Cultivating Relationships in Partner Marketing

Plan Better EventsSmart Event TipsLeadership InsightsPodcast

Sep 29

With Guest Maeve Naughton, pRESIDENT and OWNER of MKN Consulting Group

Maeve Naughton is the president and owner of MKN Consulting Group, a company that provides partner marketing consultations for tech companies. She has 25 years of experience creating event sponsorship programs, driving millions in revenue for large customer events and regional conferences. As an experienced marketing professional, Maeve focuses on lead generation to support sales and channel revenue goals by creating customer reference programs.

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

What is partner marketing?
Key considerations for great event planning
The common mistakes companies make when planning events
How Maeve Naughton supports event partners, vendors, and sponsors
Advice for structuring an event and selecting partners
Maeve shares partnership and communication strategies for businesses
How to drive more engagement for events
Maeve’s tips for navigating marketing partnerships

In this episode…

In the marketing and event space, forming partnerships with stakeholders is a great way to drive engagement and generate leads for your brand. So what are some ways you can leverage this strategy to its full potential?

As an expert in partner marketing, Maeve Naughton emphasizes strategic communication to foster relationships among sponsors, vendors, and partners. This involves working to meet their personal needs, answering questions, and acquiring feedback. Prior to the event, it’s beneficial to host a webinar and provide a prospectus that outlines key features to facilitate collaboration and streamline the process. By doing all of this and more, you can start to generate brand recognition.

In this episode, Paige Buck interviews Maeve Naughton, President and Owner of MKN Consulting Group, about forging strategic marketing and event partnerships. Maeve talks about the key considerations of event planning, how she supports event partners, and tips for navigating marketing partnerships.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

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 their services, schedule a consultation today to find out how Kennedy Events can guide you in making your event successful.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:00

Yeah. Welcome to The Kennedy Events Podcast where we feature top marketing, communications, and future of work leaders and share their biggest takeaways and insights. We love these conversations and hope you will too. Let's get started.

Paige Buck 0:20

Welcome to The Kennedy Events Podcast. I'm your host Paige Buck. With me today is Maeve Naughton, the president, and owner of MKN Consulting Group Maeve has spent the last 25 years creating event sponsorship programs prospectuses and driving millions in revenue for large customer events, SK owes, and regional conferences. She's passionate about working with vendors and partners to create the best experience for them and their event attendees. In 2018, Maeve started MKN Consulting Group, where she provides partner marketing consulting to tech companies. Today's episode is also brought to you by Kennedy Events. We create 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. So welcome. Maeve, glad you're here.

Maeve Naughton 1:14

Thank you for having me.

Paige Buck 1:16

Yeah, super excited to talk with you today. Because as we were talking about before I hit record, you have a real niche in the events, the broader events world. And I'm curious if you can give me a little definition of partner marketing and how you articulate

Maeve Naughton 1:35

Absolutely. So partner marketing is it can cover a wide gamut of marketing activities. But essentially what it is working with partners of different types, alliance partners, referral partners, reseller partners, technology partners, any type of partner, and helping them with their marketing so that the vendor gets their messaging and their brand out to those end users, through the partner or with the partner. So think of it, like in-house marketing, but working with the partners to make sure that that messaging and the branding are sent out, as well as essentially driving all the revenue that hopefully comes from that. And like I said, webinars, newsletters, email campaigns, and your specialty.

Paige Buck 2:26

So you really help somebody see like the whole landscape of opportunity, or where their partners can be a source of revenue, that where they can reap benefits from exposure to your attendees.

Maeve Naughton 2:41

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So then, on the event side of it, it's really working with the vendor working with the outside resources like Kennedy events, and then working with the partners to make sure that everyone is getting what they need, and essentially expect from the partnership. And within that the sponsorship of the events, and really just making sure that that of the three legs of the stool, that the vendor, the partners, and the end users get what get the best experience from the events that they're going to that they're sponsoring, and that they're hosting.

Paige Buck 3:20

You know, when we have an early conversation with a client who is creating a new event from scratch, and I'll give like a hypothetical software, you know, SAS company that is looking to produce a conference for their users and their prospects, they have a number of other SAS or, you know, tech partners in their, in their space. And they envision a world where those partners have a place in the event. Sometimes I see two directions, these, this conversation goes, Ah, well, we're gonna bring in a lot of revenue from them. But we don't know how. Or, gosh, the first year we don't really see ourselves going after revenue from them. We're going to work with them on other things like them trying to bring some attendees to us, or bring some staff resources by this, you know, the stage that we are in all of this, or some content that would demonstrate that we are a resource for our clients, do you is already what are the pitfalls in there, like for the direction they can go? That was the first ever event?

Maeve Naughton 4:36

I don't think there are any pitfalls in the direction that a company wants to go. But what they have to do before they finalize that direction is do the pre planning. So what is the purpose of the event? Is it to get partners more engaged? Is it to reach out to a larger audience beyond the customers and the prospects? Is it to actually bring more partners into the partner program is and then once you have that, you know the basic reason why you want to get sponsorships, then think about now, are you doing the sponsorships to cover the cost of the event? Are you doing sponsorships to, to cover part of the cost? Are you doing the sponsorship just to get partners involved in the sponsorship, so you can get butts in seats, and you have more speakers now, because partners are sponsoring that. So you really have to start from the beginning, just as you would with any event that you're going to do, you don't just say, Oh, I'm going to do a user conference, we're going to do it in Miami on March 17. And, you know, that's it, there's a lot of planning that goes ahead of time. And along those lines, I think that's the biggest pitfall that I see with companies is they don't plan and they don't have those discussions. Beyond look through the partnership team, you have to when you're working with sponsorships and the partners, you have to make sure you are talking to the events team on a regular basis, whether that be the internal team or the external team or a combination of the both. So making sure that you have those guidelines set up and everyone is on the same path. You also just need to make sure that this is something that you want to do. Because once you tell partners that you're going to have a sponsorship, you can't pull back, or you can pull back, it just doesn't look good. And it's a lot more difficult.

Paige Buck 6:30

Even you shouldn't say, Oh yeah, this is going to cost you $15,000. And when nobody bites say Just kidding, you can have it for free. Yeah,

Maeve Naughton 6:39

it's, it's, it's a little difficult kind of chewing that pill. Once that goes, you know, once you say that, or the very opposite, like, Oh, we've had five people who are interested in the platinum sponsorship at $50,000. Now we're gonna raise it to 25. And see if we have people, you just don't want to do that. And then one of the other pitfalls that I've seen a lot is the thinking that you can just have someone manage the sponsorships as like a part time job, in addition to, you know, sales, development or marketing, you can have someone do a part time. But what you need to do is make sure that that person is in all the meetings, they're in the planning meetings, they're in the meetings where you're talking about, you know, the layout for our the floor plan, because that's going to directly impact the sponsors. And making sure that during the meetings about which breakout sessions, what's the main stage session, because again, a lot of that usually falls into a sponsorship perspective. And you have to be representing the sponsors at that point, as well as representing the company. So it's a weird, you're stuck in the middle to a degree, I shouldn't say step you're in the middle, and you just have to make sure that you have it. So two pitfalls, not having someone who is focused on it and can be part of the meetings, and then just not doing the pre planning.

Paige Buck 8:05

Within that early goal setting discussion. What do you do you run into clients who say, Oh, yeah, among all of the things that you described, I want all of them. Yes, I want it to drive revenue. Yes. I want it to drive attendance. Yes. I want it to build out new partnerships and fair value to existing partners. And and and how do you help them hone or narrow down to the most essential and achievable of their their dreams?

Maeve Naughton 8:35

Unfortunately, I do have clients that are like, we want all of that. Oh, that's what I usually go back to is let's look at your and vos, four. Are the KPIs for your team for the year. Is it to drive more partnerships? Well, if so, and you're only at five and you have to be at 10? Well, then let's make the focus of the sponsorship prospectus. Let's make that the focus of getting new partners involved. And just really, you know, you have to have those hard conversations about if you can only have two of these things on the list. What are those two going to do? Which is the one that's going to drive the most revenue if revenue is your top goal?

Paige Buck 9:18

Mm hmm. I think that's really smart. Also tie again, like reminding them to tie it back to overall business goals or department goals for the for the year or for the quarter. Yeah. And then one of the things you said really struck me that you are ultimately an advocate, balancing the needs of the partners and what's going to resonate for them. See, what are the reasons you describe why you need a seat at the table? This to say that's going to be a rich opportunity for them or no, they're going to feel like they're shunted off into a corner if you do that

Maeve Naughton 9:51

lightly Yeah, it's and that's I think that's just partner marketing in general, not specific to sponsorships is that you have to represent the vendor that you're working with or you work for, as well as the partners and make sure that all the needs are met as much as possible. You're never going to have all those needs met. But I've been in conversations before where they're like, Nope, we're not going to do this anymore. Or we're going to change the direction that we're going with this event. And I've had raised my hand and say, that's what we have told the sponsors we're doing. And the sponsors are also asking if we can do this, this and this, or, you know, one of these three things. And then I've had companies say, oh, that's actually a good idea. Let's add that into the thing. I'm not by any means saying that the partner gets the partners get, or sponsors get the opportunity to change the perspectives. Not at all. But if they have little things that are going to help. Absolutely, you know, bring them to the table and suggest them and if they get accepted, great. And if not, that's okay, too, but having that communication with them, where they're comfortable saying, this really isn't working, or this doesn't make sense to me in the prospectus? Why are we only getting you know, the list of the company names at a time rather than the full list? Being able to go back to them and say, Oh, well, you know, it's because we don't want to, essentially, we don't want you spamming all the people who are attending the conference, or, you know, well, you'll get the full list of all the registered attendees at the end of the conference, or just so just really having that communication open with the partners. But you're right, you're 100% of the partner marketing person, you are in the middle of the vendor, and the partners, and you need to figure out a way to support all

Paige Buck 11:38

of them, as well. And probably at the same time, this I've certainly seen this happen, like, prevent them from being their own worst enemy. It's like, if I gave you that list, you're gonna spam it. And before everybody comes, they're gonna hate you.

Maeve Naughton 11:52

By Absolutely.

Paige Buck 11:55

We don't want that. It's not a good luck. Yeah, exactly. And,

Maeve Naughton 11:59

you know, they, if they've got that full list ahead of time, there's really no, um, for them to literally work their table or work their booth, because that's where you're going to have the good conversations. So yeah, it's, but you know, partners always want always want the lead list ahead of time. And, you know, it's, it's not going to happen these

Paige Buck 12:22

right. On the event production side of things we are, we are very protective of stage time, and have and we try on behalf of our clients, and I know you do as well to be really thoughtful about the resources where the brand opportunity is going. Yes, because if I can put you if I, if I owe a partner brand exposure on signage, I sure would like that to be signage we need anyway, had not or signage that is relatively easy to produce for that scale of conference, not something I have to pay a union engineer to hang from the ceiling. And it's the only thing that has to have a, you know, a lift brought.

Maeve Naughton 13:13

Exactly, yeah, there's and that's the fun part of creating a perspective is the different opportunities that are available. And, you know, you can have high end expensive things like that, like hanging it where you have to get union guys in the lift and all or, and I should say you should also have lower costing ones that are super simple to produce, like, you know, for a couple $100 You can get cocktail napkins made with your logo and the sponsors logo. So lower cost options, as well as the high end options. I think that's super, super important that a lot of actually, quite a few companies forget about that. They just want the $250,000 sponsorships. Well, what about you know, you're cutting out a huge list of people who could potentially potentially be sponsoring your event?

Paige Buck 14:13

Yeah, that's a really good that's a really good point. And when it comes to stage time, I don't know if you've had this discussion but we sometimes find ourselves first it's educating the client, the host of the event and then the partner you think you want five minutes to introduce XYZ Are you want 30 minutes on the mainstage? Believe me, you don't because no one wants to listen to a sales pitch and exactly we have all the come in I was gonna say sophisticated consumers but that shows up as that it shows up as like reticence and snark and tuning out. And yeah, so what I've been I would say you can the right partner, and I would love to hear what if you think there's like a magic Number a sweet spot, the right partner can have a ton of bang for their buck, with a one minute introduction of your amazing keynote, where they've refined and refined and honed their message, their brand is there, they've tied themselves to the reason why this is a meaningful conversation. And that's it, and they're out. And come meet me over here or come hear me this afternoon.

Maeve Naughton 15:25

I was just going to add that and not just meet me, but listen to two of our customers that we have on a panel and how they're using our solution integrated with the vendor. The vendor who's putting this event on? Yeah, and I think you know, everything that we're doing these days, like exactly what you said, people are sick of the sales pitch, no one wants to hear that. People want to hear how is it going to impact me? How am I going to make money on it? How difficult is it going to be for me? Or how easy isn't going to be for me? Show me real world examples. So yeah, let's get the vendors off. Or let's get the sponsors off the main stage, when it is a sales pitch, get them on this, the main stage for a customer panel or a conversation that you're not selling your product, because we can all do the research online, we can, you know, go on to the vendors website, go to GE to do all these searches and find out and talk to people. We don't need someone up there telling us how wonderful they are.

Paige Buck 16:28

Right? Yeah, 100%? Let me pull up for a second or pull back for a second and say, How in the world did you get started in this? And what was that? What was the path to your early days to now like?

Maeve Naughton 16:40

So you know, I said before, don't hire or don't have someone just kind of do it as time? Yeah, that's exactly how I got started. It was just you know, you're doing partner marketing may or you're doing you know, general marketing, why we're having this event? Why don't you go ahead and just get sponsors? For us? It's super easy, no big deal? Well, you know, 25 years later, I've honed that craft a little bit more. And yeah, just working with partners to and having the relationships with partners, has really just enabled me to do a natural flow that we're helping them now with their Gen demand gen and their brand presence and their ability to sponsor at it. So yeah, I started off the exact way I told you not to start off, I love

Paige Buck 17:31

Outside of outside of events. And and the things I like associate with them, the the email marketing around the web marketing around it, even the post event, you know, fully edited and fully edited video with you know, lower thirds and bookends, and all of the little add on places where sponsors can get value from like the long tail of that event. What other partnerships strategies exist at with a tech companies relationships throughout throughout the rest of like the year throughout the rest of the marketing cycle.

Maeve Naughton 18:14

I would say the strategy that I think is the most underused strategy is the communication with the partners. So even outside, outside of the event space, communicating with partners with newsletters, making sure that you're having webinars where they can learn stuff, there's so many different opportunities, there's usually a thinking that, or I've seen or thinking that partners are kind of their own thing, they they do their own thing on their own their own business, they don't need our help at all. But partners are really like customers, customers who are selling your product. So any way that you treat a customer, you should be treating, and to a degree, doing the very same things with the partners. So I mean, communication is a huge, huge thing for me. So making sure you're having customer art sorry, now you've got me all my heads are spinning. Now, making sure that you're having those partner meetings and keeping that communication open to see what they need, how what programs you have that you can help them with. And then along going back to the event side of it, that communication with the partners before the event starts. Here's the prospectus. We're going to jump on a 30 minute webinar, I'm going to walk you through everything. Let me answer any questions that you have about the prospectus and make sure that you understand what is being offered to you during the process. How are you doing? You know, do you have everything that you need in order to be successful? Are you waiting from any feedback from the vendor? And then you know, at the show, actually walking around and talking to the sponsors. How's it going? Are you happy with the location that you have? Do you You need, you know, another power cord is the bathroom right across the hall driving you nuts. If so we can try to move you just little things that I think a lot of vendors, they get the check for the sponsorship. And then they're like, Hey, we're done, our job is completely done, you know, let's just go ahead and do the event now. But it's not like that, you have to make sure that the partners are feeling feeling appreciated that they that they're getting money for their time. And in so doing so when I call up Joe Schmo from partner, ABC, two weeks after the event, if I've met him at the event, and we've had multiple conversations over the last three or four months, when I call him up again, he's gonna be like, Hey, man, how are you doing? That was a great show, send me the contract for next year, or let's work on this project. And again, that's where having someone who is vested in the sponsorship and the events and the partners, running all of that really, really makes sense. Because you can it's not a one off relationship, or a communications, it's not a relationship, you want to build that relationship with them.

Paige Buck 21:08

Instead of transactional. It's an absolutely going really. So we met producing op stars for Lean data, yes, who prides themselves on having the biggest event that's adjacent to Dreamforce. And I don't know about you, but I have so many clients who say like, our dream for our 10 year dream for this plan is Dreamforce. Like, we're gonna be as big as that I'm like, oh, maybe aim for being like upstairs, the biggest event that's adjacent to it. Yeah, which is hugely successful. And you shared that you were super proud of the communication strategy for that. And I recall, one of the reasons we fell in love with you and your services was because it was so evident that you were just a cut above any other sponsor, or partner engagement we'd ever seen. And so you touched on some of this, but like, break it down a little bit. What were some of those communications pieces from? From the moment you've got that check, since that's the part that everyone can kind of take for granted? Through making sure they are really in love with and happy with the event afterwards? What did what did those communications components include?

Maeve Naughton 22:25

multiple things, the phone check in or the email check in? I see you've done these 15 things you have these five left to do to complete? All the things that we need from a sponsorship. You know, are you having a problem, can we help you out with that? Is someone not getting back to you on our side, and that's what's holding you up. reminding them of dates. And a lot of times people will have a sponsor, a speaker portal, a sponsorship portal that people can go into, which are great, because that really will help people stay on track of deadlines and what to do. But there's still that personal touch that you have to have with people. And again, when you have that when you're at the event, the introduction, and the collaboration is going to be so much easier. So I 100%. Love the conversations beforehand. You know, we've had sponsors say, hey, you know, I know you're we're doing a napkin for the cocktail sponsorship? Could we do a cup instead? Because the napkins don't show our logo properly, or whatever it is, working with them that way. And then as I had mentioned, actually being on site and walking around and talking to the sponsors, seeing if everything is okay, do you need a cup of water? You're the only person at your booth right now. And I've noticed for the last three hours, you're the only person at the booth? Can I go ahead and get you a glass of water or, you know, your, you know, can I charge your phone? Do you need a power cord, whatever it is, because of partners don't have a full good experience. They're going to they're going to remember that and you want them to have that good experience with the vendor itself, as well as the events and that they come back. And then as I had mentioned to the having the conversations after sending a survey out, finding out what worked, what didn't work, and then not just sending that, but actually getting those results and sharing them with the executive team at the vendor company who put the event on so that they know that this is what that says what the sponsors thought of it. These are things we should consider changing for next year, because it's one thing during the survey, completely different when you share those survey results. And then once you share those results, follow up on the action items from them to make sure that something is happening. And then I wouldn't even go so far as to then send a note to the sponsors, hey, thank you all for your feedback. These are the five things that came up as worrisome things, we are working on a plan to make them better for next year, these are the things that we worked back or that we worked, that you said worked really, really well. We're super excited about them, we're going to continue to make improvements to them, although they're good, we're going to try to make improvements to them. And then, you know, sometimes you'll have sponsors raise their hand, say, Hey, I'd love to have a conversation with you about other things that I think you can do. And then that just brings the ownership, partly to the partner to they don't own the conference. But it gives them a little bit more of you know, when they're at the next, the next event that they can say, hey, that was my idea to have the coffee bar. And there so yeah, it's just it's a it's a, it's a neat experience for them to be able to participate more than yes, no, I'll give it a 10. I give it an eight or whatever.

Paige Buck 26:00

Right? I Well, first off, as you articulate that I'm like, Well, you can see why it's a dedicated position that needs to be freed up from other event logistics, from the event team, or day to day marketing or client success. If, if it's on like the sales or the marketing team in house to the client, it's all of that engagement. And feedback is a big job, the big job,

Maeve Naughton 26:25

it really, really is. And then, you know, I've worked at clients before where then it was my job to help the sponsor partner to make sure that their abstracts are in and sometimes the partner wants me to fine tune the abstract. And so there's just a lot of different aspects to it. But again, like you said, it's, it could be a full time job, because you're working heavily with partners, you're working heavily with the the event management team and the event team to make sure everything is flowing, because the worst thing that you want to have happen as everyone shows up the day of the conference, and something is completely different than what was what was told or scheduled and promised. And then you're like, Oh, my God, what am I going to do? And then it's like backtracking and it's, it's not fun. It's happened and it's fun, not

Paige Buck 27:19

fun. Do you touched on something about when somebody gives you feedback, and when someone gives you feedback, it reminds me of like a sales technique I've heard, which is like people, salespeople freak out when someone's pushing back on price. But the sales expert said, when someone's pushing back on price, they want to hire you, they're already want to say yes. They just haven't seen the full value. Instead of like, thank you very much. I'll let you know, which is like goodbye. And so when somebody's giving you feedback, they're saying, like, here's an opportunity to hook me like I'm engaged. I'm not just like that sucked. And walking away. I'm not even taking the time to give you feedback, exactly. Ideas that's even bigger. They're demonstrating their own engagements. And I really hadn't thought about that before. Yeah,

Maeve Naughton 28:11

absolutely. And, you know, let's, let's be honest, not all feedback is good feedback. And some of the times you're gonna get feedback from someone who was always giving feedback, and you're like, Yes, I know, the conference should be free for everyone. Yes, I know, we should do it in Vail. Next, like, they're gonna come up with these things. But it's people want no matter what you're doing in life, people want to be heard, they want to be valued. And they want to know that you're listening to what they're saying, you're not just nodding your head and like, okay, so giving that feedback and the conversation. And if you're, if you are a partner manager, or in partner marketing, either one, and you're managing partners, and you hear that partner, xy, and Z thinks it's a good idea to do a cocktail hour the night before, and the company can't do it. That's a perfect opportunity for you to say, well, we can't do it as a company, however, would you be interested in doing your own and maybe the company can give you $5,000 To help you with it. So you do your event the night before? Or, you know, we can't do a full email campaign with you around this event. But what about in three months, we put it on the calendar and we plan a different campaign. That's maybe a wrap up of the event or you know, there's just so many different opportunities with the ideas that can come in. But again, not every idea is a great idea but there's there's definitely good opportunities there. If you if you just listen to what is being said.

Paige Buck 29:46

Do you have a favorite favorite opportunity you were able to build for a partner something other like fun, sexy, you know, or just like super? A perfect For them,

Maeve Naughton 30:01

we did a, for one of my vendors, it was a large user conference. And the partner wanted to be engaged a little bit more beyond the booth. And they wanted some sort of visibility's visibility. And so they came to us with a couple of ideas. And what we ended up doing was a coffee cart. Over in that, because it was a huge, huge conference, space that we had. One part was for eating and for sponsorships, and the other part was for all the sessions, but we ended up doing a coffee, coffee cart outside of one of the sessions. Oh, my God, they had a line out the door, it was in sane, but I know that they appreciated the ability to voice an idea. And then us come back and say, Oh, actually, that is a good idea. Let's look at the cost. And then we can, you know, figure out what days it's going to be, what hours it's going to be and how it's all going to happen. Yeah, I love that.

Paige Buck 31:03

What what in this, like, back to live moment? Are your clients asking for more of or less of?

Maeve Naughton 31:15

It's not even back to live and just always more leads. We want more engagement. The partners want more leads from events, and the vendors want more partners driving leads to the events, or I shouldn't say leads because they're not necessarily leads prospects prospects do?

Paige Buck 31:37

What a real like if you were doing like a reality check, or a level set for a partner or a sponsor at an event? What is there a is there a range or a magic number of a ratio of like a really good engagement, like 10,000 people are going to be at this event? In the best of worlds? How many of them are you going to get to talk to?

Maeve Naughton 32:03

So there's no I don't think there's a magic number for that. What I would encourage the partner is we really don't care about the scans, like the number of scans because we all know people who you know, hit booth, the booth, the booth to get the free T shirt and all of that, yeah, post event, what is the result of it? How many meetings are happening from it. But as the vendor, keep in mind, it's not just the amount of meetings you're having, it's the amount of meetings that your partners are having that are going to drive the customer to your solution to. And that's harder sometimes to, to because sometimes the customer will go to a partner booth, because they're interested in the partner boots information. They go with a partner, they implement the partner. And then six months later, they're like, oh, yeah, I remember I was at that event. And you guys were there. I liked the joint solution. So let's do the integrated solution. Now.

Paige Buck 33:06

Right harder to measure also harder when you're already a user to measure like the lifetime value of that engagement. Absolutely. And either upselling or retaining or deepening my reliance on your tool. Exactly. It strikes me too, that some of these partnerships are in the software, the tax base there. There also exist to allow the client the main host of the event to be seen as a resource. So you go make a purchase that does not redound to me monetarily like, and but the but the knock on effect is the host of this event is a major resource for me when it comes to solving problems around these particular tech solutions as circular needs.

Maeve Naughton 33:59

Absolutely. And that's why a lot of times the partners will or sorry, the, the vendor, the person putting the event on, will have partners there, so that the customer can come in and say, I need help with my, I don't know, my sales commissions managing the sales commissions, they come to an event and all of a sudden there are six different vendors in the sponsorship hall that have that solution. So and then the the main vendor, their partner manager, hopefully is able to do an introduction and say you might want to talk to this person because they're good at XY and Z. But if b If you know ABC is more important, talk to these people and they can manage that relationship or at least the introduction of the relationship. So yeah, that's super, super important. Is the partner being the vendor I know we're using all these different vendors to toast. Yeah, absolutely. And that actually brings up another point, like when you're doing the pre planning for your event. And I think this is the very first thing we mentioned, when you're doing the pre planning, that's something that that the internal team needs to figure out. Are you just going to have signed partners, B sponsors and allow them sponsorships? Or are you going to allow people who aren't even sponsors, but they play in that same ecosystem in the same space? And it can help develop the end users? I've done both, they both work? Well, you just have to know what your preference is, when it comes to who you want. Sponsoring? Thanks.

Paige Buck 35:43

Sometimes that also depends on like, the relative maturity of the client or their product, right? If they're super new to this space, they're interested in casting a wide net? Yes. And and then that, in turn leads to partnerships down the road? Absolutely. What do you do? Where do you go to stay on top of trends and best practices and keep yourself fresh, and all of this,

Maeve Naughton 36:06

um, I do a lot on LinkedIn. I don't post a lot on LinkedIn. But I do a lot of reading. And when people are posting podcasts, and like this one, when people are posting stuff, I do a lot of reading that way. I also there's a whole bunch of groups that I have an email subscription from, and I'm probably the worst end user, that these that these companies have, because they send the email out and I put them in a box or like my little folder, and then like three months later, I'll sit down and spend all day reading all of them.

Paige Buck 36:45

Do. I like that practice? I think that's sanity, because we get so much information flung at us. Yeah. Do you have a favorite or favorites among those podcasts or newsletters?

Maeve Naughton 36:59

I'm gonna say no, only because there are some of them are really good. And some of them are bad. And it's based on the individual thing, that individual podcast or white people or ebook. But there's a lot out there. So at least in the partner space, there's a ton of information out there just type in partner marketing or partners. And there's just tons and tons of information. And it's nice, because I feel like in the past, probably 10 years or so partner programs are becoming more and more important and important. And they're getting more of the visibility that I think that they need. For the most part, they're way understaffed. But I think that they're finally getting that visibility. So there are a lot more resources out there now than there were 510 years ago, which is awesome.

Paige Buck 37:51

Yeah, you hit on the one thing, I think both the client, the event host and their their staff or their third party event producer can fail to appreciate or take care of for a partner are their individual needs and that relationship during the event. How are you doing? What do you need? What else can I get for you? Yeah, not sort of, I've definitely seen producers who are like, trying to walk by their sponsors without seeing them like lalalala, I'm on my way to the session room. Please don't need me right now. What are some other things you wish that that like my people on my teams, event planners and project managers and producers better understood about partnerships, and in your work,

Maeve Naughton 38:43

I would say it's not just about the money. It's not about the partners, like I said before writing a check, or the sponsors writing a check it is building that relationship with them. And for people like me who have a consultancy agency and people like you, if you have a great event, and you're building those relationships, who knows that you know, the partner, the third booth down, might have an event next year, and they just lost their event person, or they want to enhance their event team. And they might call you up for an opportunity to work with them. But I would say just partners are real people. They're they're just like you and me. And they want a good experience at these events. And they want to be heard and it's just it's super fun. Like some people cringe at the idea of partners. But it's you know, I've been doing it for like 25 years or something like that. And it's I love it. It's it's fun and you get to work with so many different companies and so many different personalities, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. But yeah, just remember that the partners are there and they want they want a great event just like as an event producer, you guys want a great event to

Paige Buck 39:59

it sounds like One if they cringe then they should hire you. Yeah. And and to what I heard in there was like really value that this is it is a relationship. It is not transactional. And there's a lot of opportunity there. Absolutely. Absolutely. So my second to last question for you would be since you were an accidental partner, marketing expert, you fell into it and stayed with it. What did you actually want to be when you grew up when you were little?

Maeve Naughton 40:29

Oh, gosh, when I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut or a Doctor Who, which is ironic, because I am terrified of heights, absolutely terrified of heights going over bridges. I'm like white knuckled, wow. And then I wanted to be a doctor. But when I donate blood, I can't even look at the needle going into my arm. So

Paige Buck 40:52

you set a different path.

Maeve Naughton 40:56

From bat path, gotta have got a double major in secondary education in English for a couple of years, and then came back to Silicon Valley and fell into the tech world. And that actually, the secondary education, the high school degree, as well as English has actually come very much in handy working in tech marketing. I believe it all worked out,

Paige Buck 41:21

breaking it down into things people can actually understand and articulate. Yes. Well, thank you. We've been talking to Maeve Naughton president and owner of MKN Consulting Group Maeve, where can everybody find you?

Maeve Naughton 41:36

You can find me at www.Mknconsultinggroup.com Or I am or and I am on LinkedIn under Maeve Naughton

Paige Buck 41:46

That's awesome. Delightful. Thank you so much for your time.

Maeve Naughton 41:49

Thank you so much. Paige.

Outro 41:54

Thanks for listening to The Kennedy Events Podcast. Come back next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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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.