GUEST: Why Every Company Needs an Event! w/Tahira Endean Head of Program IMEX | Ep. 418

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for do this, not that podcast. And I'm excited because we're gonna be talking about why your company, big, small, medium, doesn't matter why you should have an event, and how to stand up, do an event. And I have the person like the actual perfect human being. So who's here? We have to hear a ending now.

Jay Schwedelson: Maybe you know Tira if you're in the event world, because she's the head of programming at imex, which is the global heartbeat of the entire event industry. But besides for that, she's incredible. She co-founded a company called Strategy Table, but even beyond that, she was named one of the top five women.

Jay Schwedelson: Event technology. She's been inducted into the Meeting Hall of Fame in Canada. She's been named like Top 20 most fascinating women in in events all. She's won a lot of stuff. She basically has an ego, you know, the Tony Oscar Grammy thing and her latest book. Our KPI is Joy is so great because basically she's teaching us how to infuse happiness and all these things that you can't just measure, like an boring attribution meeting and she crushes it.

Jay Schwedelson: So we're gonna talk about events. Tahiro, welcome to the show.

Tahira Endean: Um, thank you Jay. I, you know, have admired your work and listened to the podcast for a long time, so I'm excited to be

Jay Schwedelson: Well, I'm so sorry to have wasted so much of your precious time. Listen, listen. what? It's alright. So did I, before we get into. How and why any size business should think about staying in an event and the value of it. What do you actually do?

Tahira Endean: What I actually do is I've spent about three decades working across the entire spectrum of live events, um, from taking, you know. The fancy things like taking 140 people to a glacier for lunch to now. What I focus on is creating education for the event industry. So personal and professional development twice a year, a couple hundred sessions that happen at both of the IMEX shows you're gonna be there this year.

Tahira Endean: So excited about that. Um, and really just making sure that our event industry stays current relevant, that, that we're bringing. Um. What is needed for business through live events to life.

Jay Schwedelson: I love it. And by the way, the best part about what you just said is you like glossed over. Yeah. I program a couple hundred sessions. I'm like, dude, if I have to program like two sessions, I'll have a breakdown. You're like, yeah, just a couple hundred. No big deal. It's, it's, it's a walk in the park. I could only imagine your inbox.

Jay Schwedelson: It's gotta be a disaster.

Tahira Endean: It's, uh, you know, we, we have processes, we have a team. It's, you know, it's a, it's, it's busy, but, and honestly, it's, um, I love it. It is, you know, the, what I, the only part I don't like about my job is having to say no to people. That's the hardest part because there's many people who come with really great ideas, but we can only fit things in, and our job is to curate.

Tahira Endean: So every year we have to curate and keep it fresh. So that's what we're doing.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah, I basically say no. Every time I invite, somebody invites me out for dinner. So I don't feel bad saying that though. But, uh, back to all of this. Okay, so now somebody's out there listening, they're walking, they're driving, they're like, well, I don't have an event. This episode's not for me. But no, it is because it doesn't matter if you're a five person company, you're a solopreneur, you have a thousand person company, you don't have an event at your company.

Jay Schwedelson: And you should, and to, here's gonna tell us why you should, what is the value? And then how do you win over stakeholders? So hit me up with it. Why do I need to have an event if I don't have an event?

Tahira Endean: Well, so here's a little fun statistic, um, that I heard a few years ago was that you can accomplish more in 10 minutes of a live meeting than in 64 emails.

Jay Schwedelson: Wow.

Tahira Endean: Now, I've tried to find the attribution for that, but I think even without attribution, uh, we can. Easily say that we can get more done meeting people face to face at any time about any subject than we can in any amount of emails.

Tahira Endean: It doesn't matter how big or small your company is, um, we do business with and we buy from people we trust. Brands we trust. Why do we trust brands? Because they had a pretty ad. Hmm. Not so much. We trust brands because we've had a positive experience with them. And that positive experience could be with the actual product or service itself, or, but it's usually, it's, especially when you're making large buying decisions, uh, is going to be because you trust the people that you're doing business with and it's very difficult to build trust in emails, phone calls, virtual meetings.

Tahira Endean: It's not impossible. It just takes a lot longer than it is when you sit down with somebody, look them in the eye. Even this, you know, we're doing a podcast and we can see each other, um, and it. But there's still a microsecond delay and you can't see my body language. You can see my head. You have no idea what I'm doing with my hands or my legs or what's going on down there.

Tahira Endean: Um, so I might have my fingers crossed behind my back while I'm telling you these stories, but I don't. Um, but it's, that's why, um, you know, and whether that you have a small, you have a small event that is, uh, well curated dinner, um, or a. 15,000 person conference, like going to imex. So much business has done on that show floor, you know, 83,000 one-to-one meetings last year.

Tahira Endean: So, but why do people do that? Because you build trust when you sit down and look somebody in the eye. Um, and, uh, it works so.

Jay Schwedelson: I, I could, I couldn't agree with you more with this idea, and I'm, I'm really thinking right now, let's say on the small side of an event, whether it's a dinner or maybe you do some sort of, you know, thing at like a, a ping pong place. I don't know why I'm thinking about that, but anything like that, and you're like, I wanna do this.

Jay Schwedelson: And I agree with you, by the way. I've never. Participate in an event where after the event you don't feel more connected to the people that you just spend time with? I mean, well, I may not wanna feel more connected to 'em. They're horrendous people and I like to block them, not only on social media, but, and I think they're very sketchy and weird, but I feel more connected to them.

Jay Schwedelson: I try to sometimes get unconnected from them, but that's a whole, that's, that's a me problem. But in general. So now you're like, okay. Buying into Tahir and Jay, I wanna win the day. I wanna put on a 20 person event, a hundred person event for my company, whatever. How do you go about, you know, everyone's fighting for budget dollars these days.

Jay Schwedelson: How do you say, listen, let's take dollars from here and put it here, or find new money for this thing. What is, how do you justify that cost out of the gate?

Tahira Endean: Well, you have to have a why, so if you don't know why you're holding that meeting or event, then don't do it. You know, so there's, I mean there's lots of processes. You know, I, we, there's, you know, the, I wrote our KPIs, joy before that I wrote Intentional event design. In both cases I talk about, you know, things like the event design canvas or other tools that help you get through that process of why that are, you know, you're very.

Tahira Endean: Trying to do really intentional event design and really think about what you're doing and really design for it, that's great. If that's your, your role is, uh, event designer, then please dig into the tools that are gonna support your job. But if you are, you know, a event marketer, a field marketer, somebody who is just trying to get budget for your event, just think about why you wanna do it and you don't wanna do it because you want to.

Tahira Endean: Go out and spend money on dinner. That is not what it's all about. It's thinking about who are my stakeholders? What do they want? Every stakeholder wants. Better business, more growth, more, better connections, has really good mota. So, but we want to have, we wanna work with clients that are good clients. We wanna work with clients that we trust and that trust us, and we want them to do their business with us and not with somebody else.

Tahira Endean: The best way to get them to do that is to have a relationship with them. The best way to build a relationship with them is to do something, live with them. Um, and so when you're trying to think about what that event is gonna be, here's what happens at so many events, you know, you say you go to events, you always have a good time, it's great you leave.

Tahira Endean: So here's what happens. We go to an event as a human and two people attend the event. One is the experiencing self. So the experiencing self is the one who is anticipating the event, enters the event, experiences the one to five days of the event, and then goes home. How much does the remembering self remember of that?

Jay Schwedelson: Not a lot.

Tahira Endean: Not a lot. So if you are doing a brand act at an event, if you are doing a event of your own, you need to think about what are gonna be those five touch points for those three minutes of memories that are gonna make somebody want to do business with me. If you can't figure out what your stakeholders want, how you're gonna deliver that.

Tahira Endean: Who the audience is that's gonna be part of your event and how, how you're solving a problem for them by having them come to this event and then creating something that's going to deliver to both of those things. Don't do an event, but if you know that what you wanna do is help your stakeholders with their growth and trust building, you want to have.

Tahira Endean: You have an audience that is going to appreciate the content, the connections, the environment, the, all of the things that are gonna give them those memories that are going to build, um, happiness, productivity, trust, um, connection. All of those things that are gonna bring people together to the remembering self, um, can go away and think, wow, that was a great experience and I wanna work with that company again.

Tahira Endean: Then you should definitely be investing in events. Um, it because it's going to be the thing that's going to give you the most forward momentum the fastest.

Jay Schwedelson: The, when I think about, uh, an in-person event of some kind, um, the thing that gets me excited now is that it's the opposite of ai, right? In the world of ai, which is great. I'm all in on ai. There's this massive regurgitation of everything, and we're just getting this like endless amount of sameness and hit from every angle, social, email, whatever.

Jay Schwedelson: But in-person events are like the opposite of that. It's the ultimate break of ai. Do you feel like we are about, we're, we're heading in a direction where small in-person events, big in-person events, doesn't matter what you call them, uh, is the future almost of marketing because of ai?

Tahira Endean: Um, it's the future of marketing because it's been the whole reason across history that we have existed and continue to grow as human beings. So yes, a AI is just a tool. Let's be real. AI is something that supports us in the work that we do. We might write session descriptions faster. We might be able to spew out reports faster.

Tahira Endean: We might be able to connect some dots between themes that might take us longer to scroll through and find than AI can find for us in a stack of paper. Um. We saw it with COVID. What happened? We stayed home. We hated it. First we loved it, and then we hated it, and then we couldn't wait to get back to events and see people.

Tahira Endean: AI is just the digital layer of that, you know, it's, there's, because AI is pulling. Everything in homogenizing it, of course it's homogenous. Yuck. Who wants homogenous? Um, what we want as humans is to have rich emotional experiences that feel safe, that bring a sense of, um, challenge, that bring a sense of we've overcome that, bring a sense of joy.

Tahira Endean: Um, and we can't do that with ai, but we sure can do that with other humans. And. Humans for the win every time we

Jay Schwedelson: Now I'm putting, I'm putting you on the spot right now because you're the ultimate person that I get asked this to and this is terrible, but I don't care. So we talked earlier about you basically plan hundreds of sessions at imex. IMEX is like the ultimate event for the event world. So you're the person like, okay, that's, this session's a good one.

Jay Schwedelson: We should do it This session we're gonna pass on. Okay, so everybody out there, whether they are saying it or not, they would love to speak at events or maybe they would love to get more sessions accepted at events that they're applying to, to speak. So I wanna know from you if you're willing to share, I didn't ask you this beforehand, so I'm a horrible person.

Jay Schwedelson: Do listicle format, titles of sessions, do they resonate more with you, the person who's deciding than those that are not listicle? 'cause I always tend to do these listicle ones.

Tahira Endean: So I think the lists are great for, um. They're great for two things. They're great for blog posts, and they're great for short directed sessions. People are gonna walk away with. Very specific information. You know, I think it's, we plan two events a year and we design them year round. And you know, the one in Frankfurt is very different from an education perspective.

Tahira Endean: It's not very different, but it's different than America and it should be because it's different audiences with different needs on different continents with different priorities. There's a lot of similar priorities. Of course, but big topics, inclusion, sustainability, those kinds of things have different imperatives, um, and different needs.

Tahira Endean: And so, and then we have a lot of, so I'll use AI as the example. Everybody's like, we're gonna talk about ai. Great. I don't plan any AI sessions because of this. Of those 200 sessions I curate, I curate specifically about half and about half come from partners. All those partners wanna have their stake in the ground on ai they are doing.

Tahira Endean: We had. 14 or 16 sessions last year on ai. I did one. Um, so it's also, for me, it's also about balancing out, knowing what all of our amazing partners with very specific audiences because they're, you know, associations and media and, you know, they, they know their audiences and they're bringing us good content, bring great content.

Tahira Endean: Um, but I don't wanna bring the same content. So what I'm looking for. Is content that's gonna balance out the program and give us a lot of personal and professional development. Um, you know, for America this year, the US Surgeon General just wrote the Prescription for America at the beginning of the year that said, you have a.

Tahira Endean: A huge problem with loneliness. Isolation, um, and, and, and divisiveness. And so you need to build community. And he was, he is right. And so we have a lot of sessions this year that are, uh, for people to spend a lot of, um, to have the opportunity to have personal, um, and group reflection and activities and action that are around how do you build community?

Tahira Endean: So that when they're working with, within their own organizations, um, and their, or their own associations or in their own selves and communities, you know, how do we give grace to ourselves and to others? How do we show people that they matter? We have some amazing speakers coming that are covering really that whole gamut.

Tahira Endean: Um, would we have done that in Europe? Not in the same way because again, it's just a different, it's different culturally. So while we have global audiences at both, there's still a balance of those global audiences. So, you know, I think it's sometimes it's about, I like the CES approach actually, which is to say we are not looking for your topics.

Tahira Endean: We are looking for the best speakers and the deepest experts across all realms of technology. Please submit them. Your please nominate people or please nominate yourself. Um, and then we as the program committee will decide what our program is gonna be. And I think that that's a great approach. Um.

Jay Schwedelson: So, okay. I love that. And it makes a lot of sense with the time we have remaining. I, I need you to tell me rapid fire, the, with the session submissions, what are in general, what are must dos and what are never dos, what are went to here's like, okay, zero, they're out, or Oh yeah, this is gonna be a good one.

Jay Schwedelson: Whatever hit me up with, everyone needs to know what does the list look like?

Tahira Endean: So be a thought leader. Be an authentic thought leader. So in, you don't have to know about everything. You have to know the most about your one thing. Um, and don't just be a thought leader when you submit the session because nobody, nobody decides on just what this on one session. We all go out and hunt you down and make sure that you know you are the person you say you are.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah.

Tahira Endean: So anybody who's doing this, this kind of a rule, um, be curious and interested, like show some interest in what the audience is going to get out of it. Don't just say what you're going to say. Um, tell us how the audience is gonna benefit. Um, understand. What you're applying for. So I will give you an My imex example is I get, we get a lot of submissions from people who, um, want to talk to hotels and resorts or want to talk to salespeople, and that's what their session is about.

Tahira Endean: That's great. Except that at imex, all of those people. Busy selling. There's, we have 10,000 people that are selling on the show floor. Some of them, and particularly some of the more senior leaders are dropping by our education. Our education is focused on the meeting and event. Planner and organizer, association, agency, corporate independent, doesn't matter.

Tahira Endean: And that's 71% of our audience at any time in any of our theaters. So that's who we build for. Now, if you wanna sell to resorts, there's other things that are really, really good for you, other events that are really, really good for you, I'm happy to even recommend those other events because I go to a lot of events.

Tahira Endean: Um, so know the, know the, um. The audience that you are, that you are submitting for, that's really, really important. And then work, you know, to get to know the other people that are, that some of the best speaker recommendations I get are from other speakers

Jay Schwedelson: A hundred

Tahira Endean: and, and guess what? Because I've seen them live and I know them.

Tahira Endean: I trust them. So if they say, I just saw somebody that I think would be a great fit for imex, can I introduce you? Yes, and I'm still gonna have them submit, but now I'm submitting. Now when I'm looking at their them, I'm looking at them in context. So use your relationships, build your networks. Um, think and submit Smart.

Jay Schwedelson: I love it. And it's so true. Building your network is so important and to me that it's, it's everything. Um, alright, before we wrap up here, everybody needs to go out there and get, uh, our KPI Is Joy. This book is fantastic. It comes from this happy perspective. So here, how do we get the book? How do we follow you, how do we consume it all?

Jay Schwedelson: Let everybody know how to get involved with your world.

Tahira Endean: So the book's on Amazon. So that's the easiest way to get it in a bunch of countries around the world. So it's easy to find. Um, you know what? It's a really easy read. I am gonna, and what's really fun for me is that anybody who is in event marketing, who's picking it up and reading it. Sometimes you pick up and you're like, oh, I'll get to that.

Tahira Endean: They start reading it and then they're, they're texting me like hours later. Not only did they start the book, they finish the book, and now they're adding joy metrics into their event design. I mean, I mean, yes. Thank you. That's amazing. And that has happened multiple times, um, where people start texting me in the morning and, you know, oh, I just let my two kids play on the couch all day and I finished your book.

Tahira Endean: Great. So it's, it's, it's useful information. Um, and LinkedIn, honestly is the easiest way I'm to hear a ending. It's like, there's, you're not gonna find 17 of me, just like you're not gonna find 17 Jay sch Wetsons. So

Jay Schwedelson: right. If you do,

Tahira Endean: please connect.

Jay Schwedelson: All right. We're gonna put it all in the show notes and just so everyone could spell Tahira, it's T-A-H-I-H-R-A and then it's Enden EN. No, no, it's not. I spelled it wrong. No, it's T-A-H-I-R-A. I'm a moron. Um, I mean, that's not even debatable. I, I. I'm an idiot. T-A-H-I-R-A.

Jay Schwedelson: We're leaving this in a hundred percent ending E-N-D-E-A-N. Um, and that's who you've been talking to for the last 20 minutes. An absolute idiot. I'm so sorry, but thank you for being here. This was fun.