Strengthening Planner-Project Manager Partnerships with Joy Harley

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So how does the relationship between a meeting planner and a project manager for an

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AV production team work? Well, thank goodness. Today we've got

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Joy Harley, senior Project Manager with LEMG here to

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discuss just that very subject. Welcome to the

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

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Whether you're a corporate event planner, experiential marketing pro,

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

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

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tips and inspiring stories from the industry's leading professionals

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about not eating breakfast. The truth is I didn't make my breakfast either.

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Someone else did. So breakfast is a lot.

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Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, I'd

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rather take the extra few winks of sleep before I get up

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to commit breakfast. Few winks?

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Yeah, a few winks, few more. Wins. Are you a snoozer? Do you use a

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snooze alarm? Yeah, I am the person who has like 18

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alarms for the morning. Yeah, yeah. Like the,

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the main alarm. Yeah, your main alarm, your second main.

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Alarm and then the snooze is in between. Yeah. And then it

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gets crazy. Yeah, yeah.

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Like on show days I don't even need an alarm. I'm just, I'm up, I'm

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ready. The first day of a show is like

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if I'm on the road doing a show, it's a multi day show. The first

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night like you travel in and shows next day load in. I don't sleep well

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at all and then after that I sleep like a

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baby. But I guess it's like once I see everything in the

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room, then I'm good. When I see everything in the room,

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that's the first, like I sleep a little bit better. But then when I see

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the first day of show go off, I sleep a lot better.

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Yeah, yeah. I

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wanna. I want to ask you a

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couple questions because you have

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as. So you're a senior project manager at

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lemg, one of our finest senior project

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managers and you work with event planners

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all the time. And the problem with putting you on

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shows is, I'll tell you the number one problem, Joy,

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with scheduling you is that everybody wants you back.

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And so then it becomes a struggle of like, oh, everybody's gotta

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have Joy on their show. And it's a problem really when

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you do your job too well. But I wanted to ask you

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like, okay, so there's a relationship that you build with

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planners and you work with all different personality types

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and it seems like you're doing another show or two or three or

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four every week. What is the common

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denominator for you about like building that initial relationship with

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a planner and how come from my perspective,

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you are really successful at it and you

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are able to. It really doesn't matter who you work with,

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you always walk away with a good relationship. So what do you

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think? How do you approach like a new client, new

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event, new planner? I

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think my first question to any planner is just what do they

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want out of this event? Like how do you want people to feel?

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Are you doing this because this is your event? Are you doing this because you

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have a boss who's like down your neck and this is part of

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your everyday? And then that

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usually just to me that's the root that answers so many

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other questions. Like if this is something that's dear, if this is their

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baby, like you know, Wake Forest for example, then

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yeah, you just know how to talk to them about it.

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If it's something that they're just doing because their boss wants them to, then, you

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know, I try to get to know more about them because I'm not going to

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say they don't like necessarily care about the event, but it's just, it's something different

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when it's, you're doing this because this is your job versus you're doing this because

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this was the idea you had in your head too.

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And then from there it just kind of goes to

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multiple conversations on why they came up with this event

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or what do they want people to take from it.

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Yeah. And it just grows. What do you,

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you know, when you think about what you do as a project manager of

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an AV services company, we work with

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planners. What are the things that you think people might find

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surprising? Like so much conversation pre show

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revolves around this. Like what do you end up talking about?

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Mostly pre show content.

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Content is always important because in today's time you can

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just. Everything is so quick and so people get wrapped up in that. Like,

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oh, I can just give this to you, you know,

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like right before the event. And so it's an important conversation to have

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that while you can do that, we would like, you know,

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a basis to go off of. Like I understand a last minute change, but if

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you just give us a base and you can see how it's in your,

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how it's going to show on your show. Like you can see it on the

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screens, you can see it everywhere. You can just see what you need to

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do. Content always starts a lot of

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other conversations too. I think

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it just is a reminder of what people forget. Like

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lower thirds might be a thing. Like you want people to know who's speaking.

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Or I ran into, like, oh, I actually didn't

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want that to happen right then and there. Let's change it to where. So content.

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I start with content and

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looks. How do you want it to look? Like, what do you want people to

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walk in the room and see and. Yeah, yeah, I. I love that.

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Like, everything drives from content. Like, we spend a lot of

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time, especially in our world, we think about the actual stuff going in the

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room, the people there that we need to run it. But

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if attendees come in and, you know, there's. It's

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not compelling. They're bored, you know, and so starting from,

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like, this is the core of, like, what we're delivering. We're delivering an experience,

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and it's gotta have some kind of meaningful content. And that's the most important

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thing. I think that's such a great place to start that conversation. Because even

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like you were saying, then you go to looks and all that. Yeah, that's secondary.

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Like, what is. What are you trying to communicate and how are you doing it

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in a way that people can remember. Otherwise, it's just kind of white noise. Cause

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there's just so much content hitting people from other places. So

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you better have that on point, your content on point,

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or it's just a waste of time, waste of money for everybody. No matter

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how. How much gear you have in the room, you know, how

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much money you spent on it, quite frankly, answer your question. And

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then to me, you're thinking about how your attendees are.

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But now I'm getting more of the technical aspects that you don't even know I'm

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getting from this conversational content. Right? Oh, yeah. I want this to be

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showing when we have this panel. And then my mind then goes to, all right,

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panel, how many people are on the panel? How many chairs are you going to

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need? How many microphones? And then now we went

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from. Okay, this slide would be shown with them. But you're right, I do need

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chairs and I do want everyone to be mic'd up. But

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right then I immediately want to go to a video. So then that's another

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conversation. It's just so many questions getting answered. Like, so do you want the chairs

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to stay? Are they going to come right back up? Is someone going to talk

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about this video? So we just. It's just so many different conversations just

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related around content and. Thank you.

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Yeah, you're like, your screen's not big enough or, you know, actually, this is

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super content heavy. You should maybe decide on a DSM or, you

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know, Just so many different conversations starting. I love

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it. That's such an important,

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important thing. And so, like, it almost takes the pressure off of the

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planner. Like, I don't have to think of every aspect. What I have to

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focus on is what I'm trying to do. And if you're working with like a

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trusted partner like you, you're in

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the back of your mind doing all the math of like, okay, well, they, they're

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doing a panel, they're doing this. That means this technically. But the

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planner doesn't even know half the time that you're doing that, you know, so

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that you, you've got their back on that side and that you're pulling that information

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out of them through the relationship, which is a really cool way of approaching it.

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Instead of just like spreadsheet, you know, five mics here,

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we need three TVs here, whatever. You're just like, what are you trying to

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do? Yeah, because in my mind, while you're saying all

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that, I'm building out this spreadsheet in my head of production,

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a production schedule. So right after we talk, like, well, hey, based on

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our conversation, this is how the day looked like it's gonna go. I made

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a quick schedule, check it out, let me know if you need to change.

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And then we go into whole different conversations. But we have that structure there,

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so love it. My little takeaway

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from you today is content. That's what everything drives

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from. And I, I totally believe that. I think, you

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know, the kind of knowledge that you have is what

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separates us or a great

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AV provider from just commodities. Like anybody

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can buy speakers or monitors or projectors,

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LED walls, whatever. But having relationship with

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someone that can pull out of you, what are you trying to accomplish? And

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then create a vision from that and then execute on that. I think

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you touched on. So you answered it. That's why people keep coming back to you,

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Joy, because you keep doing a good job. People. Why

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do I like Joy so much? He just gets me.

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Yeah. Well, thank you for, for spending a couple minutes with

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me and, man, I'll, I'll just do my

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best to just make sure that you're not over scheduled over this

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next next year, man.

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Bring it on. I'm ready for it. All right,

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well, thank you for joining us on the Event Pro Show. If you'd like to

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learn more about us, you can go to LEMG Live and be

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sure to tune in just about once a week where we'll be releasing

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new podcast episodes. Thank you.

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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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Prince Thompson. You can learn more about us at LEMG

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Live.