26 May 10 Two Critical Skills of a Cruise Meeting Planner
Two critical skills of a cruise meeting or event planner, and how to build them at your current job
Planning cruise meetings and cruise events can be a rewarding carrier, but it takes a certain kind of personality to be successful. Luckily, most of the skills involved in planning cruise meetings and events can be cultivated. Here are the two most basic skills required, and ways to cultivate them at your current job:
Planning backwards – events are often scheduled at specific dates and times, regardless of the planning necessary. This means that time management skills and thinking in a reverse-linear fashion are required. Starting with the event itself, what would have to be prepared? Booking of rooms, suites, conference centers, equipment, and travel arrangements. Starting with the most critical things first, a smart travel planner will plan his or her way back to today. For example, one could start by booking the rooms and conference center on a cruise liner before booking speakers and their flights and communicating dietary needs. Try project planning whenever possible to build this skill.
Planning around complaints – It is not possible to make everyone happy, but a successful cruise planner will ensure that they have prepared plenty of alternatives and options to overcome objections of participants. Speakers and performers are notoriously difficult to deal with, so be prepared to offer cabin upgrades and alternative meals before calling their representatives. To build this particular skill, try practicing dealing with difficult customers if possible.
Tags: Booking Speakers, Critical Skills, Cruise Events, Cruise Liner, Cruise Planner, Current, Dealing With Difficult Customers, Event Planner, Flights, Linear Fashion, Meeting Planner, Meetings And Events, Objections, Participants, Personality, Project Planning, Smart Travel, Time Management Skills, Travel Arrangements, Travel Planner
21 May 10 Planning and Executing Special Events
While a large portion of a meeting planners job is to actually plan special events and other types of occasions, ensuring the event is executed properly is a vital part of a meeting planner's work. Special events need to be just that – special. They need to be memorable, and they will hopefully leave guests talking about the event for days.
The flawless execution of a special event often requires more effort than does planning. While plans and agendas may look good on paper, translating this plan into an actual event is a bit more complicated. However, when the event goes off without a hitch, everyone will want to know the mastermind behind the event of the season.
Meeting planners may be asked to provide services for special events such as award ceremonies, VIP customer events, motivational speakers, and philanthropic or non-profit events. Meeting planners must be dedicated and committed to designing, producing, and managing various special events.
By providing customers with exceptional service and meticulous planning, meeting planners can expect to have repeat customers. Again, meeting planners should keep in mind that creative and expert planning is not enough. Perfect execution of the plan is what will keep customers coming back for more.
Tags: Agendas, Award Ceremonies, Creative, Customer Events, Events Planners, Exceptional Service, Expert, Flawless Execution, Job, Large Portion, Mastermind, Meeting Planner, Meeting Planners, Motivational Speakers, Non Profit, Occasions, Profit Events, Vip
19 May 10 How to Build Customer Trust
As a meeting planner, it is essential for your customers to know that your services can be trusted. Many customers are wary of placing important details and information into the hands of a meeting planner. This is especially true if the customer is accustomed to taking charge of situations and being in control.
However, circumstances often arise in which planning a meeting becomes something beyond their control. That is when a customer will turn to a meeting planner for assistance. There are a few ways you can ensure your client has complete trust in you, and this trust will build repeat business.
Open communication is an important aspect of meeting planning. Customers should feel that they have a rapport with their meeting planner and should feel free to check the status of the upcoming event within reason. Communications with customers should be clear, focused, and concise.
Transparency will help put the customer at ease and provide them with a sense of much needed security. Meeting planners should remember that customers not only entrust their event to the meeting planner, but their financial resources as well. Once trust has been established between a meeting planner and customer, the customer is more likely to use their services again in the future.
Tags: Circumstances, Complete Trust, Customer Trust, Event Planner, Financial Resources, Meeting Planner, Meeting Planners, Meeting Planning, Open Communication, Repeat Business, Transparency
03 May 10 Positive Body Language
How important is body language in communicating with clients? Emails, texting, twittering, and phone conversations make up a great deal of client interaction, but how important is your body language when you meet face to face or through a video conference? According to a research psychologist at UCLA words make up just 7% of your communication with others. Body language weighs in at a hefty 55% of your interpersonal communication. The third component, tonality, is responsible for 38% of your communication skills. Remember when your mother told you “don’t take that tone with me?” She was right on the money.
Positive body language puts clients at ease and increases their confidence in you as a meeting planner. Good eye contact without staring is one example of positive body language. Uncrossed arms and legs convey an open attitude. Daintily locked ankles hint at resistance to an idea. Relax your shoulders and allow your arms and legs to fall naturally. Smile and nod occasionally when the other person is speaking. Nodding in this context communicates that you are listening, not necessarily agreeing.
Mirroring the other person’s body language can build rapport. Unconsciously, both parties believe they are on mutual ground and feel safer. This usually happens without notice and should not be forced. How and what your body communicates builds the memory clients retain about any meeting. Make sure it is a positive one.
Tags: Ankles, Arms And Legs, Body Language, Client Interaction, Communication Skills, Communication With Others, Confidence, Eye Contact, Good Eye, Interpersonal Communication, Meeting Planner, Open Attitude, Phone Conversations, Research Psychologist, Resistance, Rsquo, Shoulders, Tonality, Ucla, Video Conference
16 Apr 10 After the Meeting is Over
Everyone enjoys and needs positive feedback. Negative feedback can be very hard to take, especially if it is not constructive. For example, we are all quick to tell our supplier if the order is wrong yet seldom send our compliments when things run smoothly. Do you seek feedback and if so, from whom?
Have you ever included a customer satisfaction survey in an event packet or asked guests to fill out a feedback form before they went home? This can be a good way to get a fix on what worked for meeting participants and what did not. You can’t please everyone but when several people complain about the same thing, it indicates a problem that needs to be addressed.
Do you check in with vendors and convention centers that you have used? A courtesy call after the even can strengthen your relationship with vendors and make the next planning period go more smoothly. Feedback from a hotel or convention center helps a meeting planner tweak the next event, perhaps in small ways, to make it a positive experience for everyone.
Don’t forget to give feedback as well. Even in the most nightmarish situation, someone did something right. Never allow your frustration with glitches to overshadow your appreciation for jobs well done.
Tags: Compliments, Courtesy Call, Customer Satisfaction Survey, Frustration, Glitches, Jobs, Meeting Planner, Negative Feedback, Nightmarish Situation, Participants, People, Positive Feedback, Relationship, Rsquo, Tweak
14 Apr 10 Breaking the Ice on Your Next Meeting
Raising the energy level of an early morning meeting can be quite a challenge. People head for the coffee and tend to gather with familiar faces. This can make things a little awkward for new people in the group and makes it difficult to generate new group dynamics. The right icebreaker can shake things up a bit and get people interested in what is to come.
One fun way to create new groups and start a team building activity is to distribute bits of a building set among the participants. People who hold Legos go to the Lego station, anyone with a Tinker Toy piece heads to the Tinker Toy table, and so forth. Each team has 15 minutes to create a model of a concept on the day’s agenda.
The exercise could focus more on introducing relative strangers to one another. Break the group into smaller parts using the same method, this time using small pieces of candy. This time the group members play 2 out of 3, meaning they write down 3 things about themselves, 2 of which are the truth and 1 that is a lie. The more outrageous the items, the more fun group members will have separating truth from lies.
Tags: 15 Minutes, 3 Things, Breaking The Ice, Candy, Coffee, Energy Level, Exercise, Familiar Faces, Group Dynamics, Group Members, Lego, Morning Meeting, New Groups, Participants, People, Play 2, Relative Strangers, Small Pieces, Team Building Activity, Tinker Toy
24 Mar 10 Do You Tweet? Part 1
Meeting and event planners are always on the lookout for ways to spread the work about upcoming events. Social networking is more important than ever before and includes more than just face-to-face interaction. Facebook, Live Journal, blogs, and Twitter are wonderful methods of connecting with clients. Twitter probably generates more and quicker responses to a question or announcement than any other method of communication.
Tweets, the 140 character text-based posts sent to the author’s followers, are quick, concise time savers. It is much easier to text a tweet to a large group than to send a comparable number of emails. The tweet can share a thought, ask a question, or even direct the group to a blog post announcement of an upcoming event. Retweeting, passing along a message to someone not part of the core group, spreads the word of your next meeting even further.
Twitter is more efficient than email. You can send a message to an individual just as you can in an email, or to your followers, which is comparable to sending carbon copy (cc) email to a group. Notices of incoming tweets speed to your group’s computers or cell phones and many people check for tweets many times a day.
We'll continue to explore the Twitter revolution in Part 2.
Tags: Blogs, Carbon Copy, Cell Phones, Comparable Number, Core Group, Email, Emails, Event Planners, Followers, Interaction, Large Group, Lookout, Method Of Communication, Social Networking, Time Savers, Tweet, Twitter, Upcoming Events
22 Mar 10 Why Are Face-to-Face Meetings Important?
Have you ever stopped to think about why human contact is vital to the corporate world? A face-to-face meeting is much more than getting away from the office, although that can be a contributing factor to a meeting. Psychologically speaking, humans are just hard-wired to be a social species.
Communication takes two forms, verbal and non-verbal. Webinars may be convenient and cost-efficient, and heaven knows they can be a godsend when some virus like H1N1 is on the warpath, but they simply do not have the same impact as a face-to-face meeting. If you have ever dealt with a misunderstanding that came about from a poorly worded email or a chatroom text conversation, you will appreciate the value of a traditional business meeting. Smileys will never replace a genuine emotion and it is difficult to shake hands via a video conference.
In-person meetings help participants build trust and establish social relationships. It is much more meaningful to work as an interactive team than it is to be corporate pen pals. Social interactions exemplify company norms and expectations and create an important sense of belonging. Humor is another aspect of social interaction that can fall flat in text. Shared experiences build rapport within a team and even a familiar accent can put team members at ease with one another.
Tags: Business Meeting, Genuine Emotion, Godsend, Human Contact, Interactive Team, Misunderstanding, Norms, Pen Pals, Person Meetings, Smileys, Social Interaction, Social Interactions, Social Relationships, Social Species, Team Members, Text Conversation, Traditional Business, Video Conference, Warpath, Webinars
12 Mar 10 And the Survey Says…
Did you know that 90% of meeting planners polled state that their budgets are smaller due to the over-all economic slump? What’s more, over one third of planners predict they will book fewer meetings due to public opinion. In 2009, the PCMA/AMEX/Ypartnership sent surveys to professional meeting planners in order to gauge the effect of economic conditions and media feedback on meeting planning in 2010. The survey covered a number of topics including:
• How many meetings were hosted in 2009? How many are planned for 2010?
• Geographically speaking, where are meetings held?
• How much impact does the economic downturn have on meetings planned for the future?
• Does the media have an impact on how and if meetings are scheduled?
The outcome of this survey will not surprise most meeting planners. The economic crunch has and will continue to affect the number and type of meetings scheduled for the upcoming year. Negative media attention is a factor in the decrease of meetings. Bad press has the biggest negative impact on the largest meetings. Luxury and upscale accommodations are things of the past, at least for the moment.
Meeting planners as a group must point out that face to face meetings are an important part of industry interaction and curtailing these activities has a negative effect on companies. Reinstating corporate and government meeting can have a positive impact on U.S. economy and on personnel morale.
Tags: Amex, Budgets, Economic Conditions, Economic Crunch, Economic Downturn, Economic Slump, Economy, Face Meetings, Face To Face, Industry Interaction, Many Meetings, Media Attention, Media Feedback, Meeting Planners, Meeting Planning, Negative Impact, Pcma, Public Opinion, State Budgets, Upscale Accommodations, Ypartnership
22 Feb 10 Preparing Your Attendees for a Successful Meeting
Corporate meeting planners wear many hats, which sometimes includes making sure the attendees are well-prepared. Pre-meeting preparation is an important part of ensuring the meeting is effective and productive, and also allows the attendees to know what to expect and which materials, presentations or notes they may need to bring. Productive meetings that stay on task and on schedule reflect well on the meeting planner, even if the planner is not the one actually conducting business during the meeting.
Here are ways you can help your attendees prepare for a great meeting:
1. Distribute the agenda beforehand – Make sure that all attendees have an accurate agenda prior to attending the meeting. Since you will be including the date, time and location of the meeting on the agenda, this also works as an effective meeting reminder.
2. Make sure attendees have background information – Either distribute materials related to the meeting topic, or let the attendees know where they can find the information they need.
3. Give the attendees pre-meeting homework – Whether it is simply asking them to read the background material or asking them to prepare ideas or a presentation, assign pre-meeting tasks that will help the meeting run smoother and get participants involved in the process.
With a little preparation, your meeting participants will have a more fulfilling meeting experience and will have you to thank for it.
Tags: Attendees, Background Information, Background Material, Business Meeting, Corporate Meeting Planners, Date Time, Effective Meeting, Hats, Homework, Meeting Agenda, Meeting Planner, Participants, Presentation, Productive Meetings, Reminder
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