There’s no denying that there are plenty of opportunities for your organizations to make the right connections with potential clients and vendors at events, tradeshows, and conferences. All the right people are there, and you have plenty of advanced warning when they are taking place. However, as any meeting planner will tell you, the process of getting the meeting schedule established doesn’t always go smoothly.
It’s difficult to collaborate with others
Many meeting planners are stuck trying to use spreadsheets and emails to schedule meetings for multiple executives. This creates a huge headache for the following three reasons:
Some of the meetings that take place at events involve multiple executives from different organizations. While it’s important that each of these people be in attendance, it can be difficult to organize everyone together. Doing so can involve months of back and forth phone calls and emails trying to coordinate schedules. It’s a balancing act that meeting planners have to carefully walk.
It’s too easy to make errors
Have you heard the phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen”? The same concept can apply to meeting planners. When multiple people get involved in making plans it’s easy for errors to be made. When one person decides to change the plans and not everyone knows at the same time, everything can quickly fall apart.
Even when there is only one person responsible for entering data, when they have to log in to multiple email accounts and enter the same data into spreadsheets it’s easy for errors to be made. One simple error that goes unnoticed can have big consequences.
It’s difficult to track metrics
The main purpose of scheduling strategic B2B meetings when you attend events is to grow your business. But spreadsheets don’t make it easy to track the results of these meetings. This means you have to add one more platform into the mix of emails and spreadsheets. Then you have to trust that the right people are going to remember to update the information. There are a lot of variables involved making it very difficult to actually pull off.
Emails and spreadsheets just aren’t reliable tools when it comes to business-sensitive data. There are high opportunity costs in case of errors and with the GDPR rules, you can run into problems with using email. Event planners deal with a lot of stress from coordinating executives, customers, logistics, and rooms. There is a huge need for automation and the right technology to help keep things running smoothly.
Originally published on CMO Council Blog.
