Creating Impactful Conferences: Organizing and Producing Successful Events
Looking to create a conference that truly makes an impact? You're in luck! In this episode, we explore the ins and outs of conference organization, from the underlying concerns and anxieties to the real issues at play. While many people search for quick checklists and shortcuts to organizing a conference, the reality is that it takes a village to make it a success.
So, how do you get started? We dive into the importance of understanding the "why" behind the event and developing a solid strategy before diving into logistics. By asking critical questions and digging deep into motivations and goals, event organizers can create a more meaningful and successful conference. The key solutions we explore include focusing on the core purpose, putting thoughts down on paper, and finding the right skilled talent to produce the event.
We understand that finding the right support services and skilled talent is essential, as an organizer's role is to lead the community and provide a sense of purpose. In this discussion, we differentiate between the roles of an organizer and a producer, highlighting the importance of leveraging the right people to bring your vision to life.
Join us as we discuss how to organize a conference that truly makes an impact. By staying focused on the big picture, developing a clear strategy, and tapping into the right resources, you can execute a successful conference without feeling overwhelmed.
Timestamps and key takeaways
0:02:23 - Letting go of ‘I-have-to-do-it-all-myself’
0:08:29 - Uncovering Core Motivations and Goals
0:12:44 - Get it out of your head and out on paper
Letting go of ‘I-have-to-do-it-all-myself’
Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. Most of the people that we work with, they do have incredible ideas for their communities. And they wanna serve their communities, bring something to them, but at the end of the day, they're just like, I cannot possibly run this business and do all the things. I can’t do everything and produce a conference every year that's actually good and useful and helpful.
So I think what the actual problem is of moving on until actually helping is they think that it's up to them to do all the things they don't realize. It takes a village to actually create a conference that will live and grow and exist outside of them. But I think with all, I wanna say, entrepreneurs and thinkers and community leaders and just good people there's this idea that I have to do it myself. I have to figure out how to do it. And it never occurs to them that that's an option actually. That's not actually a reality,
Isaac Watson: yeah. I think it gets baked into a lot of that hustle culture and this notion that you just gotta keep pushing and over overtax yourself and just make it happen. And that's not necessarily the case. I think, if you can separate out your own. Ownership of it from the thing you're trying to achieve, that's gonna be the first step to doing it the right way.
Uncovering Core Motivations and Goals
And ‘why’ is always my favorite question because a lot of the time people don't even know why they wanna do this conference. ‘ I think it's a good idea’ but they haven't actually thought of the reason.
And once we actually do this exercise with them and we have this conversation and we really dig down deep, a lot of the times they leave with a completely different understanding of what they want to do, because they've never gone that deep into the thought of, why? Who cares? Why is this happening? Why does this need to be a thing? It's been in their minds for so long that they don't realize that. Something in the subconscious, I'd almost say speaking to that and bringing that into the world.
Isaac Watson: Yeah. And we tease that out and that's part of why we enjoy doing it, is it's really about drilling into those core motivations and those core goals so that we can then create something that meets those. And once you've identified that, why then.
Get it out of your head and out on paper
Being very clear on what you're trying to create and why it's necessary and needed at this time why your people care about it. And in doing so, putting your thoughts down on paper, whether. A doc, a Google doc, or a journal. It doesn't matter. Just getting them out of your head and into written form to be able to start processing and connecting dots and things like that. And then from there you can find the right help to produce the event for you. You may be a fantastic community leader. That doesn't mean that you're gonna be a fantastic event producer. So finding the right skilled talent to help you produce that and to bring that vision to life is gonna be key. You as the organizer and this is the key nomenclature for me, is that an organizer is somebody who is hosting the event, who has the idea who's leading the community around it. The producer is somebody like us who is actually executing on that vision, right? Your role as a leader, as an organizer, as a host is gonna be very different. You shouldn't be concerned about those nitty gritty, logistical details. You are there to gather the people together and to give them a sense of purpose, and you find the right support. Services to bring that vision to life and to carry that through for your audience and for your business.
Transcript
Isaac Watson: How do you as a leader of a growing community, truly make a conference or event that has impact, a gathering with purpose and an attendee experience that knocks their socks off? An event that leaves your audience in awe and wondering where you've been their whole life? Make It Kickass is the podcast that explores these questions by uncovering the strategies, tactics and tools that we use every day to bring our clients' conferences to life.
I'm Isaac Watson, executive producer of Kickass Conferences, and we are here to help you make it kick ass. Welcome back everybody. We are here with another episode of Make It Kickass. I'm Isaac Watson, executive producer at Kickass Conferences, and with me is the lovely Nessa Jimenez operations manager.
Nessa Jimenez: Hi everybody.
Isaac Watson: Hi Nessa. How are you doing today?
Nessa Jimenez: I'm doing great. How are you? Oh, amazing. Amazing. We are in this season of the podcast, we are exploring some of those recurring questions that we get asked by our clients, by people we talk to, Find out that we produce conferences because. Everybody wants to know more about what it takes. And we're using each episode to identify one question and then tease out maybe some of the underlying concerns or anxieties or real issues that are feeding into these burning questions and how we can solve them. So today our question is so simple and yet so complicated. Right?
Isaac Watson: How do I organize a conference? It's so innocent.
Nessa Jimenez: Yes. Like how do I do this? Ah, where do we start?
Isaac Watson: Yes. So how do I organize a conference? It is indeed like one of the most common questions that we get. And the thing is, it is so simple and yet so broad that there's no way that you can. Answer that right? Like, where do I begin? Especially as people who do this for a living. So let's tease that out a little bit. Nessa, what do you think people are really asking when they ask us that question?
Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. So what they're actually trying to ask us is, how do I start? What's step one? Where's the to-do list? Where's the checklist that you can just hand to me, and I could just start and work my way through? And by the end of it, there will be a conference. Right? Like everything on the internet, there's always a handy checklist somewhere.
Isaac Watson: 20 steps to organizing the Perfect conference.
Nessa Jimenez: Exactly. What they're asking is what are the hacks? What's the DIY tips and tricks? How do I, hashtag hustle my way to doing it myself, all myself immediately, Like starting right now with no knowledge. Gimme the shortcut. But then there's also, I think, a deeper level, right? Cause there's people that come to us with that, but then there's other people that come to us, and what they actually wanna know is, how do I do this while still running a business and having a life and going to work and doing my other things, right? How do I add this into my life that already is full of all kinds of stuff.
Isaac Watson: Yeah. And I think that, that's the thing is like people know going into the idea of organizing a conference, that it's a lot of work. And I think it brings up a little bit of anxiety and people may be really excited to do it. They may have a great idea or a great reason to host a conference. But that 's a bandwidth thing. It's work. They know it, It's a lot, Event planning. It's a lot of strategy. It's a lot of things. And that's where it comes down to this: do I have the capacity to do this? How can I shortcut? How can I make this faster? Can I skip a couple pieces here and there? Yes. And how, give me that list. Yeah.
Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. Most of the people that we work with, they do have incredible ideas for their communities. And they wanna serve their communities, bring something to them, but at the end of the day, they're just like, I cannot possibly run this business and do all the things. I can’t do everything and produce a conference every year that's actually good and useful and helpful.
So I think what the actual problem is of moving on until actually helping is they think that it's up to them to do all the things they don't realize. It takes a village to actually create a conference that will live and grow and exist outside of them. But I think with all, I wanna say, entrepreneurs and thinkers and community leaders and just good people there's this idea that I have to do it myself. I have to figure out how to do it. And it never occurs to them that that's an option actually. That's not actually a reality,
Isaac Watson: yeah. I think it gets baked into a lot of that hustle culture and this notion that you just gotta keep pushing and over overtax yourself and just make it happen. And that's not necessarily the case. I think, if you can separate out your own. Ownership of it from the thing you're trying to achieve, that's gonna be the first step to doing it the right way.
I think another problem behind it is that people tend to be a little more, a little too obsessed with logistics before they've even developed a strategy. So like when people are thinking, what's the checklist of things like that's ex executional operational stuff that's Hiring a caterer getting the AV tech, finding a venue, organizing registration. That's all just tactical stuff. But if you don't have any strategy backing that up, you're planning something with no reason. And if you don't understand what you're creating, you can't find the right solutions for.
Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. And we touched on this in another episode, the episode where we talked about how much does it cost to put on a conference? people tend to skip to the end. And it seems odd to them, but honestly, that is the end. All these logistical things like that is the final piece. It takes the longest in terms of execution of these things, right? Getting the venues, getting the catering and all this good stuff. But that is actually one of the last steps.
So they're skipping already to the end. So we had to help them stop and take a step back and realize that all of these things fall into place if we've actually had this strategy conversation and you actually know why you're doing this and what needs to come out of it.
Isaac Watson: So let's talk about some of the ways that we can help and that people can put their minds at ease as they think about this stuff.
First and foremost, why are you doing this? What is the core reason or solution that you're trying to provide for your audience? That is the core of any strategy is really honing in on what your why is why people care. Why do you want to do this in the first place? Why is it needed? Why now? And these are some of the questions that we ask through our event lab process that are really digging into why. Why will people show up?
Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. Spoiler alert, but that is really the core of the event lab and what we do. It's like we sit people down and we ask them why. And why is always my favorite question because it's like a lot of the time we don't even know why I know I wanna do this conference. I know, I think it's a good idea, but They haven't actually thought of the reason.
And once we actually do this exercise with them and we have this conversation and we really dig down deep, a lot of the times they leave with a completely different understanding of what they want to do, because they've never gone that deep into the thought of like, why who cares? Why is this happening? Why does this need to be a thing? It's been in their minds for so long that they don't realize that. Something in the subconscious, I'd almost say like speaking to that and bringing that into the world.
Isaac Watson: Yeah. And we tease that out and that's part of why we enjoy doing it, is it's really about drilling into those core motivations and those core goals so that we can then create something that meets those. And once you've identified that, why then.
Before you get overwhelmed by all of the to-do list items and all of the logistics, it's really about finding the right help to produce the event for you. You may be a fantastic community leader, an amazing, successful business owner, but you'd be cheating yourself to think that you can then execute on the most amazing event for your audience all by yourself without any help as a first time thing.
That's where professionals like us come in and there's a whole breadth of different types of people who will plan events and produce and help with strategy. And so it's about identifying who is best to support you in doing that. And that right there is gonna answer the question about bandwidth because if you find the right person, they.
Take on all the things that you don't need to be worried about. that you can continue to run your business, to lead your community to grow and develop and focus on the important things like, I don't know, program and content and speakers and what you're delivering and let somebody else handle all of the logistical pieces.
Nessa Jimenez: It's like with any business where you've gotta stay in your lane, you've gotta stay in your zone of excellence and you've gotta find the people that have other zones of excellence, right? That can get you to where you wanna go. And as we've talked about before, For every business, for every entrepreneur, every community leader, that's different, right? There's some teams that can have a 10 person team versus other organizations that can have a two person team and they're all able to reach their goals because again, they're focusing on what they have and what they can do and what their goals are.
Isaac Watson: Exactly. I think another solution that we can offer, and this is, this may seem so simple, and yet we've encountered it time and time again, is when people come to us with these big ideas and they're like, How do I do this? How do I organize this? One of the first things we ask is, Have you written anything down yet?
Nessa Jimenez: Yeah, like can I see your work?
Isaac Watson: Yeah. Like show, show me the work so far. And they're like, Oh, I've just been thinking about it for a long time. I was like, Okay, great. And get that down on paper. Put pen to paper. Make a doc. Dump your, it can be as rough as, but just dump your thoughts somewhere. Outside of your brain so that you can then reread them, collect them, connect them, refine them, and then work. Other professionals to hone that into something that's gonna be really successful.
Nessa Jimenez: I will ask clients before any kickoff call that we have can you share with me any docs, any files you have. And a lot of times they got nothing. They have nothing. And we help them get that started. And that's also part of the process of Not disconnecting, but from,you can't bring people in to help you if it's all up in your head. Yeah. Like it has to be outside of you in some form so that others can come in and help you build the vision.Right?
Isaac Watson: Exactly. And that's one of the things that I like. We kept asking people to give us any documentation that they had or helpful information leading into an event lab. And it got to the point where enough people were not giving us anything and we were having to tease all this out of them that we were like, Okay, we're gonna give you some homework to do and force you to write this down through this worksheet.
Before you even start into the event lab process. And we'll use that as the basis. And so we've learned that. Helping our clients get that information out into the open out of their heads and into something that a group can collaborate on is key to starting the strategic process. All right, so the core question that we addressed in this episode is how do I organize a conference, a question that is simple and yet open ended and so complex to answer that there's no possible way I could tell you that. So what people really actually mean when they ask that is they don't know where to start. They want to know what. What to do list they can work off of. Just show me the things that need to be done.
They want to know what kinds of shortcuts or hacks they can just hustle their way through to make it happen, especially on a quicker timeline. Then they think they need or then they actually need. And then, and just wondering about capacity. Do I have bandwidth to take this on and continue to run the business that I have lived, the life that I have without, completely overworking or burning myself out on putting this together. So some of the solutions are around. Are really focusing on why you are doing this in the first place.
Being very clear on what you're trying to create and why it's necessary and needed at this time why your people care about it. And in doing so, putting your thoughts down on paper, whether. A doc, a Google doc, or a journal. It doesn't matter. Just getting them out of your head and into written form to be able to start processing and connecting dots and things like that. And then from there you can find the right help to produce the event for you. You may be a fantastic community leader. That doesn't mean that you're gonna be a fantastic event producer. So finding the right skilled talent to help you produce that and to bring that vision to life is gonna be key. You as the organizer and this is the key nomenclature for me, is that an organizer is somebody who is hosting the event, who has the idea who's leading the community around it. The producer is somebody like us who is actually executing on that vision, right? Your role as a leader, as an organizer, as a host is gonna be very different. You shouldn't be concerned about those nitty gritty, logistical details. You are there to gather the people together and to give them a sense of purpose, and you find the right support. Services to bring that vision to life and to carry that through for your audience and for your business.
Nessa Jimenez: Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode, and if you want to learn more about everything that we do and how we can help you set up for an incredible event, you can visit us at geteventlab.com.