IN THIS ISSUE

• Partnership – A letter from the president
• Get your business back on track in 2010 - Hold a client/user conference!
• How PowerPoint Ruined the U.S. Economy, by guest columnist Dan Sapp, President, Sapp Inc.
• What’s new at BIG SHOW?
• What’s your favorite venue?

The new norm – business is anything but usual

The new state of the economy has changed the way we conduct business -- probably forever. It’s ushered in a new norm. You now have to find creative ways to maximize your investment to ensure that you get the most exposure and impact out of your events with a smaller staff and tight controls on your budget.

From my point of view, this is no different from the way we have always approached our events. It’s always been our top priority to ensure that our clients get the most from their event investments. Today there’s even more scrutiny around spending: businesses have smaller budgets and are doing more with less – and that equals working smarter.

In 2009, many companies put their events on hold as a cost-cutting measure. But we believe that 2010 will be the time to re-engage your customers and employees – to demonstrate that your company is strong, to share your new services and products, to reenergize your business – and theirs. How you approach these events, however, is anything but “business as usual.”

That’s why I think it’s more important than ever to partner with a seasoned, innovative company like BIG SHOW. We’ll show you how to find more efficient ways to manage your events, and partner with you each step of the way. I look forward to helping you create the most unique and memorable events possible – so that you realize a major ROI!

Take a look at what BIG SHOW can do for you. We can support you at ever step of the event – from marketing to site selection to everything in between. Go ahead – click here.

And for a discussion of how to evaluate your event ROI, check out this article in BizJournal.com.

And then contact BIG SHOW and let us show you how we can help you be successful in this new business norm.

John Caron
President, BIG SHOW PRODUCTIONS LLC

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What’s your favorite catch phrase from 2009? “Travel restrictions?” “Doing more with less?” “Cut the budget?” Certainly not phrases that warm the heart of an event planner, eh? And the result of these practices? A reduction in meetings and events across every business.

Let’s face it: If your clients weren’t buying your products/services, why have a sales meeting or launch a product? If your company was downsizing, why invest in staff?

Through 2009, companies held their proverbial breaths while they weathered the economic storm. And there was a lot of introspection during those long months – looking at efficiency practices, systems, spending, staff skills and much more.

But now that it’s 2010 – time to exhale, survey the landscape and get back to business in this new reality. Getting out in front of your customers again shows them that you’re still going strong, proving that you’ve streamlined your business, new products and services. Now is also an ideal time to celebrate your staff. After all, who helped your company stay on track during these challenging times?

So how do you begin to put events back on your corporate agenda? Here are a few simple steps:

• Know your overall budget. Don’t get bogged down in the line item details until you know what you have to spend. With some strategic and creative planning, even the smallest budget can result in a great event.
• Establish the goals and objectives for the event. Since you may have not been in front of your clients/staff for a while, be very clear about your event objectives. That way, when you plan the event, each aspect will be very deliberate and maximize your investment.
• Find great success stories to highlight at the event. Everyone had a negative 2009 – if you highlight the positives, your meeting can do wonders to uplift your attendees’ energy and attitude.
• Be sensitive to the business environment. While companies are slowly sending their staff back to industry and trade shows, the days of lavish events with big ticket prices are over.
• Be sensitive to the natural environment, too. Incorporate green and sustainable practices into your event. Not only can you save money, but you can offset the impact your event has on the planet at the same time.
• Let BIG SHOW help. We know how to squeeze the most out of your budget to get the maximum value out of your vendors and partners. Even before the challenges of 2009, our approach was to help our clients produce events on time, on budget and with a reduced impact on the environment.
• Call BIG SHOW at 510.251.8757 and let us help you get your business back on track in 2010.

BIG SHOW partners with a variety of industry leaders to ensure that our clients have access to the very best in the business. This month, our newsletter features an article by Dan Sapp, president and founder of Dan Sapp, Inc. Combining deep experience with a unique perspective on how leaders must communicate in order to move people to action and drive business results, Sapp has worked with senior executives and management from companies such as Nokia, Cisco, ADP, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Silicon Valley Bank, Mellon Capital Management, Hellman & Friedman, Ernst & Young, Anderson Consulting, Ketchum Communications, Anshen & Allen, and Gensler. To learn more about Dan, including how to register for his upcoming strategic communication workshop, visit his blog and website.  

Most business presentations don’t work. Yes, deals get done, and, yes, sometimes they even get done in close proximity to PowerPoint presentations. But the vast majority of those deals happen in spite of the presentation, not because of it.

Back in the good old days of the “dot-com bubble,” a prominent IPO-churning investment bank asked me to assess the presentation materials they used to pursue private companies for M&A and IPO underwriting. The “right pitch” (or so they reasoned) could bring in millions for the firm with a single win, but competition was fierce with numerous banks offering virtually identical opportunities.

Their PowerPoint pitch droned for nearly 80 pages about the company’s great history and achievements -- and then the real meeting started! But this isn’t a history lesson. The addiction to PowerPoint-driven, self-absorbed presentations remains alive and well today.

What’s the real cost?
So, how has PowerPoint cost the US economy billions of dollars? Well, take the investment bank as an example. How much did the investment bankers pay the smart young analyst trainees to stay awake until sun-up consolidating reams of data and plugging it into PowerPoint? What was the executive presenter’s time worth? What if he could have closed more deals in less time? What was the opportunity cost of a wasted “branding opportunity?” What is their “opportunity cost” for failing to differentiate themselves from the competition? Boy, this can really add up!

In fact, the real cost may be in the formulaic thinking these presentations tend to reinforce. If we‘ve learned anything from the cyclical collapse of various “bubbles,” it’s that you have to have a great business before you can tell a great story. PowerPoint has little to do with either one.

What’s the objective?
As business communicators, leaders must move other people to action. It is not enough for people to simply hear or even to understand you. Yet most standard business communication tends to look and feel like a “data dump.” Guess what? By itself, data doesn’t connect – people do.

Learn to connect first
If PowerPoint “data dumps” don’t work, what does? In a word…connection. Relax, no group hugs necessary. As a business communicator, connection means that everything you say and everything you do is driven by the result you wantin relationship to thereality of the people you are talking to.The way you use your body and voice, as well as the ideas you choose, must meet the needs of your audience if you want them to change in some predictable way. And that means that you must be driven by the result you want but presented in a way that is completely focused on them. That way, you’ll communicate with them in a way that deepens the relationship, creates value and differentiates you from your competition.

Establish a core message
Let’s say you need to talk to higher-ups in your company to get approval for the budget for your next client event – a budget they’ve been trying to squeeze as much as possible. You don’t begin by planning with PowerPoint -- PowerPoint may help you clarify or reinforce your message, but not plan it strategically. Instead, first identify the specific result you want from the meeting and the needs of the people you will talk to, and let that combination drive your core message: what’s in it for them to do what you want them to do.

Graphics as friend, not foe
Only when your ideas are listener-focused and results-oriented is it logical to ask whether some of these ideas should be made visual. If the answer is yes, then it’s time to go have a pint at a local pub….or at least imagine it. In a pub, sometimes a complex concept can be made simple with a quick sketch on a cocktail napkin. If you are willing to work hard enough to evaluate your ideas from the standpoint of the people you are talking to, the effective use of visuals is pretty straightforward.

But, you don’t doodle everything you say in a bar. And by the same token, you shouldn’t try to reinforce everything you say at a meeting with PowerPoint. That’s not reinforcement…it’s visual noise.

Make an impact
As a business person, you don’t talk in public forums to entertain, to look smart, to inform, or even to educate. Your job is to communicate with empathy, power and influence. That’s how you drive results when you talk, and that’s strategic communication!

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• State of the business event for Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants. For the third year in a row, Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants counted on BIG SHOW to help them with their most important annual managers meeting. We helped them meet their goals by delivering a quality event in 2009 and in 2010 with half the budget they had in 2008. The ability to provide this level of service is a testament to our partnership approach, serving our clients in flush and not-so-flush times. How do we know we were successful in this approach? Just read what our clients had to say after the event:

• Thanks John and Carol!  It is always a pleasure to work with you and it feels like you are an extension of our team. We appreciate your flexibility with our ever-changing plans. – Rachel Hawkins, VP HR


• Thanks so much!  As always BSP did a fantastic job so thank you!!! – Jodi Lopez, Sr., HR Manager
  


• We really enjoyed and appreciated having you as a part of the SOTB celebration again. We know that our most important event is in very good hands. – Dennis Markus, President

• Welcome Wendy Kaplan Backer! BIG SHOW is pleased to announce that Wendy has joined the staff as our new business development manager. A long-time lover of collaborative efforts, Wendy spent multiple seasons as a production manager in the film unit of Saturday Night Live, the Grammy Awards and numerous other live television events and commercials. Her appetite for excitement and ability to conquer impossible deadlines led her to the corporate world where Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Apple all benefited from her creative marketing concepts. She has developed content for television and Internet networks as well as overseen creative development of media for the visitor’s centers at Intel and Hewlett-Packard. If you having trouble creating a new idea for an event – or making an old one better – contact by e-mail or phone (925.639.9899) and see what she can do for you.

• Become a fan of BIG SHOW on Facebook! Check out our page by clicking here and keep up on what’s going on with us!

• Special offer: 20% off Acteva, cutting-edge technology for social networking
  
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  Does your event registration site allow you to connect to your attendees? Can your attendees network with each other? Can you connect with your featured speakers as a group? Think what a difference it would make to be able to quickly and effectively reach your audience and allow them to network with you and each other. Our partner Acteva can make that happen!
  
  BIG SHOW has partnered with Acteva to bring this amazing tool to you. Using Acteva's Private Social Networks, you can generate a powerful sense of community through the power of online event registration technology, flexible event calendaring and social networking tools – all in one package. This single tool will calendar, publish and consolidate events and event data, manage membership registration and sales and provide attendees or clients with a powerful and open social networking experience. Talk about one-stop networking that gets your message heard!
  
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Did you know that you have some great venue options right here in Oakland, California?

Here’s one that we think is ideal for a conference…centrally located in downtown Oakland, a short walk to Old Town and Jack London Square restaurants, and BART and AC transit are just steps from the hotel. Oh, and did you know that parking is REALLY easy in Oakland?

• Venue: Marriott Oakland City Center
  
• Location: 1001 Broadway, Oakland
  
• Perfect for: Events of any size. The Oakland Marriott City Center provides personalized attention and the perfect setting for meetings, tradeshows and banquets. With 32 versatile rooms on two floors, there are over 25,000 square feet to choose from, including two lavish ballrooms, elegant pre-function areas, executive boardrooms and hospitality suites. An additional 64,000 square feet of exhibit and meeting space is available at the adjoining Oakland Convention Center (managed by the Hotel) Think of the possibilities! Easy access to/from BART, plenty of parking, and right around the corner for historic Old Oakland.
  
• Book it: Contact Kim Loud by e-mail or call 510.466.6418. Don't forget to mention that BIG SHOW sent you!