Repertoire Events, Ohio

06/25/2020

This is possibly the hardest part of creating a powerful meeting experience. Audience needs are less apparent than emotions, beliefs, thoughts or facts. But, we can reduce them to four basics; control, recognition, safety and growth. If you can hit these four needs, your audience will listen. Attendees identify their own particular needs and will participate fully.
Let’s take a closer look :

1. Control: Everyone wants more control in their lives. We have a deep desire to make our own choices. Control makes attendees listen.
2. Recognition: Being acknowledged/cherished means much more than earning more money or enjoying longer vacations. A legitimate award lasts longer than a raise in pay.
3. Safety; Choosing a large chance to win over a large risk to loose is natural. By offering better odds, you ensure their enthusiasm.
4. Growth: Most folks like to hope that tomorrow will be a bigger, better day. Offering opportunities to grow their knowledge, abilities, understanding or cheque books is enticing.
As you elaborate on your event theme, you should constantly try to offer opportunities to enjoy benefits which touch on these basic needs. Doing so will definitely make your event much more memorable.

06/25/2020

This memorable quote from Maya Angelou, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." best sums up the next step in creating a superb and memorable event. Think about this when you are working out your message. The message is the actually meat on the bones of your Theme.

EVERYTHING you do during the event expands, encompasses and reflects the theme. From hand-outs to refreshments, each supports and harmonizes in its own way, what the theme is saying. Therefore employ the inherent emotions, beliefs, thoughts and facts suggested by the theme.

In the example I recently gave, the Theme was Spread your Wings – Take Flight. The emotion: the feeling of empowerment. The belief: women could be the future of STEM. The thought: no one could stand in the way and the fact: already 37% of STEM graduates were women.

Reinforce a theme with these simple, exciting highlights in every aspect of the event, and get the message across. In my next post, I will discuss how you can strengthen creative themes by knowing your audience and instilling in them, powerful emotional insights.

06/25/2020

OK. So now you have the purpose of your meeting and know your audience, what comes next?

\What actions do you want your audience to take after your Conference and what should the outcome of those actions be?
I did an event for women considering science. The purpose was: to encourage careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). The audience - college-bound graduates as well as people looking at future alternatives. Despite advances in women’s career, they were apprehensive. Some did not have the basic skills, others that it was a man’s world, others that they would never be able to find jobs or satisfying careers,
Many attendees experienced misogyny and didn't know feminism was about women reaching their full potential.
What was the message and theme best suited for this? We choose "Spread your wings - Take flight". It included action (spread your wings) and outcome (take flight). It was actually saying, “you are equipped and ready to emerge into a sky high potential” And promised, “You can fly as high as you want, the sky’s the limit."
Once we had the Theme and message, we had to create the reality that needed to be presented to our audience. Next I'll explain how we did this and how you can do this as well.

06/25/2020

Use creativity to make your event message as meaningful as possible.

In 35 years of experience with meetings, I have discovered one indisputable fact - if you message is dull, its meaning will not get through! I have never attended a meeting where a dull message gets an energetic response. Some meeting planners try to develop upbeat messages which do not harmonize with the organizational facts. Attendees know this did not relate to them or their needs. Others came up with good messages but delivered them in mediocre ways. Both approaches failed miserably. So how do professionals come up with relevant, energized messages and then create powerful ways to deliver them?

It begins with being certain about two things in detail; the goals of your meeting and your audience

If you aren’t sure why you’re holding the event, don’t do it. That is like sailing a boat without a rudder, the trip may be interesting but you can’t say where you’ll end up. Equally, unless you know the audience, their needs, thoughts, beliefs and hopes, you cannot custom design an event specifically for them. In both cases, the resulting action and outcome don’t align!

This therefore are the first two items you have to ensure for a successful meeting. My next post will tell you what you have to do when you know your goals and your audience.

04/29/2020

What is it going to be like for event planners when the pandemic subsides?

04/29/2020