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How Competitive Are We?

I hold the opinion that meeting professionals are nice people. Most event professionals take pride in organizing or presenting events that reward and motivate those who attend and help drive stronger corporate culture and business success.

We tend to be “people” people.

I believe we make our companies or our clients more successful. Having said that, I know our profession must articulate how we add value.

In a changing world with an increasing emphasis on competitive results (anyone watch the Olympics?), can we prove how we measure and drive business success? > Read More

Posted by Les Selby, CMP, CMM, Carlson Marketing, on Wednesday, March 31st at 3:30 PM.

ROI – Why Are You Picking on Me?

In my last blog, I expressed my opinion that successful meetings and event professionals must use their knowledge to design better events and then communicate the business value of face-to-face meetings to the budget owners.

If planners can’t prove that our events add value and achieve objectives, events will be seen as a waste of resources.

Have you followed the link in the February issue of The Steve Report to the Executive Summary of the M&IT 2010 Market Report?

Over half of the Canadian planners who completed the survey said they have felt more pressure to calculate return on investment (ROI) on their meetings/events since the recession started, but only 11 per cent measure or even have a standard way of measuring the ROI of their events.

Could this possibly be the last generation of professional event planners? > Read More

Posted by Les Selby, CMP, CMM, Carlson Marketing, on Friday, February 26th at 11:19 AM.

Are Events Frivolous?

It was not surprising that one of the most popular sessions at the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) Annual Conference, in January, was, “The Top Industry Leaders on the Future of Meetings”.

Their message emphasized that planners need to do a better job explaining the value that their events provide for their companies or clients.

It is a pretty consistent mantra right now that if planners could do a better job explaining this, the industry would recover faster.

Not sure I agree.

I think Zibrant’s Peter Rand probably is more on-target when he says planners need to “look at the objectives of events, the ROI on events and also the contribution we can make to the content of events,” to continue to adapt our profession and increase our credibility (watch his great interview) .

Do you think we’re adapting quickly enough? > Read More

Posted by Les Selby, CMP, CMM, Carlson Marketing, on Friday, February 5th at 5:01 PM.

Ten Fearless Industry Predictions for 2010

Here are my 10 predictions for the M&E industry for the next 12 months:

10) MORE EVENTS in 2010, but a slow increase over 2009, due to strong budget restraint, combined with a corporate fear of having the media and investors view expenditures as wasteful.

9) RFPs ARE THE NEW NORM. Procurement, Finance and Third Party Planners will want to demonstrate that they have performed “due diligence,” so will request multiple suppliers bid on new projects. However, to keep the cost of vetting suppliers low, more RFPs will encompass multiple events or even multiple years. As the cost of preparing proposals can be high, smart suppliers will decline to invest in bids that they have little or no chance to win.

8) VENUES WILL RAISE RATES QUICKLY as the industry starts to improve. Mid-range venues will raise rates first, since they will see the biggest increases in business. Too many hotels and sites are operating at a loss and cannot continue to do so and survive.

7) PLANNERS WILL HAVE TO JUSTIFY HIGHER PRICES. It is going to be challenging for planners to explain to budget owners why rates are raising when we are in a recession, but venue owners and investors will demand an increased return on investment as soon as business conditions allow.

6) THE SUCCESSFUL MEASUREMENT AND ANALYSIS OF EVENT DATA will be critical to justifying future events. Although the on-site experience is still important, it is secondary to achieving business objectives. Successful planners will be those who can show how their events further client business development, solve issues or result in more favourable business relationships.

5) WHETHER AN INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL PLANNER, YOUR ABILITY TO SOLVE CLIENT ISSUES will determine how many events you run in 2010. When money is tight, expenditures that result in improved business will be approved first > Read More

Posted by Les Selby, CMP, CMM, Carlson Marketing, at 2:35 PM.

Price vs. Value Conundrum

As we look forward to 2010, most people anticipate another challenging year for the meetings and incentive travel business.

Although there has been some talk of the global economies starting to improve, many economists are predicting that Canada’s economic recovery will be sluggish at best in 2010 (see an example at Shock minus Control).

This is the time of year that many companies issue RFPs for 2010 and beyond, so this may also be the perfect time to determine what your strategy will be to succeed (or even just survive).

For those who work within an organization as a corporate planner, your challenge will be how to demonstrate your value, so that your employer values your work and determines that you are worth additional salary.

The challenge for many independent or third-party meeting professionals is that they do not know how to prove the value of the services they provide and so they end up competing solely on price.

Although Procurement personnel love that cost-based RFP response, since it drives down the price they pay for meeting and incentive planning, for the meeting professional, the lowering price spiral actually devalues their worth.

I once heard someone say that if we didn’t value our own work, no one else would, either.

Take the time now to figure out how you add value for your clients. Look for what you do well that your clients really benefit from. Does your experience help clients avoid challenges? Does your company have added services that a client can utilize quickly and efficiently? Or can your analysis of event results help drive the future business success of your clients? > Read More

Posted by Les Selby, Carlson Marketing, on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 11:32 A.M.

Will SMM Kill Off Events Planning?

You may have seen that NBTA (National Business Travel Association) launched its Strategic Meetings Management Certification course this month at Emory University, in Atlanta.

The course targets corporate travel, meetings and/or procurement professionals and suppliers who work in a strategic meetings function.

More than a decade ago, Meeting Professionals International launched their CMM (Certification in Meeting Management) program, to promote a strategic approach to meetings management, and more than 500 meeting professionals have taken advantage of the in-depth learning offered.

‘Strategic Meetings Management’ (SMM) is the fancy name for the process of developing policies and procedures to ensure that enterprise-wide meetings and events are managed properly, to achieve corporate objectives.

This is not the same as meetings consolidation, which concentrates the planning and execution of events into a small team, to provide consistency of delivery.

SMM’s focus allows for event planning to be distributed throughout an organization, to ensure all events are properly planned and approved to maximize return on investment and support the corporate brand. > Read More

Are Your Events Worth Holding?

This fall, The Wall Street Journal published an article called, “The New Face of Face-to-Face Meetings,” in which it was stated that more “companies are putting greater emphasis on making sure their meetings achieve quantifiable results.”

The article went on to say that one of the ways companies are looking at increasing the value of meetings is to integrate face-to-face and virtual events to better complement each other.

This only makes sense when one considers that earlier this year, Meeting Professionals International, in conjunction with the Event Marketing Institute and George P. Johnson, released the 2009 Global EventView report indicating that 31 per cent of respondents choose event marketing as the marketing discipline that provided the greatest return on investment (ROI).

This was followed by web marketing, at 20 per cent.

Eventview also stated that 52 per cent choose event marketing as the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships, followed by public relations (21 per cent).

The increasing need to justify the ROI for events should not be a surprise. Most of us involved in the meetings and events industry have certainly been exposed to articles and seminars that are focused on how to demonstrate the value of what we do for our companies or clients.

However, the tough economic environment has driven this need to the forefront. No one within our corporation or among our clients is going to commit valuable marketing dollars to any initiative that cannot demonstrate its contribution to the bottom line. > Read More

Posted by Les Selby, Carlson Marketing on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 3:13 P.M.