Management Programs, Meeting Plans and Winter Clove's Marvelous Meeting Spaces

In our suit-and-tie business world, meetings are the meat of an operation -- everything else is just a significant side dish. Meetings help showcase new products, strengthen partnerships with existing clients, and establish relationships with prospective buyers. Sales professionals know that nothing replaces the importance of a handshake and face-to-face meeting, and nothing will impress your clients or employees more than a unique venue for your meeting with excellent ambience and state-of-the-art technology.

Picking the right meeting venue means your event will be memorable because of the fabulous atmosphere and on-point amenities of the venue. For example, the Winter Clove Inn, Round Top, New York, is a four-season mountain resort that's been lovingly updated and restored to provide all of the amenities that today's travelers require. Corporate travel managers, meeting planners, and procurement professionals are challenged with ensuring that a company gets the most out of its meeting by finding a room that reflects the company's needs and values and still remains within its budget. Ensuring a successful meeting means that everyone -- the company, its meeting planner, and the venue -- must be on the same page as to what will make the meeting as rewarding as possible.

Calling All Event and Meeting Planners: Success and Productivity Tips from the Business Coach

If you don?t effectively handle the multiple demands of your every day life as an event or meeting planner, your customers will know! Your coworkers, industry peers, suppliers, and customers can, and will, hold you accountable for how you spend your time and do your work.

How effective are you? Take this quiz to find out.

Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 on each question.

I feel organized and ready to do my work each day.

Less True 1 2 3 4 5 More True

Even during stressful times, I am able to think clearly and logically.

Less True 1 2 3 4 5 More True

I have good focus and concentration at work.

Less True 1 2 3 4 5 More True

have no problem managing my time efficiently.

Less True 1 2 3 4 5 More True

My physical work situation (e.g. office, workspace) is serving me well.

Less True 1 2 3 4 5 More True

If your responses to these questions are less than satisfactory to you, here are three of the most worthy tips for increasing your productivity and experiencing phenomenal business results.

1. Ask yourself this question: Why do I do what I do?

By answering this question you will learn to do the right things and make room for realizing the business successes you want. It's working. My clients are emptying their lives of the stuff they've been clinging to, and making room for the business success they have always wanted. So, try on this question: Why do I do what I do ? List 10 business activities and note why you do each of them and how they benefit you in your business. For example: Use the same suppliers for my events and meetings ? I have confidence in them and they serve me well.

If there is no specific benefit-aimed reason and visible result, then why keep doing it? Most importantly, what activity could you replace it with to generate better results? I challenge you to identify three activities you currently do that you want to replace with others because you know with confidence that they will generate better business results.

2. Change one old habit

This is a very easy one. Take 5 minutes to identify one work habit that you are not particularly proud of. Yes, we all know of at least one habit that doesn?t serve us well. Now make a commitment to change this one habit and replace it with a better one. It may feel difficult the first few times you exercise this new habit but, like everything, you?ll form a new and better habit soon.

3. Declutter your mind and your desk.

What would you do with 25% more time or 50% more energy?

Let me explain. Last week, one of my clients, a meeting planner, mentioned he had a desk so cluttered with piles of paper he didn?t have a surface to work on, nor did he know where to start his work on any given day. He also said he couldn?t even slow his pace to clear some of these piles.

I realized his challenge was a lot like the challenges most event and meeting industry professionals experience in their fast paced, detail oriented, and time challenged life.

To combat the clutter problems, my client and I leveraged a simple but powerful tool designed to free up a lot more of his time and energy. We got so much value out of it I decided to share it with you.

It is called Free Your Clutter Day -- a day that you set aside to tackle the projects, clutter and loose ends that are holding you back.

You may be thinking, ?What? An entire day? Where am I going to find 8 hours for anything?!

Consider this an investment with a big return for you and your clients -- higher performance, less stress, and fewer hours spinning your wheels or being blocked.

Here is what you do in this Free Your Clutter Day:

Start by taking a pad of paper and making a list of everything you will commit to handle or to resolve.

For example, set up a file for new clients or projects; call your vendor who you are having some difficulty with and need to have that long overdue conversation to get things back on track; make follow-up phone calls to customers.

Now take your list and prioritize it.

Identify what needs to get handled first and is vital to eliminating your feeling of overwhelm. Put all of the items on your list in order of highest to lowest priority ? using business outcomes as your key criteria.

Lastly, tackle the highest priority items on your list today! Yes, complete them.

Here is an incentive for you. Think about your costs in not accomplishing these tasks. Spending too much time looking for missing items that may have lost you a client or prospect due to lack of organization? Not handling a difficult situation which costs you ten times more?

The more you get done, the more uncluttered your mind and desk will be. You will be more alert and productive. Your customers will know you operate effectively in your business.
The Event and Meeting Planners Business Association was founded by Erika Trimble, business coach and entrepreneur. Her mission for the Association is to create profitable, rewarding, and winning business outcomes for event and meeting industry professionals. Get a copy of Erika's FREE special report "5 Secrets of Highly Effective Event and Meeting Planners" at http://www.eventplannersbusinesstips.com

Ten Secrets of Super Successful Meeting Planners

Ten Secrets of Super Successful Meeting Planners

 by: Susan Friedmann

Whoever said that being a meeting planner was easy, lied! Rather, it should be classified under the tough and demanding job category. But, along with being tough, its also fun, exciting, exhilarating, stimulating, and never, never boring. You have the opportunity to go to exotic places, stay in luxurious hotels, and experience life from a totally different angle. Who could ask for anything more? For those of you ready to shoot me at this point, know that I fully understand your pain!

The purpose of this article is to look at ten skills that help make a super successful meeting planner, and how you can take this expertise and use it to enhance the great job youre already doing.

1. Planning and organizing

The most common reason shows go wrong lies in the simple fact that not enough time is devoted to adequate planning and preparation. And, many of those shows that are believed to have been successful, are often more by chance than through actual organization. Super successful meeting planners have both a strategic and tactical plan of action. They then use the following five basic questions as their foundation before making any arrangements:

• Where does this meeting fit into our corporate marketing strategy?

• Why are we meeting?

• What is the purpose of the meeting?

• Who should attend the meeting?

• What is our budget?

2. Taking care of details

So much of putting a meeting together means taking care of the details, and there are usually more of these than you care to think about. Being detail-oriented is a definite plus. The key to so much of a meeting planners success is having a system that works. Creating checklists is one of the best I know. With the hundreds of pieces that make up the meeting puzzle, the only way to put them together and keep tabs on all the details, is with a checklist. Become a checklist fanatic and consider having a checklist for each checklist. Im getting dizzy just thinking about it.

3. Practicing savvy marketing

A significant part of a successful meeting planners role involves developing a pre-, at- and post-event plan. Most meeting planners fail to have a plan that encompasses all three areas. Budget is naturally going to play a major role in deciding what and how much promotional activity is possible. Super successful meeting planners know the importance of developing a meaningful theme or message that ties into their strategic marketing plan, and that will guide their promotional decisions. They know and understand their target audience and plan different promotional programs aimed at the different groups they are interested in attracting.

4. Being a team player

Super successful meeting planners know exactly how to work together as a team, helping each other out whenever and wherever necessary. They help everyone get acquainted, develop a level of trust, and familiarize and understand each other's strengths. They know what it takes to create an environment of camaraderie where the staff, as a whole pulls out all the stops to succeed and set themselves apart from the competition.

5. Knowing how to manage time

Super successful meeting planners have mastered the art of managing their time. They are well organized and have essential information at their fingertips, which means that their work environment is orderly and efficient. They know their priorities, dont over commit themselves, and can differentiate between important and urgent tasks. They are superb delegators and are not afraid to ask for help whenever they need it. And, finally, they dont procrastinate; on the contrary, they practice the do it now habit.

6. Negotiating skillfully

Skillful and savvy negotiators know exactly what they want. They spend time doing their research so that they know as much as possible about their opponent. They are prepared with strategies and tactics, questions and possible concessions. They are masters at finding alternative ways of talking about, reacting to and solving problems. They use their talents of intuition, flexibility and concern for others to reach an agreement where both sides win. They look to create a feeling of cooperation to build a mutually beneficial working environment.

7. Applying a positive attitude

Research successful people and youll find that having a positive, can do attitude ranks high on their list of characteristics. Not only are they positive and upbeat, they surround themselves with naturally positive and successful people. Give it a try and see it their attitude rubs off on you. When you focus on what you can do versus what you cant do, expect to find solutions to your various challenges. Try changing your vocabulary to reflect your optimistic thoughts and feelings, and see what happens. People find you more attractive and want to be around you, especially when you focus and direct your conversation onto the outcomes they want.

8. Evaluating results

Any master continuously looks to improve on their performance, and a super successful meeting planner is no different. Create a system to evaluate your results. Ask your participants for their feedback. Find out what they liked about your event, and what they would like to see improved in the future. In addition, ask yourself what you thought went well and what you would do differently if you had to organize this event again. Chronicle all your data and keep accurate records so that you can refer to them the next time around.

9. Being a perpetual learner

We live in an information age and are surrounded by more stuff than we can possibly cope with. However, successful people love it, as they are perpetual learners. They know the pitfalls of relying on what worked in the past as a guide to what will work in the future. Thats why they constantly look for new and improved ways of doing things, learning from the masters and staying open and willing to try different approaches.

10. Keeping a sense of humor

If you dont laugh you cry and in the meeting industry theres no lack of situations where its easy to shed a tear. Keeping a sense of humor will definitely help prevent you getting mad, angry and frustrated with those incompetent and disorganized suppliers. Learn to laugh at their mistakes as well as your own to keep a saner perspective on life. If nothing else, remember that laughing is good for your health and will help reduce your stress and blood pressure levels.

Written by Susan A. Friedmann, CSP, The Tradeshow Coach, Lake Placid, NY, author: Meeting & Event Planning for Dummies, working with companies to improve their meeting and event success through coaching, consulting and training. Go to http://www.thetradeshowcoach.com to sign up for a free copy of ExhibitSmart Tips of the Week.

"Do we have enough qualified meetings to make our revenue plan"

Sales and executive management love to focus on closing sales - and rightfully so; if deals don't close, revenue has no chance of being recognized. But while all of the focus and attention is on closing deals and getting business "done" this month and quarter, our real emphasis should be on getting more qualified meetings - more qualified meetings than necessary to meet revenue expectations. If you don't get more face time with real prostpects, you don't get more sales, you don't get more revenue. It all begins with a continual, healthy, and ongoing pipeline of real prospects...qualified meetings.

Sales and executive management love to focus on closing sales - and rightfully so; if deals don't close, revenue has no chance of being recognized. But while all of the focus and attention is on closing deals and getting business "done" this month and quarter, our real emphasis should be on getting more qualified meetings - more qualified meetings than necessary to meet revenue expectations. If you don't get more face time with real prostpects, you don't get more sales, you don't get more revenue. It all begins with a continual, healthy, and ongoing pipeline of real prospects...qualified meetings.

While you're closing business this month, what about sales next month, and the month after, and the month after that? Without focused attention, effort, and action to get more meetings, you're likely to create peaks and valleys in your revenue - big revenue months followed by voids of significant sales.

Companies should have ongoing programs to create more and more qualified meetings, creating more sales time with prospective customers, resulting is ongoing increases in their revenue.

Jim Logan is founder of Accelerate Business Group, LLC, a revenue growth company. Accelerate Business Group partners with their customers to build revenue the only three ways possible - getting more new customers, increasing the value of your average sale, and getting more repeat business. Jim can be reached at http://www.jslogan.com

Technology Check List for Meeting Planners

Use adequate equipment - Computer projectors that require the room lights to be down are not acceptable. So are projectors without remote mouse controls!
Adjust the room - have the engineers remove bulbs from fixtures above the screen.
Extend the "Keystone arm" on screens to lean the top forward. It improves viewing significantly.
Check electronics ahead of time -

Use adequate equipment - Computer projectors that require the room lights to be down are not acceptable. So are projectors without remote mouse controls!
Adjust the room - have the engineers remove bulbs from fixtures above the screen.
Extend the "Keystone arm" on screens to lean the top forward. It improves viewing significantly.
Check electronics ahead of time -

Connect every computer to every projector and sound system
Connect every modem to every phone line
Connect the video conference link (even if it costs more)
Advance through every slide program using the remote
Test every microphone with every sound system.
Walk around the room while talking into a microphone to check for feedback.
Use fresh batteries in everything (and have a spare in your pocket). This includes microphones, remote controls, laser pointers, etc.
When using the house sound system in partitioned rooms, ensure that all the speakers in your room are on, and that you are not also broadcasting into the next room.
Tape down all wires. This prevents trips, disconnects and lawsuits.
Find the hotel A.V. wizard (or union chief) and become their best friend. You must know how to reach them in an emergency.
Have 2 designated hosts per room. That way, one can go for help while the other keeps things under control. Ideally, one should be able to assist the speaker with the technology problems.
Have backup equipment

Find the equipment rental company in town and make sure they have what you need on hand.
Have a spare microphone checked and ready.
Bonus: Have a plan B and assume you will need it.

Ask your speakers this important question, "If the entire projection system fails and you still have to go on, can you do your program?" The answer must be, "Yes, I'm prepared!"

For a free copy of "The Sales Presenter's Travel Checklist", email article8@waterhousegroup.com and ask for article #8.

Stephen Waterhouse is Principal and Founder of Waterhouse Group. They specialize in helping companies increase their sales and profits. He can be reached at 1-800-57-LEARN or steve@waterhousegroup.com.

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Stephen Waterhouse is Principal and Founder of Waterhouse Group. They specialize in helping companies increase their sales and profits.