Finding Support For The Lone Corporate Meeting Planner

It’s common for meeting planners to feel alone within their organizations. Many small and medium sized companies only one have one meeting planner or a small meeting and event planning team. This can make it difficult for meeting planners to find thought partners within their organizations.

A lack of internal support for meeting planners can prevent meeting planners from growing to their full potential. A solo planner does not always have internal thought partners to share ideas, innovations and best practices with. Additionally, other departments within companies don’t always know the value a meeting planner brings to an organizations strategic plan.  This can prevent a meeting planner from having a seat at the executive table.

Meeting planners who outsource their events to meeting planning companies have more support, but the pitfall is that the partnership is more about delegation than collaboration.  The beauty of leveraging freelance meeting and event support rather than an agency is that you work together as one team.

Soundings Connect has consultants and meeting and event professionals who can provide supplemental support to meeting and event planners while helping them improve their personal game!

Here’s a glimpse at the consulting services Soundings Connect provides:

Meeting and Event Design and Strategy

Most meeting planning companies handle logistical event management rather than focusing on event strategy or design.  Whether you are the sole meeting planner at your organization, or have a team or leverage a meeting planning company to operate your events, a freelance meeting and event design and strategy consultant can lend considerable support to your organization. 

One of the best ways to achieve success is to use data-driven insights to architect event design and strategy. At Soundings Connect, our consultants can use our Data Driven Event Design framework to ensure the organization is setting and measuring goals.  This assists meeting and event planners inmaking the best choices for events by translating strategy to logistics.

From a professional growth standpoint, meeting and event consultants can help a corporate meeting planner better understand and track the value of their events as well as the value of their position.  Often, the lone meeting planner is so overworked with their own events that they do not have the time to attend industry events to learn more about industry trends and they rarely have someone to bounce ideas off of.  

Strategic Meetings Management

The days where you have to work with large meeting planning companies to implement strategic meetings management programs are gone.  While a meeting planner is busy with coordinating logistics and managing stakeholders, a strategic meetings management consultant will take a big picture approach to help you analyze the gaps in your meeting management program.

This service will support meeting planners by helping your organization manage meeting related processes, activities, standards and supplier strategies, all of which will ultimately help you achieve your business objectives. From workflow, sourcing, vendor selection, financial management, attendee management and reporting and analytics, this added expertise improves ROI while supplementing the services of meeting planning companies.

Product and Service RFP Management 

The event procurement process can be a daunting task.  From hotels, to DMCs, event technology – there are a lot of options to choose from.  In addition, the landscape is always changing with the speed of technology, industry acquisitions and new players in the space.

Today’s meeting planner does not always have the time to handle the procurement process for all elements of their event, especially if they are the only meeting planner within their organization. The good news is there are consultants who can help with this process!

Product and Service RFP Management consultants manage relationships with external vendors who offer event management solutions, apps, CRM’s project management tools, and more. With a skilled expert managing RFP’s on behalf of the client, meeting planners can shift their focus to other areas of the event, including management of their internal stakeholders.

Product and Service RFP management will increase efficiencies and facilitate tech solutions that streamline complex processes that drive experiential events. The need to mitigate complex logistics, especially with costs negotiations, contracts, reports and data analysis will continue to be a crucial aspect of modern events.

Technology Implementation

The 4th Industrial Revolution is here and event technology is moving at a pace we have never seen before.  Event tech has become the most important element of an event.  In the past, most organizations needed meeting planning companies to manage their event tech.  With today’s technology offerings, organizations have direct access to event tech and are keen on owning their own data. 

Organizations can use their own technology and enlist the help of technology implementation consultants.  Technology implementation consultants ensure that software implementation and technology plans are successfully executed.  These consultants are skilled in process architecture and change management, which helps guide a meeting planner through the implementation process.

Talent Optimization

In today’s business world, companies are always looking for new ways to remain lean and agile. Talent optimization services will provide considerable support and strategies for welcoming and leveraging the freelance labor market.

It is commonly understood that independent meeting planners or freelance meeting planners, work for meeting planning companies but in recent years there has been a rise in freelance meeting planners working directly for organizations.  Together with a talent optimization specialist, companies can analyze their current infrastructure and reorganize to get the most out of their talent and resources, especially with the wide range of talent currently available in the freelance marketplace.

Are you interested in connecting with an expert meeting and event consultant?

Contact Soundings Connect to learn more about the wide range of services our freelance meeting and event consultants have to offer!

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