Plan Your Meetings

Taking meetings from ordinary to extraordinary

More than 400 meeting planners and exhibitors learned cutting-edge techniques and essential skills to make the most of their meetings, their profession and each other at the 2007 Plan Your Meetings (PYM) Atlanta Expo, held Sept. 27 at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta-Ravinia.

Keynote speaker Karen McCullough kicked off the event with an energetic general session, “YOU the Brand.” Stressing how essential it is to add personal branding to a planner’s tool kit, McCullough also showed how consistency of behavior and personal style is crucial to maintaining business relationships. “Meeting planners’ whole career is based on their ability to perform consistently over and over again,” McCullough says. “A brand is all about trust … [you] know what to expect.

“The brand that meeting planners have to have incorporates integrity, consistency, calm, clever thinking, creativity – that’s what you want when you hire a meeting planner,” McCullough continues. “My program teaches them how to express that brand, to know how great they are and how to … present that package to clients.”

Knowing your value and how the work you do contributes to your client’s success was the theme of the standing-room-only educational seminar “The Irreplaceable You: Prove Your Worth,” led by PYM Associate Editor Kristi Casey Sanders. “If you’re not talking about the work you do, someone else is,” Sanders says. “In today’s work environment, planners must be able to prove how the work they do contributes to the organization’s bottom line and helps achieve organizational goals. So, we covered some of the metrics that help measure event ROI, ways to raise your professional profile at work and within the industry, and tips on tooting your own horn.”

For the first time in PYM history, planners applying for CMP certification or recertification were able to earn Meeting Management hours and CMP points for attending the educational seminars and the roundtable discussions held during the trade show. Another big first for the company was provided with the aid of Morris DigitalWorks, which filmed the Expo and transformed the footage into a virtual trade show.

Seminar topics focused on knowing your worth, knowing your attendees and knowing your strengths, and how these factors help planners create unforgettable events, experiences and memories. PYM Advisory Board Member Andjela Kessler taught planners how to avoid communication breakdowns when working with international attendees and vendors in “Cross-Cultural Communications.” Shelley Pedersen, owner and president of Beyond Cuisine, led “It’s All About the F&B,” which focused on developing creative menus to reinforce meeting messages, igniting imaginations and heightening attendee enjoyment. Kenny Zail, founder of Making Teams ROCK!, presented an interactive seminar about creative team-building, using music as a metaphor. Jackie Moore, an event planner with Grady Health System enjoyed Zail’s session immensely. “[It] encouraged group interaction and offered helpful exercises that focused on real-life behaviors based on an individual’s work-style preference and personality traits.”

Luncheon keynote speaker Kent Emeson of Earson Marketing Inc. also touched on how powerful knowledge is, especially when it comes to negotiation, in his “Re-Negotiation Negotiation” presentation. If you know the value of your meeting, he emphasized, you’re in a much better position to ask for concessions from vendors. The tips he offered on negotiating with hotels and vendors left no stone unturned, a sticking point with some of the vendors in the room.

This year’s Expo theme, “Take Your Meetings From Ordinary … To Extraordinary,” seemed to invigorate the tradeshow floor, where educational roundtables, celeb décor demonstrations and a planner panel gave planners plenty to do and see in between discovering destinations, facilities, products and services from across the Southeast and Southwest. Educational roundtable discussions covered the basics of giving business gifts, crafting RFPs, projecting a personal brand and finding the inspiration to create extraordinary experiences. At the Plan Your Meetings booth, planners were encouraged to map their favorite facilities and meeting destinations (see sidebar, “Best Places to Meet”).

To encourage networking, PYM set up an IZone in front of the exhibit halls and general session ballroom where attendees could lounge on plush couches, refresh themselves with coffee and desert breaks, check e-mail and interact with each other. Apples, PYM’s symbol for high achievement, were everywhere, adorning centerpieces, speaker’s podiums and even in the refreshments served during the Expo’s closing reception.

“Our planners are always looking to make their meetings a little different,” says Donna Jakulski, PYM’s audience development and marketing director. “It’s amazing how our little red apple set the theme and took our Expo from ordinary to extraordinary.” She noticed planners taking notes and storing up ideas to use for future events.

The Expo’s closing reception featured a Talbot’s fashion show, starring real-life planners as models, and a grand prize drawing. Moore, who was one of the models, had a great time strutting her stuff. “This is my third year participating in the Plan Your Meetings Southeast Expo, and each year I find that the PYM staff goes above and beyond the ‘norm’ to create educational, informative and entertaining experiences for their participants. I think this was one of the best years yet!”

— Compiled by staff writers