Delivering High-Stakes Events: The Art of Adaptability and Preparation with Lauren Livesay

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Well, if there's one thing for sure about events, it's that things change right up

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until showtime. So how do you manage all these changes? How can

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you deliver a great product every time to your client when

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things are always so fluid? Well, let's talk about operations

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and processes.

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Welcome to the Event Pro show, your ultimate guide to the world of corporate

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events. Whether you're a corporate event planner, experiential marketing

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pro, producer, technician, or anyone involved in creating exceptional

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events, this podcast is your go to resource for valuable insights,

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expert tips and inspiring stories from the industry's leading

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professionals.

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Well, welcome to the Event Pro Show. I'm your host, Seth Mackey and we

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have a wonderful guest today. And let me give you just a little bit of

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her background before I introduce her. She spent a

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lot of her early career working in large format

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motorsports. So with NASCAR producing events that

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had a couple components, complex components of large

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in person audiences and then also

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often there was a TV component to it. So really strict timelines

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to keep up with. She transitioned to the performing

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arts with Blumenthal Arts in Charlotte where she was

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a general manager and event manager, working

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with theatrical events,

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concerts, those types of productions, then making

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a transition into sales and marketing at a large format arena.

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So spend some time in that space. And then now your current role

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with LEMG as director of operations, where you get

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to work on maybe 200 corporate events a year. So

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deliver a large volume of corporate events with high

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expectations over and over again. So I'd like to welcome

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to our show Lauren Livesey. Thanks for being here.

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Yeah, thank you. This is a fun opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

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Well, I want to kick things off with a

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question for you. First of all,

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my first question for you is, let me ask if you, if you

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agree with me, the events

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industry is incredibly dynamic. It's like this, almost

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like this monster where you have these projects that are

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huge. You have people with different expectations, you have an audience wanting one

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expectation, you have different stakeholders behind the scenes. They all expect different

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things. You have a schedule that's often changing, but you're

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expected to deliver consistent results. Would that be a

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correct statement of events? Oh, absolutely. And if

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so, would you say processes are like core

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to solving the problem of being consistent in your

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delivery? Absolutely. If you don't have any

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processes laid out, you're basically

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scrambling from the get go. So processes allow you

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to at least have, you know, some sort of blueprint to work with for

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when you do potentially lose control of

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the environment. Right. Which happens quite often. And that's events. Yeah.

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Yeah, so, okay, so speaking of events, let's go back

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to an early memory. Do you remember

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the first time you actually had a thought of

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like, I want to be involved in the event space

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in this, in this industry. You were maybe at an event and you thought,

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this is kind of cool. Do you remember like the first time you had that

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thought? My first thought actually did not come while I

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was at an event. At that point, I was still just enjoying it as

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a spectator. Which, side note, can no longer do

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it ruined you. But my first thought really came about

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during my senior year of high school. I had a

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class where we produced the morning newscast for the

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students that went over closed circuit television.

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It was all done on PowerPoint, so we were

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17 years old. So like we made it really cool and had sound effects and

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things like that that 17 year olds thought that that's how it was supposed to

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work. Right. But in that moment I was like, I really

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like producing and like putting a product

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together and delivering it for someone else to enjoy.

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So I think that's really my first core memory

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that at that moment was like, I want to be in production

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and made me move forward with a degree in

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broadcast production and performance in college. That was when it

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clicked. That's when it clicked. That's fantastic.

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So, okay, on that note, you caught the bug and then

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eventually you find yourself an expert of lots of things, including

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operations. But today I want to ask you a few questions around this

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concept. We were talking before, you wanted to kind of focus around

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adaptability and operations. So

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say how you've dealt with a lot of like tight

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production schedules against live elements.

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So how do you have flexibility in a tight production

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schedule type of environment when you have all these

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factors that are fighting to kind of erode this perfect plan that

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you've developed? Yeah, I learned a lot about that

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while I was working for a company that at the time was called

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JHE Production Group. I went

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out with them on IndyCar, NASCAR and a

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handful of Supercross events which all had

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an in person opening ceremonies, which in the industry

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we call pre race. And everybody

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was there to enjoy the in person entertainment. But then

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there was also usually about a 10

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minute, potentially longer segment that was televised.

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So we had to backtime everything into

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these live televised elements.

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The televised elements always consisted of

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your invocation, which is your prayer before the sport,

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and a national anthem and the flyovers that you see on

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tv and then the person who typically says, drivers, start your

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engines. So those 10 minutes are

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extremely high profile because you've gone from an audience of a couple of hundred

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thousand people to now potentially a couple of million that are watching at

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home. And, oh, by the way, in case you guys don't know,

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everyone on their couch is an expert.

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And if they see that flyover is like two seconds off, it's like,

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well, what happened? What went wrong? And that's also the

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way our clients looked at us sometimes. But we had

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to try to predict how a person was going to sing the national

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anthem live, if they were going to get nervous and speed up or slow

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down from what they had practiced. The person

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delivering the invocation, admittedly, that was

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always our most difficult person to control in that environment

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because they would not

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stick to the time that was allowed for them. I think in their

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industry, you typically go with the vibe that

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you're feeling, and that's how you deliver your sermon or

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your prayer to the group. So trying to tell them, you have 25 seconds to

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do this prayer, be. Emotional, but keep it to this parameter.

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And you kind of didn't feel right about telling that person, stop

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praying. Right. It just felt

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a little icky in those moments. But we knew that we had to again, deliver

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to potentially millions and our paying client who's watching, and they

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define their success on those elements that are on television as

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well. So, again, everything that led up to that

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was often not televised, but had to happen to hit that

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mark. So we built in buffers

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in our schedule. That was always one thing, was where we knew

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what we had on paper for what we. Our run of show in that industry

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at the time, I assume it still is, is called a minute by

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minute. And we built in, we knew if we

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say that driver introductions are going to start at 12:30, we

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could probably really start them at 12:37.

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Knowing how long it's going to take to introduce that number of drivers,

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to have them done with, you know, the right amount of time to get

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them to their race car. In life, you were looking for moments in time that

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you could control a little bit if you needed that padding.

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Yes. Because like you talked about with adaptability, always

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had a schedule, and everybody understood that

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that was the schedule we were following. But secretly

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those in the production knew it says

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1230 on paper. We can really get away with 1237 and still make it happen.

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And everybody's like, wow, that. That had no issues

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today. That was just flawless. Right.

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But there were always challenges working against

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us, which I think is something everybody can relate to in

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production. And I

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have always had a bit of abnormal

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confidence. So when I went into the role, I said, I'll do it

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three times and then they'll be perfect from there on out.

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After three events, you'll know everything done. Check that off the list. Got that done

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in my career. So I was wrong

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because there's always something that can potentially work against

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you. We were in a very mobile environment.

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Ops, it's outdoors. So the weather

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continues to this day to be a challenge for outdoor

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sports. And we just always kind

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of had something that could potentially make it go wrong.

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And that, that made it more fun. I think I would have been

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bored if it actually did work out the way I envisioned it

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initially of where I did it three times. And it was perfect because

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it allowed me to try

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things that weren't on paper to try to

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adapt. I think you touched

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on something there that a lot of people in production I think are secretly addicted

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to. The adrenaline of can we pull this off? And like, when we pull it

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off, it's like, oh, that's so cool. But there's like this very real

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fear of failure and like very public failure. So there's like

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this balance and you just are just working with a bunch of adrenaline junkies. Is

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what, what you end up doing? Yeah, I mean, you're. In that moment, I

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was delivering to a client, a sanctioning body

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that was putting on this entire sport the in person

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audience again of a couple of hundred thousand of people. People. And then

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potentially a viewership at home of millions of

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viewers. And so a lot of stress, you know, no pressure. You

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kind of want to nail it on the first time. But so I learned

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throughout that how to be

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afraid to make a mistake and learn how to

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fix a mistake. And even if I

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didn't necessarily fix it, it was a learning lesson for the

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next time. I encountered that because again, I'll always harp

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on weather when it comes to outdoor sports. But it's like you're. When you

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go through your first rain situation of those buffers

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that you've built into your timings on your minute by minute, guess what? Those all

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just went away. Yeah. Yeah. So you learn how to better

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prepare for that. And I feel like something I learned

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during that time period in my life was almost

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I could see the problems before

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they happened, which,

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spoiler alert is how I succeed in

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operations. Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like a healthy

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dose of paranoia and fear can be

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used in good motivation to stay

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sharp and be able to be flexible. And I

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think that's okay. I think it's like accepting that there's a little Bit of

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fear in it, but that's what keeps you sharp, you know? And it's not. You

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don't have to wallow in it, but let it be motivational. You know, that's what

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I'm hearing, hearing you say here. And I think that's a great observation for

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sure. Absolutely. It was all. Instead of it being

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do three and then it's perfect. It was just, how do I get better on

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the next one? Right, right. And it takes. It takes a while. Because you were

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in that role for a while, right? I was in it for seven years. That

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you ever feel like that fear ever went away?

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Um, I do remember pre races where I was comfortable, but again,

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because maybe I'm the adrenaline junkie, I would be like, oh,

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everything's going smoothly. This would be an opportunity to experiment with

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something we've never been able to do and would like almost insert a

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challenge for myself and the team. Right, right.

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Okay. So you did high level

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motorsports, but you made a transition. Like

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in my mind, it seems like a pretty radical transition.

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And it might not be, I might be wrong, but you went from NASCAR producing

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a lot of NASCAR style events to performing

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arts. So you find yourself at Blumenthal Arts

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as general manager, event manager, working

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with a lot of artists and a lot of people with

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a lot of feelings. You have different types of stakeholders, people with

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different motivations for why you're even

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existing. So what was that transition like? It's a really

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interesting transition because I think on paper it is like,

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how opposite could you get from

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NASCAR to performing arts? So it's

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always given me a little chuckle to explain that career path, but it

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made so much sense and really made for an easy

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transition to where I went into the environment.

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And it seemed like again, the goals were the

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same. We're entertaining an audience and we have a client

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who we want to deliver great service to. The flip

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side for me on this was that I really became the

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venue and the promoter where previously in

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my role at jhe I was

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delivering for the venue and for the promoter

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being the racetrack or the. Or the sanctioning body of the sport.

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So now I was seeing it from a different perspective

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of like, you're coming to my house, so to speak,

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and I want to make sure that you have a great time at my house

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and that you want to come back and have a great experience here.

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Yeah. So different paradigm. Yeah, just

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like it's still in the event realm

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of client expectations and wanting to have

242
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attendees have the best experience possible, want to

243
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get their money's worth Entertainment comes with a price for

244
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attendees. So you want to make sure that they leave saying

245
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that was definitely worth the money that I spent on that

246
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and I would do it again and I'm going to recommend it to others,

247
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you know, as well. So that really

248
00:15:20,548 --> 00:15:24,380
translated a lot better again than it

249
00:15:24,420 --> 00:15:27,820
does on paper. And the

250
00:15:27,860 --> 00:15:31,340
adaptability did too. Because you know, the

251
00:15:31,380 --> 00:15:35,180
mantra within performing arts and theater is always the show must

252
00:15:35,220 --> 00:15:38,956
go on. Well, I'd already been doing

253
00:15:39,028 --> 00:15:42,716
that for 13 years with what we within the industry

254
00:15:42,788 --> 00:15:46,524
were calling a traveling circus. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So

255
00:15:46,612 --> 00:15:50,354
now it was. I kept that same mentality throughout

256
00:15:50,402 --> 00:15:53,030
that and I had a situation,

257
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one of many again, where things did not go according to

258
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plan. And we were managing

259
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six venues at the time and one of the venues

260
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had a power outage and it was a non ticketed

261
00:16:09,218 --> 00:16:12,930
event. So luckily I was able to move it into one of our

262
00:16:12,970 --> 00:16:16,746
other venues two blocks away that happened to be open

263
00:16:16,818 --> 00:16:20,618
that night. This was not a single person

264
00:16:20,674 --> 00:16:24,202
effort. I want to stress that I had a great production team surrounding

265
00:16:24,266 --> 00:16:28,010
me from all of the venues who were on radio and like

266
00:16:28,050 --> 00:16:31,850
everyone prepared and made it happen. And we

267
00:16:31,970 --> 00:16:35,722
marched the attendees and the performers down the block and they were.

268
00:16:35,746 --> 00:16:39,162
Able like ducklings down the street pretty much

269
00:16:39,346 --> 00:16:43,162
through. Through uptown Charlotte, you know, so everybody was like, oh, it's just

270
00:16:43,186 --> 00:16:46,854
another day in uptown. But so we

271
00:16:47,022 --> 00:16:50,790
were able to pull that off. And I remember someone came to me afterwards and

272
00:16:50,830 --> 00:16:54,630
they just said, well, you just, you must have a

273
00:16:54,670 --> 00:16:58,262
really strong theater background. Yeah. And it was

274
00:16:58,286 --> 00:17:01,690
comical because I was like, no, that's not something that I learned

275
00:17:02,270 --> 00:17:05,702
from theater. I don't have a strong theater

276
00:17:05,766 --> 00:17:09,510
background. I learned it from working in motorsports and live events. It was

277
00:17:09,550 --> 00:17:13,254
again that adaptability that, you know, we're really stressing

278
00:17:13,302 --> 00:17:16,931
today is that you have your plan A. Yes. Be ready to

279
00:17:16,955 --> 00:17:20,755
pull out a plan B at any moment. So you've this.

280
00:17:20,827 --> 00:17:24,547
That's a great segue into, you know, you've spent this time

281
00:17:24,603 --> 00:17:27,971
now at this point in your career in production, multifaceted

282
00:17:28,035 --> 00:17:31,519
ways and other things that we haven't even talked about.

283
00:17:32,219 --> 00:17:35,955
But now you find yourself in a pretty heavy operations role

284
00:17:36,107 --> 00:17:39,651
in the event space. And

285
00:17:39,835 --> 00:17:43,300
from knowing you, I know that you're a big fan of

286
00:17:43,840 --> 00:17:47,656
recaps and debriefs. So now fast forward, you're

287
00:17:47,688 --> 00:17:51,448
in operations full on and you're trying

288
00:17:51,504 --> 00:17:54,984
to keep service delivery at a certain

289
00:17:55,072 --> 00:17:58,632
level and self. All these self improvement,

290
00:17:58,696 --> 00:18:02,216
constant improvement, keeping a team engaged,

291
00:18:02,408 --> 00:18:06,056
keeping people moving forward. So talk about your thoughts

292
00:18:06,088 --> 00:18:09,260
around the importance of recaps and debrec

293
00:18:10,190 --> 00:18:13,894
recaps and actually for the listener, define

294
00:18:13,942 --> 00:18:17,222
what those two things are to you. You know, recap,

295
00:18:17,286 --> 00:18:20,902
debriefs, those types of things. Okay. So recaps and

296
00:18:20,926 --> 00:18:24,758
debriefs, I feel, are an important part of the

297
00:18:24,814 --> 00:18:28,406
event industry. That being said,

298
00:18:28,558 --> 00:18:32,182
they're usually the thing that we skip when we're the

299
00:18:32,206 --> 00:18:35,706
busiest because we're always moving forward to the next one.

300
00:18:35,758 --> 00:18:39,378
Adrenaline's over now. We're looking at the next one. Yep, it is what it is.

301
00:18:39,434 --> 00:18:42,350
It happened, and we move forward.

302
00:18:43,050 --> 00:18:46,722
So it's so important, though, to take a

303
00:18:46,746 --> 00:18:50,370
minute to debrief with your team. It can be as

304
00:18:50,410 --> 00:18:54,162
simple as five minutes in the

305
00:18:54,186 --> 00:18:57,202
moment. You can give everybody a moment to

306
00:18:57,226 --> 00:19:00,498
decompress. You schedule a formal meeting a week

307
00:19:00,554 --> 00:19:04,252
later. Sometimes you just don't. You're always moving forward, so

308
00:19:04,276 --> 00:19:07,708
you don't even have that luxury. So you have to find a way

309
00:19:07,764 --> 00:19:11,440
to get the thoughts out of people's brains.

310
00:19:11,940 --> 00:19:15,708
Most importantly, to document on paper, because

311
00:19:15,764 --> 00:19:19,400
events do start to blur together the more you do.

312
00:19:19,780 --> 00:19:23,580
You think in that moment that you'll never forget that one thing

313
00:19:23,620 --> 00:19:27,382
that went wrong or that one thing that went perfectly. But

314
00:19:27,406 --> 00:19:30,710
a year later, when you have to go back to that same

315
00:19:30,750 --> 00:19:34,010
venue again, work with that same client,

316
00:19:35,150 --> 00:19:38,582
it's important to have something you can go back and reference to, say,

317
00:19:38,686 --> 00:19:42,050
oh, yeah, I know now

318
00:19:42,430 --> 00:19:45,410
what I wish I had known before that.

319
00:19:46,030 --> 00:19:49,734
So you can go back, reflect on those notes, hopefully

320
00:19:49,782 --> 00:19:53,410
come back in and either continue the same success that you did

321
00:19:53,550 --> 00:19:57,034
the first time around and correct any mistakes that you

322
00:19:57,122 --> 00:20:00,970
encountered the first time around. I think it's also

323
00:20:01,090 --> 00:20:04,586
a great place for shared knowledge between

324
00:20:04,658 --> 00:20:08,202
departments because, of course, everyone is an

325
00:20:08,226 --> 00:20:11,690
individual, even when they're working on an events, team is often

326
00:20:11,730 --> 00:20:15,354
focused on their role. Right. Their department

327
00:20:15,442 --> 00:20:18,860
or their focus. Yeah. Right. So there may be something

328
00:20:19,050 --> 00:20:22,840
that the team can collaborate on that you can

329
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:26,620
help your peer come to a better solution.

330
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:31,432
So in a good debrief, who should be in the room? And you know, you

331
00:20:31,456 --> 00:20:34,584
can speak in the context that you work in, so in production, but, you know,

332
00:20:34,592 --> 00:20:38,440
in a broader sense, it could. It could apply to many different service providers. But

333
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:42,280
who should be in the room? Yeah. So if I was to speak specifically to

334
00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:46,168
my role at lemg, I. I think it's obvious

335
00:20:46,264 --> 00:20:49,912
that our project management team should always be involved in

336
00:20:49,936 --> 00:20:53,752
it, our warehouse team, because they're involved in

337
00:20:53,776 --> 00:20:57,480
the logistics and the delivery of it. But one of the things

338
00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:01,192
that I think that often gets overlooked is that the sales

339
00:21:01,256 --> 00:21:04,760
team should often be in a recap as

340
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:08,392
well. And while I have worked in a

341
00:21:08,416 --> 00:21:11,912
sales role in my career, I learned that.

342
00:21:12,016 --> 00:21:15,828
That they should be involved while I was at Blumenthal because we had

343
00:21:15,884 --> 00:21:19,572
someone who worked in programming, director of

344
00:21:19,596 --> 00:21:23,428
programming, and they didn't always get the feedback

345
00:21:23,524 --> 00:21:27,332
because, again, they were focused on getting the next show in the building. And it

346
00:21:27,356 --> 00:21:31,044
was like, we have to make sure that we tell them what happened

347
00:21:31,092 --> 00:21:34,324
actually on site. So the next time that they bring someone

348
00:21:34,412 --> 00:21:38,228
in, they're better educated on what those who are fulfilling

349
00:21:38,244 --> 00:21:41,942
the vision. Right. Sell it better the next time. Yeah.

350
00:21:42,006 --> 00:21:45,750
Right. And. And I think that's just important to have all

351
00:21:45,790 --> 00:21:49,334
of those perspectives in there. And again, it's

352
00:21:49,382 --> 00:21:52,770
not just about informing one person. It's because

353
00:21:53,070 --> 00:21:56,690
each component of a business

354
00:21:57,070 --> 00:22:00,918
has ideas and can share them, and that's what makes the team

355
00:22:00,974 --> 00:22:04,310
work better. Right. There's so much collective

356
00:22:04,390 --> 00:22:08,026
knowledge in the room and experience. Experience. Just having a moment

357
00:22:08,058 --> 00:22:11,498
to sit, think about what you just did, how we can get better.

358
00:22:11,634 --> 00:22:15,050
Yeah. Even if you were considered the lead on the

359
00:22:15,090 --> 00:22:18,922
event or the person in charge, I think this

360
00:22:18,946 --> 00:22:22,762
is something that's important for planners to know as well. You

361
00:22:22,786 --> 00:22:25,866
don't have to know everything. Like. That's. Right. That's

362
00:22:25,898 --> 00:22:29,642
unobtainable to. To say that you have to know everything. You have to

363
00:22:29,666 --> 00:22:33,332
know how to fix every solution. It's. It's all

364
00:22:33,356 --> 00:22:36,980
about surrounding yourself with the right people. You. You talk

365
00:22:37,020 --> 00:22:40,756
about that a lot as well, and I think that's something

366
00:22:40,828 --> 00:22:44,612
that, as you grow in your career, like in the early stages, you think

367
00:22:44,636 --> 00:22:47,268
you have to know it all. You have to have it all figured out. Right?

368
00:22:47,324 --> 00:22:51,012
Yeah, but it's. It's not just you. There's. There's. The

369
00:22:51,036 --> 00:22:53,604
longer you go, the more you realize you don't know and you just need to

370
00:22:53,612 --> 00:22:57,412
be around smarter people. Is like a general philosophy

371
00:22:57,476 --> 00:23:01,248
of mine. You know, I don't know how you. You've experienced that, but.

372
00:23:01,324 --> 00:23:04,808
Well, they say that if you are the smartest person in the room, that you're

373
00:23:04,824 --> 00:23:08,568
in the wrong room. Right. And I, you know, 20

374
00:23:08,624 --> 00:23:12,216
years ago, I. I probably wouldn't res. That wouldn't

375
00:23:12,248 --> 00:23:15,736
resonate with me. But now it completely does. Yes.

376
00:23:15,928 --> 00:23:19,592
So, okay, so you've got your recaps, debriefs, but let's speak a little

377
00:23:19,616 --> 00:23:23,272
bit broader. You're in a business where you're only as good as your

378
00:23:23,296 --> 00:23:26,948
last event, you know, and so it's very important to offer consistent

379
00:23:27,064 --> 00:23:30,812
service over and over and over and over again. So this leads us into what

380
00:23:30,836 --> 00:23:34,620
are your thoughts on the importance of Processes. Processes are

381
00:23:34,660 --> 00:23:38,508
extremely important. I think you

382
00:23:38,564 --> 00:23:41,964
have to have something in place that

383
00:23:42,132 --> 00:23:45,516
creates a consistent brand for your business that you're

384
00:23:45,548 --> 00:23:49,356
delivering. So that, that way there's not too

385
00:23:49,428 --> 00:23:53,132
much difference between if your lead point of contact

386
00:23:53,236 --> 00:23:56,110
representing your company changes.

387
00:23:57,410 --> 00:24:01,194
We know that personalities and communication styles are going to

388
00:24:01,202 --> 00:24:04,550
vary from person to person. But if you have a process in place,

389
00:24:05,010 --> 00:24:08,858
then every time that LEMG goes

390
00:24:08,874 --> 00:24:12,378
out and delivers a show, you get the LEMG experience.

391
00:24:12,514 --> 00:24:16,190
And that's because of the process that we have in place internally

392
00:24:16,530 --> 00:24:20,250
and the great people that we have that support having

393
00:24:20,290 --> 00:24:23,490
a process in place and executing a great

394
00:24:23,530 --> 00:24:27,362
vision. Processes

395
00:24:27,426 --> 00:24:31,218
are one a great thing that you have

396
00:24:31,274 --> 00:24:34,802
to establish. But one of the biggest challenges of

397
00:24:34,826 --> 00:24:37,858
processes is the accountability part. Yes,

398
00:24:37,954 --> 00:24:41,602
yes. Because it's really easy to just be like, all

399
00:24:41,626 --> 00:24:44,802
right, we made a decision and this is how we're going to handle it. And

400
00:24:44,826 --> 00:24:48,670
then everyone disperses and goes and does their part.

401
00:24:49,020 --> 00:24:52,660
Right. But some, somewhere along

402
00:24:52,700 --> 00:24:56,020
the lines the train's going to go off tracks and

403
00:24:56,060 --> 00:24:59,796
somebody will have forgotten a portion

404
00:24:59,828 --> 00:25:03,480
of it, interpreted it a different way than their co worker.

405
00:25:03,900 --> 00:25:07,700
So that's where I think it's really important to document them and have them

406
00:25:07,740 --> 00:25:11,348
in a place that that staff has access to, which we have

407
00:25:11,404 --> 00:25:14,516
here. And then also just continually

408
00:25:14,628 --> 00:25:18,064
use verbal and written communication to

409
00:25:18,232 --> 00:25:21,248
remind your co workers of those

410
00:25:21,304 --> 00:25:25,152
processes. And I guess kind of like the

411
00:25:25,176 --> 00:25:28,880
last point on that is something we've talked about too, is we'll try

412
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:31,940
it for like six weeks, for example,

413
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:36,240
and if it's not working, we'll change it. But we have

414
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,112
all established here that we have the attitude of we have

415
00:25:40,136 --> 00:25:43,740
to be willing to try it before we completely

416
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,336
shoot it down and say, that's not gonna work. Yes.

417
00:25:47,448 --> 00:25:51,192
Yeah. And try it where everybody agrees. We were in the

418
00:25:51,216 --> 00:25:54,152
same room, we talked about it, we agreed that's a way we're gonna go and

419
00:25:54,176 --> 00:25:57,816
we all give it a real try, but fail quickly. If it's gonna

420
00:25:57,848 --> 00:26:00,472
fail, let it fail and then we move and do something else. You know, you

421
00:26:00,496 --> 00:26:04,104
don't like, sit there and struggle with it. You just keep moving

422
00:26:04,152 --> 00:26:07,784
forward because the goal is to keep moving forward towards success.

423
00:26:07,872 --> 00:26:11,594
And that's important. I think you make a really good point there.

424
00:26:11,682 --> 00:26:15,258
So processes are key to any, any

425
00:26:15,314 --> 00:26:19,002
business, especially service businesses, but the

426
00:26:19,026 --> 00:26:22,190
worst thing you could do is create beautiful processes,

427
00:26:23,170 --> 00:26:26,794
put them on the shelf and then never look at them again. They've got to

428
00:26:26,802 --> 00:26:30,602
be actionable, you've got to have accountability and they have to be

429
00:26:30,626 --> 00:26:34,314
dynamic. They have to be continually growing and changing for what the

430
00:26:34,322 --> 00:26:37,922
client is asking for and what are what your frontline teams are

431
00:26:37,946 --> 00:26:41,634
doing actually on site, it can't be created by someone in a room somewhere.

432
00:26:41,762 --> 00:26:45,538
So it's like a really living and breathing thing. Processes. So,

433
00:26:45,674 --> 00:26:49,330
yeah, I think that's, that's an important thing to touch on. What you just said

434
00:26:49,370 --> 00:26:52,898
in my role is that while I am the director of

435
00:26:52,954 --> 00:26:56,722
operations, often the processes that I'm helping to develop are

436
00:26:56,746 --> 00:27:00,434
for other departments within the business. So

437
00:27:00,602 --> 00:27:04,306
we don't have the type of environment here. And I would encourage others to,

438
00:27:04,378 --> 00:27:08,112
you know, you know, create an environment to where it's not

439
00:27:08,136 --> 00:27:10,784
just one person in the room saying, this is the way we're going to do

440
00:27:10,792 --> 00:27:14,224
it and that's how it's going to be done, because

441
00:27:14,392 --> 00:27:18,160
you're creating a process for someone else to succeed.

442
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:21,776
And what we stress on here is that

443
00:27:21,848 --> 00:27:25,376
process, while we all may have a different opinion on what would work

444
00:27:25,448 --> 00:27:29,168
best, at the end of the day, it's for the benefit

445
00:27:29,184 --> 00:27:33,032
of the client. And so for us, that's when we have our

446
00:27:33,056 --> 00:27:36,824
disagreements internally. We have to always put that as our final thought of here's how

447
00:27:36,832 --> 00:27:40,616
we're going to move forward, because that's. That's who gets

448
00:27:40,648 --> 00:27:44,360
the win every time. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One final

449
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,248
question for you. So say I'm a solopreneur. I have an event

450
00:27:48,304 --> 00:27:52,008
service, business and whatever space. But now I'm starting to grow. I'm

451
00:27:52,024 --> 00:27:54,940
getting success. We just won that show. We just talked about the beginning

452
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:59,700
and. Or we won that event, we won that client, and

453
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,040
you have no real processes yet outside of your

454
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,380
mind, and you want to start unpacking that so that you can grow.

455
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,640
What would be the first area you would attack from an operational

456
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,980
standpoint? And processes like this is really

457
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,820
101 process. You need this.

458
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,690
I think you have to have a production

459
00:28:22,770 --> 00:28:26,450
timeline because I think when you win business,

460
00:28:26,570 --> 00:28:30,306
you often think, oh, that's a year from now. We have plenty

461
00:28:30,338 --> 00:28:33,858
of time to figure that out. And then, oh, no, what

462
00:28:33,914 --> 00:28:37,714
happened? It's suddenly in two weeks. That, that big show that you

463
00:28:37,722 --> 00:28:40,978
said you had plenty of time to plan, right? I thought we had six months.

464
00:28:41,034 --> 00:28:44,738
Yeah, it's here. Yeah. So I think the first

465
00:28:44,794 --> 00:28:48,306
thing you have to do is create that production timeline. And

466
00:28:48,378 --> 00:28:51,990
it may say that your start date

467
00:28:52,150 --> 00:28:55,910
on working on aspects of it is going to be three months from

468
00:28:55,950 --> 00:28:59,254
the day you want it. Again, it may not be a right away type of

469
00:28:59,262 --> 00:29:02,870
thing. It depends on what you win and how large it is and just how

470
00:29:02,910 --> 00:29:06,150
involved. But I think that's the thing is

471
00:29:06,190 --> 00:29:09,862
that it will sneak up on you if you don't have

472
00:29:09,966 --> 00:29:12,530
a timeline in place to

473
00:29:13,950 --> 00:29:17,760
move forward in a cadence that makes sense

474
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:21,440
for that makes sense for the client and any of your

475
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:25,072
team members that are involved. Love it. I love it. It's your first

476
00:29:25,176 --> 00:29:28,672
piece of communication to a greater team outside of your mind

477
00:29:28,776 --> 00:29:32,352
and and lots of things can come from it. That that's great advice. And

478
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Lauren, I want to thank you for being a part of this episode and

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hopefully listener, you learned a little bit about

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operations and maybe how you can tighten up your core

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processes and keep delivering great services to your

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clients. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.

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The Event Pro show is a production of LEMG

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video by Nick Barrett, audio and post production by

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00:30:02,670 --> 00:30:06,444
Prince Thompson. You can learn more about us at LEMG

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00:30:06,622 --> 00:30:06,840
Party.