Navigating around challenges is essential for planners. Pictured: A private corporate airboat tour. Courtesy of Bonnie Boyd

One of the ultimate attributes that can lead meeting planners to success is being ready and prepared for change. The “Harvard Business Review” defines change readiness as “the ability to continuously initiate and respond to change in ways that create advantage, minimize risk and sustain performance.”

Planners who embrace change readiness are strategic thinkers who can increase their agility in accommodating changing client needs and preferences. Whether it’s adjusting event schedules, modifying catering options or incorporating new technologies, adaptable planners can meet evolving client expectations without sacrificing the event experience, which also reflects well on the organizations they represent.

Change readiness fosters the development of proactive problem-solving skills. Rather than waiting for issues to arise, planners anticipate potential challenges and develop contingency plans to address them effectively, leading to a smoother event experience.

Barbara Orvis, senior meetings & events planner for Voya Financial, has been planning meetings and events for nearly 30 years and emphasizes the benefits of strategic thinking. “When I plan strategically with my stakeholders, it’s about looking at what they’re trying to accomplish and who the audience is,” Orvis says.

Adaptable meeting planners cultivate creativity and resourcefulness in finding innovative solutions to unexpected problems. Whether it’s finding alternative transportation options for guests stuck in traffic or reconfiguring seating arrangements to accommodate a larger-than-expected turnout, the ability to think outside the box allows planners to overcome obstacles and deliver successful events.

Successful planners also need the experience and the skill set to be able to pivot quickly, according to Orvis, who says, “I think the experience and the skill [comes down to honing] in on really understanding and asking the right questions of your clients to know what it is they’re trying to achieve, where they can go based on their budget and then to really be able to think about the landscape that’s out there with the current economy, and supply and demand to be able to move in the right direction.”

Some factors she considers early in the planning process include where the group has traveled before and where the attendees are located. She also tries to be strategic around leveraging where another event might be taking place so that they can potentially tie them together instead of having executives traveling twice. Another factor to consider is location to airports, so attendees don’t fly into an airport and then have a two-hour transfer.

For clients on a tight budget, options include booking at a location historically impacted by hurricane season, for example, and taking a chance to book in that window to lock in better rates. Another is looking at second-tier cities. “Everybody wants to go to Phoenix or Scottsdale. But maybe you look at Tucson, or maybe you look at Albuquerque, both of which have great weather as well but may not have those high rates because of demand,” says Orvis.

Researching locations and communicating some of the potential issues to the client is important as well. If a client wants to go to Snowbird, Utah, in winter for example, there is potential for weather-related issues that need to be communicated. “Do you know that the road going up there has X amount of avalanches every day and so there’s a risk that your people would get caught and be sitting on the highway for six hours if they get stuck?” Orvis asks, adding, “I would say to them: ‘Let’s think about Deer Valley or Lake Tahoe instead.’”

Orvis emphasizes, “You have to be well organized and be able to shift gears and mindsets to move with the ever-changing environment.” Shifting gears was a major focus during the pandemic, she notes. “It was like relearning your whole job from a virtual perspective. That was a quick pivot. It was learning that skill set around how to do a virtual event, the technology, the terminology. Also partnering with the right vendors and creating those partnerships that can really help make or break events. While the pandemic was about virtual, the first phase was cancellation, rebooking and trying to do your best to still have a good outcome for the events, whether it was cancelled or rebooked later.”

The benefits of being change ready for meeting planners include enhanced flexibility and problem-solving skills to increase client satisfaction and maintain a competitive advantage. By embracing adaptability as a cornerstone of success, meeting planners can navigate the complexities of the industry with confidence and thrive in dynamic, ever-changing environments.

Bonnie Boyd, CMP, DMCP, president & CEO of BBC EVENTS, A Global DMC Partner, stresses the importance of flexibility. She says, “All of us, no matter where we are on the circle, whether it’s meeting planner, convention services, hotels, whatever it is, we’ve all got to be flexible, and we’ve got to be patient. It often takes a lot more time to do things than it did before the pandemic, and that costs time and energy. It’s being aware of the changes and understanding the trends.”

Knowing When to Say ‘No’

Some of those changes, according to Boyd, include having to prepare for staff shortages and calendar expectations. “They’ll say they’ve got to have it on Friday. Well, you’ve got to say, ‘We would love to give it to you on Friday, but we really cannot give it to you until Tuesday afternoon. And the reason is because our vendors or our transportation companies, or whatever it may be, we cannot get the answers that we are comfortable with,’” Boyd says.

Orvis concurs that sometimes part of being a strategic thinker as a planner revolves around knowing when to say ‘no,’ which comes from the planner being confident in their knowledge of the industry. “You have to be confident and strong enough to be able to tell your clients or your stakeholder that you know that it is too late at this point. We can’t pull that off successfully. Now, they may still say, ‘Well, let’s try.’ That’s fine, but I’ve had a lot of success being able to say no.”

That ability comes with experience. Early in her career, Orvis struggled with stress if something went wrong at a meeting or event. “I think the best advice I got from somebody early on in my career is that the attendee doesn’t know what it was supposed to be. So, even when you have to pivot and make a quick change because the tents fell over the night before in the rain and now you have to move into a ballroom, they don’t necessarily know that you weren’t planning to be in the ballroom.” She says being change ready and concentrating on what can be done rather than dwelling on what didn’t work out is a key to success.  “I find myself not worrying so much about those things anymore, where early on in my career I was like, ‘Oh my god, it has to be perfect.’”

Building Trustworthy Relationships

Orvis adds that building relationships with vendors and clients for when last-minute changes are needed is another key for planners to be able to pull off successful meetings for their clients. “It is a partnership,” Orvis says. “Even though they’re a vendor and you are giving them business, at the end of the day, we’re all on the same page trying to deliver a great event.”

She says that it’s the vendors that ultimately are at the side of planners, adding, “When you’re thinking strategically about an event, having those conversations early on about your budget staying flat, even though costs have increased, those vendors are very good about helping to develop a way to still accomplish what you’re trying to do and can work with you to help you find solutions.”

Michelle Orlando, founder and chief event officer at Elevoque Business Event Agency, agrees that when navigating change, relationships strengthen the planners’ efforts and can inspire the organization they are working with during the meeting and long after.

“I think it definitely strengthens our client relationships,” Orlando says. “That’s one of the reasons they come to work with us – because of the strength of those local relationships and being able to pick up the phone and know who to call, and to just be able to help navigate, whatever that change is.” She adds that her company approaches its events as if something is going to possibly go wrong and they will need to know who to call and devise a backup plan.

Orlando, who has been in the business for 20 years, says that vendor relationships are vital. “At the end of the day, we don’t own anything,” she says, “I’m not driving the bus. I’m not putting the floral arrangements together. I’m not printing the signage. That’s why planners come to us, because they rely on the relationships that we have. If things don’t go as planned we can figure out what the next best thing is.”

Orlando says the reason they have such a great relationship with their vendors is because they have the mindset that regardless of what’s happening, they will get through it. Her company gets feedback from a lot of clients that the reason planners continually work with them is that they are often the one piece they don’t have to worry about so they can focus on other aspects of the event, according to Orlando.

Staying on Top of the Trends

Keeping up with trends is important. During the planning phase, especially during the proposal process, Orlando sometimes utilizes AI for initial ideation of events or design concepts, she says. “For instance, if I need a photo of a woman in a yellow kayak on the Chicago River, instead of me searching for that specific photo, now we can generate something easily. I know there are a lot more capabilities and I am really interested to see how it changes; if there’s going to be new information that planners are easily able to pull together. Are they still going to need a destination management company, at least at the beginning part of the process?”

One way to future-proof her position is keeping the strong relationships. “I think that AI could potentially replace some of those proposal functions, but at the end of the day, it’s never going to replace the relationships that we have locally,” she says. “If you know a train system is on strike, how are you going to get 20 people stranded at the airport to your hotel?” She notes that AI as of now cannot help with last-minute changes that require a strong industry knowledge base.

Interact With Stakeholders Respectfully

Orvis offers advice to young or new planners, mostly focused on building relationships. She says that there have been many times in her career where she has heard from hoteliers about planners that may not be as experienced that treat the hotel staff terribly.

“They’re working long hours for you,” she says. “They’re trying to make the event the best they can. You yelling at them because they didn’t have the food out two minutes earlier is not going to help your situation. I find if you treat those people as you want to be treated and show your appreciation to them, the event will go much smoother. And you know they’ll do anything for you to make a great event. It’s really treating people fairly and kindly and building those relationships.”

As the meeting planning landscape continues to evolve, the ability to embrace change readiness will be essential for success. By prioritizing relationships as well as flexibility, innovation and responsiveness, meeting planners can position themselves as trusted partners and industry leaders.   I&FMM.