How to run events that build relationships and grow your business

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Lorna Reeves, where we are talking all about event planning in business. We cover everything from in person events, online webinars and big summits. Join us as we share they key things you need to do to get more people to sign up and show up, and how to make sure everything runs smoothly. And if you don't think running events is for you, this episode will explain why you might want to give them a shot!   KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST Why events are a powerful tool that all businesses should consider utilising What you need to think about when running a hybrid event that caters to an online and in person audience The benefits of events versus webinars for building relationships and delivering content   Lorna Reeves is an award-winning business owner & entrepreneur. MyOhMy Events is dedicated to supporting business owners and companies to create immersive, interactive evens that really pack a punch. Lorna is a force for change, driving representation and a voice for the change in the industry. As a best-selling co-author, public speaker and leader, Lorna’s solution focussed, no-nonsense style ensure her client’s events elevate their brand. If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.   LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Connect with Lorna on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook Check out Lorna's free 'Fail Safe Event Planning' course Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook   Transcript Teresa: When I say the word event planning, what do you think of? I'm guessing you're thinking of big in person fancy events with fancy food or big massive online events with loads of speakers. What if I told you a webinar could be considered an event? And then what if I told you That there are a few key things that you need to do to make sure that you get maximum signup and attendees and so that your event runs smoothly. This is what we are talking about in today's episode with the amazing Lorna. And if you think events aren't for you, then this episode will share with you why you should even consider them. Welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? This week, I am interviewing the very awesome Lorna Reeves from My Oh My Events. So you will know that I held a summit back in March and I had Lorna from My Oh My Events help me run that summit, which I'm gonna do a podcast next week where I talk you through what went well, what didn't go so well, and what we are going to change about the next event that we do. But Lorna was the one that helped me manage the entire event, not only before, but also on the day and slotted in almost to my team, which was amazing. Now this episode, we are going to be looking at events and why you should do them and what we class as an event, because the world of online kind of changed everything because suddenly a webinar can become an event. So I am really pleased that we have her on today, not only because It's good to talk about these things and events. Like I said, you know, they're varying different things, but also I'm really happy to present it to you guys because she was so good and so pivotal in running my online summit. Now, Laura is an award winning business owner and entrepreneur. My Oh My Events is dedicated to supporting business owners and companies to create immersive interactive events that really pack a punch. Lorna is the force for change in driving representation and the voice of the change for the industry. Now, I don't always read the full on bio, but I'm going to because we didn't talk about this on the podcast and I want to make sure that I put it in. Lorna was a member of the Met Police, spending over 15 years in forensics. Boom, mind blown. It is everything you imagine, evidence, fingerprints, firearms, and serious investigations. Lorna finished her career as a senior leadership team, managing a team of 160 people, managing the forensic work of 3000 cases annually, contracts, procurement, HR, staff development, communication, and negotiation. She took these skills and used them in her business. And if you know anything about events, It is the orchestration of managing many, many, many moving parts and being very organized. So I can entirely see why 15 years in forensics helped with her career in events planning. So even if you're not considering doing an event, I think you're still going to get so much from this episode. Here is the awesome Lorna. Welcome to the podcast, Lorna. Lorna, how are you doing? Lorna: I am all right, thank you. I'm all right. Good to be here and still buzzing after your awesome summit. Teresa: Well, thank you. I am still buzzing after my awesome summit. It was brilliant. It was so, so good. And obviously I couldn't have done it without you, which one of the things that, and I didn't mean to jump straight into this, but we will. But one of the things that Lorna and I talked about is that, and we probably will talk about it in this episode, is that she wasn't who I was looking for, but boy, was I glad I found her. Like, well, she found me really, but I'm just super glad it worked out the way it does. So. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's start as we do by you explaining what you do and how you got to do the thing that you do. Lorna: Well, that's a humongous question. Right at my events is a company and we focus on corporate events and we essentially we 10x corporate events. The events of companies, charities, business owners, we specialize in face to face hybrid online, and we're more about experience, user experience being the top priority. Lots of people think that events just happen. And quite often good events do happen more by luck than judgment, but great events. there's a science behind them, there's a psychology behind them, there's a method to the madness and the chaos. And we were primarily before COVID and there should be an age for that, like BC should be like. Teresa: Yeah, absolutely. Lorna: Before COVID. Teresa: Yeah, a hundred percent. Lorna: So 2020 BC, we were at a face to face events company and we'd specialize in cool things like light psychology and color psychology and bringing in sense to embed memory and all those kind of weird and wonderful things that really influence people's behavior and help you construct the best event. It's not just People sitting in a conference room, watching four hours of content and then leaving again and forgetting it all in six weeks time. It was really about cementing people's knowledge and therefore enhancing a brand or enhancing your particular program or your offering and making people walk away and think that was the best event I've ever been to. But I can't put my finger on why it just is. And then obviously life after COVID, we ran our first online conference on the 23rd of March, 2020. So the first day that the UK was locked down. And that was mostly born out of panic and necessity. That was a lot of our clients going, how in the hell are we going to run our business now if people can't meet? Yeah. So we switched. We, I spent. Probably a week awake and learned everything there was to learn about zoom, about hopping, about teams didn't really exist back in 2020. Every platform I could find WebEx was a huge one at the time. Lots of conferences, WebEx. How can we take what we'd been using for a face to face session and make it. One to many, like one to hundreds and how do we bring in some of the theory from the face to face space into the online world and then it just grew from there really, we just gave away loads of stuff. I spent the first six months just doing tutorials and LinkedIn lives and just saying, I've learned this overnight. Zoom has released an update. This is how you use it. This is how you might want to keep your business alive for the next year. And we kind of grew from there. And still work on sharing our expertise, sharing everything I've learned, sharing any updates, any new developments, any, how can we make people's experience in the online space or the face to face space next level? How do you go from boring webinar to epic event? Teresa: And I think In my experience, so we, we had the in person event thing, which was big, it's in my world anyway, and I came from corporate, and in corporates one of the things I did was some, a bit of events. So we did the in person thing. That was brilliant. Then we, COVID hit, then everyone went online and it was awesome and everyone did the stuff and everyone was...