How event professionals are making waves early on in their careers

[00:00] Paulina Giusti: ...know what the industry is that you're getting into, know the role because we are met with challenges every day. And if you're not equipped to handle them on a daily basis, then the actual really, really hard ones that come at you, like the budget constraints, like the resourcing concerns, those will hit harder. And so it's all about having A, that self-awareness of what you've chosen to do, the self-awareness of what are others going through in your department, in the overall organization, and certainly in the overall industry that I think can help you navigate those challenges.

[00:34] Alyssa Peltier: Great events, create great brands. But pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

[00:46] Paulina Giusti: I'm Paulina.

[00:47] Rachel Andrews: I'm Rachel.

[00:49] Felicia Asiedu: And I'm Felicia.

[00:50] Alyssa Peltier: And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

[00:58] Paulina Giusti: Hello everyone. What is going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Paulina and I'm your host for this week's episode. So here's the scoop. I was supposed to be joined with one of our other hosts today, but, unfortunately, they fell under the weather so no worries. The show must go on as they say in the events business, and we're going to make the best of it. I've got a little something different in mind in terms of how today's episode is going to go. So I thought it might be fun to switch things up and take this opportunity to dive a bit deeper into perhaps my own experiences within the events industry. So what a better way to do that than to be interviewing myself? So I know it sounds a little unconventional, but hey, we're all about embracing the unexpected here, right?

So I figured it was a chance for me to share some insights and lessons that I've learned along the way and hopefully offer some valuable advice to all of you event professionals, event marketers out there. So before we kick things off, I hope you are enjoying a fantastic International Women's Day. As we continue to celebrate women this month. I'm just really thrilled to share some of the incredible nominations that we received from Rachel's LinkedIn post the other week. It was an overwhelming response. I mean, I was even trying to keep tabs on all the comments, re-shares that she was getting. So really excited and excited to share and shout out everyone who shared their stories and nominated outstanding individuals. Big congrats to all the nominees and event rockstars out there who are absolutely crushing it. Stay tuned for all the names to be shared. So with that, I'm going to introduce myself as the interviewer and the interviewee, but we're going to start with my career journey.

And essentially I solicited some questions from people within our marketing department, team members who support this podcast. And I don't want to say this is the first time I'm looking at the questions, but it's definitely the first time and a half that I'm looking at the question. So you're getting true and honest authentic answers from me today. So we're going to start with my career journey into the events industry. And the question that a lot of people posed was what initially drew you to this field? How did you get started? And I think a lot of event professionals, and honestly I think quite a few marketers are the common response is it kind of fell into my lap or I just sort of found my way into this role. And candidly, that's the case for myself. But I do think that this role, those of us in marketing tend to be overarchingly extroverts.

We want to communicate with others. Communication skills kind of come naturally to us and different types of communication skills, interpersonal communication skills, great ability to write and connect others with words. So I think that kind of happens innately. And so when you're in this marketing field and you're able to communicate well with one another, well, it's not a big stretch to see that bringing people together, designing experiences for others would be a potential career opportunity. But to get into more of the specifics, I graduated back in 2009 where the job market was less than desirable. And I'm sure many of you tuning in today, were in a similar position and we've had a similar market over the last few years. The meetings and events industry has been certainly hit over the last four years. And so it was a matter of what is going to work for me.

How am I able to activate the skill sets that I gained in my collegiate years and throughout my internships between the college years? And I actually ended up coming back home. So I'm a native Washingtonian, came back home and tried my hand in the association world and I was doing marketing and trade show planning work for a large association and publishing house in Washington, DC, and I absolutely loved it. I think it was a really phenomenal first step into understanding the world of events and getting a palatable understanding of what marketing is and event marketing, what that is as well. So early on in my career started doing trade show management. We would send a 10 by 10 trade show presence to some of our key industry shows. We would have a number of sales reps represent the association on the show floor, promoting our various publications, promoting other membership events.

So it was a very different perspective and view from what I do today. It was very membership-based, it was readership and growing subscriptions to a number of our publications. So it was certainly something that wasn't a chosen direction. I think it was a great job option made itself available to me when jobs were sparse, and I really was able to immerse myself in the job roles. I had wonderful leadership team members around me that were very encouraging, that were tenured in their roles, and so certainly provided guidance on best practices around event marketing, best practices around event planning. I love to tell this story because it just really resonated with me at the time, but we worked with a third-party planner to support some of our larger presences at our trade shows, and she had this fantastic idea of, I think it was Rolling Stone did a magazine spread where they aligned rock stars to scientists.

And the concept was, you come home at night, and it's a household name to know Bono, or it's a household name to know Cher, but how come scientists don't get that kind of recognition? Why aren't they the household names that we're able to drop at the drop of a hat? And so for me, that was really exciting. And so we did this really cool event where we partnered with a Hard Rock Hotel and we brought sort of that Rolling Stone campaign, if you will, to this type of event. We saw a lot of inspiration from it, and obviously, I should mention our perspective membership base and membership base were those in the life sciences field, in the science field. So it certainly rung a bell with them. And it was just fun and it was my first step into campaign design, event design, marketing, and bringing those to one cohesive experience.

So that's how I started in the role. After a couple years in the association, Cvent actually reached out to me and my first role at Cvent was managing our trade show program. So over that timeframe, I no longer work deeply within our trade show program at our attended events, but I work very closely with the teams that do support those programs. And while I focus on a number of the events that we host, trade shows are part of those events that we host, so able to leverage those skill sets in a different environment. And that's the quick and dirty on how I got into the events industry. So the next question is your experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Gosh, I think there's some secondary questions here that some people had shared. What are some key milestones or experiences that have significantly influenced your career path in events?

So I will tell you that I think the good is the people. I think the meetings and events and hospitality industry really congregates some of the best, most intelligent, most creative, most fun people. And so it's really hard to have a bad time at work, a bad time at an event, right? You're surrounding yourself with creative minds with people who like to have a good time, who ultimately want others to have a good time. And so, for me, the people have certainly kept me within this industry, within this team, within the likes of that. I think there's a secondary question here as well. What do you believe are the essential skills or qualities that have contributed to your success in this role? Aside from knowing how to engage with others? I think it's a matter of bringing your authentic self to the job. When I first started out in my career, I felt like there was work Paulina and then there was non-work Paulina.

And it wasn't only until honestly recently, I would say in the last five years that I started realizing that the more I bring of my authentic self to everything I do, the better it is, the better engagement it is with the stakeholders that I work with, with the peers that I work with, with the customers that experience what we put on for them. So I sort of stopped creating such a heavy divide. And I don't want that to be taken as, does that mean you're lightening or reducing the barriers or boundaries that you create between your work life and your non-work life? That's not sort of what I'm saying. I'm sort of saying it's important to have fun at your job, it's important to communicate authentically and not be a robot. And I think there are some of these stereotypes of young professionals entering the job force thinking that they have to dress a certain way and they have to speak a certain way.

And I think there's a great blend of being articulate, being professional, but also letting your true self through. And I think to give you an example of what I mean by this, I can feel when I started running our weekly core meetings for our annual user conference. I remember it feeling overly structured and rather robotic, and I don't want to say it was limiting, it was certainly productive. But I do feel like ever since letting my personality shine through and making jokes and coming up with creative ideas that might seem a little out of left field or letting others speak their mind and reminding people that there is no such thing as a stupid question, I think that fosters a better community and a better work environment. So, long-winded answer, I do think one of the essential skills outside of those sort of critical skill sets that it takes to be a successful professional.

I think letting more and more bits of your authentic self crossover into your professional persona really helps you relate well with like I said, your stakeholders, your partners, and ultimately your customers. Going into the bad and ugly portion of this question throughout your career, what challenges have you faced, and how have you overcome them? When you think about event professionals and the career path that we've chosen, we've chosen a life of constantly facing challenges. The challenge is make an event that you've done for ten years exciting. The challenge is come up with content for a webinar that everyone's going to want to engage with. So we're constantly faced with challenges, and it's approaching those challenges with one, an optimistic perspective and two, kind of fearlessness. You got to be able to navigate what a challenge is. And if you're a challenge-averse or if you're conflict-averse, or if you don't like having things be hard, then maybe it might be time to reevaluate the career path that you're in because the stalwarts of an event are, here are the constructs of what we need to do now let's make it better.

Let's make it more fun, let's make it more engaging, let's make it more return on investment. So I think those challenges that are part of the job, I see them less as challenges, and it's just part of the job. Now, that being said, there are challenges. I've seen a flood happen during a trade show. I've seen a medical emergency happen on-site, and you have to know that what you're getting into, and it's being able to perform under pressure. When the flood started happening during the trade show, we immediately went through the steps that were necessary to have support. You eventually end up calling the fire department to have them fix the leak in the roof, or you have perhaps an unruly attendee who is making a situation uncomfortable. There are steps that you have to take and there is a matter of ownership and leadership depending on your role that you have to embrace.

And it's kind of rolling those sleeves up, it's sticking your chest out and walking out there and having those difficult conversations or getting the support from leadership to help you have those difficult conversations. And speaking of leadership in difficult conversations, we have, like I said before, the industry has been really challenged this last four years or so, and some of that can be around budgetary constraints, and a lot of that is around resourcing efforts. I think something that's important is okay, know the industry and job that you're in, and then it's a matter of have some self-awareness around what others are going through too. I'm not the only one experiencing budgetary constraints. I'm not the only one who doesn't have all the resources available to them. And so having that self-awareness allows you to communicate the problem or the challenge to your stakeholders in a way that makes you seem informed, that doesn't make you seem like you're living on an island.

And I found that's been really helpful in saying, "Look, I understand that we're in a hiring freeze," or, "I understand that the budgets are received a 10% haircut," and here's where I'm coming from and let me show you the business impact that it's having and being able to have those conversations, approach those challenges head-on with a sort of call it well-rounded perspective, I think makes all the difference. So to list those out in a clean pattern, I would say know what the industry is that you're getting into, know the role because we are met with challenges every day. And if you're not equipped to handle them on a daily basis, then the actual really, really hard ones that come at you, like the budget constraints, like the resourcing concerns, those will hit harder. And so it's all about having A, that self-awareness of what you've chosen to do, the self-awareness of what are others going through in your department, in the overall organization, and certainly in the overall industry that I think can help you navigate those challenges.

Let's see here. Can you share a particularly memorable or challenging event you've managed and what lessons did you learn from that experience? Yeah, I mean there have been a number of challenges that have happened, unique scenarios that have happened in certain events. I would say, I think I've said this on the podcast before, my most memorable, probably the most impactful event that I've ever worked on was Cvent CONNECT Virtual 2020. And that was just a pivotal experience for everyone. I think some of the things to call out for that event were historically I'd had very limited experience in terms of producing a virtual conference full stop. We've dabbled in webinars, we've certainly done hybrid events where we've had a live stream to remote viewers or packaged the program and shared it with a more global audience after the fact for an on-demand viewing, that was all nice and dandy, but we're talking about live sessions, concurrent sessions, pre-recorded sessions, and this was also a product launch for us.

So there were so many unknowns when it came to planning this event. We were quite literally building the product while designing the event experience while promoting the event experience. So it was certainly something very different from the norm. It prepared myself and our team and provided us a sense of resilience. If we can do this, we quite literally can do anything. That sounds so cheesy as I say it out loud, but I remember having those thoughts thinking we are literally building this product as we're designing it, as we're designing this conference, and I'm helping our event marketing team promote this event that's taking place on this product that doesn't quite exist yet. So you can imagine the nerves, the concern for if something were to go wrong, what was on the line here? It wasn't just jobs on the line, it wasn't just reputation.

It was the success of this overall product and the overall company. And we sat in the room after the second day of the virtual event, and we had an executive share some words, and I'm not going to repeat the words, but they ended up being very relevant in our internal conference that we hosted just about a month or two ago. And the words were really impactful. He was sharing with us that this is a once-in-a-lifetime type of experience that you've contributed to something that is far greater than the four walls that you see yourself in than just the company that you are employed by. This has had significant impact, and I think if it hadn't been for those words, I'm not sure I would've thought about that one particular event with so much grandiose. But yeah, looking back on it, I would say that large virtual-only event because of the pandemic was probably the most challenging, certainly the most memorable, and definitely had the most lessons learned from it.

We were very blessed to see crazy attendance, 40,000 registrations over 25,000 attendees, it was just the start of something fantastic, and I'm very pleased to say today we're still using that product and working in the tool for our in-person events. So yeah, a lot of great learnings, a lot of challenges, and a great memory. Okay, we got another question here. What's been your motivation? How do you stay on top of trends, professional development, and growing your team? This is a fantastic question, and honestly, I've found myself sort of thinking on versions of it recently. Staying on top of trends I think we did a podcast episode on this couple, might've been a year ago now, gosh, on engaging with various generations. And for me, that's hugely important, generational conversations I think are what keep marketers happy, what keep businesses in play. And so for me, it's a matter of talking to colleagues that are from different generations, talking to family, talking to friends, getting their perspective on what they find interesting, what they find entertaining, certainly engaging with the younger generation when it comes to trends within social media.

I feel like I am a very quintessential millennial, and me being... And embracing TikTok, let's just call it what it is, was a bit of a friction. At first, I was like, I don't think I want to like this. I think I want to just be an Instagram girly, and all of a sudden Instagram embraced Reels, and now I'm like, I'm addicted to TikTok. It's fantastic. I'm seeing so many not only consumer trends, but there are tons of B2B trends or tons of trends that you can take back to your B2B strategy, and I just think it's really fun to engage and embrace new technology, particularly working for a tech company. It just seems like the right thing to do. But beyond that, I think it's important to think about other generations, perhaps ones that are older than me, and what are their technology aversions, understanding the why and understanding how we can make that barrier to entry, whether it's for event technology or technology as a whole, somewhat easier and more palatable for them to embrace.

And to me, leaning into, call it their preferences is a way of understanding what trends work for them, and fundamentally that can translate to what works for your customers. If you think about the attendee base and demographic that you host for your events, it's important to think about all the generations that are the makeup of your attendee base. And so, not catering to just one, but ensuring that you're tapping into all of them. And I think it's interesting. I think particularly as we celebrate International Women's Day and Women's History Month, we have so many generations of women currently in the workforce, and I think that's really cool because we're all experiencing work and life as we see it through our two eyes. And I think we've had conversations with women who are returning back to work after raising families or taking a hiatus and what that acclamation time looks like for them and how are they being received, and how are they responding.

We have plenty of women who are thinking, maybe it's time for me to start thinking about my retirement and what do I want my last 10 five years in my career to look like? And I think it's important to engage with those populations of people to make them feel welcome, to make them feel included, especially in the spirit of International Women's Day. But of course, in the spirit of just inclusivity, and I think we owe it to ourselves. I think as a millennial, I feel the charter that women ahead of me, female professionals ahead of me, that course that they have charted, I feel that and I feel like I owe it to generations younger than me to continue to chart a course that obviously benefits them, that enlightens them, but also obviously gives thanks to those who came before me. We have this saying, and I'm sure it's not foreign to any of you, but so-and-so walked so we could run, and so many women had to walk, and many of us jog, and many of us are running too.

So I think it's just a matter of continuing to engage with various generations to ensure that we're telling the right stories and we're preparing the up-and-coming young professionals with right expectations. When it comes growing my team and leaning into professional development. I mean, I think I do my job for the team component. I absolutely have been so fulfilled in seeing my teams grow and find their skill set and their groove and what they're really good at and what they like to do, and seeing them take chances on types of programs that they wouldn't necessarily have chosen. It's certainly one of the most fulfilling and validating elements of the job. I think when it comes to cultivating the team, I'm a big believer in one-on-one meetings. If I had it my way, I would have a one-on-one meeting every single week with all of my team members.

And if they're tuning in, they know that's not the case because none of us have that kind of availability. But we certainly do try to meet every other week or every two weeks, and it's meant to be an hour-long conversation, not just a readout. I don't want to just hear, okay, I did this project, I did this project, this went well, this didn't go well, blah, blah, blah. Right? I would love to hear what are you working on. How's it going? What was your project management experience? Tell me areas that you found yourself excelling at. Tell me areas that you found yourself super challenged. What can we do to support you to make those challenges less extensive? But it's also, like I said earlier, you've got to bring the human side. There's a human on the other end of that Zoom call for that one-on-one and I want to make sure that they're feeling fulfilled with the work that they're contributing to, with the programs that they're managing.

But I also want them to know that you aren't just a person overseeing a project and onto the next. There are elements to the role that I think expand as you learn yourself more. I think the team really likes it when we do quarterly meetings, which I've also kind of let's slip and I apologize, but I think there's a great opportunity to have that one-on-one engagement with your team, but then also encourage inter-team engagement, share some of those successes, share some of those challenges, let the team know what you're working on. Sometimes when you're in this kind of environment, it can be competitive, right? Everyone wants to work on the sexy events, the cool events, the business impact events, and that's not always the case. Sometimes you got to peanut butter spread some of the work, sometimes one person gets one type of program, and others get the other type of program.

And so it's important to have authentic visibility across the team too. I think it's important to show this person's doing a lot of work when another team member may not have that visibility and might be thinking to themselves, are they doing as much work as me? So it's that candidness, it's that honest conversations around, yeah, I'm working on this tier one event, and man, is it a tier one event or, I'm working on a lot of internal events. And those typically you would think are easier, but a lot more stakeholders involved, a lot more unique requests involved, and so it requires a lot more time. And I think being able to share that inter-team is really helpful. It just opens the doors for cleaner communication, more visible communication. There's a lot of transparency that happens there, and hopefully, that makes a difference in terms of how the team engages with one another, too.

There's less competition and more, "Hey, do you need help on that?" We are very much a hand-raising culture, and so I really like to encourage the team to say, "Hey, I'm struggling. I'm underwater. I need help, who's available?" And in the same sense, someone says, "Honestly, I wrapped up this campaign or this program a lot faster. Does anyone need an extra hand?" That is the type of dynamic I really like to foster when it comes to team communication and team morale. Okay. We're getting to the end here. And the last question is your advice. What advice would you give to other young professionals who aspire to achieve success in your field? Particularly what about those who are in manager-level roles aiming for that director-plus position? Wow, great question. And rather timely, I would say advice that I would give to professionals, kind of a combination of what I've already shared with you today, but I would say as you get your feet wet in your career, become more comfortable with yourself and sharing more of your personality and self with the teams that you work with regularly.

If you do happen to work with teams regularly. I think what you'll start to see is that there are corporate barriers, corporate walls that sometimes go up on Zoom calls or on team meetings, and it's always nice to hear how someone's weekend went or share a little anecdote or give someone a compliment. And that can start small and start to get bigger as you start to engage with these stakeholders or team members in a more regular cadence. But the idea is treat your colleagues as people. They don't have to be treated as your best friend, but certainly as people that you want to engage with. And I guarantee you, you will see a complete change in collaboration. You'll see a change in communication, you'll see a change in productivity. People work better, faster, and smarter when they want to be working with the people that they've been paired with.

And I think that's just sort of great generic advice. When it comes to specific advice for those in the meetings and events industry. I think hand-raising is always a great idea, but you have to know your boundaries. And I think a lot of us who are in that mid-management position have kind of maybe learned the hard way. I certainly say, I can say I learned a bit of the hard way where just because you raise your hand for a new program or more work, it doesn't always mean you're yielding more visibility with leadership, and I think that's something that's important. So when you're taking on additional projects or call it reach projects or projects out of scope, make sure you're communicating to your direct manager that this is a reach project, and I'd really like to share this with our executives or our leadership that I'm taking this on because if you're not communicating on your behalf, it's kind of rare that people are for you.

I've had the luxury of having an amazing manager over these years who has always supported me when I've taken on more work or taken on more responsibility. And it's a matter of having that upward communication. So when you raise your hand to do some more work or take on that reach project, make sure you're getting the credit too, and that will help you with your trajectory. And it kind of goes into the second half of the question for those who are in a manager role and aiming for that promotion to the director level. I've been at Cvent for ten years and I just got to the director role. And granted, there are some thresholds that you have to cross just from an experience perspective to be promoted and meet a certain band of career level. But I think what's really important is taking ownership of the work that you contribute to, taking ownership of the team that you develop.

If you're someone who isn't a people manager, I would heavily rely on soliciting feedback from programs and projects that you work on. Don't do it in an over-the-top kind of way, but maybe reach out to your stakeholders and after a post-Con meeting, say, "Hey, there, it was a pleasure working with you on this program. I really think we did a great job. Looking forward to enhancing the program going forward, but would love to gain any insight into your experience partnering with me. Would love the good, the bad, the ugly. Would love any kind of constructive feedback, but also would love to hear just what your experience was." And I don't think that's sort of... It's not self-righteous. I think that's fair. And I think holding onto that, collecting that kind of feedback. That's certainly something that can arm you when it comes to performance reviews or having a weekly one-on-one with your leader and saying, "Hey, just wanted to let you know this event, this project wrapped. I got some great feedback from leadership. I'd love to share it with you."

I think it's a matter of creating your own personal brand within your company. And like I said before, it's bringing your whole self, the human side of you to that work environment. I actually was having a conversation with my dad not long ago, and we use the term social equity, and you can do some really, really great work. You can have a successful... The metrics, the stats, the data can speak for itself when it comes to successful campaigns, when it comes to successful events. But man, if you have a great working relationship with your peers, with your team, with your leadership, that's called social equity. And that's really hard to come by, I think. And so if you can round yourself out with successful programs and stats and with great social equity, I think you're really on the trajectory for a great leadership position. And with that, I am going to round out today's conversation with myself. I hope this wasn't too weird for all of you listening to me talk this entire time. It certainly was different for me and I will catch you all on the next one. Thanks again.

[33:14] Alyssa Peltier: Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent.

[33:18] Paulina Giusti: If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

[33:24] Rachel Andrews: And you can also help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you, discover Great Events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

[33:35] Felicia Asiedu: Stay connected with us on all your socials for behind-the-scenes content, updates, and some extra doses of inspiration.

[33:42] Paulina Giusti: Got a burning question or an epic story to share? We want to hear from you, find us on LinkedIn and send us a DM or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

[33:54] Rachel Andrews: And a big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event includes great people.

[34:02] Alyssa Peltier: And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.