Career Stories: Alyssa Peltier on Blending Creativity, Curiosity and Customer Focus in Events

Alyssa Peltier:

Like I said, I never thought that I was going to become an event marketer. I liked the event space marketing to events and marketers and planners, and I understood the value of all of this, but I found it a really interesting dynamic to grow my career as kind of user number zero, if you will, taking Cvent's products, understanding how our users would ultimately use them through this living showcase, this living embodiment of what a user conference on Cvent could look like.

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 not be your host for this week's episode of the Great Events podcast by Cvent. We've decided to do something really interesting over the next couple of weeks. Kind of flip the script on all of our hosts and have us get interviewed for the first time ever, I guess, and talk about our career journeys, how we ended up in the events industry or in the technology industry. In the case of how I like to think of things.

So I brought to the podcasts today, I would say a champion of mine, which is why I thought this would make for a really good episode, but also I'm equally a champion of hers, Carissa Bartelt, who will be interviewing me on my career journey, my career story, not only just at Cvent, but kind of how I got here and where I'm going or where I think I might be going. So without further ado, I'm going to pass the... Hold on, podcast microphone, insert podcast microphone here, over to Carissa and give her the interviewer chair for a change.

Carissa Bartelt:

Hi, everybody. Super excited to be here talking to Alyssa especially because as she said, I am a big Alyssa fan girl, I would say, especially because I kind of occupy one of the old roles that she had. So I'm excited. I look up to her and we work together pretty closely. So I'm excited to talk about her journey today.

Alyssa Peltier:

Each of our hosts got to choose who we wanted our interviewer to be. So as you have Felicia's interview and you see Rachel's interview, the dynamics will be different for each of us. And one of the reasons why I chose Carissa to interview me was the unique nature of our relationship at Cvent as somewhat of a mentor, mentee, but also filling in one another's shoes. And I'll touch on this in a little bit, but Carissa actually supports one of the roles that I previously held at Cvent, so it's really a unique dynamic that she and I have.

Carissa Bartelt:

So I think let's get started then. Let's talk just about your career journey. What's your story? How did you get here?

Alyssa Peltier:

Interestingly enough, I have a degree in graphic design. So my background is very much weighted in the creative industry. I like to make things, I like to make them look pretty. I would say visual and presentation design is just kind of a core passion of mine, which is hilarious because the blank walls behind me would not support that I have any interest in design, but just moved into a new house, so getting things up and running. It's a slow start here. But yeah, so my background is rooted in the creative arts, creative communication. And so my first career out of school was doing just that. I actually worked in the waste industry as a graphic designer, which I know I've alluded to on many sustainability podcasts that we've done here. So I have a little bit of a subject matter expertise. I would say a minor in recycling and waste diversion tactics, not only for residential homes, but also for events. So it's something that I do like to lean into sometimes. But anyways, my background in graphic design there blossomed into more of a marketer's role over time.

I was at that company for five or six years in that seat. I ultimately, I would say graduated as marketing director. And under my job I managed our website. We relaunched and rebranded in that time period. I managed community outreach programs, so there was a little bit of a feel of kind of a customer marketing and customer engagement type of a support role there. What else did I do at the trash company? Oh, big thing. Managed the events that we attend, we did not... Well, we did some internal events. We had a major Christmas party that was about 600 individuals. So I was aware of kind of the F&B negotiations, venue procurement type space, very much more of an internal meetings and employee engagement type stuff.

But on our external event programs, we did a lot of bringing our waste industry to new markets through trade show programs. So I would be the individual with the pop-up stands in the back of my car and popping those up the day before at major expo centers, primarily in the Washington DC market, but also in Georgia. And I was the worst possible Cvent customer, or it could have been a great Cvent prospect at that time because I was using the fishbowl with the business cards and we were completely not digitized at that time. And so when I decided to move to technology, it was a really interesting move for me given that I was so analog in a marketing capacity at my previous employer. But I made that leap in 2016, and it's been a really interesting journey.

Carissa Bartelt:

That's how you got started. And when you changed really from... When you came to Cvent, you had made this pivot towards really loving the event space in particular, because you had grown in your career, in your scope, you were overseeing all these things. Why was events the thing that you decided, "I'm going to take the next step, this is the space or the channel that I want to play with"?

Alyssa Peltier:

Yeah, and it's funny because I thought Cvent was going to be really interesting to market to because I had been a customer. I had walked in those shoes. It felt very relatable, dissimilar to let's say cybersecurity or cloud solutions, things that were just more intangible to me. Events were tangible. I could touch it. I could feel it. There's a physicality to the output there that felt like, "Okay, I could market to these people." And I think that's what ultimately had me interview well, and I was able to kind of get the job that I got. That being said, the function that I was supporting at hiring was for our customer marketing team. So I was part of... And I'll shout out to Caroline Hogan. If Caroline Hogan listens to this, it'll be real fun treat for me. But Caroline Hogan built our customer marketing function out from the ground up.

We did not have a customer marketing team that was dedicated to supporting that part of the customer experience. We did a lot of demand gen. We did a lot of promotional stuff to encourage the sale, but then nurturing the customer after the fact. And I would say customer marketing was kind of like a buzzy thing to build and grow in the software space around 2015, 2016. And Cvent was coming of age at that time too. So our team grew from a team of one to a team of six or seven, I think, in that time period. And under that customer marketing function, I was responsible for more of our advocacy acts. I would do customer storytelling, so customers who had a really positive experience with Cvent. I was creating a lot of content around telling those stories, but also encouraging them to share that information on other channels.

So we launched a advocacy network supported by another third party technology that has been really great. Cvent still uses that today. It is called Cvent Celebrities now. At the time when I was running, it was Cvent Advocates. Also shout out to any of you who have been an advocate since the days I was managing that program. But that was really fun because I got to experience what happy customers feel like. I wasn't on the dissatisfied side. Those that were leaving, I wasn't on the churn, wasn't on those trying to convince them to use Cvent. These were the diehards with the product. And at the end of my first year at Cvent, had a really good... just really riding a high. I loved the company. It had been really great transition from the trash company, small local family owned, clearly a lot of Wild West type processes to something that felt really solid, really grounded.

I felt connected to the direction of the company. We would do all these big company-wide events and these big sales kickoffs, and you really had a ton of visibility into what this company cared about and why it mattered and how it was relevant to me. So when I was asked at the end of that year to become the primary marketer for our Cvent CONNECT user conference, I was all in. I was like, "I'm going to help promote this brand to our happiest customers, get our users excited, get everyone equally as excited about events, and also using Cvent as I was at that time." And so that was the shift, that was the big shift in the career. But we can get into the event marketing space in a second because that's kind of the core of what I've done at-

Carissa Bartelt:

Yeah, and I think that's great. I mean, so many people end up in the event space, I think, and it feels like we all kind of stumbled there by accident because we love a certain part of it. And I think it's just so interesting that you see, I think, the opportunity for events to build things like the advocacy, to build champions, to build those connections. So you are really coming at the event space from a true marketing angle of "I want to build my user base, I want to build my community, I want to make people really happy and connect with them." And that's kind of your angle. But then also I think that leads nicely into maybe where you go next on this is all great and touchy feel, and I want to make those things happen, but how do I make that worth it and how do I prove that?

Alyssa Peltier:

Yeah, so I took on this job that I was like, "I've never promoted events before. I've never hosted a user conference." And I think Cvent Connect at that time was maybe 2,500. When I retired from that role five years later, I think we had grown it to approximately 4,500 with a blip of a pandemic in there in the middle where we had, I don't even know, 30,000, 40,000 virtual registrations at that time. I'm blurring the numbers. I'm sure Rachel could fact check me on that. Like I said, I never thought that I was going to become an event marketer. I liked the event space marketing to events and marketers and planners, and I understood the value of all of this, but I found it a really interesting dynamic to grow my career as user number zero, if you will, taking Cvent's products, understanding how our users would ultimately use them through this living showcase, this living embodiment of what a user conference on Cvent could look like.

And so it was this kind of interesting hybrid role of product marketing, event marketing. I also had a little bit of demand gen marketing in there because we were doing a heavy amount of promotions and driving conversions of registrations and also trying to connect those into our marketing operation systems. I would also say at the time when I came into C, Cvent had a pretty immature approach to connecting all of our systems. We were quasi siloed, and we had a lot of instances of Cvent just by nature of our business and how easy it is to stand those up. And so we went through a lot of exercises at that time, trying to digitize or connect the disconnected through digital means. Not just user conference, but also all of our event programs. And so I was spearheading a lot of those programs for a number of years for Cvent, and I'm happy to say that that legacy lives on.

I can look back and say, "Wow, there is a lot of synergies now between our marketing operations folks, between our demand gen folks and the event marketing function, which still stands today." In driving those registrations and getting the value of all of our events, no matter the objective of that event, whether it's to drive demand for new business or whether it's to embrace and celebrate our customers. All of our event programs are kind of firing on all cylinders now, which is really exciting to see. And even with a pandemic happening in that, we've bounced back in our programs as well to drive Cvent's business forward. So we really are fueled by our events in every facet of the customer journey.

Carissa Bartelt:

How did you do that? How did you make that jump? I feel like being on the customer marketing team and really trying to live and breathe, a user conference is a big deal, but now that you're involved with really reinventing what the ecosystem looks like of this channel within Cvent, it takes a certain kind of person to do that. Why do you think you in particular were able to accomplish that at Cvent, or what made you successful in those conversations [inaudible 00:13:08]?

Alyssa Peltier:

I think the way my brain likes to work is very much at the macro level. And I think some of this comes down to the graphic designer in me, is organizing and processing information and kind of bucketing it, putting it into the places. And so for events, to me it's all about the what and the why. Here's what the event is, but why is it that we're doing and that should drive the experience. And so to me, looking at our entire event program and portfolio and trying to understand what my Cvent consulting team would call our program architecture was really important because it would justify our spend and our investment in any given event type and ensure that we were getting the value out of it.

And ultimately, that comes down to the people who are supporting it. It justifies why they are investing their hours, their time, their energy, and honestly their life and their livelihood into something. And it gives them value. It also gives the business value. So I think a lot of it comes down to program organization and being able to answer the what and the why for each of the programs. And if we stay true to those North Star objectives and those North Star goals and establish true KPIs that are distinguishable by each program, I feel like it benefits all. It benefits not just the business, but it benefits those individuals that are supporting it too. It justifies why they come to work every day.

Carissa Bartelt:

I love that. And I think that leads really... I mean, if you are so driven by the what and the why and you're willing to ask it too, because I think sometimes we all sit in meetings or we all sit in these big discussions and people are afraid to be the one to ask what and why. And the confidence to do that, the drive to do that, the ability to do that and then organize the answers that you get really helps then make that actual plan, which I think leads really nicely to your current role. And that's kind of what you're doing right now.

Alyssa Peltier:

Yeah. And we kind of skipped a step there too, because after, I was like, "Okay, I never really thought that I was going to drive and promote events and be so heavily embedded in the events world." And I talk about this on the podcast all the time, my core competencies... Well, albeit, I just talked about graphic design really became marketer specificity. And so while I was living in this events channel, if you will, I felt like I had a lot more to say and to develop and grow and to bring my lessons learned to the market and also enrich my experience with the customer's vantage point as well. So I did a short stint with product marketing, kind of helping to shore up some of our messaging around the value of Cvent to marketers, which is kind of the connection point between what Carissa does today and what I do is really leaning into that and maturing all of that messaging given a lot of Cvent's M&A activity as well.

We just acquired Splash. I know we've talked about that on a previous episode. Also, [inaudible 00:15:59] a lot of those technologies didn't exist when I was in C, but certainly the groundwork was starting when I was there a few years ago. And there was an acknowledgement that there was this other type of persona that would be interested in the procuring of event technology to digitize the space. So like I said, I had been that living embodiment. So I did a little bit of product marketing, but I really liked talking to customers and I really liked getting the customer insight. So my current role, and you can see I've bobbed and weaved quite a bit at Cvent, so we can talk about that too, is in our sales function within our enterprise sales division.

So we're working with organizations that are Fortune 2000, so very large, well-known brands that have many, many hundreds if not thousands of events across multiple business units and/or across the globe. So it's a complex web to manage, to untangle and also to drive value. Trying to understand the value of something which you can't see can be a real challenge in the enterprise space. So I sit on that division and we're in... I work to help our small, basically professional services function called Cvent Consulting, develop solutions and go to market with those solutions and services that will help those enterprise brands achieve value with the technology that they've invested in. So a lot of this comes back to how I started at Cvent, working with customers to get the most value so that they're happy, so that they're engaged, so that they continue to use the product, but ultimately so that they continue to get results for their companies.

And I think that's the big key point for not just Cvent, but for my career, is wanting to make customers happy. And feeling the energy that comes from happy customers is a really rewarding experience. I know that, that ultimately is how I leave every event or every Cvent CONNECT is, "Man, it feels really good to talk to happy customers, because there's so many at a conference like Cvent CONNECT." Yeah, there are some people who are dissatisfied too, but I think I feed off of the positive energy and that starts to become infectious and snowball. And so I think what I do today is kind of a culmination of all of these things, but ultimately the one big thing is happy customers have driven my career forward.

Carissa Bartelt:

I love that. Well, and I think that's a great way to kind of put it because it's almost like the reason why you have moved from role to role or position to position has been this dedication towards helping communicate with the customers, helping connect the customers, helping get the most of the products and services that they're using and buying. Especially in the technology space, when you have so much to offer when you're selling any sort of platform or any sort of SaaS product, it's all about how do you evangelize and energize and really engage with that community to make sure that they are happy, that they are feeling confident in their investment, and that ultimately they're growing, whether they're growing, I think, themselves or their company or their event channel in this point, I think that's that passion.

Alyssa Peltier:

Yeah. And it helps to work for a strong and stable brand like Cvent too. I'm not going to say I would even try to claim credit for in terms of success... But any success, I am grateful to work for a sound, stable company like Cvent, that has afforded me all of these opportunities and has allowed me to kind of navigate my career in the way that it has, all while still kind of being supportive of this event planner, event marketer, this events space because I do think it really is important towards how we conduct business. I really do believe that events are a key component to a business.

Carissa Bartelt:

And we can feel it, I think. We work really close and it's one of the reasons why I'm here talking to you, but I feel one of the great things from the outside looking in about your career so far is I feel it's very apparent, you've left your impression on each role that you have had, and everybody's always willing to come back and have those insights, and you just have a great passion for making sure that you are still aligned to your North Star, to the point where you are always helping out everybody on the way up behind you, which is great, because we all lift each other up and that's awesome. Obviously, we talked about how you started in graphic design. We've walked through that journey, but let's look at the beginning and then the end. So market insights and customer consulting and helping them really be successful right now to graphic design. Where are the synergies there?

Alyssa Peltier:

It's funny because I definitely find myself wanting to get back into that creative space, and so this is not me saying I'm leaving Cvent anytime soon, but there's opportunities and experiential marketing. There's opportunities on the agency side of things that could be an interesting intersection with events, with marketing, with the marketer. Because there's a lot of synergies between what I've done but also what I'm capable of as well. And so that's compelling to me. Right now, I'm happy in C and what I do and working with customers and trying to deepen our understanding of the customer experience and the customer problem set.

That creative piece of me is always kind of hanging in the background saying, "Oh, you got to go make something, or you got to go do something. You got to make it look pretty." The copy and color part of me sometimes rears its head and it's hard to have it die down because that is one of my... I think that's just innate to me. That's just where my passion lies. I think there's something to be said for the experiential side of things and really on that corporate marketing, more on that brand marketing space. It's always where I thought I would end up, so who knows? Future is still available, still wide open for the taking.

Carissa Bartelt:

Who knows? If you had to give young Alyssa at the waste company advice for how she could get where you are today or find and discover what her North Star is in her journey, what would that be? What would you say to your younger self?

Alyssa Peltier:

Somebody had said this to me in an interview and it was a... Sometimes when you're in an interview and it's like looking in a mirror and the mirror talks back and you're like, "Oh, I am that. That's really cool." I think the word is stay curious. The tagline would be, stay curious. You never need to settle in your career. You never need to say that you're one thing. Somebody had said to me recently, "We contain multitudes." And that really resonates with me because it helps me to say, "I'm not just one thing." I'm not just a demand gen marketer. I'm not just an event marketer. I'm not just whatever. And it kind of eases some of the anxiety of complacency or getting stuck in something. You're capable of being more than what you are today.

And the way forward is through curiosity. Be curious about either what somebody else's job is, be curious about why something's not working. Be curious about a former self that you want to bring to the forefront, if that's a creative minded individual, but stay curious, stay questioning things. I also think there's a tone of optimism and curiosity that's not... You can push back on things when you're curious. If you're like, "I don't know if I agree with that. I'm curious if we were to do it another way..." And it's a way to navigate what potentially would be contention in a career. I think curiosity, if you're leaning into that as a feeling, you're never going to rub anyone the wrong way. And it helps you to continue to stay fluid, stay mobile, you're moving forward as opposed to being put in a box somewhere.

Carissa Bartelt:

And that's energy that people want to be around, which I think is a testament to just your personality and your vibe here at Cvent. I think is really well known. And obviously while you make a great podcast, that's why we all come back and listen to you talk week after week.

Alyssa Peltier:

Yeah. And I will say, I love... I wouldn't even really talk about some of the speaking stuff that I do, that's just kind of come out naturally because I can't close my mouth. But I do appreciate all of this has been, in the spirit of curiosity. I was curious about how to host a podcast. I was curious what that could mean for my career. I've been curious to speak in front of small groups of people, virtual groups of people, webinar groups of people, very large rooms, small rooms of people.

And the curiosity has helped me to overcome any anxieties that might come with that because I am not immune to feeling anxious in public settings, speaking in front of people too. And I've talked to several of my mentees about things like that too. The curiosity of saying, "Can I do this? Will I be able to do this?" has helped to drive other things like this that are just ancillary. This isn't my core job for Cvent by any means, but it's something that I was interested in and I stay interested in because of episodes like this where we have fun conversations about me.

Carissa Bartelt:

That's true. I mean, I think as we wrap up, your energy is infectious and you do have a lot of people that look up to you and all of these people that really, I think you could consider mentees. And what do you think makes you a good mentor to these people? How and why do you think that this gravitation happens and you have this energy to provide back, give information, share information?

Alyssa Peltier:

I think being transparent and honest is core. It's transparency in what's bad, but it's also transparency in what's good. Sometimes we lean into... We can't talk about any of the bad stuff because then that would scare somebody away or it would intimidate them in their career, whether that's about an organization, whether that's about a job, whether that's about another individual. I think having a really fair and balanced, and like I said, transparent way to analyze anything allows for people to want to come back and seek that type of mentor, mentee relationship because they see you as level-headed. Your analytics mind is level. You can see both sides of the coin very clearly. And so, I think that they find people appreciating that level of transparency beneficial in navigating their own careers.

Carissa Bartelt:

Yeah, I think you're right. And I mean, that's what really makes you a path leader or a leader in the space because you care about what you're doing. You're constantly pushing forward, but you're realistic and then willing still to help lift and be honest with the people around you. And I think that that's the kind of person that people want to innately follow or want to watch be successful.

Alyssa Peltier:

Yeah, totally. I tend to think I'm glass half full, but sometimes the glass is half empty and you have to talk about the emptiness in order to fill back up, and I think that's an important conversation to have, but always know that there's a path forward. But we have to lay all the chips out on the table, say, "This is what's not working, and then this is what is working" in any scenario. And I think people need that. They need the mirror to tell them what's true and what's false. I think that's a good way if you're looking to mentor individuals to approach things. Be transparent, not just with yourself, but be transparent in any situation.

Carissa Bartelt:

Yeah. And I think that transcends whatever space you're in, whatever role you're in, whether if it's events, whether it's in marketing, whether you're in sales, those are just core things that I think anybody listening, no matter where they are in their career journey, or no matter what their function is at right now, could find super tangible. I love it.

Alyssa Peltier:

This was a great episode, Carissa. I think we can wrap now. This is your multiple joining of the podcast, you've been on here before?

Carissa Bartelt:

Yeah. Yeah. You guys can't get rid of me.

Alyssa Peltier:

Yeah, we can't get rid of you. You might be a recurring host moving forward because your questions are real good.

Carissa Bartelt:

I have a great role model.

Alyssa Peltier:

All right, listeners, thank you so much for joining us this week and we hope you enjoy both Felicia and Rachel's interviews as well. We'll see you next 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.

Alyssa Peltier:

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.