think you should be the one to tell it. But I think the power of all of this is people do want to know. Like, you are the expert at Cvent and believe it or not, there are a ton of people that want to know. And I think for me, I see a ton of b2b marketers. I don't see a ton of event planners, like building their personal brand on LinkedIn. Maybe it's not in my algorithm, but I don't see that. And so I think that there's so many benefits, not just for yourself for personal branding, but also for the company that you're working. You know, Metadata, for example, I would not have joined the community had I not been following Katie.

I saw her post like, hey, we got this community for demand gen, folks. If you're in demand gen or marketing or brand, you should definitely join it. And I was like, I'm going to click on that link and I'm going to join it. And I'm a member now, so I think it's such a powerful tool for yourself, for your company success. 

And Paulina, I really want you to share what you experienced last week because I think that speaks volume into people are listening to this podcast. They're listening to you, Paulina. They know your voice. Please share that story.

Paulina Giusti: Oh, gosh. Well, now in the hot seat, I can't remember his name, but he is going to email me and I do want him to join the podcast. So last week we hosted our European annual user conference in London and smashing success. Record number, registrations and attendance. And in addition to sort of planning the conference with the support of an amazing team, I had the luxury of speaking at it too. And in the throes of all of the planning, I think I forgot to upload my own speaker headshot bio description of who I am for the session. And so when I'm speaking in the session, people in the audience had no idea who I was. And at the end of the know, a couple people came up to ask a couple questions.

And one individual came up to me and said, I don't know who you are, but I recognize your voice. Are you Paulina from the podcast? And my jaw hit the ground. I was like, are you telling me that my dad isn't the only one who listens to this podcast? I was absolutely floored and Alyssa happened to be standing nearby, caught wind of the conversation, and we were like, have we gone global? It was a moment where we were in just awe and it was one person. But it certainly goes to show that one person listening in makes it absolutely worthwhile. We shared tons of feedback. He said he listens to our podcast on his runs or whatever. He loves the quick format, digestible format that we provide and that makes it all the worthwhile. But to your point, Tiffany, I don't see many event professionals kind of putting their personal brand out there.

And so I think this is for our listeners assigned to that should be maybe something we try next year. Doesn't have to be before the end of the year. I know we're all scrambling to finish out the year, but I think that is call it a New Year's resolution or a personal branding opportunity for growth. I think that would be amazing for us.

Tiffany Sanford: And I would just add, I know we're all so busy, so I would say just try it for maybe one event that's upcoming. Or try it for a webinar that you're going to be presenting on or a podcast. Try one post and just see where that goes and then you can continue to evolve from that. But I think that's the most important thing because we are just all trying to do so much at once. But I think really simplifying it and testing it before you just totally dive into it because I know starting it is going to be tough. Like I said, try it for one event that you have up and coming and see if you get responses like that word of mouth, like, hey, I saw your post, so that got me to register, or anything like that. Any kind of word of mouth feedback.

Paulina Giusti: Love it. I feel like we're at the point where we're able to really connect the dots of today's episode. And it's all about building community, designing experiences that obviously grow your community by way of events, by way of experiences, and other sort of traditional marketing channels. And it's all about all of these working together, right? Opportunities for collaboration and overlap.

And I kind of want to just leave with one sort of data point question that, Katie, maybe you can help us answer. But when it comes to measuring the impact of your community, we think about measuring the impact of an event, right? Return on investment, return on an event. How do you think about measuring and defining success for your community building efforts?

Katie Ray: Yeah, absolutely. Well, they're actually very similar. So for us, a lot of the KPIs that we track, I mean, some are kind of considered vanity metrics in the sense of engagement and growth, but I really like to go under the hood of all of that. And if I'm seeing, let's say on average we have about 41 posts in messages in the DEMAND community a day. So that's a great metric. Love that, good numbers. But what's most important to me is about 60% of that comes from personal messages with other people. Now, I can't see the messages, but that's just what the data is showing us is people are DMing each other. And I love that because they're building relationships, they're connecting with each other. That's huge. The other 40% or so are conversation posts in the actual channels and that's amazing as well. Same thing as with growth. We love seeing the community grow. I love seeing people recommend each other into the community. All that makes my heart so happy.

But it's also diving underneath. Is it referrals? Are people coming from word of mouth? And if so, what does that really look like? What are we doing that would encourage someone to want to invite someone else to the community? If we're not growing, what does that look like? And so that's really important for us. But similarly, I have to show how the community affects bottom line. And so for us, we see how the community affects opportunities. If the community is organically, bringing in business from people in the community through different conversations. And then my long term goal is to figure out how the community members affect retention internally with opportunities and such. It just hasn't been around that long to really track it.

It's only been like a year and a month or so. And so we're just starting to kind of get all that data in there to see how community actually affects our retention and reducing churn efforts as well. So that's super important for us. So just like events there's the bottom line. We all have to answer too.

Paulina Giusti: I love that and think about event organizers listening in. How are you activating your own community efforts at your annual user conference or within your total event program. This year at our Europe event that just wrapped was the first year we were really intentional on what our community activation looks like in the Innovation Pavilion, what our community programs look like, and it was all about having really fun and engaging activations onsite. I think we had like beanbag toss. There was like a painting, paint-by-numbers kind of activation there, where to your point, not everyone's an extrovert. And so someone who wanted to just sort of fill in a piece of a mural by painting, but someone stepped up next to them, it afforded them an organic opportunity. It's bringing that community, that digital space, to life on site. And I think that is exactly what we were hoping to get across today, that there's a lot of opportunity to dig into your existing communities or bring a community to your organization and activate it on site within your Total Event program.

So, thank you both so much for joining today's podcast. I absolutely loved it. We could talk for hours on this topic, and in fact, we just might. Maybe we have a part two in the new year. But you both were great, and I just want to thank you again for joining us today to our rockstar listeners, or I should say our global listeners. Thanks again for tuning in, and if you have any additional things you'd like to share with us, have questions, or just want to send us a DM, find us on LinkedIn, or you can send us a note at greatevents@cvent.com. Don't forget to subscribe and rate our podcast. And we can't wait to see you guys next time.

Virgil Napier [00:00:00]:

So for us, first and foremost is what is the vision that needs to be met? And then we obviously, from a service standpoint, being one of the top 300 hotels in the world. For us, it's always about making sure that experience far exceeds what the original quote needed to be. Not in price, but in experience.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:19]:

Great events create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences, well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews [00:00:30]:

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu [00:00:31]:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:33]:

And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators and innovators in the world of events and marketing. 

Hello everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Alyssa and I will be your host for this week's episode on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. Now we all know that the meetings and events industry is in constant change, however, presenting both incredible opportunities. But then there's always these unique challenges as well. So what we'd like to do today is kind of have a pulse check midway point through the year on what trends we are seeing in this very diverse and vast and exciting meetings and events space, and how we can adapt to those challenges, both from a planner point of view, but also from a hotelier point of view. I don't know how many of you all are familiar listeners out there that Cvent does produce a recurring pulse of the industry report that provides top trends in conjunction with Northstar Meetings Group. This is a bimonthly survey that is conducted for for the overarching market.

Alyssa Peltier [00:01:40]:

Both event customers and Cvent non-customers participate in this just to gain access to those insights into what planners are thinking. At a recurring cadence. We're able to identify what some of those challenges are, how those challenges might be changing or staying static, and how that ultimately shapes the state of meetings and events for any moment in time. And this has been going on since around 2020 and it's really been providing a guidepost for the industry. So today what we're going to do is dig into a few of those key findings in our May report, which is coming out just shortly. Lean into those experiences from this sourced group of planners and hopefully walk away with some great insights on how we can build better towards recovery, but also for our flourishing industry at large. So to help me do this, I am super excited to have two experts with us today. Outside experts.

Alyssa Peltier [00:02:31]:

I'm very used to working with CVenters on this podcast, but we've actually got some two outside voices, so that's extra fun for the podcast today. Like I said, one from the hotelier side and one from the events industry. A little bit more can to my subject matter area of expertise here. And they're going to share some of their perspectives and their insights, react to what we've seen in the pulse report from May. And we'll also talk about this growing demand for events, these booking trends, technology adoption a little bit and some event support concerns that we're seeing, and we'll get into that in just a second. But real data, real stories on how to build those partnerships and create even more amazing events. Or as we like to say, great events. Right, right.

Alyssa Peltier [00:03:11]:

So without further ado, these are my subject matter experts, my pundits, for example, on today's podcast. So Virgil Napier, he's the Area Director for Kimpton Seafire Resort and Spa down in Grand Cayman, as I've been told, is the correct pronunciation. Is that right, Virgil?

Virgil Napier [00:03:30]:

Alyssa, you were close. You were close. It's k-man. Pleasure to be here. Thrilled to be a part of it with both Cvent and having Kelly, who's a great partner as well as she'll introduce herself. I'm lucky enough to be the area director of commercial for the Forbes ten-star Kimpton Seafire Resort and Spa here in the Cayman Islands, as well as the new launch of the flagship for the Hotel Indigo brand, which is the Hotel Indigo Grand Cayman, launched ten days ago. So super thrilled to be a part of this and looking forward to this. And of course, CVN CONNECTcoming up in just a couple weeks.

Alyssa Peltier [00:04:00]:

I love it. What a perfect plug. I didn't even have to do it, which is even better, right? And Kelly McDonald is our second guest for today. She's a Senior Event Sourcing Consultant for meetings and events at Wells Fargo. Welcome, Kelly.

Kelly McDonald [00:04:15]:

Thank you, Alyssa. Thanks for having me. And yeah, I'm happy to be here. As a sourcing specialist for Wells Fargo meetings and events, I, along with a smaller team, handle all the sourcing, negotiating, contracting for our external partners. So work with our business groups and our event planners every day to make sure we can produce great events. And so I'm excited to dig into the results of the pulse survey.

Alyssa Peltier [00:04:40]:

I am too. This is very much outside of my comfort zone. I admittedly have never done any sourcing in any capacity. My background tends to be more on the commercial side, the quantifying the metrics for meetings and events program. So I'm excited to learn something today too, and see what's going on kind of the other side of the world of meetings and events this big, small, this big tangled web of partnerships and fun ecosystem of events. So Virgil and Kelly, let's jump right into this. What are some of these overarching trends that you're currently seeing in the industry? And so I'll pass the floor. Virgil, we'll start with you.

Virgil Napier [00:05:17]:

Well, part and parcel for us is there's a couple of them. The first one is the technology use for our meetings and events, and not only in sourcing, which is where Kelly's team comes into play, but the actual events themselves. And then looking at it as you move into everything from AI programming to the actual systems that are being utilized to social tables, which is very important for us, especially when we talk about diagramming both interior as well as exterior activations for the groups. So I would say technology is a firm, firm basis from a hotel perspective. It gives us the availability for smaller properties, not the large, shall we say, convention-style settings to be able to be frankly world-class or leaning in first in class. And then the second would be short-term usage and groups that are coming. We're seeing a large number of people that are shifting because of global dynamics, and whether it be weather patterns, whether it be strife, politicism, whatever the case may be, people need to have those. And then the third part of that is from Kelly's side where they've had, shall we say over the last few years, reduction in talent.

Virgil Napier [00:06:17]:

So they have more or greater responsibilities for her teams and they have more programs, they have to get out now than they ever did before. How do we help them get that off their desk? And I would say that the technology and the short term needs are the two biggest that we face, that we can help support.

Alyssa Peltier [00:06:32]:

Nice. Kelly, what's your point of view on this?

Kelly McDonald [00:06:34]:

Oh yeah. I mean, to echo what Virgil said, yes, we are smaller team tasked with more meetings. We do about 1200 meetings a year, and our staff was reduced during COVID coming back a bit, but still, still heavily taxed on the workload that we have. And I also think bringing up the AV is a great point because there are ways through AI to streamline our processes, but our budgets aren't necessarily growing to meet, you know, the AV costs that are associated with it. So we're trying to play that game of how can we get what we need, how can we be more efficient on the budgets that really aren't increasing that much if not decreasing a bit. You know, I know the post report said the booking window is going up. I think it was more nine to twelve months. I still feel like we're in that shorter area still, maybe that three to six months.

Kelly McDonald [00:07:24]:

We are starting to see a little bit more in the future, but, and hopefully that trend just keeps continuing because it still feels really short-term to me. Compared to pre-pandemic sourcing windows, it's hard to find availability in those peak times.

Virgil Napier [00:07:39]:

I was going to say I agree with that, the actual pulse setting saying that we are going further and further out. We see that at CifAr right now our booking window is upwards of twelve to 18 months and that's grown. But we also are noting that there are needs in short-term that frankly are just being dumped on top of our partners that are on the sourcing world and they're saying I need help, how can I streamline this, how can I make it effective and setting it so we're seeing both of those. We are seeing a further out because companies are now planning further and further out because they've come back to the office and they're also in play. We're also seeing great growth in some of our corporate entities, especially in canon with our financial services and our legal services settings. Both are having phenomenal years and so they also need to have those meetings as they grow their teams back. So very excited about it.

Alyssa Peltier [00:08:24]:

And yeah, let's drill into the technology piece. Virgil, I know you just mentioned, and I really like the call out to AI because it continues to be kind of the trendiest of all the trending topics over the last, let's say 18 to 24 months. Have we even been that long with the AI conversation? Probably in the 18 month window. Are you seeing any new innovations when it comes to technology adoption that can kind of solve some of these pain points that you both mentioned. And Virgil, I'll toss that over to you since you addressed the technology piece specifically.

Virgil Napier [00:08:53]:

So there are a few points to it from our perspective as a hotel operating an amazing event, whether it be a large-scale activation or a small-scale board executive meeting that's coming to can. We are not that traditional Vegas or Orlando or some of the larger thousand-room events or larger that happens and comes across Kelly's desk. So for us when we talk about it, it's utilization of that for the experience, making it experiential, but also the preview for it. Whether we're using it to create an amazing marketing piece that goes out for the incentive program or if we're going to turn that into something that happens from the physical design elements that we can actually create and then we use through both AI when we talk about how we make this beautiful vision come to life, but then we use that with our programming nodes that we have on property through our systems integration as well. So when we talk about AI, you've got the first, the general pose, or I don't even know if I'm actually a picture right now, it may be AI-generated, and then you have the other side of it, which is how we can actually take that, use that as a basis. Because when we have the teams that are planning, Kelly signs off on it, then she sends one of her team members down here to actually do the preplanning and the programming, and we can work with them to look at what are their main keywords, what do we need to do to help them? And then how can I create some marketing pieces from our team at CFire to then have that sent out, as, shall we say, previews for them? That's just on the small side. You can then take it to the Vegas world where you could be in the sphere and how that AI-generated physical capability is going to be, or a fourth dimension as we use it, depending on the scale and the budget that's going to be in place.

Alyssa Peltier [00:10:27]:

What about from the planner perspective, Kelly? Are you seeing new ways to kind of leverage technology across not just a particular location, but across a sea of events? Right. You talked about how large the program is at Wells Fargo. How are you leaning into technology in that space, too?

Kelly McDonald [00:10:41]:

Well, I think from a sourcing perspective, we rely really heavily on the C vent tool, and I have a ton of stuff to learn about the AI and CVET and how that's working, and I will be doing that at CONNECT in a couple weeks, so I'm excited to learn more about that. I can't really speak to what the planners are doing on-site, but I know I did just attend a conference in May, and just the technology that's out there, even with translations, was pretty impressive. And just watching that come up and evolve has been exciting. I can't speak too much about how we're currently using it outside of our tools right now, but I know that everyone's hungry for that information. And the more that we can learn and the more that we can share is going to be helpful for everyone.

Alyssa Peltier [00:11:25]:

Well, I don't think that's uncommon. Right. I think everybody's kind of in a test-and-learn space right now, too. So I don't know if anybody would say they're widely adopting anything other than the fact that we're trialing in pockets and we're trying to figure out how to operationalize that once we see the success metrics start to roll in. So just assuring you that that's not an uncommon space to be.

Kelly McDonald [00:11:46]:

You know, we rely on our audio-visual partners, too, to bring us this information and teach us and show us how it's going to work. So we do have great partnerships with a lot of AV production equipment. People in our hotel. Partners really just make our jobs easier in that regard, where they can say, hey, we've done this before. This is what it looks like. It might be a great fit for your program.

Alyssa Peltier [00:12:06]:

I love that. Okay, so I want to dive into some of the key findings that we got out of this report. I love the perspectives that you all bring to enrich this conversation, but there were kind of four key areas that we can hone in on when it comes to the pulse report that is coming out in May here. First, more meetings are driving more attendance. That was the first kind of key finding that we saw. There's just more volume right now. We're seeing the recovery is at play here. Right.

Kelly McDonald [00:12:31]:

I think there's no denying searching for overflow room blocks. I'll tell you that right now.

Alyssa Peltier [00:12:35]:

That dovetails very nicely to key finding number two, that there is a struggle to find space and dates, because more meeting, more volume, more attendees, creating taxation on the actual space finding itself. The third finding, and I really am going to kind of drill into this one, because it is interesting to me, is the cost increase of things. There is no denying that we are in an inflationary market, and that is being felt quite acutely in the meetings and event space. So I'm going to put a pin in that one, to use my, my corporate slang here, but we're going to come back to that in a second because I do want to ask for both of your points of view on that, and I think there's a delicate balance that we can strike from the planner and hotel perspective. Our fourth key finding was that there is a discussion around planner supplier satisfaction and honing in on relationships. And I think we can really, we can stress that piece as well here, too. Let's go into this inflationary conversation. Back in 2023, there was this hesitancy, this uncertainty around a recession.

Alyssa Peltier [00:13:35]:

I feel like we've kind of crawled out of that nicely. But there's been an impact on prices specifically, and so cost and budget constraints continue to impact the industry. We're seeing that very clearly in the results here. And specifically, f and b remains a major pain point, along with some of those increasing hotel and venues fees. We saw in the survey report, 42% of planners say that they have increased spending on meeting an event tech tech support compared to last year. We saw 37% of planners report being cautious with hotel and venue contracts. They're negotiating minimums that are necessary for their attendance numbers. So, Kelly, I'm going to start with you on this one.

Alyssa Peltier [00:14:20]:

How are planners doing? More with less. And to bring Virgil into this part of the conversation, how can hotels help?

Kelly McDonald [00:14:30]:

From my perspective, the planners, you nailed it in the survey. Of course, this is the consensus food and beverage AV, right? The prices are up. So my role is really the before work to get the best deal I can with our hotel partners before our planners are on site. So I will say I've seen year-over-year increases 15% 20%, which is just not something we can support. And I might sound like a broken record throughout the podcast, but it really has come back to the relationships that we've built with our hotel partners, with our guests, where I can go back to them and say, I cannot do a 15% increase. It's not going to happen. 5%. Let's talk.

Kelly McDonald [00:15:08]:

And through good relationships, good communication, we've been able to get the rates where we need to be. So I'm negotiating that on the front end to save as much money upfront to help account for the food and beverage increases and the AV increases. And our planners have their own, you know, ways of saving money on that. And I can't speak to them individually, of course, but different tactics they have in place to save food or maybe carry over some of our danishes from breakfast to put as a snack. Right. So they're getting creative and the food and beverage teams will help them with that. I feel like a lot of hotels all of a sudden are you have a higher resort fee or destination fee or convenience fee, whatever you want to call it. So the ability of our sourcing team to negotiate those down really does help the bottom line.

Kelly McDonald [00:15:55]:

We work with CBB partners that can help sometimes to help lessen, you know, even out the cost because our budgets are not increasing. Inflation is a real thing. So we just do our best ahead of time to work with our partners to make sure it's a win for everyone. And I do feel like most salespeople I work with, they understand that, right? They understand they have to meet their hotels. Their, the director of revenue management is in their ear too. But there's usually that negotiation that we can come to where both people are happy. So, relationships, just being honest and upfront with people I think Virgil and I both speak very directly for what we need and he's going to represent the hotel side of what they need to make their business profitable. And there always seems to be a middle ground.

Kelly McDonald [00:16:43]:

So that's my take on that. I will say I have been. You mentioned something about service level satisfaction being down, and I am seeing that. I actually just got a comment yesterday on a property we use all the time that I've never heard a bad thing about. And I'm like, they heard, you know, there was a bad service experience. It wasn't what they expect from this level of property. And that I said, I need more information on that, please, because I want to dig into it again. We have a great relationship with their sales team, so I want to contact them and say, hey, this is the feedback.

Kelly McDonald [00:17:12]:

How can we avoid it in the future but we're paying those higher prices. We do expect the service level to be what we're paying for.

Alyssa Peltier [00:17:19]:

Yeah, Virgil, what's your point of view on that too? I do have one call out from the survey that was more anecdotal feedback. It was qualitative, and it really struck a chord with me. You know, I wish I knew the name of the planner here, but I got the quote. It says we're spending more due to increased costs just to maintain the quality of our programs, not to enhance them. That really stood out to me because maintenance is one thing, right? But I think that planners are interested in creativity and innovating and driving change and growth for their events. And this is where I think if there is a joint goal objective between the planner and the hotelier, to enhance the program, right. Not just to spend the same and get the same output, but to really grow. Virgil, I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

Alyssa Peltier [00:18:05]:

To really, to help planners do more, truly do more with less, right? Not do the same with less, but do more with less.

Virgil Napier [00:18:14]:

Our industry, our world, in fact, almost every, every industry should be relationship driven. If all you care about is a financial bottom line, then frankly Cfire is probably not the place for you. It has to be a value relationship that fits what you need from your budgeting and an overall scale. The experience that has to be met. The vision that has been anticipated for your attendees, whether it be as simple as a board meeting as we said, or transactionals, or you've got five or six team members training, or if it's going to be for us, the ultra incentive when you're coming down to the Caribbean. So for us, first and foremost is what is the vision that needs to be met. And then we obviously, from a service standpoint, being one of the top 300 hotels in the world, for us it's always about making sure that experience far exceeds what the original quote needed to be. Not in price, but in experience.

Virgil Napier [00:19:04]:

We look at it, we look at it how we can partner with, in this case the sourcing agent or sourcing director. And what is the vision that you're looking for? Typically you're going to have a 5% maximum cost referral from the prior year. So the first thing is you look at where'd you go last year and how did that happen and does that assist Kelly and her team? Well, we know that frankly 5% will get it over the line, but if it's more than that, we need to go back to our financial team, our accounting team, our director of finance, whoever that may be, and decide if that's going to be a fit for them. So if that's the case, we should immediately look at that from a hotel's perspective or a resorts perspective, airline perspective, cruise line, any of those partner vendors that are truly partner vendors. Because at the end of the day, we work on not just one program, but of Kelly's 1200. We want to be represented and have the opportunity for all of them. Now we know we're not going to get that, but we want to be put into the game. And the mindset grow when you get that choice of going to one property, one restaurant, one dinner, because we're seeing inflation in double digits in the United States.

Virgil Napier [00:20:08]:

While we may not want to claim that from our mindset of our government, the reality is that we're sitting here as three independent business persons. We're seeing that, absolutely. We're seeing it from a cost of goods sold, we're seeing it from transportation of the goods, we're seeing it from people just getting to wherever you need to get to. We've also seen a large number of our people come back to the offices. So we want to have those in-person functions because they work. They really do work, even though we love being on vacation, sort of while you're calling in remotely, especially in the islands, but that's not the case. And you actually have to be back in Charlotte and you make it through traffic. The fact is we want to be in front of people, and you build those relationships internally, and then you tie those in with who your partners are around the world.

Virgil Napier [00:20:53]:

So when we see those costs going up, we see all those things happening. We need to come back together and work with Kelly and her team and say, hey, look, we have this opportunity. You know what, coffee and lobster are super expensive for us. Can we switch that and do something else like a grilled pork setting on the beach, and then have an amazing set of design of cocktails and rums that are coming in instead of champagnes? Because we give them the opportunity to make those decisions but have that value come to life with the vision that they need. But that's our responsibility to be their local experts and it's her responsibility to have the pencil and paper put together and where she needs to be for the financial side and then give us the creativeness to make it happen. But it comes out with relationship-driven. We have to be honest, as she said, with each other, hey, look, I can't give you a deal on 700 private lobster meals on the beach, but I can give you a deal on this. What if we translate this into an experience and then we expand it for you? That's where we can be creative and make it come to life.

Alyssa Peltier [00:21:52]:

I love that. The shared goal, the shared value, the shared vision, but allow the hoteliers the creative freedom, right to solution. Right. Not feeling like the planner needs to own that entirely. The hotelier has a responsibility there, too.

Virgil Napier [00:22:06]:

It is our responsibility as your local expert in whatever locality you're in. If you're in Nashville and you know you're going to go to Belle Meade, to the distillery and make it happen, fantastic. If you're going to be in Orlando and do one of the really cool donut shops that just opened, whatever the case is the new evermore project that's there, it's fantastic. But again, if we're doing that, we need to be that local expert to give Kelly the opportunity to say, I've got 17 different leads coming in, I've got 15 different destinations. Who works with me the best, who makes it happen and who can get this done in the right amount of time and the right amount of value with the right price to make it come to life. I don't have time to go back and forth with you. I've got 1200 meetings that she's doing a year. She's got a team of ten or 15 that are around her, which used to have 25.

Virgil Napier [00:22:53]:

So now you've got to make that happen. It's our responsibility to do the same thing for her, but not just for her, but for all of our partners. And we do that also on an orientation side as well. When we talk to our vendors that are bringing us the coffees and the lobsters and such we do that every morning. We have our fresh fish brought in from the fishermen. We work with local farms to get a better deal. So when Kelly is saying, hey, what's in process? Right now, it's mangoes. And our oyster mushrooms are growing here in Kitimat.

Virgil Napier [00:23:20]:

It's perfect. Let's do some really cool desserts with mango and have an amazing oyster mushroom setting for an appetizer. That saves her money, but she still has a wow experience and gets something done organically and locally.

Kelly McDonald [00:23:32]:

And I'll say one other thing that we're doing to, you know, save some money too, is when we're looking at our higher level meetings where it's more of a let's go and have these activities and interactions, we're trying to keep things on-site, right? So rather than go to that hotel where then I have to go to downtown to do a dine around and then I have to go to an outside company to do a jeep tour or whatever way it may be, trying to find that property where everything's on-site so we don't have to pay for additional transportation, right. Things like that, different restaurants that we're paying for. So, trying to keep that on site when we can has been a push for us as well.

Virgil Napier [00:24:10]:

You know, we do that. That's part of the reason why we launched this past week, the new Hotel Indigo, Grand Cayman. It's literally next door to our Kimpton seafire resort and spa. We've got two amazing beachfront locations. You can walk and wander. We also do support our local, what we would say, Cayman resident programming. We want to make sure that you do experience it. So on that night off, when they come in for their, for an incentive program, first night is on the property welcoming everybody.

Virgil Napier [00:24:34]:

You want to be toes in the sand. And the final night you have to do the award ceremony because they earned the award to make it profitable and have that person behind them, whether it be a spouse or significant other, recognize them as well. And then in between that, we want you to experience the destination without being costly or ineffective for the experience. We want them to come down and have such a great time that they're going to immediately go. Let's repeat. Our repeat factor for groups now is almost 40%. That almost never happens for incentives simply because you have to go to a new place. But because the planners have such a great experience, the purchasing side has hit it within the mark of where they needed to be for their financial obligation.

Virgil Napier [00:25:14]:

And now all of a sudden the staff are going, we want them back. And the guests who attended are like, yeah, let's come back. And that's that partnership that we talk about. You can't be naive to the fact that there are costs in the world. So we as a team, team need to make that come to life. And that's what we do pretty well down here in the islands. And hopefully it's translated into what some of the other destinations are seeing as well. But you got to give that value.

Virgil Napier [00:25:39]:

If you aren't providing the service, that excellence, that intuitive personal service that's required, you're just leaving Kelly in a storm of this didn't work. Now I have to go and find a whole new place and react, assess where we're going. You've done yourself a disservice twice. You didn't hit the projection budget that they needed and you didn't make it happen and make it flawless. And if that's the case, shame on you as an operator and you've lost.

Alyssa Peltier [00:26:03]:

The chance for recurring business, right?

Virgil Napier [00:26:06]:

That could be anything from an airline to bus service to simply going to a restaurant out to eat. And if you've got the opportunity to have your clients hug them, love them and know them, and that's what we.

Alyssa Peltier [00:26:17]:

Do, I think that's a perfect way to close out this conversation. I feel like we could talk for hours on all of these trends. I know we really only scratched the surface. However, that is a great teaser for more of this conversation taking place at Cvent Connect. Kelly and Virgil, I know we mentioned this several times here, but they will be participating on a panel at CventConnect taking place just shy of two weeks now in San Antonio. This session, if you are not able to join at Cvent Connect, will also be made available on demand so you can enrich this whole dialogue with their perspectives immediately following that conference. Like I said, first week in June here or second week in June here. If you are also interested in downloading the whole pulse report, which we do now have available for your review, that can be downloaded at plannerpulse dot cvent.com.

Alyssa Peltier [00:27:08]:

and you can kind of get into the nitty gritty on all of that data and understand what's happening in this space a little bit more granularly than what we were able to accomplish today. With that, Virgil and Kelly, I thoroughly appreciated this conversation. I felt like I learned a little bit more and certainly enriched my knowledge of the space and the partnership that goes on between planners and hoteliers. So thank you both for joining us and sharing all of your perspectives and insights today.

Kelly McDonald [00:27:32]:

Thank you, Alyssa, for having us.

Virgil Napier [00:27:34]:

Thank you for the time. Truly appreciate it.

Alyssa Peltier [00:27:36]:

And Virgil, I definitely want to come down and visit you all. I would love a little lobster. Lobster on the beach really sounded great.

Virgil Napier [00:27:42]:

Right now, living in the islands, you get used to it. All I want is some cheap Chinese food and some pizza. You know, it's a shame. I don't actually know what happens in my commute. It's almost two and a half minutes, so I don't know what happens at the end of Taylor Swift's song. Did she get back together? I don't know. Finished? I didn't hear the whole song, so you're a riot.

Alyssa Peltier [00:28:03]:

Virgil. Kelly Virgil, thank you so much for joining. And thank you, listeners for listening to this week's episode of Great Events. See you next week. Thanks for hanging out with us on great events, such as a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews [00:28:23]:

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Felicia Asiedu [00:28:32]:

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Alyssa Peltier [00:28:58]:

People, and that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.