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CEO's Blog: January 2009

There has been a lot of talk in the media lately about the value of associations, everyone is tightening their belts, discretionary spend is being considered very carefully and every piece of marketing is being weighed up by the return on investment it delivers. I welcome this scrutiny as I firmly believe that now more than ever is when the industry needs it's association. People need contacts, networks, information, advice - they need one central point of contact. Well this is what Eventia is for you! I do believe that people will be considering which associations to join or remain a member of and I'm confident that we will stand up to that scrutiny when analyzed against the options.

We are launching a whole series of events where members can make new contacts, meet each other, talk business, find out what's happening 'off the record'. As well as become educated on the latest issues facing our industry. I have been speaking at conferences recently on trends in the UK market, both to corporates and to industry and part of that presentation always includes the bit on 'who are Eventia and what do we do'. It's been interesting when I've listed all the activities we have been involved with and delivered on for the industry over the past 12months such as:

1. Developing BS8901 and writing an easy step by step guide.

2. Developing a step by step guide for procurement professionals on how to buy event services and why we are not the same as commodities such as paper clips!

3. Developing an entire CSR resource that is available online for organizers to pick up and use, from case studies, to useful tips, links to all the relevant sites and even an education and reduction programme that companies can use if they don't have one themselves!

4. Achieving an exemption on the sale of travel insurance for event companies - how many agencies even knew this was going through parliament?? The reality is that if this had gone through the cost to your company would be real, our work changed the outcome and saved you money.

5. The current issue on a proposed change to TOMS - does anyone even understand this and why it's so important to your company? Well if you currently do VAT claims on behalf of your corporate clients then I suggest you sit up and take notice because this could change the landscape of how we work, and yes there are people working away behind the scenes to convince the various government bodies to reconsider or at least delay this change, just so you can sleep better at night.

6. If that's not enough we have just brought out the first draft of our standard terms and conditions for working with clients - it's a start and if we can encourage everyone to use these they can become industry standards.

7. We also have our eye on the future of our industry and are working with Universities to set up a liaison programme where industry can inform the content for courses being taught and can even volunteer through a central programme to teach on those courses. In return we will be inviting student placements to spend time in our members offices, learning and giving their time energy and enthusiasm to those businesses.

8. All this and a merger with the BACD, phew! It's a wonder we have had time to draw a breath.

9. We have just launched our series of events for 2009, which will be a mix of networking plus some good education and training events along with our Summer Eventia conference and two award ceremonies.

10. We are working on our programme to open up the membership to corporate planners and we are certainly ramping up our communication with those on our fully profiled database so they know where to come for their event service suppliers. Our first ever yearbook will be out in time for Confex and is being sent to carefully selected corporate buyers as well as copies made available to the industry.

11. And finally we are getting more calls than ever to our business support helpline which gives 20mins free advice on any business related issue to members, saving you thousands of pounds on expensive HR, legal and professional fees!

One more point I'd like to make to any suppliers looking at this, if you consider the cost of advertising in print or online vs the cost of belonging and engaging with the association, which really does give you the best ROI?? There is a piece of global research conducted by the Event marketing institute which clearly demonstrates that Marketing Directors of corporates are pulling funds out of traditional forms of advertising such as print, direct mail, TV & radio and investing in live events combined with carefully selected online marketing campaigns. So why don't you do the same??

We are in an industry that endorses live communication, getting in front of your target audience and communicating with them face to face and yet so many suppliers spend thousands of pounds each year on full page ads in magazines and creating beautiful glossy brochures and in all honesty, what does it deliver you?? A few seconds of an eyeball looking at the page or yet another brochure that gets thrown away because people don't want paper copies any more??

The smart suppliers are actually learning from their customers by moving to engaging with their audience through carefully selected and targeted face to face communication and the best starting point is right here with the industry association, get involved, put your time into a committee, host an event and build those relationships. The suppliers that invest time and money into this association get the rewards from it, but you can't just sit there and hope it happens for you, you have to put the effort in to get the rewards out.

And don't forget that just because someone is another supplier one day doesn't mean they may not turn up as your client tomorrow - I use Jane Hague ex- Excel as my example, how many suppliers didn't invest time in getting to know her previously because she was a competitor of theirs?? Well now she is the hot-shot new business person at Mango events - aside from the fact that she is loads of fun and on our membership committee, don't you wish you'd bought her a drink at the bar now?

To finally top this off I am meeting again with my fellow European event association colleagues in Paris tomorrow to discuss the possibility of a European board and closer collaboration between our associations but when I first met them they almost laughed me out of the room when I told them our fees.....the least they charge is 3 times higher than what we charge for almost a 3rd of the benefit we deliver, and most don't even have the staff to run things.

So if anyone thinks about calling me to ask for a fee reduction, I implore you, think twice before picking up the phone - yes we have increased our fees modestly this year and brought parity between the member types, however the value the industry is getting from Eventia services is clearly far greater than across Europe, in most cases it's true that you do get what you pay for but in this case you get a whole lot more!

So here's to a great year ahead, I'm not denying it will be difficult but let's rise to the challenge 2009 brings, face it head on and come out the other side much stronger and with one united voice, we are after all British, we’ve faced tough times before and although we can't always control what happens to us, we can choose how we respond to it and we can choose to remain optimistic and that is my personal choice for this year ahead.

Yours,

Izania