“Are we doing swag bags again?” is a question that many entrepreneurs, businesses, and nonprofit event coordinators are asking themselves when it comes to event strategies. Some are bringing bags back and others are a “heck no!”
Let’s look at the pros and cons I hear from event organizers and sponsors AND what I see as a speaker receiving many swag bags over the past 25+ years of speaking at conferences, events, and corporate functions.
So many people plan a speaking or book tour (or large event) without enough time to properly plan, secure partnerships/sponsorship and collaboration partners, or to maximize time and minimize workload.
Believe us, we’ve made those mistakes too… BIG DREAMS need a team and the time to raise them for success.
This blog provides you with a few critical questions to make your next speaking tour, book launch, or large event profitable, less stressful, and more fun!
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, this article and checklist is for you!
Building sponsorship relationships is one of many ways to raise funds for your dream project.
Crowdfunding and crowdraising is also becoming a popular way of helping entrepreneurs raise their dream and boost influence.
After having been directly involved with several crowdfunding campaigns and watching others go through the process, many of the same relationship-building, social media championing, and communication planning principles that are successful in attracting sponsors also apply to attracting crowdfund supporters.
Below are eight lessons that can help your crowdfund be successful in many ways.
Event planners. They are the treasured keepers of sanity, savings, and success and the reasons to partner with or hire an event planner for your next event are profuse.
Of course, savvy speakers, authors, and entrepreneurs will try to minimize event costs, perhaps believing that one such saving is to NOT hire an event planning professional. We get it. We’ve been there.
But… the reality of not having a volunteer team, event planning expert, and event support is that everything falls into your lap.
As an event host or speaker, it's not just that you likely will not have the time (or skill set) to manage all these details... it shouldn't be you doing these tasks. If you’re the frazzled one moving furniture, dealing with heating/cooling issues, and handling questions about where the bathrooms are from the attendees, you’re probably not painting the image you wish for yourself as an expert or speaker.
Volunteers at live events are incredibly valuable!
Great volunteers will help set a positive tone and create an energetic environment for the event. They are that memorable, smiling face of the event as guests and attendees arrive.
When your attendees need support, volunteers often jump in to answer questions and meet needs throughout the event.
Recently, Raise a Dream was a sponsor of the Global Influence Summit (GIS) where I presented on sponsorship, along with being one of the GIS co-founders and co-hosts.
As a speaker having presented to hundreds of thousands of people over the past 20+ years, there have been lots of learnings.
Some of the best lessons have been around how to build influence and leverage speaking events to make a bigger difference in the world.
These speaker lessons have quickly become part of the systems and processes that we use at Raise a Dream.
I recently did a Facebook LIVE on this very topic. You can watch it here!
Below, you'll find nine helpful ways that Raise a Dream systematizes the events we speak at...
