Find Articles/Resources

Meeting Planning: How to Deal With Shrinking Lead Times

By Donna Rosato

Introduction

When Bristol-Myers Squibb received Food and Drug Administration approval for a new drug last fall, it held an official product launch for 1,000 people less than a month later.

Less than a month?
"It's harder to plan as far out as we used to with the economy like it is," says Joni Schlender, trade show and event manager with technology solutions giant Serena Software. "Because of budget concerns, everyone's hesitant to plan, especially with large events." For Serena's annual user conference this month, customers used to plan their attendance schedule two to three years in advance. "Now it's 10 months," says Schlender.

Indeed, the amount of time marketers have to pull off their corporate events is shrinking faster than a snowball in, well, you know. "Lead times aren't just shrinking. They're non-existent," says Andrea Michaels, president of Extraordinary Events, Sherman Oaks, CA. "We're lucky if we get one month's notice. I blame technology. It's changing expectations about how fast things can get done."

A Look Around

Even large, annual corporate events are being planned in shorter time frames. "We used to book dealer meetings for auto clients five years out. Now we get a year or less," says Sharon Curry, director of production operations at Torrance, CA-based Maritz Interactions.

Corporations are taking a much harder look at spending and are reluctant to commit money months in advance because of budget uncertainty. "The dollars that were there three years ago are no longer there," says Stefanie Scholes Turco, vp-strategic development at Conshohocken, PA-based Event Strategy Group. "The budget you see in January is not necessarily the budget you'll be working with in June."

"And the availability is there so companies don't feel the pressure to book meetings as far in advance," adds Randy Miller, a senior vp with Gaylord Hotels who says booking time for events has shrunk to 30 to 60 days from 60 to 90 days three years ago.

Competitive pressures are also driving the shorter lead times. Companies must react with lightening speed to rival actions, so product launches and marketing campaigns are being introduced on the fly. "[Marketers] have to respond more quickly to changes in the marketplace," says Liz Bigham, creative director-brand marketing at Jack Morton Worldwide, New York City.

Such factors combine to form a fast-paced rush to find the right hotel and negotiate the space, the room rate, and everything in between mere weeks before the first general session kicks off.

Five Keys to Stay On Top Of

Five things to keep top-of-mind, all culled from EM's chats with meeting planners, hotels, and trade venues, before you plan an event at warp speed:
The Relationships. Check your Rolodex and make a few calls. Ensure relationships with national contacts at all the major hotel chains are solid. Beef up relationships at the chains' corporate level as well as with vendors. Don't lose valuable time processing paper work.

"While an event is still being considered, touch base with contacts to see what cities and places might be available when you need them," says Turco. "That way, you'll know what potential locations are available."

Make the process more efficient by establishing boiler-plate contracts with the biggest clients. When contracts are pre-approved, you can send them off to the hotel and secure the space. "It saves time and gives you a negotiating advantage because you're establishing a starting point," says Lisa Van Rosendale, vp-client services at The George P. Johnson Co., Auburn Hills, MI.

The Site Inspection. No matter how time-pressed, visiting the site is the most cost-effective thing you can do (even if you've been to the venue before). Go over the logistics, the traffic patterns, F&B, and so on. When there's no time to waste, you need to make sure there aren't any factors that will later require more attention than you can give them.

The Negotiations. Venues are vying for a shrinking pot of business, as brands slash travel budgets and meeting plans. Which means marketers have more room to negotiate with hotels. Obviously the more revenue you'll bring to a venue, the more leverage you'll have. But with the current climate, "price is always negotiable, even if you're booking at the last minute," says Turco.

Miller admits Gaylord, for example, is very open to negotiating, going so far in one recent case as to trade a confirmed future booking for unpaid room block fees.

The Technology. Advances in software and hardware mean that high quality, show-ready graphics and video can be done incredibly fast. Footage from a digital video camera can be edited on site and added to a presentation minutes before it's given. "Technology is helping us pull things off more quickly than we did in the past," says Christopher Cavanaugh, senior vice president and general manger with Jack Morton's New York office.

The Road. Many companies are also bypassing traditional meetings at hotels and instead heading to the road (see story, pg. 20).

Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Lotus are just a few of the companies using custom-built trucks as mobile conference centers. "Companies are trying to use mobile programs in a better, more efficient way to deal with the lead time issue," says Ellen Lakey, media director at Newton, MA-based Carat Face-to-Face. "If you need to do sixteen seminars in sixteen different markets and you can't get a hotel room in a short time, these trucks" are a good option. —Donna Rosato