Here are some of the pitfalls that, if left unchecked, can easily cost you a good chunk of your annual event budget without achieving any serious results. Get ready to organize your corporate partner meeting, no strings attached!
In order to stay competitive, not only large but also medium-sized businesses can no longer afford not to devote significant resources to external communication. This includes no doubt what you say, or what you actually want to say about your company to those who buy your products or use your services. However, organizing a company partner meeting is a lengthy and labor-intensive process. As a company manager, if you also consider the burden an event puts on your company’s budget, you’ll soon realize that being circumspect before you start is crucial to getting a return on your investment.
Here are some of the pitfalls that, if you don’t pay attention to, can easily cost you a good chunk of your annual event budget without achieving any significant results. Let’s take a look at the drawbacks.
1. Not setting clear and precise goals for the partner meeting
What is the purpose of your event? If you hire an event planner, and this question is one of the first three that they ask you, you can start to have high hopes that you are dealing with one of the best event planning companies. But as rarely as this question is asked, it is just as rarely answered. And you cannot assign event assets to non-existent event objectives, and your results are more than questionable. So the most important thing you need to be clear about is what outcome you expect from organizing a corporate partner meeting.
The next important question is: are your goals measurable? Goals should always be measurable, otherwise you will never know if you have achieved them. You can have many different measurable goals. 90% of your invited partners should attend the event. At least 80% of your guests should send back feedback after the event that they had a good time. Your on-site salespeople should close at least 15 deals at the partner meeting, each worth at least HUF 25 million. These can all be great targets. But until you have a goal, you don’t need an event.
2. Not putting enough emphasis on inviting your partners
When we ask about the invitation process in our meetings, half the time we get the following answer: “We’ll handle it in-house and then send out an email.” Then the most common answer is: “Fine, but then the meal will have to be ordered for half the number of people invited. There will certainly not be more than that.”
For those companies that entrust us with the organization of their events, we do not even recommend that you send out the invitations yourself in an e-mail, even for in-house events (company team-building, family day, kick-off event, end-of-year Christmas party).
When you organize a corporate partner meeting, the first impression the invitee gets of you and your company is the actual invitation. Therefore, it makes a difference what you send them and how you send it to them, because it is at that very moment that your partners will measure your company and rank it. The invitation, and the way you communicate it, is you and your company. If it’s not interesting enough, they won’t find you interesting to begin with.
You also have to consider that not only you, but your competitors are holding events as well! They want to attract the same customers you do, and you can be sure that they won’t go to every event. It makes a difference how attractive your invitations are, doesn’t it?
3. Choosing the wrong venue
What is the best venue for a partner meeting? The one that makes you as happy to invite your event guests as if you were inviting them into your own home. You should be proud of it. But life is not that simple, there are many questions to be answered.
Is your venue in Budapest or in the countryside? For a partner meeting, definitely a Budapest venue. Most of your partners will be coming from work. Think about it: if you were invited to an event, would you be happy to sit in traffic for hours while you drove to a rural venue? If you get out in time at all, you can start thinking about when to get back and how, and what if you fancy a glass of wine?
It is recommended that the architectural style, interior design and furnishings of the chosen venue should be in line with your company’s identity, or if you choose a theme for your event, it should reinforce it. For example, if you run a cool IT or telecoms company on the top floor of a glass office building in the city center, and most of your clients are young people, it is advisable to choose a modern, trendy venue instead of an old museum building. But a conference room won’t suit your Gatsby party either.
And there’s more. To make the right choice of venue, you need to anticipate your event and know exactly what impact you want to make. Many people decide based on the size of the floor space. Which is certainly important, but it’s always more complex than that. Your venue may be spacious in terms of floor space, but if you’re there with 300 guests, it will still feel cramped. The ceiling height of the venue is a crucial issue, but for many people it is not a consideration. With low ceilings you will feel cramped, crowded and run out of air. Whereas, if you choose a location with a high interior space for the same floor area, you will feel comfortable and uncluttered. If you’re planning a large-scale event with spectacular big stage productions, large-scale decorations and impressive visual elements, consider only prestigious venues with high ceilings. Stage events, even if it’s just a presentation in front of 300 guests, won’t otherwise come alive and engage your guests. A small venue makes a small impact, a large venue makes a big impact.
4. If you do not have a punchy stage show that appeals to a wide range of guests you are not choosing the right venue
What is the best stage show? There are many answers to this, but one thing is for sure, it has to be entertaining. It could be a foreign artist rarely seen in Hungary, it could be a local performer performing rarely to the general public, it could be a visual show with a wide technical arsenal, or it could be a one-off one-off production of a unique musical and visual choreography ensemble. Make no mistake. Don’t make it far-fetched or pretentious, because there’s nothing more embarrassing than a sweat-soaked performance in front of hundreds of guests at a corporate partner meeting.
What are these stage shows? In many cases, we encounter requests from customers to display the company’s products and colors on stage, to have the company logo drawn somewhere, to have some colleagues appear in the production, or to have the CEO. These are the things that make a show feel artificial, and only in the rarest of cases, when the fortunate stars are together, does something good come out of it. All of these things have their place in the event, but certainly not necessarily on the stage. The stage show of the event has one job. It must be visually or emotionally powerful, entertaining and captivating.
If it does that, you’ve achieved your goal, without any of the whining mumbo-jumbo.
5. If you feel like wanting to be the presenter, or ask one of your colleagues to be the host. Or you don’t feel like you need a moderator at all…
Whether a partner meeting or anniversary event, a moderator should not be an issue. Without a host, you simply cannot talk about sophistication; and not that it’s not worth missing, but it’s just one of the most important actors after all. The host shall be the face of your event, greeting your guests, introducing all the performers and leading the evening. It’s also up to him or her to keep to the script you’ve been working on for months to make sure everything happens at the right time and in the right place.
But of course you have colleagues who have a personality, like to perform and have always wanted to speak in front of a lot of people. Nevertheless, you still need a skilled, well-known presenter who will attract attention precisely because of his or her notoriety, skill and confidence.
You should not be the presenter for any of the reasons mentioned above. You should not be the presenter because your most important job is to concentrate on engaging in conversations with your partners and having fun doing it.
6. You and your colleagues are “off” at the event
Organizing a corporate partner meeting will be a worthwhile investment from a business point of view if it generates relationship capital first and then sales. This requires a strong personal presence. Prepare for a partner meeting by carefully planning your own staff. Give your partners the opportunity to contact you or one of your colleagues or salespeople at the venue whenever they want.
It’s an appropriate and appreciated gesture when you greet your guests in the reception area, not only by the event staff, but also by yourself. In a pre-event meeting or training session, prepare your own colleagues and salespeople for event communication. They should walk around all evening, chatting, building your partners’ trust in your company, and closing deals. Avoid, or at least minimize, the chances of your partner meeting guests not making a personal connection with your company, and don’t wait for them to go exploring for your colleagues. Your salespeople should be visible, and you have no choice but to strengthen your relationship with the most important of your partners.
7. Failing to follow up on your guests after the partner meeting
If you don’t follow up, you won’t get feedback from your partners, you won’t be able to improve your product or service, and you won’t be able to increase your market share. You should ask your partners within a few days of the event for comments on how they felt, whether they had benefited from the event, in what ways your event was different from your competitors’ corporate partner meetings, what they particularly liked and suggestions for changes for the next time. The feedback you receive will provide you with the most useful information for improvement.
Furthermore, your surveyed guests will feel important, like someone whose opinion matters. People are grateful and like to be asked for their views. Remember, follow-up is also another opportunity for personal contact, so don’t miss this chance. It will be most useful if you do it over the phone or in person rather than in writing. This can be done by your colleagues, but you should call your most important partners. It’s more time-consuming than sending out a questionnaire, but it will pay off and you stand a good chance of having a full house at your next business partner meeting. Why? Because you made someone important by asking. And they’re grateful. Easy, isn’t it?
8. When you take yourself out of the organizational equation
This article is for company managers for a reason. However enthusiastic, capable and skilled your colleagues may be, and they would no doubt take on all the clumsy tasks of organizing a corporate partner meeting themselves, we suggest you don’t let go completely.
On several occasions, we were not given the opportunity to meet with the head of the company, but only with the office manager, marketing or HR colleagues. The end result was that the briefs and answers we received from them, after months of work, resulted in something quite different on the decision-maker’s desk than he or she had expected.
Time is money for us too, not to mention the time of your own colleagues, who are paid by you to do event planning tasks on their own time, at the expense of their normal duties. To avoid this, we would recommend that you ask for weekly reports on the progress of the organization during the planning period, and make the necessary corrections if something goes awry. Efficiency is in our common interest, as is successful event management.
+1. You take care of the organization in-house instead of using a professional event management company
Although corporate team-building events for employees have gained in importance in recent years, organizing a corporate partner meeting is still one of the most important event management tasks in a company’s life. But while you can correct any fiascos at a team-building event at a later date, you can’t afford to make mistakes at a partner meeting. You have several tools to re-motivate your employees, but getting your partners back will require a much more substantial investment of time and energy.
You may have colleagues who are experienced in event management, but they may not have the experience of an event management company. To prepare for any pitfalls, you need to hire one of the best event planning companies.
Although corporate team-building events for employees have gained in importance in recent years, organizing a corporate partner meeting is still one of the most important event management tasks in a company’s life. But while you can correct any fiascos at a team-building event at a later date, you can’t afford to make mistakes at a partner meeting. You have several tools to re-motivate your employees, but getting your partners back will require a much more substantial investment of time and energy.
Author: Krisztián
