Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:05 Here it is. Get ready. We're back today. Excited for episode 28, man. It's been an interesting year, but we appreciate everything you guys have been doing, listening, telling us about what we're doing, right. What we're doing wrong. And we just want to say, thanks. So take a minute, subscribe, give us some feedback, tell us what we can do better to help you become better professionals. We're excited for what's taken place in the industry. We're getting ready to start back up from COVID and I can't wait to share with you guys what we've got today, because this is the gig ready podcast.
Speaker 1 00:00:41 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:00:57 Yes, we are back. And we've got an exciting guest today. Taxi talk is an online community way more than a blog or a video or anything that talks with meeting planners, help them get better at what they do. Create a community where they can actually share with each other best practices, how to do things better. Liz Caruso. Thanks for being here. Um, great to have you. Thanks for showing up and coming on today. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. So what do, what do you call yourself within taxi talk? You can't call yourself CEO or, or anything. I mean like, do you even have a title? It's just I'm Liz and that's what I do.
Speaker 2 00:01:38 Yeah. I'm not big on titles. I've told everyone on our team to make their own. So ed from our team has the best title of all. He goes by chief unicorn. Um, I am not nearly as creative, so I just go by Liz and whatever people want to call me
Speaker 0 00:01:52 Outstanding. Well, I know that for me, taxi talk has been a huge opportunity to network with people. Uh, we've had people on the podcast from taxi talk a couple of times in the last couple of months. Um, really great community of a couple thousand planners that just dive in and ask questions. And it really, th I think the thing I like the most about it is it's actually people getting things done, asking questions like, Hey, how do I do this better? What can I do? And they're actually sharing and interacting. It's not like your normal Facebook or it's just everybody yelling at each other. It's really good. Um, give me the backstory real quick on how you Blake, where you built it from and, and really where the Genesis of the idea came from.
Speaker 2 00:02:35 So the long story I'll try to keep it short. Um, started many years ago, around 2009, 2010. We're based in New York. And we started doing, um, just meet up. So we used to call them, I think, event profs meetups or whatever. And we started doing these things and just kind of getting a community built. And so we would do networking events. And then we got more creative. We started doing these things called planter crawl, which was a venue crawl. So we used to take planners through the streets of New York city using lightsabers and have like 300 planners walking through the city from venue to venue. So it was part site visit part networking. And instead of going to three site visits, you'd go one night, do three different venues right back to back. And so we really just started building this community. And then over the years that's grown, we've had a Slack community.
Speaker 2 00:03:22 We have a LinkedIn group of like 6,000 people. Um, Facebook is the current place where we spent the most of our time. And that's the group that you're talking about. That's really active and super engaged. It started with this New York group, but it's gone global at this point. And, um, you know, our events have been mostly in New York until COVID. We decided to move virtual for obvious reasons. And that was great because it really opened our audience, but because of the blog and the podcast and other things, it's kind of expanded long before COVID to a more global audience.
Speaker 0 00:03:55 Awesome. Wow. I mean, I can imagine 300 people traipsing through New York with lightsabers overhead. All right. I know we're going this way, everybody let's, you know, let's move on. Um, God, it's like a pub crawl, almost a lot of fun. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. That's great. Do you think you'll get back to that after COVID and all that stuff? Or, I mean, do you think that's something that would happen again?
Speaker 2 00:04:18 I think so. I mean, convening event professionals is something we're really excited about last year, taxi talk global was virtual, but this year we're actually planning to do a hybrid model. So we will get people back in person. We kind of, we, we started with these like free networking events that were really big. And one of my event horror stories happened at one of those events. And so we ex that we're like never doing that again. Um, but smaller, intimate, like paid events are still something that we will definitely do in person.
Speaker 0 00:04:49 Awesome. Um, yeah. So give me the 32nd elevator pitch on, like, why should people go and be a part of these things, the taxi talk?
Speaker 2 00:04:58 Um, I think what makes us unique is I am an event producer. I plan events for our clients. And so we have this perspective. If you look at a lot of the communities that are built in the events industry, they're either by associations or by companies who are ultimately trying to sell a product. And so they've seen that the key to that is to build a community. Um, the difference is that I do this for a living, the same thing you do for a living. And so I think that's why the community is so helpful. And there's a lot of like, trust. I'm going to ask the question, no, one's going to take this question and post it in another group. No, one's going to be selling down my throat. Like we have kind of a culture of, if you want to learn about companies, that's cool.
Speaker 2 00:05:39 There's a way to tag your posts. So that that's the case, but if you just want feedback, here's what I've done. Here's what I haven't done without the company names, you tag it a different way and that, you know, pulls the content. So I think it's just that it's like we are there to support each other, learn from each other. And it's a very collaborative thing. There's nothing to sell to you unless there's like an event we're doing and that's just to cover costs obviously. And to, yeah, it obviously takes time. So just like we would charge our clients. Um, but yeah, I mean, we don't have like a product that we're trying to push and I think that's what makes it very unique from anything else you're seeing in the market.
Speaker 0 00:06:14 That's awesome. Well, as we grow gig ready over time, I th I mean, that's definitely the direction that I want to go. Um, helping professionals just yet better. And of course we much of what we do falls more into the technical side of things. Then the media planning, which is part of the reason why I wanted us to have a, just a chat about meeting planning, going forward, where the industry is right now. Um, I mean, it's been a year since most of the lockdowns happened. Um, you know, people at home not traveling, you know, no, not, I can't say no meetings, but very few meetings, most of them virtual. Um, and you talk to a ton of meeting planners every week. Where, where do you feel like we are right now? How what's the kind of the temperature of everybody and the meeting planners in the industry, the hospitality industry, um, where do you feel like we are right now?
Speaker 2 00:07:04 You know, uh, the industry is so, um, varied. There's so many different personalities and types of people in our industry. So I have seen people on the far opposites, you know, meeting should not be happening for a very long time. We need to lock this all down and then, you know, meetings are a great place to have people together and we need to be having large meetings right now. And just, it's all about what precautions you take. So those things aside, I do think we're kind of the majority as usual, I think, or somewhere in the middle where there's still a lot of virtual happening. I don't think virtual is going anywhere, but I think everyone is starting to see the potential of bringing back in person, whether that means 10 people or a hundred people, you know, those numbers are really going to depend on the state that you're in your precautions that you're taking.
Speaker 2 00:07:52 I did a podcast interview myself with Jody Katzman a few weeks ago, who has been doing a ton on COVID compliance. And she scared me to death. I was like, okay, we're not in person yet, but you know, there's a lot to think about the precautions and what your state allows. Of course. Um, but I got my vaccine. I know other people have been starting to get their vaccines. And I do think that that makes a difference. Um, it makes it so that we can start to get back to some level of normalcy. So I think that a lot of there's a lot of optimism in the industry talking to a lot of people who are very busy, which is really exciting. And some of them are very busy doing only virtual and some of them have some hybrid or in-person stuff in their portfolio right now that they're planning for the next six to nine months.
Speaker 2 00:08:37 Um, but there, there's definitely a different feel than I a year ago where it was kind of like a lot of people were looking for work and have no clients and no potential. There's a busy feeling. That's definitely coming back. And with that a sense of optimism, I think the last year has been crazy for so many people. And so a lot of people have a lot of catching up to do. It's been a really hard year. Yeah. Um, and it's also been a huge year for learning. I mean, people look at the, the influx of people who want to take virtual event production courses and learn all about technology and all the work that you're doing, Jordan with gig ready and getting people to understand technology has never been, we've been doing it for 10 years and trust me, people didn't care nearly as much as they cared for the last year. It's like, you know, um, and so I think that that's good for our industry too. There's a lot that we can now do now that people will have a lot more education under their belt. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:09:34 No, I'm, I'm with you. Education has been key to the last, uh, the last 12 months. I mean the first six months was like all the, all of the, the vendors and all of the suppliers were like, we're doing a million trainings all day long. And then sometime around like October, everything just, it just kind of stopped. And everyone's like, all right, when are we going to move into the next phase of whatever this is? Because 12 months is a really long time to work through that. What feels like the same, you know, the same old, same old. And it has taken a really, I think, I think it's been taken a certain amount of mental toughness to push through into, we know where we are right now and getting ready to go back into that. Um, the planners that have really succeeded through this, that you've watched your friends that have really kind of made the most of the last 12 months. What were some of the mindsets mentalities that you kind of got from them? And, and, you know, as we look towards the future, this isn't the last time that we're going to face challenges. This isn't the last time we're going to face a tough time. Uh, what are they, you know, w what were they using? What were they thinking on? What were they focused on during this last 12 months?
Speaker 2 00:10:45 Yeah, it's such a great question. I think part of it is this pre pandemic ability to always be learning something new. And, you know, we've been doing, like I said, taxi talk for 10 years. Actually more than that, now there were the people who would come, they want to learn the technology. They they're pushing themselves way outside of their comfort zone, but it came in very handy. Then when this has, you know, what happened in last year has happened now, technology is obviously not the only thing, maybe the next huge thing to happen to our industry is something completely unrelated to technology. But it's that idea that you're constantly learning new things and pushing yourself out of what's comfortable before you're forced to. And I think that's the position a lot of people were pushed into last March was I didn't do anything with virtual.
Speaker 2 00:11:31 And now I have a lot of catching up to do. Those are two very different places to be. And another thing is really the flexibility. I talked earlier about the people who are on one side or the other, you know, these extreme opposites about what we should be doing. And I can see absolutely what each of them is saying. I think the moving industry, as a role in bringing back in person events at the same time, there's a being done right now. That's not very safe. So I understand those, but I think the people who are most successful are the people who are finding the middle ground. Can we have an in-person event with 10 people? Can we do it with 50 people? And what does that look like? I've seen, for example, um, very great wedding planners who really pivoted very quickly to micro weddings and, and very thoughtful.
Speaker 2 00:12:18 It wasn't like, okay, well, we'll just bring your family together. There's a lot of testing, a lot of really being careful, but making it a whole new experience. I talked to one, um, wedding planner, Daniella Grafman, she actually planned our wedding, but she's in the industry. And she was talking about how she has crafted this for her clients to be a completely new experience. It's not that you're not getting your wedding it's that that wedding is going to happen a year from now. And now you get this new thing that no one else has gotten where it's just you and your closest family. And this means something totally different and can be re-imagined and it provides more value to the clients. And it helped her really reset, like the way she was thinking about this too, you know, it's like, and how you can serve your clients.
Speaker 2 00:13:01 So I think, um, whether it's on the special events side or the corporate, it's really that flexibility and creativity to say things are completely different than they've been, but how could we still provide that value? What is it that we were doing pre COVID for our clients? It wasn't in-person events that wasn't the thing that was the delivery method. What we were doing was building audiences. We were building brands, you know, talking about the actual value we were providing our clients, I think has helped the people who can do that. It's easier to re-imagine then what's the new delivery method. Yeah. They still do those things in a virtual world. And I think that's helped people really get through the last year.
Speaker 0 00:13:45 Do you think that people, it worked out better for most, if they, um, worked within their current frame of expertise versus trying to like navigate to something completely different? Is that basically okay. We were doing live events here. We're focused in this direction. Now we shift, you know, 45 degrees to the right. We're still going in the same direction, but it's a slightly, it's a different deliverable, but yet the same world versus like, Oh, throw it up something new completely, and then just completely changed direction. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:14:17 Yeah. I mean, I think everyone hates the word pivot now, but I like the word pivot a lot better than re-invention to your exact point. I think it makes a lot more sense to take what you were doing. Find new applications, find, learn new skills, of course, and move it a little bit to something else that is more applicable right now. I think where, you know, I always talk about this, but like everyone was putting virtual event producer on their LinkedIn headline and 90% of them. Like, I know you for a fact, I know you've never done virtual event. It's not a good look for the industry and it's not a good look for them personally. And I, I'm always a fan of collaboration if you haven't been doing it instead of completely changing what you were doing and, and pretending like, you know how to do this new, cool thing.
Speaker 2 00:15:06 Yeah. Partner with the right people. And I'm constantly working now with independent event professionals who we all had our own businesses before, but in the last year, it's like, Hey, let's sell this event together and do it together. And that has been so great for both of our companies on multiple relationships. So I think it's really about, you know, can you pivot a little bit and then how can you collaborate to offer services that maybe are not in your wheelhouse? I mean, if you're going to start to, we were talking before we went live about the industry and you, you might be in for 15, 25 years, you're gaining all this knowledge throughout that entire career. So what makes you think that it's a good idea to just start all over again and start learning something new. That value is still there, whether you're the queen of negotiating contracts or the King of speaker coordination, all that stuff still has to happen in a virtual event. Yeah. Um, and, but I think the technology overwhelms people, so they freak out and start trying to learn something totally new and pretend like they're the King of that or the queen of that when that's not necessarily
Speaker 0 00:16:09 Wow. Um, something you said there stuck out to me, I'm going to come right back to it. But I just, I realized something about like the first three to four months of this, when I think one of the biggest mistakes or failures that I made was like, I got so many emails from all these companies saying we do virtual events and I was so sick and tired. I was like, I was beside myself frustrated. Like, that's all I saw. So I didn't want anything to do with virtual. And, you know, I didn't move into virtual as fast as I should have. Like, that was a mistake that I made for my company. And we were just, you know, we're now starting to see some momentum pickup, but it was like we're four or five months behind the curve of where everyone else was. So, so that was a huge learning for me.
Speaker 0 00:16:54 Um, but one thing I didn't do that I should have done, I think now that you mentioned this was the partnership with other people to come together and say, okay, we might not be able to do this by ourselves, but we can do this with someone else. And I've, I will admit personally, like from a partnership standpoint, I've always been like, I have my company, you have your company, we'll do stuff together, but never the Twain shall meet. Um, and this, you know, this, I think has really introduced this, this thing of like, all right, we really have to work better together if we're going to accomplish the goals that we have, which is at this point just to stay solvent and stay afloat. Um, so what I guess from a business standpoint, how did you work with, and structure those relationships? Because there's that, there's always the thing in our industry where everybody's afraid that someone else is going to try and steal someone else's client.
Speaker 0 00:17:48 Like that's just, that's the nature of the event industry. And I don't like it because that's not how I operate, but that's how 90% of the people I know. Well, if I bring that in, if I bring them in, I can't tell them who it is because they might try and steal it. And if I bring, you know, do you know what I'm saying? So how, yeah. How did you create those relationships or, or enter into those to help them really be symbiotic, I guess, but how to work together and not have that feeling of, Oh, well, they might just come in and try and swipe this away from me at a moment's notice when I'm not looking.
Speaker 2 00:18:20 Yeah. I mean, I think part of it is the benefit of hosting your own community and building it for 10 years is, you know, who the good people are and who the people aren't that you don't want to work with. You know? And, and so there are people who may have approached me, or I may have considered working with them for a particular need. And it just is not something I would pursue because I, you know, who are the people who are going to go behind your back and do things because you have a relationship with them. Um, at the same time, it's pretty easy to start finding the people who you're like, these are good people, you know, they know something, I don't know, they're a good person, I'm a good person. And so I've, I've really gone on trust. I mean, I have not been burned yet, but who knows, you know, so not a lot of like crazy NDAs or anything like that.
Speaker 2 00:19:03 It's like, Hey, here's a place where I think you're really good at this. And I'm really good at that. And together, I think we could sell certain types of clients. So if I bring this in a certain type of business, I'm going to bring you in on it with me. And if you do that, you bring me in on it and we stick in those lanes. So that's where it gets a little interesting. Right? So like the virtual event, production is something that a lot of people are not that comfortable with. So we can come into your event and we can just produce the virtual piece. So you're still coordinating all the speakers, coordinating all the sponsors, doing all the stuff that you would typically do, but we're going to come in and do what we do. And it works all different ways. From a business standpoint, it's everything from, uh, we're working with a company now where they sold our service.
Speaker 2 00:19:46 We are executing a hundred percent of the event and they're just kind of taking a piece at the top and their client doesn't even know that that's, that they're not the ones who know all the stuff, but that remains their client. If that client wants to go back to them next year, they either have to come back to us or they'll have to figure it out on their own. Um, and then we have more, you know, hour by hour, just it's, it's very much like we do with all of our clients. Here's the scope, here's the price. If it goes outside of that scope, we have to talk. Um, and it is, I guess it is pretty, um, it's not too formal. That's just kind of how I work. But with good people, I think is the big key. I think what you're talking about with this competition, I think first of all, in certain sectors of our industry, it's more common that people are like really territorial and not willing to share.
Speaker 2 00:20:34 But I do think that that's something that's changing even if only because 20, 20 forced everyone to have to change that a little bit. If you want to survive, you either start from scratch and learn everything by yourself and pay thousands of dollars, take the right courses, and then fall on your face. Hundreds of times while you learn it yourself, or you suck it up and find a way to partner with someone, you know, it's hard. And I think in the virtual space, the last year there's been enough business because there's not a lot of people who know what they're doing, that you can kind of partner with people without feeling like, Oh my gosh, if they took that client, I'll never be able to run a business, you know?
Speaker 0 00:21:12 Yeah. How are meeting planners, finding clients, especially like those in March and April, who like business, just, you know, I mean, I remember, I think it was March 13th or 14th. I was talking to guys and they're like, yeah, I had eight shows canceled day. I had 10 shows canceled today. I had like booboo. I mean, it was, it was literally dominoes. Um, as fast as you could push them, what are they doing to find that business now, both virtual and hybrid and in person compared to the way that they were before?
Speaker 2 00:21:43 Well, I think the biggest key is, um, working with your existing clients. Like they always say, so we've got a lot of cancellations last year, too, just like everyone else. Yeah. And then it's again, that breathing room where you're like, okay, the event got canceled and then you go back to them and you say, here's what you were trying to achieve. What if we could do it for you in the virtual space? And we could do it this way and we could use this platform. And so I, and we have seen many people in the industry kind of win back existing business by just helping your clients see a lot of people were canceling because they didn't know what else to do that in-person venue was closed. So they had to cancel their event, but they still wanted to achieve the things that they wanted to achieve.
Speaker 2 00:22:25 And so that's part of it is you have people who already trust you, you go back to them and you help them think outside the box on how they can still, you can still help them be successful. And that works really well. Um, I think also the key is building your brand. So whether this is new or something that you've been doing for a long time talking about it a lot, um, I know I've gotten a lot of clients from doing our virtual showcase or whatever events we do as taxi talk. People are like, Oh, well then she must know what she's talking about. You know? So we've gotten things for example, where it's just consulting on choosing the right platform because people have seen like, Oh, she knows at least 10 platforms just from this one thing that you did. Um, and so that is part of it. It's just talking about what it is that you're learning, even if it's new and, and that does tend to bring in clients because they start to say like, Oh, well, I don't know anybody else who does this, but, you know, blah, blah, blah has been talking about it. So I'm going to ask them. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:23:20 That's awesome. Um, are there a lot, this is my ignorance. Honestly, I'm going to ask the question. Are there are most meeting planners independent or are they, um, are they part of another group or, uh, you know, like a, like a merit syrup, you know, one of the bigger, uh, bigger companies that do, you know, DMCs or things like that,
Speaker 2 00:23:43 It's a mix. I mean, there's definitely, um, you know, in house corporate planners, there's association planners, there's agency planners, but I do think the independent planners there's a lot of them. I think they tend to get overlooked because you might not recognize their company name, you know, it's not Google or Facebook. And so you don't realize that they're planning every single event for Google or Facebook. You know what I mean? So independent planners are a very large part of the industry. And, uh, when we started this Facebook group that we have, it was just event hustlers is what we called it. And it was only for independent event professionals. And we had several hundred in there before making it in 2020. We're like, okay, there has to be something more broad. And so we're going to open it to more people, but, um, there are a ton of independent planners as well.
Speaker 0 00:24:30 Wow. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's just, my, I'm still learning, trying to grasp like an understand the industry. And I remember the first time I was on LinkedIn and there was someone that was calling themselves a TD and I, and I went and I looked and I was like TD what I don't get. Cause I'm a technical director by, by train and originally, and what, what she was referring to was travel director. And I was like, what in the world is a travel? Like I had no idea what a travel director was. And so Dell, you know, and she was also a meeting planner. And so I was like, Oh, all right, now I get it. And there's this whole world that I just didn't understand that I'm still through taxi talk and everything else learning and getting a better idea. Um, and it really shows me how big the world is.
Speaker 0 00:25:12 I think I forget how like how small, but yet how large our industry is. And I, you know, every time I'm driving down the highway and I see all these cars driving by me the other way, I constantly try and remind myself. I think this industry is way bigger. Like, what we do is there's so much more out there than we realize, you know? And, and, and I noticed this in the virtual space, like I get stuck in my own head, like, well, there's only so much business as an only this. And I've got, I'm trying to like take it away from someone else because I have to compete. And I have to, when really it's, I mean, we're talking, it's so much bigger than what I have ever realized, and there's so much work and stuff out there. So, you know, anybody that gets frustrated feeling like there's not enough workers, there's not stuff going on.
Speaker 0 00:25:57 Like there is so much of it out there. You just have to spend some time to find it. Um, and, and I think that through that process learned that it's just, it's bigger. And then you'll learn how much smaller it is when the person that you worked with last week is on the same show you were on this week. But through someone else that you didn't know that they were coming. And then all of a sudden, you know, um, cause we all move in the same kind of the same world. Where, where, where do you think that? Because the industry is so big, there's so many different parts, pharma tech, uh, industrial, you know, where do you think we're, we're going? I mean, different parts, of course, our Mo you know, moving at different speeds, but where do you think that we're going? Like the association industry, for instance, I mean, they are, you know, they've just been starting to get back into meetings in the last six months because they were, at least everyone I talked to was like, associations were like, Nope, we're not doing it. We're not doing virtual. We're just, we're wait until in person. And then they finally were like, okay, we've got to do something, um, where, you know, kind of, where do you see things progressing forward now with, you know, I think it's like 25% of America has gotten the vaccine or something. I don't know the exact number, but it's a pretty decent number now. Where do you think we're going? Like, where do you see the, the, the future over the next six months?
Speaker 2 00:27:16 Yeah. And it's hard to say, right? Because, um, it's been a whole year of large scale shutdowns. And so, you know, there is this pent up demand. I think that's something everyone's talking about. Yep. I can't wait to go to, I have not went to indoor or outdoor dining for an entire year over a year. At this point. I haven't gone anywhere. Cause we have a little one who can't wear a mask because he's too young, so we haven't gone grocery stores, anything. So I can't wait to go to like home goods and shop just meander around and find something. Uh, so I think there is that pent up demand. But on the other side, there has been a severe change in habits and a lot of fear that has been built up. And at the same time, I think just this different level of what we deem worthy and that I think is going to be a huge impact on events.
Speaker 2 00:28:07 I think I've been hearing a lot of people talking about in-person events, becoming the luxury product. I think that's true. If I'm, if I could access 80% of your event virtually then to choose to go in person I know is going to cost me more money. It's going to cost me more time and it may put my life at risk now, is that dramatic? Maybe. But I think right now it's not that dramatic. And maybe in a year it will be less dramatic, but is something that people have to think about. And so I think that's something to think about. The other thing is I think there's so much content available online and through virtual events that I think what's going to get people to go are the relationships. And I was on this clubhouse chat last week. Um, I'm on a clubhouse way too much.
Speaker 2 00:28:49 And, uh, you know, the idea was that people will be using their virtual events and their virtual online communities to build connections that then people will pay anything for, to go meet these people in person. So, um, there are so many people that I've met just in the last year through taxi talk, you included that would be so great to like grab a cocktail and like properly catch up. And I paid for that before I'd pay to go here, 18 hours of content. And so what does that do though, to an association event or where, you know, what they're doing is selling the CPU's, which we now are all doing virtually for our clients. And they're, they're attracting you with, you know, huge name speakers and tons of content. We've all been to those events where you're just back to back to back hour session hour average, and you're just like numb by the end of it.
Speaker 2 00:29:43 And so really, I think it's going to be interesting to see how people cultivate communities and then use those communities to drive people back in person, because I will, and I'm not surprised if this is the case for most. I would go back to an in-person we've already planned family Easter. Our neighbors are having their kid's birthday party. Those are the things I'm saying yes to traveling for speaking engagement is still a no, you know, attending a large conference still a no. So those personal connections I think, are what are going to get people back. Um, and so that's really going to be interesting because I mean, everyone's habits have changed from that
Speaker 0 00:30:18 Yeah. In the last year. Yup. Well, and they're spending too. I mean, that was something that I was talking with. Some people procurement procurement at fortune 500 fortune 1000, uh, I mean, when you look at the bottom line and you look at, wow, I didn't spend $2 million to do this thing. And we did it online for whatever, a hundred grand, 200 grand, whatever the cost was. I mean that, that's a huge shift and overall mentality. Um, you know, that I see as a hurdle, I mean, it's going to take a couple of years for that to really flush itself out and them to say, okay, well, do we really need those meetings? Do we need to meet in person? Um, you know, I used to do a big pharma POA two times a year, and really it was something that could have been done virtually without, without, I mean, without any question, but they wanted to do it in person. So now do they ever go back to in a person? I don't know. We'll, it'll be interesting to see, um,
Speaker 2 00:31:15 Work from home into that. I think all of these corporations are saying, what are we paying for all this office space, for sure enough, it has been proven that if you let your employees work from home, they still work. You know, it's not like they're just going to go, you know, party all day. Um, and so that's another line item that I think people are thinking about crossing off and the more you stay at home, the more you want to stay at home. I mean, obviously you want to go out for social things, but are you as likely to put down money to like go for a week long conference? Probably not. And so, you know, but I do think corporations will spend more money on bringing their employees together for activities. If they're working remotely, they still want those in-person connections to be built. So I think there'll be more, I'm seeing a rise in things like retreats, um, incentive trips, that kind of stuff, where people still want to provide those in-person connections. But again, it's all about this community piece.
Speaker 0 00:32:09 Yeah. Interesting. The people getting together from a, just like you said, community, um, I had a really good question and now it just flew out of my brain, um, killing me. Um, no, it, it was revolving around people and people getting together. Um, and, and looking at, you know, from a liability standpoint, how are companies looking at that? I mean, it's, that, to me was the biggest thing about that started with the pandemic. I mean, really it came, yes, I'm going to touch the third rail for a second. Cause I love to do that. Um, as much as people were concerned about safety companies were concerned about liability and, you know, liability is huge because, you know, we live in a very litigious society. Um, and so we have to be very cautious about that. So that means that it's going to be a slower return for certain things to come out. So then I guess the question is where does that tip where's that tipping point of, you know, do maybe, is it 75% vaccinated where people are suddenly like, okay, the liability is, is, is lessened to the extent, you know, from a risk management standpoint. Um, do you think that the vaccine is the sole decider of that? Or do you think there's more, more to it than just that?
Speaker 2 00:33:30 Um, I think it's very complex. I think that that's part of it. Everyone is talking about, can you mandate the vaccine? And if not, you know, what does that mean? Even if you can, what does it mean for the people who choose not to? I read this great article, um, about, you know, just how it's so, um, America at least is in the hands of the anti-vaxxers like what percentage of people will choose not to get vaccinated for whatever reason, whether it's health-related or religious beliefs or whatever. Yeah. And what does that mean? What if we never get above 50% of Americans that's vaccinated? And so there's, it's such a complex issue. I think, um, larger organizations are just kind of trying not to deal with it. I know my husband works for a really big company and they're just not saying anything. You're not, we have no clue when you're going back, what that's gonna look like, what percentage will you have to be vaccinated?
Speaker 2 00:34:19 It's just not a discussion. So I don't know if they're waiting to figure it out or they're waiting for certain metrics or whatever it might be. Um, I know for the vaccine, they were told you don't have to, we're encouraging everyone to give, get it, but we're not giving it out. It won't be available at the location. Um, but we are encouraging you to get it. What does that mean? You know, if you don't get it, what does that mean? Um, and I think it's very much in tie tied in with these, like just the idea that people are now working from home and companies are thinking, well, maybe we can do that a little longer, especially if it limits lives.
Speaker 0 00:34:53 Yeah. Well, and then if it, I mean, if the numbers go down so far and then they, you know, basically get to zero, I mean, and that to me seems like why the, I could understand that from an executive standpoint, it's like, well, if we just keep doing, we're doing well, we're making money. Things are going pretty well with everybody working at home. If we just sweat it out, basically waited out until it gets to the point where it's at zero and it stays at zero for six months. And then we say, okay, we're good. Let's go back to it. I mean, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see. It's a very, I mean policy, I mean, it's where like it's where policy and politics and work and like EV like it all just collides into one big atomic explosion of insanity. Um, as we're trying to figure out where like, where this is going, and I mean, everybody that I know has tried to guess, and nobody's been right. I mean, there is no Nostradamus
Speaker 2 00:35:45 And it's so different, you know, like I'm in New York where we were hit so hard. I just read yesterday. We are still leading the country. Number one in number two, New York, New Jersey with most infections per capita. So my expectations, I mean, some of the things I mentioned, I haven't done in over a year, that's very common around here. Like, we don't do anything, you get everything delivered, you don't go anywhere. You don't talk to anyone. Now you live in other parts of the country that is not at all people's reality. And so they don't have to come from as far down the hole. Yeah. I feel like I'm like at the bottom of the hole, I have a long way to go before you see me on a plane for luxury, let alone for business. But, um, I know that that's not the case for everyone. And depending on where you live, really impact that, how hard you were hit, what your policies were. I mean, this stuff is just like, it's really complex. So I don't know. I don't know that anybody knows what's happening or what will happen.
Speaker 0 00:36:40 What, what do you, what have you talked with people about as best practices for planners, for people who are organizing and arranging these events around the idea of, um, I guess how you talk to people about what you want in regards to the safety protocols with COVID you had your call with, I forget her name. I'm sorry. Uh, yeah. Jodi with Jody a couple of weeks ago, you know, what are some things, what are some just best practices that she talked about that would be, you know, very critical to mention upfront and talk about?
Speaker 2 00:37:13 Yeah. As I mentioned is a very huge topic. I think the biggest thing I learned from her is you need someone who is responsible for COVID compliance on your team. It is a very important role. And when I say on your team, she did make the point that it needs to be someone outside of your organization, because those are some hard calls that need to be made and they're not always, you know, political. Um, and so, you know, having someone assigned to manage all of the COVID compliance from contact tracing to, you know, how you're arranging your seating and all of these things is, is a full job. And so if you don't have one person, you need to have multiple, you know, multiple people doing it. Um, so I think just the focus on COVID compliance is super important. There are, I think she has taken something like 14 and counting certifications on this, um, offered by a wide range.
Speaker 2 00:38:00 There are some in the events industry, I know, event leadership Institute has a few on pandemic, uh, protocols and things like that. So, you know, learn, that's one thing where I definitely think we all should be taking the certifications and learning as much as we can. Um, and then really thinking, I think that's, that's where you start thinking about, like, what are the most important parts of your event that needs to be in-person because just like a company is limiting their risk by having people out of the office. If that makes sense. I think you look at your event that way, like you limit risks by not doing things that don't have to be done in person in-person things have to be done. Um, but if you can do it on online in the virtual space, why would you make your life that much more complicated? Right. All at least for now. Um, but, uh, I would highly recommend people listen to that podcast and just follow her. She's been doing a lot of stuff through the live event, coalition, a lot of like free webinars. And, uh, she is definitely the expert right now. She's the person I know who has taken the most education around this.
Speaker 0 00:39:01 Got it. Well, and remind me of the name of the podcast again, is that event hustler awesome. The event hustler podcast. So for those of you listening pause right now, go over to the podcast app that you use search event, hustler hit subscribe. Um, I know that it's a great podcast. She's talking to some great guests and some great people who really are professionals. So it'll help you get better at what you're doing and I'll help you be more prepared for going forward. Um, so thank you as, yeah, you're welcome. I'm, I'm always, I'm all about helping other people grow and, and getting the right people, the right information to the right people, because that's what that is the only thing. Now there's the other half of that. We can get people tons of information, but if there is no action on that information, um, it does us no good.
Speaker 0 00:39:53 I mean, we do live in a society, unfortunately that is significantly information oriented. We feel very powerful when we have information, but if we don't do anything with it, um, it is worthless. It's pointless to have it up here, if it doesn't actually come out. So in the spirit of that question or that thought, um, what are three, what are two things you think going forward that planners should do with the information that they have to be more ready or better prepared for their next event, whether virtual hybrid or in person, um, that they can make actionable. Now it won't take them a long time to really make it make an impact.
Speaker 2 00:40:37 So I think taking one of these COVID compliance courses will be very important. Okay. Um, so I would recommend that. And the other thing is, um, it's more of a philosophy thing, but really start thinking about what hybrid is, what its benefits are, what its drawbacks are and what is possible. I think there's kind of been this ideal hybrid model that's been tossed out where there's two totally different events for two totally different audiences that are planned with the perfect touch points. And, you know, that's really great option. There's a lot of other hybrid models. So I think people get completely overwhelmed. I've heard so many planners say, well, double the budget and double the work. How will we survive? You know, it doesn't have to be that, you know, it could be that there's a one hour virtual happy hour. It could be, you know, whatever it is, there are a lot of different models, but the point is to think about what are you trying to do with an in-person audience that you can't do virtually?
Speaker 2 00:41:31 And what do you want to do with them virtually that can easily be done there and possibly better than could be done in person. And how would that look? I think every planner is going to have to figure out for their own events, what that looks like. And like I said, it could be no touch points. It could be one little touch point. It could be a thousand, you know, you can go as crazy as you want with this, but there's still a lot of benefit in just a hybrid event strategy. Maybe some of your events are fully virtual summer, fully in person. Some have those hybrid components in the event itself. But what does that look like? And why is that so important? I think is something planners really need to be thinking about.
Speaker 0 00:42:07 I agree. Um, I'm actually doing so July. Um, they're doing the special event again this year and I will be speaking to, uh, a bunch of planners at the events specifically about hybrid what the models are, what can be done, what is best practices. And so that'll be a really exciting session of just talking about hybrid. Uh, cause it's been really, it's been really heavy on my mind thinking about, you know, it can't be the hand, the cable to the guy in the corner, who's the web stream guy, you know, here's you go, here's a signal. And then it just goes out and they're really focused on the in room people because now you've got two audiences. I mean, I look at this, like, you know, the Ellen show, the, you know, Oprah talk shows, uh, Saturday night live like you have in studio, you have out of studio and that is a completely different communication style than well, we're doing it for the people in the room and those at the other end of the internet, they just get what they get.
Speaker 0 00:43:02 Um, you have to have a tailored experience for them. So, um, I think that the future though, really, truly, I think it helps our industry grow and we'll be more prepared to do better events, provide better services, a better core of services. And frankly, honestly, I think we'll be able to monetize it more when I look at it from our standpoint, how grow the industry versus, you know, contract as it really has felt over the last year. So, um, Liz, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Great conversation. Um, I know that I could have gone on for another 30 minutes, but you have to run. I have to run and I just want to say thanks. You're awesome. And we really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2 00:43:48 Thank you. And we're looking forward to having you on the event. Hustler show soon,
Speaker 0 00:43:52 May it it'll be exciting. I'm looking forward to it. Awesome Liz. Well, Hey, thank you. And uh, I hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 00:44:00 Thank you. Take care of Ron.
Speaker 0 00:44:02 Thanks for listening today. So excited to have you as a listener, not only a listener, but as someone who's part of the gig ready community. And I would ask one thing, tell somebody about what we're doing, let them know that they can become a better professional merely by spending a little bit of time gathering information, taking that information and then acting on it. Don't allow us just to become a group of people who listen and gain a ton of information and then don't do anything about it. Thank you so much being here. We appreciate everything you're doing. You guys are rock stars and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 00:44:36 <inaudible>.
