The Blinks
1. Focus on the real need
2. Explore all the options
3. Think them all through
Let’s assume you’re a marketing manager in a growing and ambitious tech company and your boss has asked you to take responsibility for the organisation - and success - of an important forthcoming corporate event.
It might be attendance at a conference or exhibition, hosting a seminar, product demo, webinar or symposium, or a meeting for business contacts or senior members of staff.
Whether it’s an internal event, external event, in-person, hybrid or virtual event, the buck stops with you.
Do you go it alone or get some expert help?
In situations like this I always ask myself three questions:
Am I addressing the real need here?
Have I explored all the options?
Have I thought each of those options through to their potential and likely outcomes?
If you can’t answer Yes to all of three questions, you may not be making the best decision or taking the best course of action.
So, what is the real need here?
Coming in under budget won’t do much to compensate for an event that is poorly attended and/or received. The real need here is to host or attend a great event that reflects well on your business, your boss, and you, otherwise, what’s the point?
If you have a target return on investment (e.g. sales at an exhibition), it’s unlikely to be achieved if your event - or your attendance at someone else’s - fails to hit the mark.
Hosting or participating well in a great event is the real need here. If you don’t have a reasonable budget, then it might be better not to host or attend it at all.
Have I explored all the options?
In this context, and assuming you have decided to host or attend the event, there are three main options:
1. DIY
2. Get some help
3. Outsource the whole thing
If you‘ve organised several similar events successfully in the past, then DIY is a perfectly acceptable option, assuming you have the spare bandwidth required.
If you haven’t but want to remain actively involved, then seeking some affordable expert advice and support is a smart move. They’ll know the unknown unknowns and the pitfalls to avoid.
If you’ve requested and been given a particularly generous budget for the event, then outsourcing all the planning, work and management is a good option. However, you will have to share the glory and you may have to answer for the cost if the ROI isn’t forthcoming.
So, thinking these options through …
DIY is risky unless you are an expert and experienced event manager with time on your hands. The real need is a great event. This option is the least likely to result in that.
Hiring some extra help brings in the expertise and time you may lack at in as cost-effective way as possible. You can dodge the pitfalls and the unexpected without breaking the bank.
Outsourcing the whole event to a large established and topflight event company is of course the least risky option. “No one ever got fired for hiring IBM” after all. But it is far from the most cost-effective option and may be a sledgehammer solution for some smaller, internal, or more intimate events, or those that have smaller associated budgets.
At Odyssea Events, we offer that sweet spot option above.
We call it The Goldilocks Solution … Just right.
Daphna Rozenberg
The Event Angel
Odyssea Events
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