Everything You’ll Ever Need for a Successful Event, Except…
You did it again. Yes you, the author of yet another one of those outdated posts that promised to tell me what I needed for a successful event. Or webinar. Or virtual presentation. Maybe a hybrid presentation. So it was with a rapid heartbeat, breathless energy, and boundless excitement that I decided to check out the latest version of your long-in-the-tooth article.
Because who doesn’t want everything they need for a successful event?
But wait…nah… I checked myself.
I merely skimmed your article (because I’ve read variations of it over the years). It was entitled “Top 5 Things I Need for a Successful Event.” Or something like that. (The exact title really doesn’t matter.) So, I read. Or, shall I say, skimmed…
Point 1. Okay. Yeah.
Point 2. Okay. Sure.
Point 3. Okay. Whatever.
Point 4. Okay. Knew that.
Point 5. Okay, Yet again.
But what about?
—
It was a number of years ago when I read an abstract for an upcoming industry event session hosted by Big Shot tech company. The event was being held at a resort on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, so you know it just had to be good. (I wasn’t there…) The abstract caught my attention because it, too, held the promise of delivering webinar success.
“Everything You Need for a Successful Webinar.”
Everything, huh? So I read the abstract.
Okay, good, uh-huh, yeah, and?
But what about?
That session, then. Years ago.
Your article, today, years later.
No difference. None.
That was the piece of marketing and event content that got the ball rolling for me. Since then, there’ve been different versions of articles on this same topic … What’s Needed for a Successful Event… and The Top Things Needed for a Successful Event…
You’ve read them. You’ve written them. You may have paid people to write them for you.
But what about?
—
So I read a January, 2022 article on the Forbes CMO Network website. It shared the results of a marketing technology survey about the most important topics for the New Year. Except the ‘Number 2’ most important topic really didn’t have to do with technology, it had to do with ‘Story’. The marketing technology is merely a delivery platform for stories. And this year, marketers are faced with streaming media. Audio, Podcasting, Video… And I’ll add mobile, events, virtual, hybrid, etc.
All stuff that makes far too many CMOs run the other way…or call 7-figure ad agencies and consultants and vendors… Because, after all, who taught the CMO about public speaking, going on camera, on a microphone, to produce interesting podcasts, engaging webinars, or wildly enthusiastic audiences at a virtual event?
Nobody, outside of that 2-day presentation training program you had years ago in that hotel ballroom.
And is your CMO coaching and developing your personal and professional communication skills to be effective at events? In commoditized tech landscapes begging for differentiation?
Betcha, Nope. But there may be one or two. Maybe.
So the efforts to enable teams to succeed across event channels of interaction have become laughable. Because there are few, if any, credible efforts being made. They look and feel and smell like stale meeting room coffee from 2019.
And, if by chance, your company does anything in regards to enablement and event prep — it probably calls whatever they offer ‘training’ — and you’re lucky if you can even get some of ‘it’ for more than a few days a year.
More, the efforts to ‘sales enable’ business developers for sales events is equally comical. Because while far too many companies are spending far too many dollars and staff hours on content creation (a fancy term for slides, and sleep-inducing written content) — sales is ready to pounce on anything that delivers originality to the process of team readiness.
Event presenters, one and all. Provided that 2019 pot of stale, cold sales enablement coffee.
It’s one thing to create a stack of storytelling content for your sales team; it’s quite another to comprehensively enable your entire front-line coworkers and partners to be able to speak to that content, to tell those stories, to hold, influence, and motivate their audiences. To use their voices. Their physical skills. To practice, and practice, beyond the cheerleading sessions of your upcoming three-days sales kickoff… To meet the new 2022 dynamics of the omnichannel communication marketplace.
So what about?
—
The Speaker? The Presenter? The person that your audience wants to hear, or see. They’re not a part of the technology. And nobody gives a damn if you have the most color-coordinated PowerPoint slides, the most-advanced virtual event technology, the slickest demo, or the most innovative software or services to sell.
The audience wants to hear from them. The audience wants a wildly successful event session, and experience. Because it’s the person delivering the message. Not the tech. Nor the content. And I’d rather listen to an engaging public speaker using two paper cups with a piece of string vs. somebody who can’t hold an audience for more than 60 seconds.
I know you’d say the same.
—
For those writing those ‘everything I’ll ever need…’ event articles, you continually miss one thing: the person telling the stories. The presenter. Because it’s not about the technology. And the content those speakers use is never the most important part to any presentation, or story.
They are. The storytellers.
So no, you’re not giving me everything I need for a successful event, or experience. Or anything along those lines. Not until you include the presenter.
A damn good presenter.
Tony Compton holds two degrees from Loyola University Chicago: a 1987 B.A. in Communication and a 1995 MBA. He’s held a number of marketing and business leadership positions over the past three decades. And he knows a thing or two about events.
