Navigating the Complexities of Corporate Event Planning with Meg Fasy and Sarah Bseiso

Feb 22

Sarah Bseiso of Informatica and Meg Fasy of fazeFWD

Sarah Bseiso is a passionate senior event professional, who worked in different capacities across associations and event agencies, finding her home in corporate event marketing. She has gained a diverse skill set contributing to her field success. As the Senior Manager of Global Events at Informatica, Sarah plays a crucial part in shaping and implementing the event strategy for Informatica World, the company's flagship customer conference. She prides herself in her strength of fostering cross-functional collaboration that helps bring events to life.

Meg Fasy’s career spans several markets including hotel, CVB, industry associations, event technology, and strategic partnerships. She has worked for or with some of the biggest brands you know. Meg is the founder of FazeFWD, a premier sponsorship management company where clients turn to her to help them with their live and virtual event strategy.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

The significance of autonomy and boundary-setting within event teams
The importance of relationship-building with vendors
Innovative event planning trends
Strategies for successful collaboration in event planning
The challenges and approaches to adjusting to cultural shifts

In this episode…

In this episode of the “Solution Seekers” podcast, Paige Buck dives into the intricacies of event planning with Meg Fasy, founder of fazeFWD, and Sarah Bseiso, Senior Manager of Global Events at Informatica. They tackle the balance between structure and innovation in managing large-scale events and delve into the significance of building strong relationships within the industry. Both Meg and Sarah share their insights on the pivotal role of autonomy in event teams and the art of saying no to unfeasible ideas while remaining open to new trends that are reshaping the event planning landscape. The theme of maintaining a vendor relationship as an extension of the event team, as well as how to navigate the challenges when a vendor isn't the right fit, sets the tone for a candid conversation about the finer nuances of corporate event planning. In a field where the expectations are as dynamic as the technologies and audience, how do event professionals strike the right balance between innovation and discipline?

Meg and Sarah, with their wealth of experience, provide valuable perspectives on the challenges of trying to be everything to everyone versus the need to set boundaries and selectively embrace new ideas and opportunities to avoid team burnout and turnover. Their expertise shines as they advocate for the importance of understanding client needs, proving vendor competence, and treating contractors with respect. How does one navigate the twin demands of innovation and structure to achieve growth and avoid pitfalls? Listen to the seasoned insights of our guests as they recount personal experiences and lessons learned from managing flagship events and steering companies toward strategic branding and successful collaborations.

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Resources Mentioned in this episode

Meg Fasy

fazeFWD

Sarah Bseiso

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events.

Kennedy Events creates stress-free conferences and events, providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs—from in-person to hybrid and virtual events.

To learn more about our services, visit our website at www.kennedyevents.com and schedule a consultation today to find out how we can guide you in making your event successful.

Transcript

Paige Buck [00:00:01]:

Welcome to the Solution Seekers podcast. I'm your host, Paige Buck. Today I'm delighted to be speaking with two long-standing event industry pros, Meg Fasy of FazeFWD and Sarah Bseiso of Informatica. Sarah is a passionate senior event professional, having worked in different capacities across associations, event agencies, and now in corporate event marketing. She has gained a diverse skill set that contributes to her success in the field. In her current role as the Senior Manager of Global Events at Informatica, Sarah plays a crucial part in shaping and implementing the event strategy for Informatica World, the company's flagship customer conference. She prides herself in her strength of fostering cross-functional collaboration that helps bring events to life.

And Meg. Meg Fasy's career spans several markets including hotel, CVB, industry associations, event technology, and strategic partnerships. She has worked for or with some of the biggest brands you know. Meg is the founder of FazeFWD, a premier sponsorship management company where clients turn to her to help them with their live and virtual event strategy.

Today's episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events. Kennedy Events creates stress-free conferences and events, providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs, from in-person to hybrid and virtual. You can learn more about us at kennedyevents.com

Hi, lovely women of the event world. How are you?

Meg Fasy [00:01:46]:

Good.

Sarah Bseiso [00:01:47]:

Well, thanks for having us.

Paige Buck [00:01:49]:

Yeah, very, very glad that you could be here with me today. So, Sarah, would you kick us off with just the big open-ended question about the programs that Informatica runs, the events that you own and your role within them?

Sarah Bseiso [00:02:02]:

Yeah, absolutely. So we run the gamut of events. We have strategic events in which we show up as sponsors to various big tech programs like Microsoft Ignite, AWS, all those big shows. We show up at Gartner's. We're run the gamut with that. And then obviously we have a bunch of internal programs like our sales kickoff events and our club events. And then my near and dear favorite, which is our flagship user conference, Informatica World, that also has a smaller on tour component that happens every fall as well around the world. So all of our regional teams kind of focus and run those programs from what's happened from our flagship event.

So it's kind of everything that we touch at Informatica, me specifically, I just have the pleasure of working cross-functionally from top down. Right. Our executive team through every kind of department that we have at Informatica touches Informatica World. And I just have the pleasure of working with various work stream leaders to kind of keep us on track from content and branding to event execution and event experience with a bunch of really great partners from our AV teams to our extended team in the event agency world. So that's a bit about what I'm focused on and how I'm working through that at Informatica.

Paige Buck [00:03:30]:

And you and Meg have been working on this together for two years now.

Sarah Bseiso [00:03:34]:

Yeah. So Meg is my near and dear friend, doing all of our sponsorship sales. Thank you, Meg. Sponsors get there. Yeah.

Meg Fasy [00:03:44]:

I was going to say, what a coincidence. Informatica World's my favorite as well.

Paige Buck [00:03:49]:

Of all those programs!

Meg Fasy [00:03:51]:

So Sarah brought me in two years ago to work on their sponsorship sales, create the prospectus, and then sell for her for Informatica World. So I'm lucky enough to say it's my second year. I’m very, very thankful to be working with her and her team. She's got a great, to Sarah's benefit, she does have a big team around her to help and she does work with all the different departments, which means I work with all the different departments too, which is fun.

Paige Buck [00:04:19]:

That's interesting to hear. Meg, how are you engaged with the other departments? And then what does that look like on a real nuts and bolts level? Is that regular recurring calls with department heads?

Meg Fasy [00:04:31]:

No, it's kind of one off conversations when mostly everything gets filtered through Sarah or she is at least part of the email communication. But I may reach out and need to add something in social media for a sponsorship or maybe we're adding a session and I need to talk to content. So there's different departments that she works with that I kind of touch a little bit.

Sarah Bseiso [00:04:58]:

I mean, to give Meg a little bit more credit, she really is leading the conversation with our internal partner team. You know, we have a bunch of reps who are liaisons with all of our partners, and they come to me and I'm like, Meg is your person to have those conversations. She runs with them and they kind of have the conversations with our partners and do all of the negotiation. And then Meg sends a lovely recap email weekly to our leadership teams on where we're tracking and challenges. She has a face and people know her here, and I'm grateful for that. To be able to just lean in on somebody who's a contractor for us, but really an extension of our team, just putting them in front of everybody and being like, this is your person. And so that's worked really well for us.

Paige Buck [00:05:47]:

Yeah. I can't imagine if you were, like, had to be deeply engaged in every one of those conversations.

Sarah Bseiso [00:05:52]:

No, thanks.

Meg Fasy [00:05:55]:

It's interesting because when I go to work with a new client, I say to them, I get in with your event team. Like, I am part of your event team. And a lot of them are like, oh, well, you're sales. You're kind of out there. And they don't realize that I need to hear what's going on. I need to hear if there are changes. This morning I got a call from a client saying, hey, we're dropping the opening reception.

Okay, I need to know that because I have sponsorship connected. So I really do need to be part of the event team, part of the operations calls, things like that.

Paige Buck [00:06:31]:

Yeah. Because that's taking money off the table or that's shifting the whole sponsorship offering for you.

Meg Fasy [00:06:37]:

Absolutely, or in a lot of times, adding it. We added something this morning, right?

Sarah Bseiso [00:06:41]:

Yeah.

Paige Buck [00:06:43]:

You and I have talked about this before. It's always just lovely when an event team leaves you flying blind. You're like, wow, there are columns in this space. We could have wrapped those. Would have been nice to know.

Meg Fasy [00:06:59]:

I was going to say, Sarah was great. Invited me on the site.

Sarah Bseiso [00:07:01]:

I was just going to say to that point, Meg came along.

Meg Fasy [00:07:05]:

I do kind of push it. Even though we’re at Mandalay Bay this year, and I worked at Mandalay Bay, I opened up the convention center as Director. But there's still new things that I need to see. There's new signage, there's new rooms, and I'm not a proponent of, and Sarah knows this. I'm not a proponent of just because you can means you should. When you walk into a conference, you want to know whose conference you're walking into. So I don't think you should brand everything. So I think we look at it very strategically on what we can brand as we walk in. Then we're looking at different aspects. And like you said, the column wraps and things like that.

Paige Buck [00:07:42]:

Yeah, yeah, I like your point, Meg, about knowing whose conference you’re at. You're like, what is this? Is this the Bank of America conference? Just to name a random large company.

Sarah Bseiso [00:07:55]:

Right?

Meg Fasy [00:07:57]:

Yeah. I mean, even with, like, when we're doing conference water bottles or something, they're all branded.

Paige Buck [00:08:02]:

Yes.

Meg Fasy [00:08:02]:

They're never just one sponsor.

Paige Buck [00:08:04]:

That's a really good principle, Sarah. You have to work across so many teams and with so many stakeholders. This is an over broad question. I'll work on refining. However do you do that?

Sarah Bseiso [00:08:19]:

Well, I like to say it takes a village to raise a user conference. And essentially what that means is that I'm only as successful as the team around me, right? I am in no means like a content pro. Cannot talk to you about any of the nitty gritty content that is available at our show. But I have a great content lead that I liaison with on how all of that funnels throughout the entirety of our program. Whether that's the way content shows up on our show floor or content showing up in a breakout. I rely on them to be those people and kind of funnel up the information I need to ensure that we have a successful end-to-end program. And content is a great kind of example of that because it is not me, right? And similarly to our brand and creative team, they are on every single call, we're updating each other. They are the brand experts, but I am the event expert at kind of guiding them on this is how we want to show up, this is what we want to do. You guys go on your way and do those things.

So really the way we do this is just by kind of meeting regularly with these work stream leads, meeting regularly as an entire everyone who funnels up to Informatica meets regularly once a week or Informatica World. And then I would say also just something that's different that I've done at Informatica than I've done at other organizations is what we call a steering committee. And so we have a standing meeting with all of our marketing leadership to give them kind of very high-level updates of what's happening throughout the program. One, it gives them an opportunity to stop and say, I don't want to go down that road. Raise your hand now. And it also just is a forcing conversation. So you've been on an email with people for three weeks and they have not gotten back to you, these leaders? Well, guess what? There's a standing call in which every week we can say, remember this? Where are we? The deadlines are now. And so that's kind of how we do it at Informatica. It's been working well for us.

Paige Buck [00:10:27]:

Yes, all meetings are forcing mechanisms. If I don't have them, I don't get the work done.

Sarah Bseiso [00:10:33]:

I know. And specifically, it's unique with a leadership team, right? Like I can dance around like that all day with all of my work stream leads, but to have to go to our CMO and say, hey, these are the conversations we're having and we're stuck until we have an answer, has actually just been like an incredible opportunity to keep the work going and not feel very frustrated that we just aren't getting where we need to go.

Meg Fasy [00:11:02]:

It can be challenging because all the people that you're working with, they don't always understand the events and the timelines, right?

Sarah Bseiso [00:11:09]:

Oh, yeah.

Meg Fasy [00:11:10]:

So when I watch my clients, I see that as a huge obstacle sometimes.

Paige Buck [00:11:16]:

Yeah. We like to say that with our clients, you always know where you are on the map, like along the timeline, along the little path to the event. You always know where you are. But then it depends on the client, how deeply embedded we are in their ability to take that information to leadership. Sometimes we can say, like, get us on those calls, we'll be the bad guy. We'll be the one who tells your CMO we're stuck until we hear from you if they don't feel empowered to do so. But you clearly have a really good mechanism for managing up and managing laterally with stuff like that.

Sarah Bseiso [00:11:52]:

Yeah. And we use a scorecard, essentially, that has a line item with every single thing that funnels up to this group, relevant to this group specifically. Right. And so we have a green, yellow, red scorecard in which we're like, hey, we're in jeopardy here because of this date, and I can't get this person to give me the answers. Maybe you can go have a conversation with your peer to get us that answer. Right. Because at the end of the day, I'm a Senior Event Manager and you are the CMO, so maybe you'll get more headway than I will.

Paige Buck [00:12:27]:

You can bring the hammer down.

Meg Fasy [00:12:32]:

And Paige, I work that way, too with Sarah because I'm working, like we talked about earlier,

directly with her partner marketing team. But if I'm not getting answers or I'm not getting quick enough responses or whatever, I bring Sarah in, and then Sarah brings someone else in and we go up the chain.It works that way, too, even for contractors. Because sometimes we don't know internally kind of who everybody is. We may know titles, but we don't know, are they well respected? Are they going to answer us? We don't know the personality or I should say, the culture that we're getting into.

Sarah Bseiso [00:13:09]:

Are they a problem child? Yeah. Right.

Meg Fasy [00:13:11]:

Are they a problem child?

Sarah Bseiso [00:13:13]:

Right.

Paige Buck [00:13:13]:

Or are they the one who has all the little answers and the secrets of the galaxy? Yeah.

Meg Fasy [00:13:19]:Or should Meg, as a contractor, never touch that person? Should I never email that person? We don't always know those intricacies of the culture of a company. So it's nice if I do get pushback, or if I don't get answers or whatever, to have kind of a clear channel to go to, because that doesn't happen in every organization I work with.

Sarah Bseiso [00:13:43]:

I was going to say, man, it's such a partnership. And I can only imagine from Meg's perspective to not have that person to say, hey, what is the rule of thumb here? Right? And I think Meg and I have a really good rapport. She'll text me, call me, we'll kind of hash it out so she can go do what she needs to do. And to the point of, you're only as successful as the team around you. You’ve got to be available to kind of help guide people in that way who just don't know what they don't know.

Paige Buck [00:14:17]:

Yeah, I love this. This kind of dovetails perfectly with a question I have. You've been working together for two years. You clearly have a good working relationship. When you, Sarah, are working with a new vendor, contractor, outside person who needs to become integrated with your team, how do you build that trust? How do you build that working relationship?

Meg Fasy [00:14:38]:

Great question. I want to hear this.

Sarah Bseiso [00:14:39]:

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think it's also a personality thing. It really depends on who you are and how you kind of deal with people. I think everyone has an opportunity where they have to kind of prove themselves and show that they can do what you need them to do. So there's a level of relationship building that happens as you have a new vendor onboarded. But I would say very quickly, the right ones show you, I've got this and I can kind of run with it.

And very quickly you see, this is going to work or not work, in my personal opinion. I would also say that to be fair to everybody, you kind of need to go through an event cycle and give everybody an opportunity to kind of get their bearings. There's always going to be kind of hiccups along the way, but by the end of it, you know, this worked really well and these were the challenges, and we can kind of get over that hump moving forward. Or, this was a complete disaster, and this relationship probably isn't one that we would like to continue. So I think of these people as extensions of my team. And I don't look at anybody as like, you're a contractor, you're a vendor. You are my team. I'm going to treat you the way with the respect and everything that I would treat my internal team member. Personally, that's my rule of thumb.

And as someone who was on the vendor side, that's how I would have wanted to be treated. And so I kind of carry that on as a corporate event planner now.

Meg Fasy [00:16:20]:

Yeah. It's interesting going into a new account, because I've been in the industry a long time. I know what I'm doing. I feel confident with what I'm doing. So I come in feeling like, okay, we're going to partner. I'm going to do what I'm good at. You do what you're good at. I'm going to do it the way you want me to do it. I need to learn that. But I also see and have worked with a lot of contractors that are like, okay, what do you want me to do?

Sarah Bseiso [00:16:47]:

Yeah.

Meg Fasy [00:16:48]:

And there's a difference there, right? There's a big difference there. And there's room for both of those people. So it just depends on what you're hiring them for.

Sarah Bseiso [00:16:59]:

Yeah, I think that's a fair point. I would say for me personally, you're hired because I don't want to be in the weeds, nor have the ability to be in the weeds on all of the things we have to get done. You know, there's people who may hire a Meg but want to still stay deeply close to something that really they should just entrust Meg to run with. And so a word to the wise. Let go of what you can let go of, because you can't be everything to everyone at all times. That's why you have these vendors.

Paige Buck [00:17:39]:

It's very good leadership advice, Sarah.

Meg Fasy [00:17:41]:

Yeah, it is. But I can understand. I'm very sympathetic or empathetic to that because it's their revenue when it comes to my position. Right. When they're hiring, it's their revenue. Right. I don't want to mess with that. And so until they get to know me and know that I take it seriously, and at the same time, I'm not going to get in the way of their partner's relationship and all that.

They're always very worried about that, too. It's really the partner team that normally holds on to everything when I deal with groups.

Paige Buck [00:18:13]:

Yeah. You're not trying to cut them out of a relationship.

Meg Fasy [00:18:16]:

No, I mean, I was a sales leader for 30 years. I would never get in the way of a sales relationship. But they don't know that.

Paige Buck [00:18:23]:

Right.

Sarah Bseiso [00:18:24]:

And that's part of the relationship building. It's none of that, Meg and I are. None of these things are going to happen from day one. But by the end of a full planning cycle, you should kind of be able to say, Meg’s got this next year. She'll come to me as needed. And really, I could have said that about Meg, probably two months into our relationship last year, which those are the best people to keep in your pocket because those are the types of people you need.

Meg Fasy [00:18:53]:

I'm still learning, though.I'm still learning your group, and there's new people and there's new nuances that happen every year with a group. So, it's never 100% like, I'm 100% into a group, but because I'm always like, who is that again? That kind of thing.

Sarah Bseiso [00:19:10]:

And that's my job. Right? And I'm like, here's this person. Here's the rules on this person. Give the tools to be successful.

Paige Buck [00:19:22]:

I'm curious, Sarah, I thought it was very generous and savvy of you to say that really, with a vendor or any relationship going through an entire cycle together, acknowledging that there are going to be hiccups and things to learn and some breakdowns, but when things start to go downhill, or when you can look at that relationship and somewhere along the way, you're thinking, I'm probably not going to renew with that group. What has happened? And maybe you have an example story, where that breakdown has gone from, like, we have some hiccups and we figure them out, or we're all still learning to like. And then what advice would you have for vendors or for people in your position for avoiding that, those breakdowns?

Sarah Bseiso [00:20:07]:

Oh, boy. Again, being with a unique position that I have, I really, truly believe that I give everybody kind of the benefit of the doubt as we're going through this process. I think you just naturally get to a point where you're like, we've either discussed this many times, we've been down this road, we're still going in these circles, and we're not progressing in the way that we need to. And probably about two years ago ran into that here at Informatica, where I was just like, this is not, the cohesiveness, the understanding of this is just like, off. I would say that from a vendor standpoint, it's imperative to understand your client, understand your audience, understand what the needs are, and from your side, put the correct people in place to kind of lead the way. You won't succeed unless you really are thoughtful about the people you're putting in front of your client. It takes a lot to get to that point for me. And I think I'm missing part of your question, but Meg?

Paige Buck [00:21:27]:

Well, I think you're being very politic in your response. You have some experience with her. Like, why is this person on the call?

Sarah Bseiso [00:21:36]:

Yeah, totally. And I will tell you, even last year I experienced this, I had an overall great team that we were working with, but some people were just not the right fit. And it's hard to have that conversation to say, like, okay, look, this really didn't work, and this didn't work because of x, y, and z. Let's think about how to fix these problems. But also probably this person isn't the right one for this role. And you have to be willing to have those tough conversations and say those things, but also be kind. I like being kind when having this conversation.

Meg Fasy [00:22:13]:

And it's true because it's not like, necessarily they're bad people. They may just be the wrong fit. And again, to me, it goes back to culture. Fitting into a culture is what we're doing as contractors. We're walking into an existing culture, and we have to kind of make ourselves fit in. That's what we do.

And sometimes it doesn't work. And I think it's mature to acknowledge that. Sometimes you have a contractor that, it isn't just a bad fit, it's just that they aren't great at their job. And then depending on where you are in the cycle and if they're through an agency or however, you either swap them out if you can, or people around them jump in and start helping.

That's what ends up happening.

Sarah Bseiso [00:23:05]:

Totally. And I just think it's so key not to fly off the–just fly straight to, this isn't working. We got to let this go. Unless there's really major red flags. Give everybody kind of that opportunity to get their bearings, because some people are the complete opposite. Immediately they're just like, no, this is not it.

Paige Buck [00:23:28]:

Yeah. And there's that hire smart, fire fast mentality, but that doesn't mean it comes without opportunities to correct and stay kind. As you said, Sarah, that's wise, too.

Meg Fasy [00:23:42]:

I mean, if a couple of people around them can jump in and help without materially messing up kind of what they're doing.

Paige Buck [00:23:51]:

Without realizing it, too, you get to the other side of it and you're like, what happened? Well, person was thinking, and we all just adapted. Only when you get to the other side of it do you look back and go, that was exhausting, and that can't happen again.

Meg Fasy [00:24:07]:

Because the events industry, our motto is just make it happen.

Paige Buck [00:24:12]:

Right. I like to say like, yes, we're all masochists here. With my producers, I'm often like, why did you take that on? And they're like, it just needed to get done. And then I heard a new one that was like, I realized came from their particular catering management background. It was like, well, in my head, I decided me taking it on myself was zero additional cost for your company. And I'm like, yes, but if you burn out and you're miserable and you can't take on other work, that's a huge cost to me. I care about you as a human, and I can see you're suffering under the weight of the world. Let's adapt. Let's shift.

I want to pull up to something. I love the dynamic you were describing, Sarah, and the scorecard that you have so you can quickly give KPIs or KPAs for other members of your whole company, When it comes to both the growth of Informatica World and the direction that it's going or has come from, who sets the why, the goals, the outcomes and how are you a participant in that process?

Sarah Bseiso [00:25:30]:

Yeah, I would say it's a collaboration of senior leadership that has this vision, and that's a collaboration across all senior leaders. I would say from a customer conference perspective, we have, like, a seriously tight relationship with our sales org, our product. We are very product heavy here. Our product org and then our marketing org. Across those three functions. We kind of take a step coming out of this program year to year and say, okay, these are the lessons learned. These are the goals we had. Did we kind of accomplish that? Our program is in May, so we spend a good chunk of the summer doing the legwork of having these conversations about where we're going for the next fiscal year with sales, with product, with marketing, and how we kind of want to pull those KPIs together.

We look at what are our pipeline goals and what do we want to do there with all of our regions. What is our marketing and messaging goal and what do we want to kind of do there and make the key focus for the next year's customer conference? And then where are we going from a product perspective or what worked or didn't work from a content perspective that we kind of need to fix. So we'll spend that summer kind of having those lessons learned, having the conversations about the future, and then building a one-slide KPI. These are the big buckets that we're trying to hit when we go out internally. We have a lot of other planning documents, but here is this one slide on reach, on pipeline, on perception, and content. There's a handful of those, but an example of some of the things that show up there, and these are the key things in each of those areas that we as an organization need to pay attention to. You could all know in one slide, this is what we're following up to.

Paige Buck [00:27:36]:

And do you refer back to that when you're in the weeds and somebody's like, should we add a reception on night two? You can say, does it drive?

Sarah Bseiso [00:27:46]:

I don't know. I can point to that KPI slide for reception on whatever night. But that's a different conversation in which I'm like, do we really need this? And where are the budgets and all of that? But I would say from like a very high level, we're talking about pipeline reporting, and we start to go down this funnel of what's happening over here. Well, this is what we're trying to meet. And are we tracking to meet that? And let's not get ourselves worked up on where we are just yet. We have some time. It kind of is, everybody stand down. This is where we're going.

We'll get there eventually. Conversation.

Paige Buck [00:28:23]:

Nice. I really appreciate that. I think often you might set that from the get-go go and then you put it away and never look at it again. Or some organizations just never really set that from the get-go. It's like we do this event because we've always done this event, or we do this event because it's the CEO's baby.

Sarah Bseiso [00:28:44]:

Yeah. And don't get me wrong, things get derailed from an executive level often. Right. Like we may come up with a plan and then we quickly have to pivot or we have these lessons learned and we're going down the track of, these are the lessons learned. And now we have a new set of people or things that we need to take into consideration. And I think that's just honestly the nature of our job. We are often pivoting at things that are being thrown at us all the time.

And some of it you can bend to, and some of it you're like, I don't have the space for that. That's a great idea. We're not equipped to do this. So that's the end of this conversation.

Paige Buck [00:29:33]:

Yeah, I get that. I'm curious what mistakes you've each seen either from others or big lessons of your own in these massive events where you're moving mountains and you're trying to make it happen. And as you said, Sarah, you're pivoting and pivoting and pivoting. What are some of the pitfalls and what have you learned from them?

Sarah Bseiso [00:29:58]:

Meg, you want to go first?

Meg Fasy [00:29:59]:

Well, first of all, I think one of my mistakes was not realizing it was going to get dark.

Paige Buck [00:30:05]:

The sun is setting on your face.

Meg Fasy [00:30:07]:

All of a sudden, I forgot about that. So I think some of the pitfalls that I've seen as an observer is when an event team doesn't have the autonomy to say no. Sarah, you just said it, like, basically, great idea, but we can't do that right now. We don't have the budget. Whatever. When they're trying to be everything to everyone is what I've seen as, like, the number one problem.

Sarah Bseiso [00:30:39]:

Oh, my God. You cannot be more right. You cannot be more right.

Meg Fasy [00:30:42]:

It’s so crazy when I see that.

Sarah Bseiso [00:30:44]:

And unfortunately, this comes down to the people you're surrounded by. There are people and there are leaders, and I am incredibly grateful for the leader that I have that says, look, we have boundaries that we're going to stay within. And I am confident enough to know that the boundaries we're setting are hard ones. She's not ever going to say no flat out to something that we can probably make work, but we are going to really dig deep and say is this something that the team can take on or, great, that’s a great idea. If you have some dollars, we'll find a contractor that will do that for you. Instead of just insisting that this came from here and somehow we're going to find a way on this team to make that work. And that is like, I am incredibly grateful for that because I've also been in a position where people are like, we are yes, people till the very end. And that creates a lot of burn and churn on your team.

Meg Fasy [00:31:49]:

There's also the other end. And I've only actually worked with this once where everything was no. They were like, this is how we do it. This is how we're going to do it, and we're not changing. And that included their marketing department. They were a little like, this is our event. And I think they missed a lot of really cool opportunities because of it.

Sarah Bseiso [00:32:11]:

That's really interesting.

Meg Fasy [00:32:13]:

Yeah. Like I said, I've only seen that once. Normally it's yes, yes, yes. I've seen the no once.

Paige Buck [00:32:18]:

Yeah. And sometimes they're like, that's what works for me. Rigid and structured. Rigid and structured. No innovation, no evolution, just no.

Meg Fasy [00:32:26]:

And their event was the same event this year that it was last year that it was the year before that.

Sarah Bseiso [00:32:30]:

Oh, my God, I would never be able to do that. I would just be like, count me out. Because the fun part is being innovative and thinking in new ways and looking at what worked and what didn't.

Meg Fasy [00:32:47]:

I totally agree. But I do think that is the biggest pitfall is when you have too many people that or the top person that's not able to say no.

Paige Buck [00:32:56]:

I think you're unpacking the spectrum between yes, what was the question? Between we'll do it and we're going to get it done, we're going to make it happen. As you said, we joke about the masochism, but the healthy distinction between those is really important.

Meg Fasy [00:33:15]:

Yeah, that's a really good point because I think there are a lot of event planners that are like, I can take it on. I got this. I could take it on. And then next thing you know, they're like losing their minds.

Sarah Bseiso [00:33:27]:

Yeah. I actually love something that we do here, which is I have a new team come to me and they say, I want to set up this demo that was never accounted for on the show floor last year. Well, yeah, great. I have space. Do you have money? Because I didn't account for this demo on my show floor. And if you can pay for that, I'll give you that space because we have it.. And so some people get fearful and hung up on budgets, and we probably cross-charge. We cross-charge a significant amount of money to other departments. And that's also something that's been somewhat different. I've done that in the past, but we do it a ton here. We're just like, you have money, you got it.

Meg Fasy [00:34:09]:

I will tell you, when I first started working with you, Sarah, that was a surprise to me on how much that happened.

Sarah Bseiso [00:34:16]:

Yeah, it happens a lot. Like I said, it's happened sprinkled out throughout my tech career, but specifically here. I've been super encouraged to be like, yeah, but you’ve got to pay for it. And it has worked, and it has allowed me then to take the money that really I need to do the things I need and not feel like I have to give this out to everybody who hasn't earned it and hasn't had a place in this planning process. And so I love that.

Paige Buck [00:34:46]:

Yeah, well, you were talking about you would die if you were just doing the same thing in and out every year. So then what trends and new innovations are you seeing and what do you think will become more important that we really need to be paying attention to?

Sarah Bseiso [00:35:02]:

Oh, man.

Meg Fasy [00:35:05]:

I’m going to jump in with this while you think about it from an event perspective because I've been talking about sponsorship trends for a while now, and it's really amazing to see some of the things that are happening. So a couple of things. Lounges instead of booths.

Paige Buck [00:35:16]:

Yes.

Meg Fasy [00:35:17]:

I do want to say, first of all, blanket statement. Not one thing is the right thing. That's like the number one trend. Is that nothing is for everybody, right?

Paige Buck [00:35:27]:

It’s not one size fits all.

Meg Fasy [00:35:28]:

No, because a lot of people say, oh, we're only doing lounges. Well, there's a reason some people like a booth. There's a lot of demos that still need to happen, still want to happen. You still need those demo areas. Do they need to look like a kiosk? Maybe not. You could create something a little different, but you still need that area. I always laugh when some of the people who are in the sponsorship world say, oh, tiers, no one does tiers anymore. Again, everybody, first of all does tiers.

Sarah Bseiso [00:36:01]:

Might not call it that, but you're doing it. .

Paige Buck [00:36:04]:

Is everything exactly the same price? Is it just one thing? Then you're doing tiers.

Meg Fasy [00:36:11]:

And plus you have to have that variety. So not everybody wants to buy a gold package. Some of them want to buy a headshot lounge, some of them want to buy a meeting room and things like that. So the trend is that it is not a one-stop shop. I will say that content and sessions are always in trend. That's always the number one buy. Meeting rooms are really hot right now. Branding is back in because their organizations are going to less shows, but they still need to show up.

So they'll buy a branding opportunity just so they have their name up. That's what I'm seeing as trends.

Paige Buck [00:36:48]:

When we don't leave our houses as often, we're not seeing their brand as often.

Meg Fasy [00:36:51]:

Correct.

Meg Fasy [00:36:56]:

There are a lot of organizations out there that don't need the lead scans. That's not what they're there for. They're just to meet with their customers, meet with their own staff a lot of times.

Paige Buck [00:37:07]:

So, Sarah, what pops up for you?

Sarah Bseiso [00:37:10]:

I think, you know, we're just in this world of truncated information and getting information really quickly, and so really just thinking about how we can get messages out in ways that resonate with people. Right. A challenge I think we ran into last year, and we've done this year over year, is that we'd have these huge demo pods where you could just come up and get a demo around product or whatever it is on our show floor in that area. And we really struggled. People didn't get the scans they wanted and all of this stuff. It's intimidating. Some people don't want to just walk up and see a demo, or they just don't know why they should care.

And so we've kind of pivoted into thinking about each of these areas that we have within our own show floor that represent our own products and thinking about active learning opportunities and ways that people can understand this message, but in a fun way. Whether that's like doing some sort of crossword puzzle or looking at some sort of messaging with a magnifying glass, just some really fun ways to get this message across that invites people to come and be like, what is happening over here? Versus the difference of coming up and talking to somebody about a demo which is not working in the world that we live in. People like big, flashy things. They like to see a quick video. We live in this Instagram, Snapchat, whatever, TikTok world. And so how can we kind of bring that into our events? And so we're doing that with some experience and active learning and reimagining just demo pods.

Meg Fasy [00:39:01]:

Yeah, that's what I was saying. If you need to have a demo, that's great. It doesn't have to look like a demo.

Sarah Bseiso [00:39:06]:

Yeah. Or it can be a demo, traditional demo over here. But there's also two other ways to communicate this information in a much more fun, interactive way where you don't even realize you're getting that same message that you would get by standing at a demo with someone showing you all the heavy product stuff.

Meg Fasy [00:39:28]:

Well, I think DEIMB is very big right now. And so you have people who don't want to go up to a demo booth. They're not comfortable. Or neurodiversity is really hot right now, and you don't want to have people that don't feel comfortable going up on a one-on-one situation.

Paige Buck [00:39:50]:

I think what you're really talking about are breaking down barriers to the way we've– Whether it's because of a personal need or desire or our own sort of growing cultural isolation. Like, all we are is me and my phone all the time. It's me and my computer, or Zoom all the time. So I have these invisible barriers to entry of something that I might not have been that excited about before that was a problem for me, like, dive right in and ask questions and get curious. And I love the creative workarounds you're talking about, Sarah.

Paige Buck [00:40:25]:

Last question, I guess, would be, where do you go? Where do you go seeking information and ideas like that, or do you just wait for them to come to you in the shower?

Sarah Bseiso [00:40:37]:

I mean, me personally, I have partners, great partners, where we collaborate and kind of brainstorm on some of the things we're trying to do. And I love them, and they come back and give me some great ideas that we've kind of ideated on. I like to attend shows where I can, I'm lucky to be in the Bay area, so I can stop into a DreamForce. I can stop into these much bigger shows than myself where I do not have these budgets, but see some fun ideas that I could maybe scale down and take and run with. I think my peers are always a good option, seeing what they're doing, and then obviously there's CEMAs and MPIs and stuff of the world to just keep us on what's happening in the industry. But I would say my peers, my agencies, and just attending some shows on my own, like tech shows on my own.

Paige Buck [00:41:31]:

Do you go into, say, drop by DreamForce looking for specific solutions or just like wide open?

Sarah Bseiso [00:41:38]:

I mean, I went last year being like, AI is the thing, right? We know that their whole thing was like AI Trailblazers, whatever it was last year. And so I knew by going downtown there was going to be 100 AI activations that we too are in the thick of AI as all tech companies are. And so I got some great ideas! It's more so I just go and be like, what activations are happening that maybe is new and fun. Best-in-class programs, where you can see that.

Paige Buck [00:42:09]:

Final word for you, Meg, on how you stay on top of things.

Meg Fasy [00:42:13]:

So one of the ways I like to look for new, fun activations is in the sporting world and consumer events. You know, I kind of look like even last night, looking at the Super Bowl and looking at, I went online to look at all the different activations they had going on, and I think about how I can take something that's really fun like that and move it into a tech world.

Paige Buck [00:42:38]:

That's great. That's really fun. Well, thank you both so much for being with us today. I feel like I just jotted down a handful of notes for things I can learn and bring back to our team, and I hope our listeners feel the same. Sarah, Meg, it's been delightful talking with you. We will share your credentials in the show notes so people can find you on LinkedIn and on the web. Thanks for your time.

Meg Fasy [00:43:04]:

Thanks Paige.

Sarah Bseiso [00:43:05]

Thank you.

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PAIGE BUCK

Paige Buck is the co-owner of Kennedy Events, a large-scale event management company based in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. Our team creates stress-free conferences and events with a positive impact, which allows our clients to resonate with their audience. Kennedy Events specializes in producing flawless product launches, award ceremonies, fundraisers, and multi-day conferences while keeping our eye on retention and engagement goals.

About Kennedy Events

Kennedy Events began with one goal in mind—to produce high-level corporate events with just as much strategy as style. Maggie founded the company in 2000, found her match in Paige, and in 2011 the two became official partners. Since then, these two resourceful and brilliant creatives have pooled their strengths to build one one of the most the most sought after corporate event companies in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.