Planning a memorable, efficient and effective meeting can be difficult. With so many phone calls to make, conference venues to view and book, and, of course, inviting all the delegates, getting everything done in time and then hosting a productive meeting can be a big ask.
Sundial Options and Solutions, part of the award winning Sundial Group, have a devised a handy cheat sheet for successful event management. Follow these ten steps to success…
Putting the Meeting Together
1) Plan your meeting
This may seem obvious, but it’s surprising how many businesses try to put together a meeting at the last minute. Choose your venue finding agent or conference venues well in advance. You’ll also need to draw up a guest list and meeting agenda, and set a budget for everything at least three months in advance if it’s a big conference, or a month in advance if it’s a small one. This will ensure all the big tasks are completed before you start to tackle the smaller things.
2) Food and drink
Collate all dietary requirements and send them to the caterer within the time specified by them. If they have not given you a time frame, always ask. You don’t want to end up in a day long meeting or conference without food and drink.
3) Give your team members plenty of notice
You wouldn’t want to be told about a meeting at the last minute so offer your colleagues the same courtesy. If you have everything planned in advance, it will be easier to inform your colleagues so they can arrange their plans accordingly.
4) Venue and accommodation
Ensuring your delegates have a comfortable venue will go a long way towards ensuring the meeting is productive and worthwhile. Sundial Options and Solutions are a specialist venue finding agent and can get you great deals on local, national and international venues, and if needed, book in the local language. They also arrange group accommodation for your guests if the conference is scheduled to take place over a number of days.
5) Manage delegate confirmations
Keeping track of who is attending and who can’t make it is essential. A venue finding agent can help you manage all confirmations from your attendees which in turn helps with venue, accommodation and catering requirements. If you plan to manage the meeting yourself, keep an up to date spreadsheet of confirmations and non-attendees.
6) Attendee tracking
The best way to manage delegate confirmations is to track each attendee. Sundial Options and Solutions collate all your guest lists and keep track of each attendee to help with catering and accommodation on the day.
At the Meeting
7) Registration and badges
Registration desks not only help with keeping a record of attendance for the day but the data gathered can also assist with planning future meetings. Knowing who came to the meeting will ensure you invite the right people to the next one.
8) Agenda
When working on your event management, it is imperative that you develop a varied agenda. Repetition can be boring and you can lose your delegates’ interest. Use PowerPoint presentations or graphs to add a splash of colour and keep everyone interested.
9) Audience response
Listening to your audience’s views and opinions will not only put you in a more respected position, it might give you different viewpoint on running your business.
10) Post-meeting feedback
Tracking your audience response is a great marketing strategy. Getting feedback means you can judge and plan your next meeting or conference, and make it better than the last. It gives you an idea of what to include and not to include in the next event. Sundial Options and Solutions can produce and manage all feedback from delegates to help you plan an even better event next time.
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