What is the best practice event management for the post-COVID era?

Written By Andrew Ford

Running events post-COVID is tough. Just getting people to invest the time to show up is a real challenge. I'm sure my fellow entrepreneurs have felt this pain and I am keen to share my learnings from our recent CampusLife event. (Check out the pic here)

I am not an event manager by trade, but those that know me well will understand that I LOVE running events. It ticks a lot of boxes for me; meeting new people, helping clients, drinking & eating, doing business, and developing my team. What's not to love!

Over my career, I have run events for 2,000 plus people in Las Vegas (yes we had an Elvis...no it wasn't me...), arranged an international event in Sydney for 800 people from 12 countries including negotiating with BMW to donate 2x fully loaded motorbikes, and loads of smaller client events too. I even had my own business club running monthly events - BYOB Social Club. Some events were amazing, some not so much, but I learnt a lot from all of them.

Last week my team pulled off an amazing event with 100% attendance. Who does that?! I was so proud of them that I wanted to write this blog partly to give them some kudos and also to pass on some knowledge to help others out there. Here are my top 3 tips from rocking your next event:

1. Vibe

Your tribe is your vibe. I am lucky enough to have an awesome team of Marketing Coordinators who are studying or just finished their university courses. They are motivated, hard-working, and down-to-earth and they attract similar people to our events.

A large part of why people will show up to an event is because of who invited them and how they feel about that particular relationship. Most of the people that showed up had a personal connection to someone. If you don't have a big team, get your close friends or business associates to help bring people.

2. Teamwork

Many hands make light work. Gaby was the event manager and I put a lot of responsibility on her to do this job because I recognised she is a fabulous people motivator. Basically, everyone in my team loves her, and thus showed up and put in a full effort because she is awesome.

That's a dozen people helping to promote the event, set up, pitch in and pack up. Which freed up my time to do what I do best, network. If the event is positioned to authentically help your target audience, you can find people to put in the effort to help run it.

3. Prepare

Do the work. There is nothing like preparation to ensure your event runs smoothly. We actually moved the date a few times as it was a bit slow to get traction initially. But once we had the right team in place to run it, we went to work on refining the plan.

We thought about what our clients and students would really enjoy on the night, reviewed it constantly and worked hard to get it done.

So there you go, a few quick tips on how to get people to show up to your events and run them stress-free. Of course, there is a lot more detail that I could talk about and happy for people to reach out if they want some more advice.

But I would really love to hear some other tips and tricks from those more qualified and experienced than myself, so hit me up with a comment below and let's help small business owners to run better events.

Cheers Andrew

P.S. Congratulations to my team for an awesome job: Gabriella Ishak event manager extraordinaire!; Shinyi Chin the best CMO I could hope for; Lily Schultz dream team leader; Chloe Smith bringing the best vibes always; Nako Akashi capturing the night in pics; Carmen Parker rocking the bar; Mitch Benbow purveyor of fine wines; Ben Jowett always helping, especially for high stuff; Andi Campisi new team member and bringing it!; Carynna Teh the quiet achiever, I see your efforts and very much appreciated; Eliza Wright off on her dream job but still came and contributed, amazing!

Special mention to Grace Pehar and Angelina Tully who were overseas but still helping out; Daniela Montes de Oca our newest recruit who helped with the tequila and that can't be underestimated!

Andrew Ford
Marketing expert Andrew Ford, the founder of Social Star, has discovered the secret of ‘Powerful Branding’. With a fire for unleashing people’s inner brand and developing business models to generate profit from an individual’s passions, Andrew leverages ground-breaking digital and social media marketing techniques to create digital strategies for clients to attract maximum opportunities. Having established a strong name for himself in the field, Andrew blends traditional business techniques with now-necessary tools for entrepreneurs to achieve scale, quality, and influence in their niche. Andrew’s comprehensive business background and qualifications consist of a Bachelor of Business (Marketing) (RMIT 2003), a Graduate Certificate in Management (MBA Executive Program, University of Sydney 2005), and a Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (Swinburne University 2011). Continually on the cutting edge of his own education, Andrew has tested his marketing theories in forums such as the BCG Business Strategy Competition, which he won in 2005 against all Victorian MBA schools, and the Venture Cup Business Plan Competition (Swinburne University 2003), which he won in the Masters category. With experience working at Hewlett-Packard, Sensis (Telstra) and IBM, Andrew also has mentored dozens of junior staffs to help them achieve their professional goals. Meeting and influencing high-profile public figures helped Andrew to realise just how many professionals require more understanding and control of their public brands or appearance, and need help with the skills to use the many amazing free tools at their disposal to generate success. At Social Star, Andrew consults with clients to uncover their personal brand – both where it is today and where it can be tomorrow – and refine and define how that should be displayed in social media in order to attract their perfect target audience. Andrew mentors his clients to rapidly grow their business’ audiences, resulting in larger potential client bases and higher revenue. Applying formulas that integrate over twenty years of Andrew’s business experience and fifteen years of formal business education, Social Star specialises in building clarity and velocity for clients’ brands using the ‘Understand, Build and Leverage’ methodology. ‘Having a Personal Business enables people to have an authentic, congruent connection with their valued clients and partners, using their brand as the bridge,’ says Andrew. ‘I’m highly driven to work with the new breed of entrepreneurs and small business owners – people who have a passion for making the world a better place. Traditional business models are stepping aside as people follow their innermost dreams and my role is to see them operate within their values while creating wealth. Some people think you have to sacrifice what you love to be successful in your business, yet it is actually the opposite. Follow your passion and success will come.’ Lecturing at Swinburne University from 2009 to 2011 on brand dynamics and digital marketing, presenting at numerous conferences, and consulting to hundreds of clients, Andrew has seen his philosophy work that if you follow your unique path, based on your skills, experience, values and goals, you will automatically attract the opportunities you desire and achieve the success you deserve. Living his mantra, Andrew has created a successful business and attracts high-profile clients including musicians, athletes, authors, models, entrepreneurs, professionals and small business owners, helping them find their ‘why’ in their business and fulfilment in their lives. Business for Andrew is more than work, it’s personal. Running a personal business means that he is able to fulfil all of his values rather than separating his life from work. It supports his two boys while providing social opportunities, educational development, fitness opportunities, spiritual fulfilment and many valuable friendships. Social Star has now become the vehicle for Andrew to crystallise his mission in the world, to help people love what they do, supporting his ‘why’, that if more people loved what they did, the world would be a better place.
http://www.andrewford.com.au/
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