My number 1 truth on lead times

It is exciting to see that your possibilities of hosting a face to face event is soon becoming reality… This will be a great opportunity for hosting an event or more importantly, a moment to reconnect with your customers (let’s face it we are now craving the face to face connection).

One of my clients last week asked me this Question “How long do you need for the lead time to an event”… for she is considering hosting an event in October and trust me; it is a common question asked by many!! You could even be thinking this exact question now?

The answer is honestly a difficult one as the question is contextual.

It’s the contextual to the size of the event you are hosting. Some events due to the staging size, could have a short lead time of just a few weeks, to a month and others may have a longer lead time of 6 months. And then as a comparison when you look more broadly at the mega international events held across the globe, these could be 5 years in the planning which is required for the mammoth scope of the planning stage.

Another component to the lead time is when you ask the question WHO. Who will be attending the event? If the event is a staff gathering of your permanent staff for a Friday luncheon, well that would need less lead time than a 80 person conference where you will be selling tickets for the rights to attend the event. As you can see its all contextual however, saying this my number one truth to lead time is this -

Because when you have a longer lead time, then you will be able to make better decisions, plan with clarity, attract your attendees, do the marketing and likely save you money.

The thing is, with short lead times, you could be in faced in a situation that a time-pressured decision arises and as your under the pump, may result in making a poor decision that results in an unfavorable outcome (and in some cases financially costing you more), now we want to avoid that now don’t we! (I know I do!).

Essentially, the more time you have to plan, to scope, will enable you to make informative decisions to organize your event in the way you have envisioned.