Are you tired yet? Well, this is the life of a meeting/events
planner. The meeting planner (really, project manager) must
have excellent relationships with all these suppliers, trust
them implicitly, and be able to communicate the client’s
needs, the planner's needs, and the supplier’s needs
back and forth. All partners must be committed to doing
their best to meet the client’s needs. The final outcome:
a jigsaw puzzle, all fitting perfectly together.
New partnerships are created for every event, built on
years of trusting relationships, of understanding how each
partner works. Everyone involved must have all the information
needed to do a good job at a fair price.
The meeting planner needs to know that the suppliers understand
the objective, have the most up-to-date information and
equipment and can transform their proposals into reality
on the day of the event. Suppliers need to be confident
that the client is communicating any significant changes
as they come up. There are other important relationships
with the sales manager, the account executive, etc. For
example, the meeting planner must trust that the AV technician
will form an immediate partnership with the speakers and
get it right - the first time - so speakers, clients and
delegates on-site will all have their objective met.
After a 10-minute briefing at a recent event, a technician
working with a magician had to make some pyrotechnics happen
on cue while the magician made the chair of the committee
appear out of nowhere. All did not go exactly as planned
because, though the chairperson had been asked not to wear
perfume or hair spray, she did. This posed a significant
danger because pyrotechnics were involved and the magician
wall allergic to perfume. However, because the technician
and the magician had formed an immediate partnership in
advance, the trick was altered on the spot to ensure safety,
and it was all done so smoothly that the audience was not
aware of any changes to the original trick.
In the end, it truly is all about communication. For a
rather large conference, my company was covering the meet-and-greet
at the airport. We worked with the client and the chosen
transportation company to ensure we had all the right flight
numbers, times of arrival and arrival terminals. A chain
of command was set up to communicate any changes. The partnership
was all in sync - or so we thought. At the airport, we discovered
that many delegates rented cars and didn't require transportation
to the hotel. The client had not communicated that information
to us so we had five cars at the airport that were not needed.
it could have been an expensive error, but because of my
alliance with this particular transportation company, my
client was not charged for the five cars not used. In the
end, the client saved money, but my transportation partner
lost money.
Sometimes a meeting or an event is too large for an individual
meeting planer, or we are too busy to give it our full attention,
but don't want to let the business go. That's where our
fellow IMPAC members come. IMPAC is seven years old and
is a Canadian-wide organization of independent business
people in the meeting / conferences/ events profession.
We often partner on events and meetings, sharing our expertise,
time and knowledge. We trust each other not to "steal"
clients and to work with the understanding that the "owner"
of the client is the CEO for that event.
All partnerships work back and forth between clients, suppliers
and the meeting planner. It takes all of us to create the
alliance for success. So next time you begin a new project
think about all the partners involved. It is partnerships
that create success.
Sandy Biback, CMP, CMMis the president
of
Imagination+ Meeting Planners Inc..
and a college professor at George Brown
College and Centennial College. She is past
President of IMPAC and a member of MPI.
Sandy can be reached at biback@ImaginationMeetings.com
