Category Archives: Training Room

How Event Planners Should Keep Calm

As an event manager, you should always prepare for the unexpected during an event. Despite your best preparations, however, keeping your calm when things are not happening as planned could be difficult. Whether you are dealing with unreasonable clients, undisciplined attendees, or devious vendors, it is important to handle the situation judiciously. For instance, if your rent training room, but on the day of the event do not get the facilities as promised, you may lose you cool and make the situation even worse. Now think about it. Instead of blaming someone or wasting your time thinking how it happened, you should think about how you can resolve the issue now. If you still have enough time, you can contact another seminar room rental company and shift the venue there. Here are some more tips on how event planners should keep calm.

Believe yourself

When you face a sudden challenge, you should believe in your abilities. Say yourself, “I can handle this.” If you indulge in negative thinking, the situation can quickly go out of your control. Instead, you should think about past instances where you successfully dealt with any adverse situations. That way, you can convince your mind that you are strong enough to handle difficult situations.

Learn to handle criticism

During the course of an event, you may have to face criticism from your clients or attendees. Some complaints may be true, while some allegations could be absolutely baseless. If someone blames you for a mistake you’ve committed, accept it and move on. However, if the criticism is baseless, simply ignore it. Don’t try to respond to your critics immediately, no matter how unfair the allegations are. That way, you can focus more on solving the real problem Vs getting distracted.

Don’t cross the bridge until you come to it

Sometimes we complicate things unnecessarily by thinking ahead. If you often panic thinking about “what if” scenarios, it is time to learn how to live in the present. Don’t cross the bridge before you actually come to it. Sometimes you may be surrounded by people who will constantly warn you about a hypothetical situation. In that case, you should distance yourself from those people, because negative thoughts are infectious. Instead of thinking too much, focus on the present facts. It is all about having the right mindset. Think how you can deal with the present situation, rather than indulging in hypothetical thoughts.

Plan ahead

One way to reduce the chances of getting into unwanted situations is to plan ahead. Lack of planning is often the root of many problems. Have a backup plan for disaster management. You should be able to identify the risks and take precautions accordingly. Understand that things can go wrong anytime. So always try to have a plan B or an alternative way out.

Avoid perfection

Trying to be perfect is not always a good idea. You need to cut the coat according to the cloth. Keeping unrealistic expectations from your event may actually do more harm than good. You should plan as per your budget and timeframe. At times, it is okay to be good enough.

Common Marketing Mistakes Event Organizers Make

If you are planning to organize a corporate event, there are hundreds of things to plan. You need to select food suppliers, find and contact your guests and speakers, arrange funds, rent classroom, send invitations to attendees, and rent training room. Of all things, marketing your upcoming event could be the toughest challenge. Even seasoned marketers make some common mistakes in event marketing. Just printing some leaflets or brochures may not help promote your event to your target audience. You should avoid the following common mistakes to make your event marketing more effective.

Using only one marketing channel

Marketers today have the opportunity to use multiple marketing channels, including social media, local advertising, and email marketing. Not using any of these channels would be a mistake. Some marketers focus too much on only one marketing strategy. For more effective event marketing, you need to diversify your marketing efforts and use all the channels in the best possible way. For instance, you can use Facebook to let your followers know and create buzz around your upcoming event. At the same time, you can hand out leaflets to your local customers, while also running an email campaign to have more people interested to know about your event. It is always a good idea to use multiple channels, so that you can reach out a wider audience.

Not having a unique marketing proposition

As an event planner, you should be able to tell what sets your event apart from others. Most marketers today focus only on their products and services. They know their products inside out, but have a little or no idea about the unique selling proposition of their products. Unless you know why your products are better than that of your competitor or what value it is likely to bring to your customers, you’ll not be able to develop a unique marketing proposition. As a result, your marketing campaign may not be effective enough to attract more people to your event.

Targeting wider audience

It is very important to promote your event to the right audience. For best results, you should narrow down your focus based on demographic, purchase behavior, age, and other aspects. Once you can pinpoint your audience, it would be easy to plan your marketing campaign accordingly, and thus increase the response rate.

Inability to engage with your audience

Whether you are marketing through social media, leaflets or brochures, you should be able to engage your target audience. This is not a one-time task. You should interact with your audience on a regular basis. For instance, you can ask questions on social media. Let your followers respond to your questions. You too should answer any of their queries about event or product. Building a two-way communications helps strengthen the bonding between your brand and your audience. This eventually helps you keep your audience engaged and interested in your events.

While it is a good idea to use social media channels for event marketing, you should avoid overdoing it. Consider using only a few, selected social media platforms where you are likely to find most of your target customers.

5 Meetings to do for Event Success

Although some people believe meetings are a waste of time, it is not true always. In some situations, meetings are necessary. When it comes to event planning, a number of meetings need to be arranged before the event. As an event organizer, you should communicate with different groups of people at different times. Calling every stakeholder to one meeting may not work. For instance, the scope of your discussion varies considerably when your meet with suppliers Vs when your meet your clients. Here are 5 meetings you must do to make your next event successful.

1. Meeting for marketing strategy

You should arrange this meeting as early as possible, ideally as soon as you decide to host an event. In this meeting, you should invite your marketing staff along with anyone who you think should know about your marketing strategy. Discuss what marketing channels you want to use and how. Delegate the right tasks to the right people and set a clear marketing goal for your team.

2. Meeting for venue selection

It’s obvious. You need to rent seminar room for your event. Selecting the right venue, however, may involve more headache than you think. You need to look for a venue that provides all the necessary facilities, such as, water supply, projection room, and WiFi. Choosing the right location is also important. Make sure the venue is strategically located, so that your guests can reach easily. Once you find a suitable venue, you need to sit with the venue manager. Ask questions until you’re completely convinced. For instance, if you are booking a training venue, check the background and reputation of the training room rental company.

3. Meeting with suppliers

Depending on the nature of your event, you may need to arrange food supplies, flowers, and other stationery items from outside vendors. Select your suppliers and call them all to a meeting. Make sure all important members of your internal team are also present in the meeting. The idea is to have everyone on the same page. Assign tasks and set a deadline for every task. This meeting will also help initiate communication between your internal team members and outside vendors, fostering teamwork and coordination.

4. Meeting with sponsors

If you are looking for sponsors, you may need to meet many potential parties face to face. Build a team exclusively for this purpose. The team should have representatives from your marketing, sales, and design teams. Also, make a plan on how to convince someone to sponsor your event. You may need to arrange multiple meetings with different parties.

5. Meeting for speaker selection

To decide on which speakers to invite to your event, you need to arrange a meeting with your internal team members. Once you finalize the list of speakers to invite, you still have some meetings to do. You need to contact each selected speaker and brief them your topic of discussion, target audience, purpose, and expectations.

You will also need to arrange a quick meeting with all members of your team on the day before the actual event. Post event team meetings may also be a necessity.

How to Avoid Information Overload at Your Corporate Event

Human brains are designed to handle less than four tasks at a time. This is something that you must keep in mind before booking training room rental or classroom rental for your next corporate event. And the reason is simple! If you overload your attendees with too much information at a time, they may fail to digest it properly. What you should do, instead, is to try and provide a fun and exciting learning experience to your attendees. Here are some useful tips.

Provide a clear and brief overview

You can hand out a leaflet or brochure to each attendee at the start of your event. The leaflet or brochure should outline the agenda of your event, including name of speakers and the key areas of focus. This is a great way to let your attendees know what to expect from the event. They can even prepare themselves mentally before the speech or presentation starts.

Plan enough short breaks

Avoid back to back sessions, so that your attendees can take a break between two sessions. If it is a long session, you can even break it into multiple small units and allow multiple short breaks within one session. The duration of the break should be neither too short nor too long. One 10-minute break after every half an hour is a good rule of thumb. However, you can extend or shorten the duration of the break, depending on factors, such as, complexity of the subject.

Encourage conversation between attendees

When two or more attendees talk about what they just learnt, it helps them digest the information more easily. So you should actually encourage them to initiate a conversation with each other. This will definitely help them rehash and have more clarity on the topic.

Change the setting

You can also help your participants digest the information by changing the setting frequently. Look for a training room rental that has multiple meeting rooms or conference halls, so you can move to a different room or setting after every few hours. The change in visual keeps an element of surprise and helps your attendees concentrate on the topic.

Limit the number of speakers

It is never a good idea to invite more than three speakers on the same day. In fact, some organizers do not even want to invite two speakers on the same day. If you think, more speakers are required to cover all angles of the topic; you should extend the number of days rather than squeezing more speakers into a single day. Leave your attendees wanting for more rather than tiring them out with too much information.

Bring variety in the way you provide information

The same information can be given many ways. For instance, you can use images and videos to put the message across. Bringing variety in the way you present your information is a great way to keep your audience engaged and have then digest information more easily.

Another good idea would be to arrange games for your attendees, so that they can recall the information in a fun way.

How to Get more Sponsors for Your Event

One common concern of most event organizers is how to arrange the funding. No matter how brilliantly you’ve planned your event, you need money to execute your plans. It all boils down to how many sponsors you have and how much they are funding. From booking seminar room rental to arranging foods and accommodation for guests and to rent training room, everything needs to be planned ahead and you should arrange enough funds for everything.

However, getting more sponsors for your event is easier said than done. It’s like applying for new jobs. The employer can accept, decline, and choose not to even respond to your application. You should keep trying, but make sure you know how to impress prospective sponsors with your proposal. Here are some useful tips.

Give them enough information about your attendees

Your prospective sponsors want to know details about your attendees, including their age, contact details, gender, profession, likes and dislikes. This information helps them decide whether they should advertise on your event. For instance, if you are expecting more participants in their 20s, sports goods selling brands that mainly target youngsters may be interested to sponsor your event. You can collect details about your audience at the time of registration. Have them fill out a registration form with some mandatory fields, such as, name, age, address, and occupation. It is also important to organize the collected data before presenting it to your prospective sponsors.

Ask for money

Your sponsor proposal should mention an amount you are looking for. Some event organizers think asking for money in the proposal is not a nice thing to do. They fear that the prospective sponsor may turn down their application, if they ask for an amount. On the contrary, a pitch without a definite amount may give an impression that you are confused and have lack of confidence. Also, don’t sell yourself short. Ask for an amount that you think you deserve. Often, sponsors judge your confidence from the price you charge. If you can charge a handsome amount, this shows you are confident about your capabilities and about the effectiveness of your event.

Tell a story

Don’t make your proposal sound boring. Feel free to make it interesting, after all you are taking to human beings. One good idea would be to tell a story. It could be about your past achievements or future plans. Just make sure it has a human touch. Remember, stirring a little emotion in your proposal helps sell the idea well.

Approach the right person

A big part of the game is to find out the right person in the company who you should approach. He or she could be someone from the company’s marketing department, public relations office, head office, or sales department. Do your own research and find out the influential person in the organization, who often makes important decisions regarding sponsorship.

In addition, you should try and improve your online presence. If your prospective sponsors look for your company online, they should find many positive reviews of your company.

How to Overcome Event Management Challenges

Organizing events is a good way to promote your business to your target audience. However, successfully planning and executing an event is no easy feat. There are some common challenges that most organizers face. Knowing about these challenges would be your first step towards countering them. Here are some useful tips on how to overcome those challenges.

Being memorable

Attendees should remember your event weeks after the event is over. Otherwise, there’s no point spending time and money on organizing an event. Anyone can contact a training room rental company or rent seminar room to organize an event. But, if the event leaves no impact on your attendees, it would be a failed effort. After all, every event has a purpose. Maybe you are trying to promote your products or train your employees. Whatever the purpose, you should find a way to make your event memorable. For instance, you can have your attendees participate in an interesting activity. People usually enjoy the fun and excitement of group activities and remember the experience for months. Another good idea would be to have enough snapshots at your event and post them on your company’s social media account. That way, you can have your attendees revisit the enjoyable experience they had at your event. It is also a chance for you send your message across all over again.

Choosing the Right Venue

If you rent seminar room at a location that is not easily reachable or do not have adequate parking space, your attendees can have a negative perception of your brand. Also, make sure the venue is equipped with all the necessary elements, including free Wi-Fi, projectors, comfortable chairs and desks. It may not be easy to get the right venue, especially if you are organizing an event at pick times. However, you can overcome this challenge by planning ahead. You should choose and book your training room rental at least one month ahead of the event date.

Managing expenses

If you don’t have a budget for everything, you can run out of funds in the middle of your event. From printing leaflets to renting an event venue, there are many expenses associated with event management. You should list down everything and stick to your budget. This easier said than done – but you can handle your expenses better with the assistance of a trusted accountant. Consider employing someone for this task.

Managing time

Seasoned event organizers always move ahead of time, which means they always set a deadline and complete the job within the stipulated time. For instance, you should complete all arrangements at your event venue for before your guests arrive. Ask your team members to reach the venue early. Assign tasks and constantly monitor them to see whether things are happening as planned. For instance, you can tell one member of your team to deal with external vendors like the florist and food vendor, while another member can look after the guests. Allocating tasks and setting a time limit for every task always help manage time well.

How to Generate More Leads at Your events

Organizing events is a great way to showcase your brand in good light. It is also a chance for you to market your products and services to new and potential customers. However, just organizing an event is not enough! If you want to generate more leads at your event, you should have a proper plan. After you rent training room or rent classroom for your event, you should take the following steps.

Create registration and feedback forms

If you think you do not need to print registration forms for your visitors, think again. Some event organizers argue that they already have the names and contact details of the invitees in their database. But, remember not all invitees will attend your event. Also, there could be some visitors who will attend your event knowing from any other source.

The registration form should include specific fields or questions. Don’t make it too long. Also, create a feedback form and ask your employees to have the forms filled by as many attendees as possible. What questions you should include in your registration form depends on your purpose or how you want to use the date. For instance, if you want to find out whether teenagers are interested in your products, your registration form should have a column for age.

Prepare the venue before visitors start coming

You should make sure that all works are finished before the visitors arrive. You should have some of your staffs ready to escort the visitors to the coffee and snack zones and provide them the press release or event information compulsorily. It is also important to start the event on time. Delay for any excuse may harm your reputation. And if you invite media, you should prepare to welcome them as well.

Talk to strangers randomly

Your utmost responsibility is to finish all the arrangement and keep yourself free during the lunch period so that you can interact with more visitors personally. Always exchange visiting cards and try to get feedback and personal opinion from them. This will help you in generating more leads from the event.

Meet as many prospects as possible

If you want to generate more leads at your event, you need to meet as many attendees as possible. Also, make sure you spend your time with prospects who are more likely to become your customers. If necessary, attend training sessions to know how to identify genuine prospects.

Follow-up

It is always a good idea to send a thank-you note to all attendees after the event. That way, you also get a chance to keep in touch with them and initiate a conversation all over again after the event. Following up with your prospective customers is an effective way to turn more leads into customers. You can also engage your prospects on social networking platforms. Your social networking pages should be filled with event updates and be tagged with the participators. These are some important steps you should take to generate more leads at your event.

Ways to Make Training More Fun and Interactive

According to a recent survey, many companies waste massive amounts of money on ineffective training. The major roadblocks to employee training include not conducting proper needs analysis, monotonous content and delivery, wrong training managers and classroom rentals. For a training program to be effective, it should be engaging for both fresh recruits and old employees. Trainers should know their audience and communicate with them well. Here are some ways to make training more fun and interactive.

Use Different Training Styles

Organizations cannot expect every employee to learn in the same way. While fresh recruits prefer to learn by visual aids, employees with some experience will be comfortable with the traditional classroom teaching method. Some trainees respond easily to music, reasoning challenges, or presentations. Incorporate linguistics, distribute handouts and hold short quizzes to keep the training program inclusive and interactive. You can also use props and ambient music to make it more fun.

Fun doesn’t Necessarily Mean Funny

While a little fun goes a long way in ensuring knowledge retention, it is not advisable to try to make trainees laugh. Trainers often make the mistake of confusing ‘fun’ with ‘funny’. First, it looks staged and can fall flat when it doesn’t come off. Second, it dilutes the subject being discussed and lead to participants feeling uninspired.

Involve Gamification

This is a hugely popular corporate training method these days, as it helps trainees participate fully in the session. Professional services and IT giants have taken to gamified training in a big way. The progressive rewards system and the spirit of competition implicit in gamification make training more engaging and fun. Managers can keep track of everyone’s progress and address the problems of those lagging behind.

Experiment with Room Layouts

When one thinks corporate training, they’re most likely to imagine rows of chairs and tables in a drab training hall. The general perception about it is that it is not fun or engaging enough. Cast away the worries of your trainees by asking your training room rental company for unconventional room layouts. Collaborative settings help foster an environment that encourages interaction and participation. You can also replace the monotonous row system with a fun banquet layout.

Use Illustrations and Narratives

Training that is fun is usually relatable, so use examples from real life and case studies relevant to what is being discussed. Bringing creative metaphors and parables to the training room is becoming a trend now. Compelling stories and illustrations can embed the complex of information into learners’ minds. Narratives also help to evoke the employees’ empathy for the business and its social purpose.

Provide Facilities and Conveniences

A lot depends on your choice of training room rental and the facilities the company provides. Distraction and inconvenience are major reasons why most training programs fail. It is also important to check whether the training venue has restrooms, water coolers, and even coffee dispensers within easy reach of the trainees. Also, make sure that the venue is easily reachable. Training programs should be events that employees look forward to.

Must-have Qualities of a Training Manager

A great training manager can transform an average training program into a brilliant one. Companies often hire them from within, trusting their industry knowledge and experience. A considerable portion of your workforce is composed of millennial and seasoned employees. Training a diverse set of employees can often get tricky, especially with varying training requirements and skill-sets. The recipe to success is to find training managers and seminar room rentals that have the right capabilities. Read on to know the must-have qualities of a training manager.

Deeply Knowledgeable about the Business

This is one of the greatest assets a training manager can possess, as it helps them articulate the objectives of a business clearly. Expressing the nature of business and its objectives in a crisp and understandable language helps to hold the trainees. Training managers aiming to improve on this aspect should know why a certain product exists, the target audience, the workflow, and a sound awareness of the competition.

Should be able to Assess Training Objectives

Training managers with a sound knowledge of the company often find it easy to design and evaluate training programs that effectively achieve the company’s strategic goals. Competent trainers often conduct comprehensive training needs analysis to design training programs. Be it faltering productivity, or a requirement to adapt to advanced skills, good managers will often assess relevant training objectives. They will use information obtained from individual departments, employees, and the management to come up with programs designed specifically for employees’ needs.

Proficient with Modern Technology & Platforms

Technology helps bridge the gap between the old and the new. Often, you will need to bring employees across skill-sets and organizational hierarchies, on the same page. Raising productivity and keeping communications smooth is a goal for most organizations. Efficient training managers are tech-savvy, and understand the long-term advantages of integrating digital platforms. They also incorporate the use of technology within the training program, making sure that they rent training rooms that provide unlimited internet and other technology capabilities.

Effective Interpersonal/Communication Skills

Efficiency in the different kinds of communication within the corporate space is essential for training managers. Lack of effective public speaking and communication skills can often lead to de-motivated and distracted trainees. Often, employers estimating managers’ capacities judge the latter on interpersonal and social interaction skills.

Managers with good communication skills can empathize with trainees and resolve conflicts easily. They should also incorporate feedback into the work ethic and seek to locate room for improvement. Problem-solving and understanding the concerns of trainees is an integral part of the job of a training manager.

Ability to Develop Creative Training Methods

The ability to constantly innovate and make training sessions engaging is a highly desirable quantity. Attention spans have reduced in the last decade, and corporate training needs to be made fun and relatable. Good training managers should use videos, images, and even social media to keep training enjoyable and relevant. Likewise, employers should make sure that their seminar room rental company provides facilities for audio-visual training and basic convenience.

How to Engage Seasoned Professionals in Your Training Room

Getting older, experienced employees to join your training programs can be a tough job. Managers and senior professionals often stress that their skills and information is up-to-date. Convincing them is even tougher when younger trainers are coaching seasoned officials.

Even though they might be competent at their job, training is required to introduce new platforms, or keep them in sync with technology. When you rent a seminar room for your employee base, you have to engage seasoned professionals into training as well. Here is how to do it.

Establish an actual need for training

Seasoned employees present a stiff resistance to training because they don’t see any reason for it. The employer must create a system that clearly lays down the objectives of training right at the outset. This can be done by putting them in a situation that can prove to be challenging. It could be anything, from case study analysis, exercises, and even demonstration.

Senior employees can often prove woefully resistant to learning advanced applications of technology. Approach seasoned employees individually, and never make assumptions. When you rent a training room that is located close to the office, and is comfortable and technology-compatible, you instantly win them over.

Make it a give-and-take event

Knowledge sharing is a brilliant reason why seasoned employees will instantly get ready to undergo training. Hold the training program as a collaborative event where different levels of employees come together to share knowledge. This will keep seasoned employees from feeling anxious about being coached by younger employees.

An increasing number of businesses have successfully managed to equip their senior workforce with necessary tools and information. Include interactive and personalized workshops and focus on sustainability to make it more effective. In order to make the most of modern platforms and mediums of training, ask for unlimited internet connectivity when you rent seminar rooms. Your training program should be an event they look forward to. Having water coolers, convenient access to washrooms, and food stalls is a good idea.

Address reservations in the right manner

Veterans with copious amounts of industry knowledge and experience with the organization will often back traditional methods to resist training. Address this sort of an objection by sharing with them the shift in the customer-business relationship. Senior employees also object to training programs because of their apparent monotony. Address this objection by creating courses that are relevant, focused, and multi-dimensional.

Expert tips on coaching seasoned employees

• Allow them some time so that they can build trust. Tell them that training will result in increased productivity, less supervision, and share success metrics with them.
• Enlighten them on how their development goals are aligned with organizational objectives and strategies.
• Keep the door of mutual sharing of information open at all times.
• Provide a concrete plan of how the training is going to benefit your seasoned employees. Videos can be used to illustrate their strengths and weaknesses. Provide examples from other fields/industries to demonstrate how the best in the business keep updating their skills.

Rent training rooms that facilitate the usage of cutting edge technology, in order to invite on-training responses to survey/poll questions.