STORY: EXAMPLE

• Cory’s know how to sell what you know
• What we’d like to learn today
• When are times we need to defer to you
• What does deferring to you look like
• Have conversations with your AV Team away from your client
• Set your AV company up as the knowledgeable ones
• We are deferring to them because they are knowledgeable
• So what are your thoughts about that
• Have the conversations away from the client
• What are the AV roles, planner role, client role
• It’s different for different clients
• Open their eyes, broadening their perspective, help them plan to grow into more the next year
• Planting seeds for the future
• How do you sell the full scope of your services without stepping on each others toes?
• When you work with vendors that have established relationships you have a group of vendors that have a set of capabilities that align. And you have an understanding of the flow.
• Knowing the relationships of all the vendors
• For example you have
• Story – Hired two vendors that both were capable of video and lighting. But each was only hired to do video or lighting. When all the vendors showed up, there was only one lift that they had to share between everyone.
• Story: Production meeting – Where we talked about loading dock one being used to unload a truck but the ice truck was using dock one.
• Story: Power was maxed out. No one thought about catering hot box power requirements so Cory’s had to rent a generator
• Dancing story: Band on stage wouldn’t stop playing. No one was left in the room. The event planner got up on stage and started dancing and pulled the whole team up on stage to dance. Lesson learned – be thoughtful of your AV team at the end of an evening. Maybe give your band a heads up that you might cut them off early if the dancing slows down.
• Story: Band at outdoor event stopped early to get out before an approaching storm hit.
• Communicating with bands
• Ask bands – how long do you need between the time we tell you to start to the time of your first downbeat.
• Help them understand where they fit in the evening
• Tips for communicating with bands
• Over communicate
• Assistant stage manager dedicated to managing the band
• Having them tell them we will be ready in 15-20 minutes
• Also cueing them on first downbeat
• Cueing them when to take a break
• Cue them when to stop
• Booking agent doesn’t communicate to the band

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