Sarah Fejfar (00:34.146)
It's a universal truth that no one wants to lose money on their event, right? Yet, I see so many CEOs skip this one super simple step that would certainly increase the profitability of their event. And so I want you to keep listening because I'm going to share why the money is in the debrief. This is going to be fun. So I got a text from a friend this morning.
kind of inspired this episode. And she said, Well, I'm not going to do a debrief on that event, because I'm never doing it again. And I couldn't agree more with her, her sentiment in this situation, because the event was her wedding. I'll need to do a debrief. This is a one and done once in a lifetime type of thing. However, most of us
are producing events that are a repeat affair. We're going to do this again. We're going to wash, rinse and repeat. And so a debrief is so essential. And I want you to consider adding it to your process because it is a strategic play. You debrief a launch, right?
And this isn't any different. In fact, I think I would hazard a guess that you would debrief a launch quite intensely. There would be KPIs, metrics that you would measure and percentages you'd figure out, conversion rates and show up rates and open rates and all the things, right? And an event has those same KPIs.
And there's a whole lot of other stuff that's kind of less tangible than your very clear KPIs. And that's the kind of stuff to debrief. And I think that you should consider doing this immediately after the event. I love to suggest that people do this within a week.
Sarah Fejfar (03:00.79)
And the reason is everything's just going to be so much more fresh in the brain. And I know you're tired, but it's a good thing to do while everything's super fresh. I had a client once that did a debrief while they were still on site. They had their first debrief where their whole team got in a room like,
within a few hours of dismissing all of the guests on the final day and they all just sat around and they did a debrief. Now, props to them for that and even more props because after the event, their contact emailed me and asked for feedback and they said, don't hold back. Give us everything that you've got. Love that, love, love that.
However, I missed this one simple step, which is how vendors that are supporting you have insights that your team does not. And my client never asked me for my feedback, and nor the other vendors that I was working alongside with for this event. And it was, it was.
big event. There was a lot of moving pieces and a lot of different vendors supporting this team. And I always like to say that an event is a strategic play because especially when you bring in your vendors into the conversation of the debrief, it allows the conversation to go a step deeper from like this was a transactional relationship and I
and then you're dismissed, you're done, thank you, our team's gonna go back to like our little, you know, our nucleus, the little happy family and we don't need you to be a part of this. I think that's a miss because especially vendors in the event space, they see a lot of different things and they're able to have this point of view where they're comparing one event over the other or speakers.
Sarah Fejfar (05:23.926)
or hosts and have this like really great perspective that your team doesn't have when their lens is what we did on this event and what we did on the last one and what we're thinking of doing on the next one. I remember being in corporate America helping with the event process and we'd always bring on an executive producer
and a production company and that's what they did for a living. They just they traveled all over. They helped so many different big companies like the one I was working for and they were able to bring insights from.
all of the different shows that they'd been a part of and was so valuable and we'd bring them into the planning process months in advance and definitely for the month following the event so that we would capture their insights in the debrief and I feel like that piece is missing in the online marketing space with when it comes to events so this is me on my soapbox.
encouraging you to take a different path. And so yeah, I think it's a strategic play. And I think all the players are representatives of all the players should be in the room. And I think it should happen pretty soon after the event wraps. And no, it doesn't have to happen that day. But I would like to say it happens within that week. And then
What do you talk about? So remember how inside of Live Vent Academy, we have all the categories of support team members that you need. And I think that using those same categories is a great way to organize a debrief. So for example,
Sarah Fejfar (07:32.306)
engagement. So if one of the categories is engagement people, you know, being in charge of keeping guests engaged before, during, and after the event, well then take that category and debrief that category. And then let's say stuff like the experience. So maybe it's in a hotel.
Maybe you hired a florist, you know, that's my favorite. You had anything that goes into the experience of it, your stage, your lighting, I would debrief that category. And I think it helps people think a little deeper when they debrief by category versus just kind of like this open-ended, hey, what went well, what didn't kind of conversation is do it by category.
And I like to ask questions like, what worked, what didn't work, what you do it again. And I find that when you do it by category, it just jogs people's memories a little bit more. Even if some, a little few details have gotten fuzzy along the way, I do think that categories help get people to go a little bit deeper. And I think that's important.
And I love to go around the table. I love to sit at table where everyone can face each other and be inviting each person to share with the entire group, have someone scribe. I think that works really well and have everyone answer the same questions as you go around.
Sarah Fejfar (09:25.35)
I promise you that when you add this as a habit, you will find that you're so much more intentional going into the next one. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the emotion of an event. I know it's such a passionate play to host events in your business.
I think that passion can help cloud judgment. And so when we do, let's say we do our flagship event where we're inviting people into.
a higher ticket offering within our business. It would just do it once or twice a year. It is very easy to forget the pain of childbirth. All the moms out there, you know, right? It's easy to forget. And yet it was really, really painful. And
I don't want that same effect to happen with your events because there's so much time in between and because there's so many other things because the passion is so strong for gathering your guests, your community together live that it's important to do these debriefs while our minds still in it. So soon after the event and it allows us to have
to document so that then when we six months down the road, when we're getting ready to start the planning on the next one, we're able to pull that up and then like, oh yeah, remember how we had those strobe lights on the stage and it just looked so unprofessional and blinded people in the audience. And it was like so much visual clutter on the stage. Well, let's not do that next time or.
Sarah Fejfar (11:23.746)
Remember how we reserved seats, but we didn't, the signage kept falling off, so people kept sitting in the seats that were meant to be reserved. Well, let's improve the way that we set aside reserved seats for VIPs for this next time. It's just so easy to forget details that really impact the experience. And remember.
we're creating an experience that's amazing, that is going to create this stronger bond with our guests and in turn increase the likelihood that they're going to invest in our next level products or programs or services. And so all the details matter and they really do turn the dials on driving for...
more towards a more profitable event. So that is my soapbox today on debriefs. I hope you're feeling inspired to get one on the calendar following your next event. And in fact, I seriously think you should be pre-scheduling your debrief, not only your debrief, but also your recovery and your celebration. Otherwise...
I really find that those three things get swept under the rug in service of getting back to business as usual. And I really want you to capture this super valuable information, not just the numbers, but the kind of intangible stuff too. So the feeling. I hope this helps. Make it an outstanding rest of the week. Thanks for hanging out with me today. Take care.
