Managing Successful Events

The fast-track route to event management success –time after time.

• Minimise costly outsourcing during the ‘credit crunch’
• Acquire the critical knowledge and skills you need to guarantee success
• Set realistic budgetary and delivery expectations for your manager
• Discover how to balance your daily workload with planning an event
• Make every event your own - and get the credit you deserve

Background

“I got to the top and I had to stop, and that’s what’s bothering me”.  So said the ‘King of the Swingers’ in Disney’s classic interpretation of Kipling’s Jungle Book.  It’s a problem that confronts many top PAs as their careers take them into ever-more-senior roles, so if it sounds familiar, rest assured: you’re not alone.

As an experienced and highly-competent PA, you’re well-used to multi-tasking – juggling many ‘balls’ simultaneously – and that’s quite a skill in itself.  You are probably bored of hearing the moans and groans of colleagues who only have one job to do, while you quietly and efficiently get on with managing the hectic and ever-changing life of your senior executive – or executives – and meeting the diverse demands of their positions.

Event management is one of those high-profile skills that can make or break a PA’s career, but which can also form the basis of a brand-new career in itself.  So, even if you have indeed ‘reached the top’ as a PA, if you’re wondering whether this is as good as it gets, the answer is: absolutely not.

If you relish the many challenges and sometimes impossible workload and deadlines that typify the organisation of an event and the huge rush of relief you get when it all comes together successfully – and the plaudits heaped on you - but you’d like to do it better and with less stress, then we can help.  As with all courses from Today’s PA, we take the very best candidates – people like you - and make them brilliant.

An Event in Itself

There’s a lot to be packed into this one-day workshop, so be prepared to be challenged and stretched to the very limit of your knowledge and capabilities.  Because our trainers are experienced event planners themselves, we’ll be feeding you a lot of priceless information and tips for you to take away and put into practice for your next event.

If you’ve already got an event in the pipeline and you’ve got concerns about organising it successfully, the course will include a ‘surgery’ to give you immediate assistance with your project.

 

Your Trainers

Paul Pennant is a former PA and the creator of the acclaimed Today’s PA two-day workshop for PAs.  Now MD of the company, he will focus on IT, assertiveness and persuasion skills.

Michelle Eastwood is also a former PA and has over 20 years experience in event management.  Today, she runs her own event management business - www.eastwood-events.co.uk and her many clients include the Science Museum and Today’s PA itself – Michelle organised the company’s successful exhibitor debut at Times Crème 2008.

What the Course Will Cover

Improve Your Outlook

This is a session that will reveal easy-to-use tips to get the most from Outlook – so much more than an email program – including:

• Using ‘rules’ to send and sort email invitations
• Using email templates to reply to responses automatically
• Using ‘voting buttons’ to track invitations
• Using email ‘mail merge’ to personalise invitations - no more ‘dear all’ email invitations
• Saving new contacts’ Outlook ‘business cards’ in seconds

Checklists

You can’t keep it all in your head, so you need a checklist – and almost certainly more than one.  Checklists save loads of time and eliminate the stress of trying to think through every situation and eventuality.  On the course we’ll give you every checklist you’ll ever need, including:

• Finance
• Venue
• Catering
• Manager
• Running sheet for the day itself

Communication

Communication is the most critical aspect of managing an event successfully.  Quite often you are trying to persuade suppliers to provide their services as cheaply as possible, or even to give their help for nothing – colleagues included.  You will need to call on deep reserves of tact, diplomacy and persuasiveness, as well as being able to assert yourself firmly and decisively as required.  We will cover the key communication skills you must develop to ensure you get what you want, when you want it.

Assertiveness

You will need to get what you need from your manager, as well as those supporting you.  Your manager may have given you the event to organise, but he or she also has an important role to play in ensuring you get the budget and other resources you will need.  So you need to be able to manage your manager, as well as setting his or her expectations realistically in terms of what the event will cost and the timeline for delivery.  Colleagues also need to understand the role they can play in helping you and if that means cracking the whip, backed up by the authority of your manager, or even someone more senior, then that’s what you have to do.  We’ll show you how.

 

Persuasion

Preparing for an event goes much better and less stressfully if people can be persuaded to commit help and resources voluntarily.  That applies to colleagues as well as suppliers.  You need to persuade people in such a way that they are happy to help and are left feeling appreciated and willing to work with you again in the future.  There are special words to use in discussions that are invaluable in helping you persuade effectively, and negotiation techniques that ensure you get what you want, on time and on budget. All will become clear on the course.

 

Venue

Whether you’re planning an event inside your organisation’s premises or elsewhere, you need a venue that is suited to the occasion.  Often you will be forced to compromise by budgetary and other constraints, and yet your manager’s expectations will still be that the event must be an outstanding success.  You may want to look good, but not half as much as your manager, whose ultimate responsibility it is.  There are lots of options for venues and lots of things you need to know about choosing the right one.  We will walk you through the process and highlight the pitfalls, so your choice of venue is spot on.

 

Outsourcing

Although it’s tempting to hand over the organisation and management of an event lock, stock and barrel to a seasoned professional like our own trainer, Michelle Eastwood, we know there are lots of reasons why more often you will have to do most of it yourself.  While outsourcing can make a huge difference to the outcome, if you pick the wrong supplier or event manager and it all goes horribly wrong on the day, it will still be your fault!  However, it’s possible to take a lot of the load off by outsourcing key elements to specialist service providers.  We will tell you which ones can make the most difference and how to argue the budgetary case for using them with your manager, particularly if your initial budget seems too limited.

 

Accessibility

If organising an event wasn’t enough of a minefield already, the Disability Discrimination Act also requires you to bear in mind a number of issues in the planning process.  You will need to consider the following:

• Invitations - font and language used must ensure legibility for all
• Venue - is the building suitable for disabled access, including any staging, the toilets and fire escapes etc.?
• Catering – must take into account different dietary needs as dictated by belief or culture and medical requirements
• Parking – must provide spaces for disabled access in close proximity to the venue

Logistics

There are so many things to remember in planning a successful event (but that’s what our checklists are for).  Although you can manage most of it yourself, inevitably there will be specialist services and equipment that must be provided by third parties, who could be colleagues in your own or other departments, or external suppliers.  Such additional items include:

• IT – can your own IT department meet your needs, or are they too specialised?
• Staging – for health and safety reasons this is invariably a professional supply, but you need to be satisfied it will meet all your requirements on the day
• Catering – the sky’s the limit here, so how do you set one that suits your budget and still ensure that everyone enjoys the food and drink?
• Getting the most out of search engines for finding suppliers

As a bonus, we’ll also be providing our own ‘black book’ of top supplier contacts, gleaned from many years’ experience, to all attendees.

 

It’s raining on my parade!

You will need contingency plans to ensure your event can still go ahead if circumstances change – such as the increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather.  Problems on the roads and public transport can also have a devastating impact and ruin all your hard work, as can a security alert or localised power cut on the day.  Some suppliers may not be delivering and setting up until the day before or even on the day itself; what if they don’t turn up for some reason?  So, what steps can you take to minimise these nightmare risks?  This session will ensure the sun doesn’t go down on you.

 

Budgeting

Probably the most contentious aspect of organising any event, is the budget.  If you’re lucky you may have been given carte blanche, but more likely you will have a limit on what you can spend.  The trouble is, that limit may have been set arbitrarily, without being based on what is actually needed or possible or taking into account the unexpected, like extra delegates or guests turning up – something directors are fond of dumping on you at the last minute.  With our comprehensive budgetary checklist, which will include everything, right down to the napkins, you will be able to work out quickly what your event is likely to cost, giving you the ammunition you need to argue the case for more money if required.

 

Theming and decor

Your event may well have a theme that will require customised and co-ordinated décor, so you need to be clear about the message that it’s intended to convey.  You certainly need to seek out some second opinions as to whether it is likely to achieve the desired effect, or inadvertently create some corporate or cultural faux pas that is guaranteed to put you in the doghouse.

This session will examine the use of:

• Logos
• Lighting poles
• Lectern
• Speakers’ requirements
• How to ‘jazz up’ up a cheap venue

Running sheet

Ok – the great day is here at last and you think (hope) you are completely ready and that there’s not a thing that’s been missed or forgotten.  Don’t leave anything to chance, though: a running sheet is a minute by minute breakdown of the day itself, and includes the day before and the day after – there’s always a lot of clearing up and returning of equipment, thanking of speakers and suppliers etc etc to be done.

Your running sheet will need to include such items such as

• Cabs/taxis
• Access to the venue
• Contact details for everyone involved
• And much more!

Being Wise Before the Event

In today’s cost-conscious but all-singing, all-dancing digital age, it’s never been more true to say that it’s no good being wise after the event – today you need to be not just wise, but a veritable mastermind to be sure of organising and managing an event that delivers as promised and gives the reputation of you and your manager - that all-important boost.  After your day with us, you will not only be equipped to make a real success of any and every event and still function effectively as a PA, you may even view it as a logical progression for your career.  We look forward to seeing you at the workshop.

 

Our Philosophy

Courses and workshops from todayspa.co.uk are designed to engage and entertain, as well as inform – that’s how we can promise to make what can seem to be the dullest of subjects interesting. Our trainers have real-world experience at all levels of the organisation, so they speak your language and understand your issues and problems. And because they have ‘been there and done that’, they know how to get straight to the heart of every subject.

Our trainers ensure they keep right up to date with cultural and procedural changes in office life by engaging closely with course participants and building relationships with workshop attendees that endure long after the courses are over.

 

Questions, Questions

When you commit two valuable days of your time to Today’s PA workshop, we want you to know that we understand and recognise that commitment.  We want to do everything we can to ensure that the workshop is thoroughly worthwhile for you.  Being properly prepared will play a key part in achieving that success.  Indeed, your success is our success. 

If you get what we promise from the workshop – and we know you will – we are confident you will recommend it to peers and colleagues.  So we would like you to complete a short questionnaire, just before you attend the workshop, in order to give us a snapshot of the kind of events you manage, what are your issues, frustrations, hopes and ambitions. 

When you arrive at the workshop, you will be able to feel that you are among friends who understand you – and you are, because your trainers and course designers have all been where you are now.  Doesn’t that give you a warm, fuzzy feeling?

 

Over the Moon

Who could be more persuasive than PAs who have already been on our courses?  Here’s what a few had to say about the Today’s PA workshops.

“Regardless of whether you’re an experienced PA wanting to learn a few new tricks or you’re looking to get your first PA role, I would highly recommend ‘Today’s PA’ training course. It is full of practical tips and advice as well as assertiveness exercises and is a great confidence booster. I came away with the belief that I should be earning more money and, more importantly, the confidence to ask my boss to pay me more money; a conversation that I’m pleased to report went very well indeed!”

Jharda Walker - Waggener Edstrom

“The trainer was brilliant, fun and relaxed. The course was just what I had been searching for and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will miss it. It’s a shame it's not Monday tomorrow as I can't wait to put it all into practise.”

Julie Flageul - Chigwell Construction

“Absolutely brilliant! The best course I have been on. The trainer was fantastic. Enjoyed every single minute of it.”

Kate Worrall - Banctec

Name Dropping

When you sign up for the Today’s PA workshop, we can guarantee you’ll be in good company.  Below are just some of the companies who have sent PAs to the Today’s PA workshops recently.

2012              

Barclays

BBC                

Boots                            

British Library           

City & Guilds 

Ernst & Young              

Girlguiding UK           

IPC Media      

Natural History Museum

npower              

O2                                          

Pfizer                          

QinetiQ

Selfridges                   

Shell                                       

and many more!

Date

6 October 2008

Venue

Regent's College Conference Centre is set within the beautiful tranquillity of London's Regent's Park but is also just five minutes walk from Baker Street tube and the West End.

Fee

All this for just £399 + VAT. Charities get a £50 discount.