First impressions are called FIRST for a reason! Rarely is there ever an opportunity to change an initial impression. As meeting and event planners, we live and die by this maxim.
We plan for every eventuality and then we plan some more; we figure out all the logistics, ensuring all details are in place and when we have a second to breathe, we realize we need event staff—for reg, directing traffic, monitoring rooms, running the show office, etc.
What to do? How to do it? For years, the knee jerk reaction has been to call the local CVB for staff, but in the past few years, many CVB’s across the country have gotten out of the staffing business and/or provided minimal numbers of staff.
So, we need a better plan:
- Start at least 3 months out from your meeting: determine your needs and desires for staff. Analyze what’s worked/not worked for you in the past, and interview in house end users to understand their expectations. Ask yourself hard questions such as: is price the true determiner of selection, how much flexibility do you have to find an exceptional resource that might cost a bit more? Ask yourself if you are as “locked in” as you really perceive you are re your options. In other words, avoid the mentality of doing what you’ve always done or settling for an inferior service just because you have determined you have “no choice.”
- Decide what’s important to YOU re staffing. Shake it up! Do you want staffing management services, managers and supervisors who put the client first and handle all the day to day of the staffing function? Do you want customer service training so all staff is on the same page re a high quality delivery of customer service? Do you want a service to look out for YOUR budget and YOUR imperatives, instead of protecting staffer billing?
- Research the best options on the planet: check with your industry friends to find out who they have worked with; check with your industry associations for member recommendations, and look for meaningful unique alternatives to same old, same old. You don’t have to settle for less than that great first impression!
- Narrow your search and based on the best referrals you’ve been given, call the top three staffing resources and ask them to talk about how they are unique, what they can do for you that is above and beyond their existing service offerings. Ask what they would tell an unhappy customer and then LISTEN to how they handle the situation—not just what they say, but how they say it. Think of these conversations as opportunities for information exchange but listen more than talk; test fit. Personalities matter SO much in this relationship based business.
- Now, you figure you need to check references, but we all know, we usually list only references who say positive things about us! Do ask for a list of current customers, industry type, years of service, number of staff supplied , management provided, and ask the staffing resources to provide you with a plan to handle a particularly thorny challenge you are facing with your meeting. While this mythical scenario may be just that, it can also include some actual reality; the proposed way of handling this scenario will speak volumes about the staffing resource.
Same old, same old won’t work in this “new normal” re-invention phase of the meetings industry. The past ways of doing don’t always fit, and we need to re-invigorate ourselves with new ways of being and approaching our meetings and all the logistics involved with them. This “new normal” requires strategic planning and action, and in many cases, partnering with our colleagues to achieve great things!
