Action Steps

That has always been the measuring stick for my events, do they appear seamless and impeccable to participants? If the written evaluation forms the participants complete at the end or an event (always have people fill out an evaluation) are positive, you will know that you have succeeded. If not, you know that you have just been blessed with another “learning experience” and that it’s time for the inevitable action step of course correction. Those evaluations are not bad or wrong, just things to learn from.

I could write endless pages on the seemingly more practical action steps of event production from how to select the best dates for your event to what products sell, but much of that information is available in other forms including books, websites, recordings, etc. Many people have covered how to get the best deal from a hotel or how to best set up a room for success. In researching those other sources, I have found most of them lacking perspective because the authors were “successful speakers” who were selling how to follow in their footsteps. This is not my goal. I am interested in laying out a clear set of action steps to help you succeed in sharing your message.

I am not a successful speaker who will try to wow you with how much money I have earned from presenting seminars. I am a producer, coach, logistics master and consultant, and I also have years of experience presenting. My true passion is not, however, being the “star” in front of the room but, rather, being behind the scenes making things happen and being of service to everyone involved. Because of that passion I will be sharing ideas, action steps and concepts I have found to be lacking in other books, websites, CD’s and other teaching tools rather than rehashing tired old ideas.

For example, most other experts write or speak about how to get the best deal from a hotel. There are simple strategies that work for such negotiations, but when looking from a broad perspective, the few dollars saved is insignificant if your staff, presenters and most importantly your participants do not receive first-class service at that facility. That does not mean that you have to be at a first-class facility or spend big bucks to succeed. It does mean that you have to know how to get the staff of your chosen facility on your side every step of the way. And nowhere have I seen an expert discuss doing that.

From my perspective, the way to achieve that level of commitment from the facility staff is to be as concerned about what they want as you are about what your participants want. Take care of everyone involved. That often means taking that extra step to overproduce. For example, most “experts” tell you to get to the room one or two hours before your start time. I say get there several hours before if not the night before.

My normal routine is to find out when the room is going to be set up (especially if it is a large crowd) and be in the room at least half an hour before that time. Then I can work with the people who have to do the grunt work of hauling in chairs and tables to make sure that it’s done right the first time. Yes, they have a diagram, but it’s invariably not exact and frequently incorrect. If I’m on site with the site staff, I can save us all a lot of time and hassle. They’re happy because they only have to do it once, and I’m happy because I don’t have to deal with last minute changes.

If you maintain such a big picture perspective and take care of everyone involved , your event will succeed. In these next action steps, I will constantly remind you of these two simple ideas because they can and will save your skin if you use them. Fortunately or unfortunately, the only way you can verify that this works is to not use them. Only then will you have the painful trial and error learning experiences that we all try to avoid.

Your context could be in the form of a vision or mission statement. It will certainly arise from the initial work that you have done to lay a solid foundation for your event.

At the event itself, your context is the environment in which your content will succeed or fall flat. For example, what is the first impression you provide to your participants? You have only a minute or two to do that, and it happens well before you or your presenter moves to the front of the room and begins speaking.

Once your context is in place, you can begin what many people believe is the real action steps of creation, building the event content. The initial step is to look toward the end of each event. How do you want your participants to feel when they leave? What do you want them to take with them (other than the obvious – all your back-of-the-room products and registration into your next events)? How do you want your staff (be they paid or volunteers) to feel, and what do you want them to leave with? And, perhaps most importantly, how do you want to feel and what do you want to leave with (other than the obvious lots of money)?

When you have answered these questions, you can begin the next of the action steps, scripting your event be it one hour, one day, one week or one month. No matter how large or small every event needs a script. This is not a detailed word-for-word description, but it does need to be comprehensive enough so that all the team members know what to expect. That’s not to say that you (or your presenters) can’t or won’t deviate from your script, but it will provide everyone with a sense of where things are going. It will also be critical for the timing of breaks, which often require coordination with catering facilities as well as completion times, which should be made clear to participants ahead of time and strictly enforced.

With the basic elements of your script in place, you can begin the action step of building those blocks, making sure to have certain elements included. First, you need to think about the most important people involved – them (your participants) not your or your presenter. This puts you miles ahead of most everyone else who starts by considering what they want to say or present rather than what is wanted and needed by your audience.

Next, you need to get them involved the moment your presenter steps in front of the room. The easiest way to do that is to ask a few “how many of you” questions which gets many people to raise their hands. You can also begin by having them introduce themselves to a few people that they don’t know in their immediate area. Or you could create a mingling experience in which people have to walk around and interact with one another. The possibilities are endless, but the premise is the same – get them involved because it’s about them not about you. This is a principle that must continue throughout your event to insure success.

The other very important "them" is your support team. Even if you are the producer and not the presenter, you can't do it all by yourself. You need to assemble a group of people who are willing to support you and your event, be they volunteers or paid staff. Regardless of that status, these people need to be team players who are fully enrolled in what you are providing to your participants. They need to know about all the elements of your event, and how they as individuals can best support making everything successful.

Also spend some time considering what are often the most important aspects of an event – breaks and meals. You need to provide your participants with plenty of time to process your content (information) as well as take care of the necessities of life (bio breaks as well as the more recently occurring cell phone breaks). If you don’t provide adequate breaks at regular intervals, your participants will begin to get distracted wondering when they will get a chance to take care of their biological and communication needs. If you go too long without a break, you can watch them begin to get antsy as well as leave the room in the midst of your presentation. This will rob the room of energy and divert the attention of the participants still in the room.

Such a “trial run” action step can be done inexpensively in your home or a local community center where you can often get a room at little or no charge. Although you still want to create the most seamless and impeccable atmosphere possible, it is not necessary to take your program to the levels that you will for the actual event. For example, you may plan to give everyone a binder and professionally done handouts with wonderful graphics, but for this trial simple copied handouts with the basic material will suffice. The fact that you are doing this should naturally be explained to your audience at the onset of your presentation.

If, however, your event will be a half-day or longer, you need to consider other ways of getting feedback without the action step of presenting the entire event. I suggest creating a summary report (2 – 5 pages) outlining your event and asking those same people to read and comment on it. You can also take the action step of presenting portions of the event such as one or two-hour exercises or an hour talk to your guinea pig audience and use their input to extrapolate what works and what doesn’t work for the entire event. With that revised script in hand, you can then begin the next of the action steps challenges - getting your event up and running.