Should Your Event Team Report to Demand Gen Instead of Marketing?

[00:00:00] Your run of show was perfect. Your attendees scanned in, they sat down, and felt absolutely nothing. And here's the plot twist. Neither did your pipeline. Our guest is here to prove that the most powerful thing at your next event isn't an open bar, it's an open heart. And tonight she's making the business case for why we should all ugly cry at the end. It's Event About It with Hong Nguyen.

[00:00:29] Hey everyone, welcome to Event About It. I'm your host, Megan Martin, and my guest today started her career producing events for NASA. Yes, the actual NASA. She also co-founded Zoomtopia and spent 13 years quietly building one of the most impressive agency rosters in the tech event world without most of the industry even really knowing her name.

[00:00:52] She named her company Shiloh, which is Hebrew for peace. And she's now building an AI event tech tool to actually deliver on that. Welcome to Studio Hong. I'm so glad you're here. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for having me, Megan. It's been so exciting for me on my end in anticipation of being a part of your show.

[00:01:12] Well, I'm so glad you're here. We've known each other a long time and been waiting to have this conversation because you have one of the most impressive backgrounds and I'm so excited for everyone to learn more about it. But before we dig into it, you have a secret. It's not really a secret because you post about it all the time. But one of your hobbies when you're not doing events and running two companies is you like to climb in boulder. So tell me how you even got into that and give us the whole behind the scenes of rock climbing.

[00:01:42] Rock climbing is amazing. It really helps build your confidence, your internal mental strength as well as physical strength. It gives you problem solving skills. You're literally like using technique and strategy to overcome a problem that's on the wall. So it's like igniting and evoking like that critical thinking skills.

[00:02:06] And then when you actually get done with that problem or a climb is what they, you know, problems, what they call it. You feel good about yourself. You're like, oh my God, I thought I couldn't do it. And then I did it. But it's not like an overnight thing. It's something that you have to really work at. And they call it projecting. You have to project that problem to be able to like build up the muscles to overcome certain cruxes of the climb. So there's a crux, which means there's like a move that you can't make initially.

[00:02:36] But if you keep on coming back to the wall and you keep on trying over time, you will build muscle to make that move. And eventually it's multiple moves to then get to the top. So that's what I like. I love about rock climbing. I got into it in 2023 as I was like in the middle of going through my divorce. And my friend was like, hey, let's go climbing. I was like, what? It's what's rock climbing. But I knew in my heart that I've always wanted to climb.

[00:03:01] It's something that was innately part of like what I've been wanting to do as when I was little. So when I gave it a try, it was just so weird. Like even looking back at my videos back in 2023, I look really different. I was pudgy. I didn't have any muscle and I didn't know what I was doing. But when I got on the wall, it was just it felt really it was like this rush of like dopamine. You know, most people, you know, we cope in many different ways and we have, you know,

[00:03:29] variety of interests that get us high. My interests that get me high. I really do get high off of climbing and it's hitting the top of the wall, like knowing that I can do it. It's a rush of fear, but then also courage. And then like overcoming this like barrier of not knowing what you need to do or like, and then learning how to do it. And then boom, right when you hit the top, it's like, oh my God, I can't believe I just did that. Wow.

[00:03:56] And then your brain explodes with like dopamine and confidence and just amazing feeling. I would actually venture to say, ladies, that it's way better than sex. I would venture to say that it's way better than sex or anything that a man can give you because you're giving that to yourself, right?

[00:04:21] Like I'm going and I'm getting this hit and I'm getting this body pleasure for myself. And then also, ladies, it lasts longer. It lasts multiple days where you're looking at your video and you're like, holy shit, like, damn, I look fucking hot. Or damn, look at those back muscles. Or damn, my arms look hella sexy. I mean, girl, you are snatched these days. I can tell you that. So maybe I should start climbing.

[00:04:49] If you post it, then you're like, oh, fuck yeah. And then people start liking it. And you're like, okay, it lasts for weeks. So I think I would say it's better than sex. Well, and you clearly are taking all of those lines like into your business and pushing through adversity because you have a lot on your plate right now. And we're going to get into all that in the last show. But building two companies, building this brand new tech that's never been seen in our industry.

[00:05:17] So I imagine you take a lot of the lessons from your climbing into the best. Yeah. I mean, the skills are transferable. I think not just to rock climbing, but the skill of entrepreneurship, the skill of even of an event planner. It's very transferable to a lot of hobbies, right? Like whether it be pickleball, right? Megan, you play pickleball. Yeah. But you have to literally show up and you have to play as a team. You also have to, you know, carry your own weight of being on that team and being on the pickleball, right?

[00:05:43] And then so just any sport like commitment, dedication, hard work, working through the cruxes, not giving up and being frustrated at times. Like there are times when I am trying to hit like a really high graded climb and I can't do it. And I have to go back multiple sessions. So multiple sessions, meaning like each day that you go back to climb, it could be doesn't have to be consecutive days, but time that you spend at the wall.

[00:06:07] It's like us in the event planning world, we have to spend multiple days figuring out how to finagle a budget or how to negotiate with the contract for the hotel. If you need cancellations, reductions in rooms, this like ability to stay within a problem, no matter how uncomfortable, how frustrating, annoying or hopeless it may seem. Those are all transferable skills that any planner should have, right? And if you don't have it, I highly encourage you to like start building it.

[00:06:35] If not, leave the kitchen because it's not for you. Absolutely. Okay, well, that gets me right into our first game that I'm calling beta or bus. So beta has super fun meaning. I love that. Beta or bus. Hell yeah, that's cool. Okay, so beta in climbing is the strategy that gets you to the top. And beta in tech is what you ship when you think it's going to work. So it kind of works in both of your worlds.

[00:07:02] So I'm going to give you an event strategy and you have to say either beta or bus. It's the wrong move. It's not going to work or beta. We're going to ship it. It's a good job. Oh yeah. Okay, let's go. Okay. So first one, plan your post event follow-up before you finalize the event. Definitely a beta. Yeah, you should be thinking about the following. You definitely should be there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even before you reach a month out to your event.

[00:07:32] Absolutely. Because sure, you get these people in the room. But like, what are you going to do with them afterwards? And then if you're on a larger team, you're going to need to involve marketing and sales. You're going to need to set up your campaigns. You have to understand who these demographics are. You have to come up with the content. And then most of the time before the event even ends, you then book next year's program. So then you announce it on the last day of the program. So absolute beta. Okay. Use attendee satisfaction as your primary event success metric.

[00:08:01] As your primary? That's a tough one, Megan. Very tricky. I wouldn't say primary because then that displaces other factors that I also think are important as well. I wouldn't say prior. Like, not the only thing. Oh, my God. That's so hard. Okay. We're going to go with bus because it's not the primary. Yeah. There's many factors. Yeah.

[00:08:31] Okay. Thank you. That's a trick one. It is. So require both your sales team and your marketing team to be present at every event you produce. Beta. Absolutely. Yeah. External facing, though. Yeah. Yeah. Not internal facing. External. Yeah. Because they need to be involved for sure. Yes. And this is a good one, too, for you. The best event tech is the kind you build yourself. Oh, that's so hard. Okay. Beta. Yeah.

[00:09:02] The reason why I say that, not only because I'm doing it for myself and I'm having engineers, but I highly encourage. It's so easy now for any planner to go on Claude and build their own tech using Claude. It's so easy. They code it for you. You can play around with it. It really inspires you to think, oh, my God, this is so possible. Whether it helps you to create your own company, but it empowers you. It makes you feel empowered that I don't have to wait for a vendor to turn this rendering

[00:09:30] around for me, or I don't have to wait to test, you know, an idea for a mobile app or a feature, test a feature. You can totally do it yourself. So absolute beta. Absolutely. Okay. Design your event for emotion first, logistics second. Beta. For sure. I would. I highly. Yeah. Because logistics, that's easy. Anyone can do that in their sleep, to be honest with you. I don't like, but the emotional part of it, it takes a lot of human intelligence, empathy,

[00:10:00] like emotional intelligence, understanding your audience, like all of that drives attention, retention, you know, so definitely beta. Yeah. Okay. Last couple of investing in AI tools for your event program is table stakes now. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Beta. For sure. Good luck doing it without event tech. I really have a great time with that. That's true.

[00:10:29] And then lose your hair, you know. I think it's, I don't want to be mean, but I think it's really idiotic not to use event tech nowadays. Yeah. What world are you living in? Yes. Agreed. Measuring every event against a revenue goal, not an attendance goal. Oh, no, I think that's a bust. I think revenue is not a sole metric of like measurement.

[00:10:55] I think attendees, engagement, you know, retention for next year's, are they returning? That's a big one, right? Like if you have all net new attendees and they're not returning next year's program, you're really not, what are you, you're really not creating any impact. That's long lasting. You may get that maybe, you know, revenue for your ticket today, but does that mean that they're going to buy? Are they going to be a net new or repeated customer for your products? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not. Okay.

[00:11:25] Last one. Move your event team under demand gen instead of marketing. Beta. I agree. Yeah, for sure. Events team is way more than marketing. And I, yeah. Well, that is a good one. Hell yeah. Yeah. Well, they are. Event teams are so cross-functional because they touch so many different parts of an industry. Yeah. No, it's more. Or not an industry, but your organization. Yeah. I mean, I'll be honest.

[00:11:55] I mean, marketing is great, but I think demand gen denotes a more higher return on investment because you're generating demand that yields more business. And yes, marketing is that too. And it could quote generate demand, but there's more of an, for me, when I hear demand gen, I hear more of an aggressive action. Whereas marketing is like an awareness, you know? Yeah. Oh, that's a really good one, Megan. I agree. Okay. Well, thank you for playing beta or bus. Yes.

[00:12:22] And now it's time to get into my favorite session of every episode, the event of the week, because sometimes the only thing tighter than a load in schedule is our patient. So this is your safe space to let it out. Tell us what irks you about the events of this year. Okay. Okay. So this is a recent occurrence. So I'm leaning into my most recent experience, but we had a client that unfortunately had to let go some of its employees.

[00:12:52] And so that means a reduction in headcount, reduction in room block and food and beverage. We try to negotiate that with the hotel. They wouldn't budge. And so now we have to pay for 150 empty rooms. And that's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. I mean, 150 empty rooms. And then they wouldn't budge on the F&B. And so what do we do with that money?

[00:13:21] Of course, we have to order more food, but that yields more waste. And so, I mean, I get it that the hotel, like, you know, doesn't want to lose the revenue. And like, you know, we've signed a contract and things like that. I get it. But I think there could be a little bit of wiggle room there where we can work together to resell your program or maybe book it for next year. Either way, those rooms are going to sit empty and then they can still, they're still going to resell it.

[00:13:49] They're not just going to sit on 150 empty rooms. They're going to absolutely resell it. But they wouldn't budge on, you know, reducing that liability if they were to sell. So I think that rigidity is, it's counterintuitive to the events industry, I think, because events industry is very fluid and very like agile and it's a lot of moving target. So we need vendors and we need partners who have that characteristic to flow with us.

[00:14:18] And that was, you know, for me, that was very shocking for this one particular hotel because most other hotels that I've worked with, they, they were, they would like, you know, like one of the event in San Francisco, like along the Embarcadero, they're like, well, if we resell it, we can just take that off of your block. Dependent on us reselling it. But this one hotel, no, very rigid. So, yeah. And that's, it seems short-sighted to me. Yeah.

[00:14:45] We do a lot of events and the industry talks, like someone's going to find out and know that they're not as flexible. And I think once people find that out, they're going to be less likely to book that property because they know that they're not going to be willing to work with you if something comes up like a massive layoff. That's a great point. Exactly. Or the, you know, this happened because top of one of their chief officer left the company.

[00:15:11] And so they freak out and they fired a bunch of people. And then now we're contracted for much higher than we really need. Right. And yeah, you're right. The industry does talk, girl. We talk all the time. Yeah. People will, karma's there. She will get you. Yes. Okay. Well, next up, it's time to event about it. And this is the part of the show where you get to spill the tea on a memorable event. So whether it was a huge success or total disaster or just pure chaos,

[00:15:42] we want to hear about it. So tell us, give us a wild story. You've seen some events. So tell us. Okay. Yeah. So a wild story would be an event in San Francisco at one of their port, their ship ports. And we were in the middle of keynote. There was sponsorships, sponsor expo area. They were getting ready to release a keynote session. And then the pipes burst. And so there was water.

[00:16:09] And I have a video of it, too, that I can send later if you want it to add to your podcast. It's like water literally like everywhere. Like falling on people, falling on furniture and destroying the booth. And I literally just did that. I'm like, I don't – what the heck is going on? And it took 30 minutes for the firefighters to get there to shut down the valves and, you know, shut down that.

[00:16:35] But, yeah, the pipes bursted and water was flowing into all of the expo area. Like while the event was going on. While the event was happening. Correct. Yeah. I mean, I've seen flooding. Like I've had events and venues flood like in the middle of the night or before we were loading it. But I've never had it happen. During the event. Yes. We were all freaking out. And it even spilled into the keynote area.

[00:17:03] So during session, people got poured on. Like what's going on? Like literally the fire sprinklers, the water sprinklers went off because one of the pipes burst. And it was just like outpouring in one of the sponsorship area. I'll send you a video. So the next day, the way that we pivoted was we closed down the keynote. We moved everything out into the parking lot because it was a shipping port. So there was a major parking lot. So we had to build a keynote session overnight and moved everything out there. And then we moved the meals.

[00:17:33] We moved the expo area and also like some of the lounge furniture out there. Thank God it was August. So the weather was good. But can you imagine if it was like November? Yeah. And then or in an area that was cold. Yeah. A nightmare. But thank God. Yeah. And then what about the AV equipment? Like did it? Yeah, it was destroyed. Yeah. Like the LED screen. But the nice thing is, oh, okay.

[00:18:02] Something that event planners should be looking out for. Like you, it's rare that we actually have to really call upon it. But you really need to think through your event insurance and look at the venue's insurance. Typically, they ask for our insurance, right? But we don't ever ask for their insurance. Yeah. No. Or your vendors. So what's in the contract with the AV? Like if all their equipment's destroyed, whose responsibility is it to replace that? Exactly. So afterwards, we had to figure out whose responsibility was. Is it the venue? Is it?

[00:18:32] So is it me? Is it the agency? See, luckily, because it was caused by a venue, a property, they were responsible for it. But there was a lot of going back and forth. Like let's, you know, show each other's insurance. And it was a nightmare, right? So I think that's like, I think that's a rare occasion, but it's definitely something you have to think about and be prepared for. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Well, that's all the time we have for the main episode today.

[00:19:00] Tell everyone about you, what you're working on, and where we can find you online. Yeah. So I am currently working on Aletheia, which is an AI platform for event operations. The goal of it is to leverage AI to execute operational tasks within different event workflow. So our modules that we offer is budget, food and beverage, venue, speaker management, timelines,

[00:19:29] revenue, attendee. So all of those are considered workflows or work streams within the event planning cycle. We're creating, we're pre-engineering prompts for you to execute those tasks at a much more efficient manner. So like if you need to source venue, granted, yeah, you can use C-Vent, you can use Claude, whatever. But what if the proposals come back and you to analyze it? And then the analysis is not just, oh, which hotel gives you cheaper room rates, but also

[00:19:58] to analyze food and beverage minimum plus plus and how that all fits into a budget. And so there's a more complicated approach to now analyzing hotel proposal that we then help simplify with our platform to help you do those tasks. And it includes like deck generation. It includes creating Excel or G-sheets, exports, sharing it with your team. That's just one module.

[00:20:22] But anyways, the goal is to take an event workflow and create pre-engineering prompts to help you execute those tasks. And you can find me on LinkedIn at Miss Hong Nguyen. I follow Megan, so she'll probably tag me. But you can just put in Hong Nguyen Shiloh and you can definitely find me. Or you can find me at a climbing gym. So, and then I'll see you at IMEX if you're going to IMEX. Yeah. And you're super active on LinkedIn.

[00:20:49] So we'll link to all your social channels in the show notes below. And that's it for today's episode of Event About It, where we connect events and marketing and prove that live experiences aren't just logistics. They're a growth channel. And if this episode made you think differently about how the Instagram pipeline, brand or growth, make sure you're subscribed. And that's how you'll catch what's coming next, where we go into the after show. And Hong and I dig deeper into what it actually takes to build a tech company from the inside

[00:21:18] of the events industry and what every planner needs to know before they try to do it themselves. Until next time, keep growing, keep laughing, and keep eventing about it.