EMT #49 with Katie Wengenroth - The Art of Strategic Event Planning

In this episode, Chris Dunn and Brendon Hamlin sit down with Katie Wengenroth, Founder of KVT Events, to explore the mindset, structure and strategy behind building high-impact events. With 15+ years across agencies and SaaS giants — HubSpot, LogMeIn, Outreach — Katie breaks down how intentional planning, strong relationships and clear goals shape better outcomes long before production begins.

From producing HubSpot’s early Inbound Conferences to designing Outreach’s Women in Sales Summit in Napa, Katie shares how she builds events people want to attend — experiences rooted in clarity, community, authenticity, and brand alignment.

She also opens up about entrepreneurship, motherhood, choosing meaningful work and how the event landscape is shifting toward fractional, contract and project-based roles.

A strategic, honest and relatable conversation for event pros at every stage of their careers.

• Your early career becomes your foundation — Katie explains how agency logistics work gave her the operations discipline she still relies on today.
• Relationships drive everything — Most of her business now comes from referrals; she attributes this to prioritizing good people over perfect opportunities.
• Design events with intention, not habit — Don’t “just show up.” Start with goals, target persona, purpose, and desired outcomes.
• Create experiences worth traveling for — Her Women in Sales Summit succeeded because it delivered connection, safety, and authenticity — not just content.
• Speaker strategy should align with values — Outreach secured Mel Robbins not with money, but with personalization and listening to what mattered to her.
• ROI must be defined before the event — Pipeline isn’t the only metric; follow-up, lead tracking, sentiment, and long-term brand impact matter.
• Fractional and freelance work are rising — With shrinking headcount and growing demands, companies increasingly rely on flexible expert talent.

This episode is a reminder that great events don’t start with production — they start with clarity, intention, and a deep understanding of your audience. Katie’s journey shows how relationships, strategy, and authenticity not only make events stronger, but create careers that evolve with you.

👉🏼 Join us for more insightful discussions like this by tuning into 'Event Marketer's Toolbox,' where industry leaders share the tools, tactics, and trends driving success in the event world.

This Show is sponsored by Blue Hive 

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Transcript

0:00:00

(Chris Dunn)

Hello and welcome. This is Chris Dunn. I'm checking in from the Event Marketers Toolbox. I am with Blue Hive Exhibits. I've got a couple of friends who are joining me today. We're going to have a killer conversation. 

0:00:09

(Chris Dunn)

It's going to be super fun. I'm going to kick it over to my co -host. He was a guest last week, but he's a co -host this week. So a man of many talents, Mr. Brendan Hamlin of Hamlin Creative. 

0:00:18

(Chris Dunn)

Hey, Brendan. 

0:00:18

(Brendon Hamlin)

Hey, Chris. How are you? How's it going? Happy to be back. Yeah, I guess I'm always sort of sitting on this side of the screen, but my role changes from week to week. 

0:00:28

(Chris Dunn)

You're very adaptive. 

0:00:29

(Brendon Hamlin)

You're able to pick But yeah, I'm Brendan Hamlin. I run Hamlin Creative. We're a production company based out of North Carolina. And we spend a lot of time in the event space, creating content in and around activations, conferences, trade shows, and it's a unique space. And so we really love the opportunity to create and build content in what the, you know, the whole live event umbrella. And it's a pleasure to be back on the toolbox again this week. 

0:00:55

(Brendon Hamlin)

And we have a wonderful guest today, Katie Wengenroth. Katie, welcome to the show. 

0:00:59

(Speaker 33)

to the toolbox. 

0:01:00

(Katie Wengenroth)

Hey Brendan, hey Chris, happy to be here. 

0:01:03

(Chris Dunn)

Thanks for joining us, Katie. 

0:01:04

(Speaker 7)

Yeah. 

0:01:05

(Brendon Hamlin)

Tell us a little bit about your background and what you do. 

0:01:09

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah, definitely. So I have been working in the event space for about 15 years now, which is a little wild. But I started off on the agency side out of college. I worked for an agency called Nth Degree. I was in the South for a little bit based in Atlanta and primarily focused on the trade show space where I worked. Actually, Bluehive was one of my very first clients when I started in this industry. 

0:01:34

(Katie Wengenroth)

And then I moved up to Boston, continuing work to work for the agency, managing speaker management, sponsorship management, signage, a lot of those like kind of core logistical components of larger, you know, 10, 20 ,000 person conferences. And then for about the last 10 years, I transitioned from the agency side into working in tech. So for large, you know, public and private SaaS companies like HubSpot, LogMeIn, Outreach, where I managed a variety of internal and external events. So I'm focused for quite a bit of time at LogMeIn on their internal sales kickoffs. hackathons, their incentive trips, which were always a lot of fun, while also always kind of managing those industry events and the third party conferences, customer facing events, like customer advisory boards, user conferences, it feels like I've done a little bit of everything in my time. 

0:02:28

(Katie Wengenroth)

And finally, an outreach I managed up flagship events team and a field marketing team. So kind of rounded out a good chunk of experience on the marketing side, learning a lot about how marketing organizations function, how go -to -market organizations function, and how events kind of fit into that ecosystem. And then yeah, for the last, it's been almost two years, I have started my own business. So kvt events, which has been, it's been a lot of fun. It's a path that I never in a million years thought that I would be on. Never had an entrepreneurial spirit, never thought I had the, the connections or the knowledge to start my own business. 

0:03:10

(Katie Wengenroth)

But I'm excited to talk a little bit more about that today. It's been a lot of fun and a lot easier than I thought it would be. 

0:03:17

(Chris Dunn)

So everybody talks about how hard it is to be an entrepreneur, but here you're going to come on and pull back the curtain. 

0:03:23

(Katie Wengenroth)

Anybody can do it. No, it's one other thing I'll say is I'm based actually in Woodstock, Vermont, which is really great. I was in Boston for a really long time. And then I moved to Woodstock where I'm really lucky to be surrounded by a lot of contractors, consultants, small business owners. And so that really kind of helped give me a little bit of the confidence, even though none of them are in in tech or events per se, but helped kind of push me in that direction as well, which is kind of fun. 

0:03:49

(Chris Dunn)

Voted prettiest small town in America at one point, right? 

0:03:52

(Speaker 23)

Yeah. 

0:03:52

(Katie Wengenroth)

I mean, it's true. Come visit, please. 

0:03:55

(Speaker 32)

I have. 

0:03:56

(Speaker 10)

Yes. 

0:03:57

(Chris Dunn)

Very jealous from down here in Massachusetts, looking up north at friends in Vermont saying, cool to live in Vermont. Well, Katie, you and I have been friends for a long time. This is one of the best things about doing a show like this that I control, is basically being able to invite friends on and have these great conversations. So the goal, you know, here with Event Marketers Toolbox, we started a little over a year ago, and the goal was to just create a cool community for event people really from all walks of life to come and have these interesting conversations. And, you know, it's been really interesting and fun to see this grow. This is actually show number 49. 

0:04:35

(Chris Dunn)

So we're on the precipice of doing 50 shows, which literally, I think back just a mere, you know, 12 months ago, and it was like crunch time. We were getting ready to launch this thing. And it was really hard, like myself and another actually mutual friend of ours, Caitlin Carey, actually started the show. And we were, we were like supporting each other. We're like, we're going to do this and we're going to get it off the ground. And we just could not. 

0:04:56

(Chris Dunn)

it off the ground until we enlisted the help of of one of our sponsors. So Fistbump is an agency and they're running the board right now. They're doing all the hard stuff. They helped us get this show up and running. So what did that do for us at Bluehive as a brand? It allowed us to kind of set ourselves as thought leadership in the industry to be able to have these conversations. 

0:05:17

(Chris Dunn)

You know, we don't create commercial for Bluehive by any means, but it's an opportunity to have wonderful conversations that dive into all different aspects of events. And then Fistbump actually helps us curate all that content. And now we can use that for or not just social media, but also for outreach and for touching base with our existing clients. Hey, you're having a problem. 

0:05:37

(Speaker 31)

You know what? 

0:05:38

(Chris Dunn)

On episode 35 at 39 minutes in, we talked about that same thing. Here's a little clip. So if you're a brand out there and you've been toying with the idea of doing a live show on a podcast, it's hard. but if you find the right people to help, it's really a whole lot easier and it's super rewarding and they can help you. really just cultivate all sorts of content for you to use in many different ways. Also, my employer, Blue Hive, is also obviously a sponsor. 

0:06:04

(Chris Dunn)

So here we are almost a year in Blue Hive as a brand, almost 21 years old. I guess position wise, I always think about like, how do I talk a little bit about the company in a way that is helpful? People get to know who we are and what's a good fit. We really have a white glove mentality. We try to really kind of wrap our arms around the brand, their goals, the message building. relationships that are deep, not just one show long, but multiple years long and become that extension of our brands team. 

0:06:33

(Chris Dunn)

And we are by no means inexpensive or the most inexpensive folks out there. I think we're what we bring to the table is a considerable group of creative logistic experts, brand management people. And we kind of put them all under one roof and we help you do everything from, you know, start to finish when it comes to trade shows and other select areas within the event form. So anyways, those are our two sponsors. And now we're going to kind of jump into the meat and potatoes of the conversation. And Brennan, you've got some cool questions teed up for Katie. 

0:07:07

(Chris Dunn)

So let's get going. 

0:07:08

(Speaker 28)

Yeah. 

0:07:09

(Brendon Hamlin)

Well, Katie, again, it's great to have you here today and spend some time with us. I love your the background that you have and you shared a lot there at your intro. So I similarly have a background on the brand side, I guess. So I was in television for about 15, 18 years. And so spend a lot of time learning in that world before setting out on my own and really starting to then take all of that learning and put it back into brands directly. So talk a little bit about your evolution and your journey and how those building blocks have sort of helped 

0:07:44

(Brendon Hamlin)

you today as you support your clients. 

0:07:48

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah, it's one of those things where it's almost like you don't when you look back at the time, right? You don't always realize how much you're really picking up until you look back and you realize like, okay, I have a really unique set of skills, right? And I think starting off, I always knew I wanted to work in events. My dad used to go to conferences when I was young. And I was like, I really like this mixture of like meetings and social aspects. I really like the production elements of the conferences. 

0:08:16

(Katie Wengenroth)

And so I I don't know why I kind of just gravitated towards that, but I was like, I know I want to do conferences. I want to do corporate events and conferences. 

0:08:24

(Chris Dunn)

So, um, did you ever go with them? Just out of curiosity? 

0:08:26

(Speaker 19)

Oh yeah. 

0:08:27

(Speaker 7)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

0:08:28

(Speaker 30)

I went with them. 

0:08:29

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah. They were like family. I guess this is when you could like bring your family to a lot of the conferences. And they were mostly, yeah, there were some, they were all out West. And so they involved, they were like incentive meetings in the government space. So yeah, so it was a lot of fun to see a little bit of everything. 

0:08:49

(Katie Wengenroth)

And I interned at a couple of them when I was older, which was a lot of fun too. So when I graduated, I'm like, okay, I need a job. 

0:08:57

(Speaker 12)

What do I do? 

0:08:58

(Katie Wengenroth)

Talk to, I'll plug Scott Bennett, talk to Scott, Scott works in events. knows, he knows people at events, right? So talk to Scott, and I just kind of miraculously end up at this event agency that's all like logistics based, right? So trade shows, logistics, operations, and I feel like I was really lucky in those first five years to learn so much about like, the ins and outs, and really how organized you need to be, and how to be organized, right? And like, the sometimes you get into an event role at a tech company or at a pharma company and they are like, okay, push you put you right into the mix of doing a little bit of everything and you don't have that foundation. So I was lucky enough to have that foundation early on for like the first five years of my career. 

0:09:39

(Katie Wengenroth)

Then when I moved into working for HubSpot, it was a really great transition because I was running their inbound conference at a very young age with a very small internal team. It was the beginning of inbound back in 2014. But I had that foundation and I knew operationally how an event should work. Then I was able there to learn, okay, I also can leverage this content team. right, and leverage our brand team and the creative team, and how do you build the website and kind of all of those other components beyond just the back end logistics, like, what actually needs to happen from, you know, a business perspective, more of a brand perspective. And so that was an amazing and obviously the production elements that we had at Inbound were really fantastic. 

0:10:31

(Katie Wengenroth)

That was the year we had like Martha Stewart come on as the keynote and building out like their club Inbound. Space was was really great and then moving on to log me in where I did a lot some of the external stuff but not really those big conferences anymore I really focus more on the internal events and you know our kickoff was 1200 people so that was learning like. how to source hotels, and how to source venues, and contract negotiations, and more like internal dynamics, and working with an engineering team, and with a marketing team, with a people ops team. So really trying to getting an eye into all of the different functions of the business, and how events support those internally as well. So yeah, and then at Outreach, when I kind of put it all together, when I look back at it, it's like, oh, actually, this was a pretty good, decent path, right? At Outreach, I really focused a lot more on the marketing side of things and how like a field marketing organization. 

0:11:34

(Katie Wengenroth)

operates and how to work with your SDR team and how to build follow up plans and how to measure and how to predict like what you're actually going to be able to drive. And I mean, I had an amazing manager there who was really focused, you know, she's a true like revenue marketer and, and kind of really getting ingrained in that, in that side of the business and learning a lot of that, I think, taking all those things together really set me up well, when I did jump into consulting to be able to have have all of those components in my toolbox. There you go. 

0:12:11

(Chris Dunn)

I love how you tied that in. 

0:12:14

(Speaker 26)

That was good. 

0:12:15

(Chris Dunn)

That wasn't even planned, guys. It's interesting to see you paint this very literal picture in front of me. And when I look at my past, although I've been in trade shows for 30 years, before that, the things that I did were like a ping pong ball. I look back, and they were so nonlinear. But but they connect the dots and brought me from being a designer who was a craftsman first into sales, selling something completely separate and then somehow back to events. And it all just ties together. 

0:12:49

(Chris Dunn)

And I think that's, you know, step aside from the event thing and just talk as humans. Like, you know, if any younger people in your in your journey are just starting out and things aren't making sense or whatever, like just sometimes you've got to trust the process and you just sometimes you take a leap of faith. And you do something, and if it doesn't work, you go from there. 

0:13:08

(Speaker 29)

But you learn. 

0:13:08

(Chris Dunn)

You're always going to learn, like, every step of the way. And like you were saying, Katie's like, you know, you think back to all of those things that you had done. And I think your path is a very linear path. And you were building foundational blocks. Every step you went, you kind of boom, moved up, boom, moved up. And you had built this great foundation, because now you know so many different things. 

0:13:29

(Chris Dunn)

And that doesn't always happen like that, but it's just really cool to kind of look back on that and see how that all comes together. Brennan, your background is similar in that, right? All of the things that you did in TV and learned, you were saying last week on the show, you learned how to get a message that's this big and make it this big and make it make sense in a very small, concise point of time and get it across. And that's, That's so critical today, right? The ability to focus, the short attention span that people have these days is so minute that we've got to be able to deliver that message in such a small, concise moment so that people know why they should give a shit about what we're talking about. 

0:14:13

(Brendon Hamlin)

And I think what's important there, too, it goes back to what I've done for 25, 30 years is build a network. And so there's people that I worked with when I was in television that I'm still working with today. I went to college with one of my editors. We're working on a project right now. Maybe you can talk about that, Katie, too, because building a network of people that understand that shorthand is invaluable. I'm looking for people like that all the time and have people in my network. 

0:14:50

(Brendon Hamlin)

It's so critical for success, I think, these days, to have a solid network. 

0:14:56

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah, and I think when I look back at my path, and Chris, I know you're saying it's linear, like if I think about it and like how I got from step to step, it was like, I followed the people that I wanted to work for. And if I look back at it, that's really how it started, going from where I said I knew Scott. And then when I went to HubSpot, it was because someone was like, OK, now are you ready to come in here and do this? And then I left HubSpot. because someone else. And I've made it in my consulting career, a portion of my career as well. 

0:15:33

(Katie Wengenroth)

When I started doing this, my number one thing was, I just want to work for good people. And that's really been my primary goal. And I've been really lucky in that I've been able to have 99 % of my business come from referrals. And so I think it's important to remember, like, there's so many politics and so many different things that go on in business and at different companies. But I think If you can focus on doing good work, obviously, that's really important. You need to have the skills. 

0:16:06

(Katie Wengenroth)

But if you can build those relationships along the way, the people that you're going to want to work for are always going to be there. And it's a matter of finding those folks. And like you said, Brendan, then when you get to have your own business, then you can have them come back and work for you or try to have them come on as a client. Yeah, and that goes for people who you want to work for, who you want to work with, who your partners are, who your vendors are. I think having that team, that literal team of when it comes to someone to do trade shows, and a production partner, and your signage person, and, and, and, having that team really helps you along your entire journey. 

0:16:52

(Speaker 23)

I think it's really important. 

0:16:55

(Brendon Hamlin)

Absolutely. 

0:16:56

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah. I mean, you're a solopreneur, but you're but you are deep and wide with regards to your skilled resources because of those relationships you've built. 

0:17:05

(Speaker 13)

Right. 

0:17:05

(Speaker 7)

It's like, hey, do you know somebody who does this? 

0:17:07

(Chris Dunn)

I do. Yeah. 

0:17:08

(Katie Wengenroth)

I don't do it myself, but I have I have somebody we're already tied together. I don't they don't need to learn how I work because we've already done it. Yeah. Yeah. And even when it comes to like my and Brendan, it might be the same for you when it comes to like my business and my team, like I usually will tell, you know, clients or whoever I'm talking with, like, it's me, but I do have a really strong network of folks who will come on and support me and kind of flex up and down as needed, um, on different projects to be able so that I can take on more. 

0:17:42

(Katie Wengenroth)

Right. 

0:17:42

(Brendon Hamlin)

Because also my goal, number one was work, work with good people, make money and not, not work. you know, 100 hours a week every single week, right? Like, how do I find that that balance as well? I position it as my team is project based. But they are my go to core team. And they're on every project that I'm on, but they're not employees. 

0:18:08

(Brendon Hamlin)

And that's and the landscape is different these these days, it may be maybe not so much in your space. Chris, because you guys have a big staff and locations and everything. But for me and kind of for you, it sounds like, Katie, having that team that is working on other stuff, too, but you know you can tap them when you need them is pretty critical for me to stay in business these days and also take on more. And I can scale and I can scale up and I can scale down. 

0:18:38

(Katie Wengenroth)

So it's really critical. create some flexibility there that is, you know, a little bit different than if we had a, you know, big overhead and a space and all of those things. So it works really well in the current landscape for us. Yeah, and you're getting like the best of the best. Like, that's how I see it as well. 

0:18:57

(Speaker 28)

Like, I have like the best logistics person working with me who can like as a food and beverage wizard right and then I also can pull in the best like content manager if I need someone to be like a TD or or the best photographer or whatever like I can pull in the number one person at any point in time and I don't have to hire one person who's like kind of good at everything. 

0:19:23

(Chris Dunn)

You know, I can literally bring the A team every single time in that way. 

0:19:29

(Speaker 17)

Yep. 

0:19:30

(Speaker 27)

Right. 

0:19:30

(Speaker 6)

That's awesome. 

0:19:31

(Chris Dunn)

And your client doesn't need to foot the overhead to have all those people. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 

0:19:37

(Chris Dunn)

Absolutely. Absolutely. Katie, I feel like before we leave this topic, I think it's worth putting out there that most of our clients are female, so I feel like you're a really good representation of people that we work with. 

0:19:53

(Katie Wengenroth)

You, you're the mom of some young children. I think, you know, if I could point the spotlight and say bravo for hanging your own shingle out there and doing it and making your own way, I think Certainly, part of your decision to go out on your own was also family based as well, right? It's like, I get to spend time with my kids and craft a or build my own schedule in such a way that I can be the mom, you know, that gets the kids off to school and gets them off the bus and like all of that stuff, which is super important these days. Before we kind of move on from this, is there anything you might want to add to that? Because I think there's a lot of women out there in the industry who might view what you're doing as like their goal. If I could have the flexibility and make the money. 

0:20:41

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah, I think there's definitely that. that path exists wholeheartedly in this part of the business. What I've had trouble with is I don't like to say no to interesting projects. So I have had, I've kind of struggled with like, oh, no, but that one sounds really cool, too. Like, I could take this time off, but then I could do this project and it'll be great. do it, someone else will do it. 

0:21:11

(Katie Wengenroth)

And then I'll have the FOMO. So I do think, yes, 100%. If you wanted to build something where you don't work over Christmas because your kid's home for Christmas, you don't work the summer where your kids are home for summer, you want to pick them up. You want to end at 3 o 'clock every day. You absolutely can. I think I'm somewhere in the middle at the moment. 

0:21:31

(Katie Wengenroth)

Like last year, I was really fortunate in that I had a super busy spring. And then like July and August, I had, you know, one client and was keeping the lights on and things were really quiet. And that was really, really nice. But during I think the good thing about events too, is you can kind of grind in those seasons. And I'm you know, lucky in that with this, I'm able to work remote, and that allows me a lot more time at home. I am traveling a lot. 

0:21:58

(Katie Wengenroth)

But again, that's kind of by choice. But I also have a really supportive partner who makes that possible, you know, and that's been kind of our decision to for me to scale up and for him to, you know, be at his consistent level. 

0:22:15

(Speaker 26)

And for me to be able to kind of grind when I need to, when I can and when I need to, and then take some time to reset. 

0:22:22

(Katie Wengenroth)

Because I think that that works well for me. 

0:22:25

(Chris Dunn)

Because when I'm in it, it's kind of like a flywheel, right? 

0:22:27

(Katie Wengenroth)

You like to keep going and going and going. And then when June and July comes, and I know shows are going all year round these days, so it doesn't really stop. But when the core season ends, you can kind of take a little step back and breathe again. 

0:22:44

(Chris Dunn)

Absolutely. 

0:22:45

(Speaker 23)

Yeah. 

0:22:45

(Speaker 25)

And then after like two weeks in your home and the kids are home from school, you're like, why am I not traveling? 

0:22:49

(Speaker 24)

I know. 

0:22:51

(Chris Dunn)

Although my husband says that the kids are much better behaved when I'm not there. So I don't know what that says about me. You're the gateway drug. I guess. Yeah. All right. 

0:23:02

(Chris Dunn)

We're going to jump. We're going to we're going to jump to the next step. of questions here. So strategy, experience, execution. Katie, your experience or my experience with you primarily was when you were with LogMeIn. Those were the golden age, the golden years at LogMeIn, going into COVID, got weird and messy for everybody, but like that business blew up. 

0:23:24

(Chris Dunn)

We came out of COVID. It was in the process of you guys were transitioning to go to go to at that point. But we did some amazing projects together. We built amazing relationships, I think not only with you, but so many people on the on the LogMeIn team that went elsewhere and took us with them, which was beautiful. You know, you worked with Bethany Murphy. She must have introduced me into six different accounts coming out of COVID especially. 

0:23:52

(Katie Wengenroth)

So, you know, as these people kind of expanded and went other places, you know, they were phoning back to your events team and saying, who are those guys that we work with? 

0:24:03

(Chris Dunn)

We always liked them, right? So anyways, that was a little bit of an aside. 

0:24:07

(Katie Wengenroth)

But I wanted to set the stage because on my question here, I wanted to talk about the outreach, your outreach example, the Women in Sales Summit. So this was after you and I had specifically worked together. Outreach is West Coast -based? They were Seattle -based? Yeah, Seattle -based. So you went from being in the office in Boston, working in Boston, to to working for outreach. 

0:24:34

(Katie Wengenroth)

So tell us a little bit about that, that women in sales summit. Yeah. So outreach was, like I said, it was a lot of fun because it really like threw me headfirst into the, into the real marketing side, like the, the revenue marketing side of things. So, um, we did a lot of field marketing programs and then I had a flagship events program. Their flagship event was called Unleash and that had happened in, uh, 2018, 2019, and then took off. from COVID. 

0:25:00

(Katie Wengenroth)

And so when I came in, we were trying to figure out, okay, events are back, right? Like we our CEO was the outreach CEO was really, he loved events, right? Like he he just like, wanted to be on the stage wanted to get everybody together really felt the energy. So he was very encouraged and encouraging of like these flagship type of events, which was great. But when we kept coming out of COVID, we had to do a lot of thinking, like, I've always said, like, I can produce any sort of event, I can create the experience, I can manage the budget, I can get all the right people there. But we've got to figure out how do we get those attendees that we want into our event, especially when people aren't traveling a lot, and their time is valuable, and they're being really selective about what they do. 

0:25:48

(Katie Wengenroth)

So when we thought about our audiences and who we were targeting, there had been some data that showed the women in sales group There's a lot of women in sales leaders that were growing. We had a fantastic CRO at Outreach and an amazing VP of enablement who were all female leaders. How can we leverage that to tap into this network of folks and encourage them to get out of their house and come join us? What we decided to do was also to host the event in a place that Everyone wants to come. So we hosted the Women in Sales Summit in Napa, which was fantastic. And we hosted it the week, a few days prior to Dreamforce. 

0:26:37

(Katie Wengenroth)

So outreach targets, sellers, revenue operations managers. So we kind of tapped it on as like a pre -event to Dreamforce. So if you're flying from the East Coast, come in for an extra day, attend this event. And we did a really, I think, we did a really great job in really curating the experience for the group and tailoring it to the group. We had this emcee who was absolutely fantastic, super engaging, got everyone out of their seats, and really got people talking because I think that that's like what is missed. 

0:27:15

(Katie Wengenroth)

It's really what people strive for in attending events is they really want a chance to network, but sometimes they don't know how to. And I think especially for women, you're sometimes the only woman in the room. And how do you break into this discussion with men and honestly talk about all the things that you're juggling? And you talk about kids and how you're trying to become a CRO and hit that C -level, but also manage things at home. And so we were just able to really facilitate a valuable discussion and really create a space where those conversations could thrive, which was really, really important. And the content, while it was focused on outreach on the product, and there was some of that, the real goal was to associate this offering of connection, and of advancing your career with outreach, right? 

0:28:10

(Katie Wengenroth)

And with outreach, the brand and kind of saying like, okay, outreach provided this venue for me, right? And oh, yeah, they have a really good platform as well. They've got great tech. So when I do advance, and when I do grow in my career, I'll bring outreach with me, right? So not that like, direct, like, buy our product now. You need this number of seats. 

0:28:30

(Katie Wengenroth)

But how do you make it so that you learn that Outreach is the one presenting this, giving you this experience? And one of the things I loved the most about this event, number one, Venus Williams was our keynote speaker. And I don't fangirl often, but I just loved meeting her. 

0:28:50

(Chris Dunn)

I also was eight months pregnant in Napa. So, you know, while the wine was there that I had to look forward to for the most part. But we hosted an event, you know, it was outside, there was like a DJ and kind of not the standard things that you'd see in an event, but nothing, nothing truly extraordinary, but everyone was dancing and they were all having so much fun. And we heard the following day that like, women haven't had that experience at a corporate event before because they're worried about someone looking at them or judging them or coming onto that. They hadn't felt that free in a really long time at a corporate event. 

0:29:30

(Katie Wengenroth)

And so creating that experience for them, I think, was super valuable. And again, just tied back to the brand and allowed them to all show their authenticity. 

0:29:44

(Chris Dunn)

and really be themselves and helped a lot of people network too. I mean, you guys captured lightning in the bottle with that, right? Coming out of COVID, everybody's like, I'm so crazy, like ready to get the hell out of my house at the same time. I'm still a little scared. 

0:30:01

(Speaker 9)

And now I can go somewhere and be with all women and not have to deal with the creepy dudes. 

0:30:08

(Chris Dunn)

Not that Brendan and I are creepy dudes or anything, like I don't. No, I know. But yeah, just having that sense of, like, freedom, you know? Right, yeah. No, that sounds pretty amazing. You know, Stowe, one of the other questions that I'm looking at here when I look down, it's just, like, strategic clarity. 

0:30:24

(Chris Dunn)

Everything you talked about was so well thought out and such a long game play. Like, that's... In 49 episodes, I don't think the goal I don't think the word goal has not come up in every single episode. And this is something that sometimes people just whistle past. 

0:30:42

(Speaker 5)

It's like, what are we really trying to accomplish? 

0:30:43

(Katie Wengenroth)

What are the goals? 

0:30:45

(Chris Dunn)

So that was, you know, kudos to the outreach team and you guys for putting all that together and to have the clarity of a mindset of like, this is we're planting seeds that might not might not actually even grow or come to fruition for years. But we're going to we're going to do these things. We're going to lay groundwork and we're going to build this amazing you know, event that that and to piggyback it on top of, you know, dreams, Jane Forrest. So if anybody doesn't know what that is, it's always in springtime. Right. And sorry, in fall. 

0:31:18

(Katie Wengenroth)

In the fall. Yeah. Well, it varies, but it wasn't. They move it around, but it's always in San Francisco. So you guys are like, OK, so we're literally 25 minutes from San Francisco. Come on in. 

0:31:28

(Katie Wengenroth)

Like you said, a couple of days early. Position yourself. Now, does outreach, as far as you know, and I know you're not there anymore, do they still do this women's conference? So they are still hosting. So after, and I know we're probably jumping ahead a little bit in our, in our questions, but so the Women in Sales Summit, as I said, Unleash was the the flagship event. 

0:31:51

(Brendon Hamlin)

So in 2023, Unleash came back. And the Women in Sales Summit was a component of that. I know Unleash happened last year as well. 

0:32:00

(Speaker 23)

And I believe there was some Women in Sales component to it as well. 

0:32:03

(Speaker 12)

But, you know, people still talk about it. 

0:32:06

(Chris Dunn)

I still have like some of the speakers and, you know, some other participants who are like, oh, that was so we should bring that back. Like who could like if it's not outreach. 

0:32:16

(Brendon Hamlin)

And so if any other any large companies out there wants to fund it, you know, like who who could be the next host of the Women in Sales Summit? Right. So that's so powerful. 

0:32:26

(Speaker 7)

Knowing that people are still talking about it, you know, a couple of years removed, a few years removed, like that's that's a real testament to to what you did. 

0:32:35

(Katie Wengenroth)

So congratulations. Yeah. Oh, thanks. Well, we'll play it on that. All right, Brendan, take us into the next zone. Yeah. 

0:32:43

(Katie Wengenroth)

So I think maybe spinning off of that a little bit is maybe you can share with us a little bit more your philosophy of not just showing up. 

0:32:53

(Brendon Hamlin)

What do you mean by that? And sort of walk us through kind of what you mean. Yeah. I mean, I think, like, at any trade show or at a if you're creating a customer conference or a user conference, you know, you can, you can get the speakers have the booth, you know, have kind of your check, check, check, we need these three things, but I'm kind of diving into the why behind, like, why are we doing this? Like, what's the actual, and I mentioned goal, but, you know, what's the goal? What's the purpose? 

0:33:29

(Brendon Hamlin)

Who are we targeting? You know, I think that there's a lot of people who were just trying to, you want to do events, right? In your, in your mind, it's a great idea, and you want to do it, but how, like, how do you make it so that it's something that people want to keep showing up to, right? And that, that kind of has that longevity and has that, creates that stickiness with the brand. 

0:33:55

(Speaker 22)

Yeah. 

0:33:56

(Brendon Hamlin)

When I was in television, we had a, so I was in the promo world. And so we went to a show every year called Promax. 

0:34:06

(Katie Wengenroth)

And Promax was all of these television marketers coming together, producers, creative directors, VPs, all of the marketing people on the television side. And it was one of those things that was like, every single year, like, where is Pro Max going to be? And can I go and you know, and then you would be there and you'd see all of the best work you would see, you know, all the vendors that we would work with would be there. So it really was like, not just a trade show. It was really way to really come together and exchange ideas and really, and then some of the, you know, some of the speakers that they would bring in the celebrities that they would have. 

0:34:45

(Chris Dunn)

I mean, Tina Turner played at this thing. 

0:34:47

(Speaker 21)

It was like, it was like, it was really a really fun event. 

0:34:51

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah. So I can I can relate to, you know, creating those things that you want people to want to come back to. Yeah, important. 

0:35:03

(Speaker 20)

Yeah. 

0:35:03

(Chris Dunn)

And thinking about like, keynote speakers and kind of going down that path, I think like, it's interesting, because at HubSpot, their approach was always like, get all of the big names, right? And that helped them drive a lot of attendance, which I think worked really well. Also, because they had the product content to back it up. But when thinking about, like I mentioned, Venus Williams, and like thinking about how do you have these high value speaker and speakers aren't cheap, right? Like I'm sure Tina Turner was not a cheap, not a cheap person to have, but you know, it can provide, it can provide that like memory and that value. But when you talk about, um, you know, not just showing up, how do you find a speaker that really is linked to like what you're trying, the message that you're trying to share and maybe not the product message, but just even the cultural message I think is really, important. 

0:36:05

(Chris Dunn)

It's such a great segue into the whole talking about things. There you go. I know Chris is I fangirl over Venus Williams. 

0:36:15

(Speaker 19)

You can fangirl over my therapist in a box. 

0:36:19

(Katie Wengenroth)

You know, I mean, I think she's everyone's right. She is. She is. So I just finished the audio book of Let Them. and she described her journey from living in Boston, which I didn't know she was a Bostonian, to moving up to this really tiny little town in Vermont. And literally, Katie, she's telling the story, and I'm thinking of you. 

0:36:41

(Speaker 4)

I'm like, oh my God. 

0:36:42

(Katie Wengenroth)

She's literally like Katie's neighbor in Woodstock or something. So anyways, but let them. One of the cool things, and I'm kind of stepping on Brendan's heel here a little bit, but Mel was a speaker at one of the events that you did. So yeah, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, sure. So when Unleash came back in 2020, for 2023, it was we were again, had this super enthusiastic CEO who really loved events. 

0:37:10

(Katie Wengenroth)

He had this, you know, one of our core values was like, have a mindset of abundance, right? 

0:37:15

(Chris Dunn)

And it took me a little while to like, really figure out, okay, like, what does that really mean? Yeah, like a little woo woo for me. Yeah, there wasn't a huge budget. But like, how do we have this mindset of abundance? Right. 

0:37:27

(Katie Wengenroth)

And That is Mel Robbins, you know, like she is like how you can do anything like your mind, like she actually puts action to, you know, creating a mindset of like, you can do these things, right. 

0:37:41

(Speaker 18)

So when we were sourcing for a keynote speaker, she obviously came top of mind, I have a really great relationship with someone who acts as like a speaker, booker, an agent, and he was like, Okay, let's see if we can see if we can get her. 

0:37:58

(Speaker 13)

Now, I don't think she's doing any speaking engagements because her podcast is keeping her so busy and her books and all this, but this was a few years ago. 

0:38:07

(Katie Wengenroth)

So we got lucky and we gave her, you know, put in a standard offer. We did reference all of, we knew it had to be a good offer, right? Like we knew we had to tell her why she really needed to come to this event. And the Women in Sales Summit was a big part of that pitch. Right. I was going to say, so this is you're coming off of that great success that you had at Women in Sales Summit, the previous year in 

0:38:30

(Katie Wengenroth)

22. Now we go fast forward 23. People are out there traveling like the drinking from a firehose, right? Anything in the events industry was like, holy shit, everything's happening all at once. And no one was geared up, at least on our end, like no one could handle the volume, but it was there. I know. It was. 

0:38:47

(Katie Wengenroth)

It was. And everybody wanted to come, which was great. A good problem to have. So how do you, when you're being as a speaker or as talent, you're being pulled in a lot of different directions. So we knew we needed to make a compelling offer to her. And unfortunately, at first she said no. 

0:39:07

(Katie Wengenroth)

She was like, it's my birthday and I need to be back. in Vermont for my birthday. So we're like, okay, well, and, you know, my CEO with this mindset of abundance, and my CMO, who was also fantastic, but really was like, we need to go back, like, we need to like, go ask again, we need to sweeten the deal, we need to like, tell her what can we do. And so, you know, we offered her a private plane to get her back in time, like an upgraded suite? Can she like come in right just for the day and do this? Because to her it wasn't really, and this is like knowing your audience right on both sides, to her it wasn't really about the money, I didn't get that. 

0:39:48

(Katie Wengenroth)

It was more about her values, where she wanted to be home with her family for her birthday, right? And that was a big deal. And so we needed to listen to that and not just say, well, we'll pay you double, we'll pay you triple. It's like, no, we'll allow you to do that and allow you to also come and speak to our audience, because they would find everything that you're trying to say super valuable. She eventually said yes. We had a prep call with her and we talked through all the Vermont things and I'm like, I'm in Woodstock. 

0:40:18

(Katie Wengenroth)

I'm right down the street from you. Not literally, but almost. And she actually said, oh, my gosh, there's a store in Woodstock that I love. Go tell Susie I say hi. You know, of course, I know Susie, too, because it's Vermont. And so, you know, kind of taking that to the next level in this relationship building moment, you know, knowing it was her birthday, I went to the shop and picked out a gift for her with the owner, who knows what she likes. 

0:40:49

(Speaker 9)

Had the owner write her a little handwritten note. 

0:40:52

(Katie Wengenroth)

And she opened it on site at the event. And she films everything. And she was filming it. And her reaction, she almost had tears in her eyes. And so I like to think, I know she's had a lot of moments in her life, but I like to think that she remembered that as well. And so it's like, how do you continue to build these moments throughout your life? 

0:41:13

(Katie Wengenroth)

throughout the experience on both sides. 

0:41:15

(Chris Dunn)

And then the funniest thing was, you know, Unleash was not, it was a, I mean, one of the best events that I've ever produced. I was super excited to be part of the team. Outreach went through like a lot of transition in the month before, and it was a really rough lead up to the event. And you know, sometimes you get to an event and you're just like, oh my god, how did I get here? Did I make it? Whatever. 

0:41:36

(Chris Dunn)

And I'll never forget her, her message at the end was like, what if it all works out? 

0:41:42

(Speaker 5)

you know, like you're in this like rough period and you're just like, you hear her and she's like, what if it all works out? 

0:41:49

(Chris Dunn)

And I was just like, okay, what if it all works out? 

0:41:52

(Speaker 6)

And I think she was talking to me. 

0:41:54

(Chris Dunn)

And then, you know, like two months later, I'm trying to figure out my own consulting thing and, and all of this. And so now I'm like, you know, she was onto something. Like, I think it's all working out. That's so cool. So that's such a cool story. And I want to kind of camp on it for a hot second, because there's the idea of corporate gifting and like sending gifts. 

0:42:15

(Chris Dunn)

clients gifts and wooing people and trying to buy their affection and all this shit. There's a lot of, I think, potential negativity that can be perceived in those areas. A lot of companies, they have specific rules and laws about you trying to buy your way in, right? 

0:42:32

(Brendon Hamlin)

For good reason. Right. It's like, hey, you want to go to Jamaica? Yes. Sign this contract and we're sending you to Jamaica. But what you did was you heard her. 

0:42:43

(Brendon Hamlin)

You understood everything that she was saying, what was important to her. And then you took and made something super personal and then you personalize it even more. 

0:42:53

(Chris Dunn)

And it just like like just all of the steps that you guys undertook. I mean, it's yes, it was coincidence that you also lived in Vermont, but you took that and you you didn't just lean on that and say, oh, we're practically gamers. You took it to the you know, 3x level and just and made that impact. I can almost guarantee as big as a celeb as she is today, she probably remembers getting that gift, right? Because it was because it was so personal. So I think I think also it speaks to, you know, when when we talk about case studies, you know, it's like case studies get thrown around, like here was the problem. 

0:43:28

(Chris Dunn)

Here's what we did. And here are the results. And but when you look at that, like that's a much deeper analysis, or not analysis, but review of what you did. And I think that's really interesting to see that, like, again, going back to like, think what what you realize she was, what she valued was really important. And I think that that you all taking that into consideration and how you approached her is really important and goes way beyond just the, you know, the metrics of it. It just is, there's something there that like, that's the thing that people are going to keep talking about for years. 

0:44:04

(Chris Dunn)

It's still, you're still talking about it, you know, like, like she was speaking to you at the end there. And it worked out, you know, I mean, back and said, let's figure out how to make this work. 

0:44:17

(Katie Wengenroth)

That makes the story even better. 

0:44:20

(Speaker 17)

You just weren't mentioned the word metrics. 

0:44:22

(Speaker 16)

And we are here with about 15 minutes left, we got to, we're gonna crank this thing forward here a little bit. 

0:44:28

(Chris Dunn)

We're in the data world, right? Everybody wants, they want to track metrics. If you can't track it, then how do you know things are working? So I'm going to shift gears a little bit from our touchy -feely Mel story, which I loved, and then let's pull that forward. You know, I think data has never been more important. We all know that, and by the way, my computer fantastically, timing -wise, continues to tell me that it's going to shut down if I don't snooze it. 

0:44:54

(Chris Dunn)

And it gives me a smaller and smaller and smaller period of time to snooze. 

0:44:58

(Speaker 15)

So at some point, it's actually going to do it. 

0:45:00

(Chris Dunn)

And hopefully I'm still here. 

0:45:02

(Speaker 7)

But anyway, if I disappear, that's where I am. 

0:45:04

(Katie Wengenroth)

We'll cover for you. Yeah, OK. Perfect. So Katie, a lot of times, you know, Event teams, marketing teams, their headcount has been culled down. They're expected to do more with less. Groups like our group here, Blue Hive, and Brennan's group, we come in, we try to be an extension to your team. 

0:45:26

(Katie Wengenroth)

But at the end of the day, marketers have never been, I think, under more pressure to produce. And getting, having that data and getting the metrics and understanding what the ROI is at the end of that event has become so important because at that point, that's where the rubber meets the road, right? The C -suite looks at that and says, either A, we dropped $500 ,000 from this, what did we get? And if you can prove that we got 3X that and potential pipeline and look at all the brand equity that we gained and all that stuff, like you're getting that event back on the calendar for the next year, you're probably going to get bigger budget. Talk a little bit about kind of ROI metrics that actually matter and what people are looking for. 

0:46:11

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah. I mean, I think we're in a stage, like you said, where, you know, everything's people are back. They're going out like a lot of companies that want to do events, want to do everything. Right. And I think you can get into the, I think it's really important to take a look at your scope and say like, why are we going to these events, right? Like, what are we getting out of them? 

0:46:33

(Katie Wengenroth)

And I think even if you are early on in your career, and maybe you don't think that you have a lot of say or anything like that, you can always ask that question, right? Like, you can always look at the data and try to look at, like, last year's event and say, like, hey, we didn't track anything, like there's no, we're not showing any value, any ROI, any pipeline, like we're not showing anything. Or like, this event has our target persona, and three different places. And I think like asking those questions, and really diving in and understanding again, the why behind why you're going to each of these events is, is ultimately going to make you look good and make the company look good and make sure that like, you're attending the events that you should be attending to get the results that you want to get right. And like, what are those results, right? I think you can look at, you know, sometimes you go to an event to generate new pipelines, sometimes you go to an event to close deals, sometimes you go to an event to, you know, facilitate new partnerships, right? 

0:47:41

(Katie Wengenroth)

There's a lot of different reasons why. So I don't think it's, I don't know if it's really helpful to say, like, measure this, this, this, and this, I think it all comes down to what the business is trying to do. And I think as an event marketer, the more that you can be ingrained in the business goals, and in like, what the business is trying to do, the more effective can be. The other thing I'll say is having, I know we've talked a lot about outreach, but having outreach was a sales tech platform. So I learned a lot about how to sell, what's important to sellers. 

0:48:14

(Katie Wengenroth)

If you don't have a follow -up plan before you go into your event, then the event's going to be worthless. There's almost no point in going. I think having, and the plan, it doesn't have to be extensive, but having a call setup, having emails that go out, being engaged. Hopefully you have and SDR, maybe an SDR team. But having a team that's engaged, that's prepped, that knows exactly what to do with those leads within 24 hours after they're at your event is super important. Working with your marketing team to ensure that you're tracking those leads. 

0:48:52

(Katie Wengenroth)

It's really hard to track the success of events, because events are usually not the one and only touch. And tracking attribution. 

0:49:03

(Chris Dunn)

I need someone else to come in and talk about all that. But all I know, I mean, it's really, really hard to directly show that this event drove X amount of revenue. So just making sure that you can follow those deals in different ways and keep track of them and understand the impact that the event had. is super, is really important too. 

0:49:27

(Speaker 14)

And I think that there should always be a metric, like a data that is, it is, that is trackable, that could be calculated. 

0:49:36

(Katie Wengenroth)

Again, it doesn't need to be large, it doesn't need to be complicated, but you need to have some sort of data tied to your event. 

0:49:43

(Chris Dunn)

And then you can have sentiment tied to it as well. Like how did people like, what was the internal response? Like, what did the survey say? You know, I think you could do a little bit of a mix of both because, you know, Brendan loves Tina Turner and loved going to those events, and he always has that sentiment. But did Brendan keep buying from the companies that were there? 

0:50:02

(Chris Dunn)

You need to be able to measure both. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Brendan, did you get to actually meet Tina Turner, or did you just get to watch her perform? Oh, no, I yeah, we worked together for years after that. So we can have another podcast on all the celebrities that I have met. So that's okay. 

0:50:30

(Chris Dunn)

That's great. Throwing shade. You guys with all of your, you know, you know, working with high level celebrities here. I went to a trade show. I don't have a lot beyond that. Um, now real, really interesting, uh, Katie and again, kind of go back to like, just, you know, the goals, right? 

0:50:52

(Chris Dunn)

We've, uh, if there's been a consistent theme, that's come, that's come from these, these, uh, all of these wonderful conversations is have, have the goals. And then the follow through is, is so critical. You know, we're getting ready to go to a exhibitor show. We, we do a couple of shows a year. So, you know, we like to put our shoes or our feet, I should say, into our clients shoes as best we can and understand what their pain points are. So we're out there doing trade shows as well. 

0:51:19

(Chris Dunn)

And my job as the VP of new development, you know, all of that stuff comes back to me. And I was a sole as an individual producer for 25 years prior to COVID and then kind of come back with this different role. And It's a lot. It's a lot, right? Because you're coming off of the high of the event and all of these conversations in your head. You're like, this stuff will all stay fresh. 

0:51:48

(Chris Dunn)

And literally, you get home and you're like, it's a lot. a jumbled mess. 

0:51:51

(Katie Wengenroth)

So having that plan ahead of time of how we're going to follow up, what we're going to do. Brendan, you and I were just talking last week about creating video snippet content directed specifically at high level targets. The CEO of such and such corporation, that's one of our big fish that we're going after. I'm going to make a video in the space. Steve, thanks so much for coming by the booth. You must remember the great activation that we've got here and just wanted to say thank you so much, right? 

0:52:21

(Brendon Hamlin)

And just doing these small customized pieces, maybe before the event even ends, right? Having those plans in hand are just only going to kind of further or increase the percentages of success after that event's over. Brennan, take us down this road. Is there conversations that we've had with some other folks about, like, Not really the trends per se, but micro events and some of these like sidecar events or bolt -on events, big shows happening. We're going to do this giant dinner party. 

0:52:50

(Speaker 13)

We're going to rent the club. 

0:52:52

(Speaker 12)

Talk to us a little bit about where you see all of that going and how brands are leveraging maybe larger events or larger gatherings, and then bolting onto those and the benefits they can get from some of that stuff. 

0:53:05

(Brendon Hamlin)

Yeah, I mean, I think to your point, there's a lot of different formats. 

0:53:09

(Chris Dunn)

And going back to intentionality and the strategy piece, you need to determine who your audience is and what the right event is for that audience, I think. 

0:53:19

(Speaker 7)

everyone might want to do, I want to do a customer event, I want to do a user conference, I want to do this, I want to do that. 

0:53:24

(Chris Dunn)

Okay, like, why? 

0:53:25

(Speaker 6)

And, and, like, then you can determine what you're actually going to do, because there are a lot of creative different formats out there. 

0:53:32

(Chris Dunn)

And you don't have to just, just do the trade show booth, you can do the ancillary event with it, right. 

0:53:38

(Speaker 11)

So it sort of speaks to your partnership, and your your guidance as an expert to go 

0:53:45

(Speaker 10)

to that client and say, well, yeah, you want to do the trade show, but is that really the right thing for you at this point? 

0:53:49

(Chris Dunn)

If you want to talk to a dozen people, well, maybe a specific dinner or something around the trade show is a lot more effective than just having a booth and having marketing flypaper out there. Maybe you want to have something that's really specific, and I think that speaks to your talent to really guide the client to the right thing that's going to be most effective, because then you can report more accurately. You know, if you're doing the right thing, the data coming back out is going to be better, right? Mm hmm. Totally. 

0:54:21

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah. Part of the reason for my panic is, again, my computer is telling me it's going to shut down. 

0:54:26

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah. 

0:54:27

(Katie Wengenroth)

So, well, good. I cleared it with Juana. She's like, well, we'll take care of it. 

0:54:30

(Speaker 9)

It will be. 

0:54:31

(Speaker 8)

Yeah, absolutely. 

0:54:33

(Katie Wengenroth)

No, I'm just curious. Let's go back in time to 10 minutes ago when you guys did the outreach event in Napa, specifically located close by to Dreamforce in San Francisco. 

0:54:45

(Speaker 5)

Did you view that? 

0:54:46

(Chris Dunn)

I mean, you were strategic with your location. 

0:54:49

(Brendon Hamlin)

Were you viewing that as kind of this sidecar event to Dreamforce? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, we were trying to leverage that audience and kind of engage them. Do you know what percentage of the folks who came to who came to the outreach? Women's very high. 

0:55:07

(Katie Wengenroth)

I think it was about 80 percent. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. And some folks were local. But yeah, but it was a pretty high percentage. 

0:55:17

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah. 

0:55:19

(Brendon Hamlin)

OK, cool. All right, Brendan, what else do you want to ask about this as we start our wrap up process? Well, I think there was one one more topic that sort of is more industry focused, I think, and it really has to do with, you know, the pressure that we're all seeing on budgets. And then how is that? How are you seeing that effect? Or maybe create even opportunities for freelance or contract work? 

0:55:44

(Speaker 7)

What's that landscape looking like these days? 

0:55:47

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah, I mean, for me, my my path was like, My intention was not to go into consulting or to have my own business. It was to find another director of events role where I could do essentially what I was doing in outreach, manage flagship events team, internal events, external events, have that full scope. I think a lot of companies are, and this is just based on my LinkedIn knowledge and research, but there aren't a lot of those jobs out there. But there's always a lot of contract dollars out there. And when people need fractional support, it's a lot easier to spend a fraction of a full salary on someone to come in and build out strategy, launch a user conference, run a customer advisory board, kind of start it off before kind of diving into that full time, you know, director level or VP level higher. That's what I've seen. 

0:56:42

(Chris Dunn)

And that's kind of how I've been able to find success. I think opening that up, opening people's eyes to those opportunities. And I think it's probably changed in the last 10 years where the gig mentality, the project -based work is not as scary as maybe it used to be. People are a little more used to it. And it's good to know, I think, for people to know that those opportunities are out there and that you just have to kind of maybe adapt and change change what you're looking for. It might not be a job listing. 

0:57:13

(Chris Dunn)

It might be a project listing. Yeah. And I think, again, it all comes back to relationships. And all of my networking was originally for a full -time role because that's what I knew. But then when it started to open up and understand that there's great retainers out there and different types of projects, I think that that's it's, and also remote work, obviously, like I, I built my life here. 

0:57:39

(Chris Dunn)

I don't want to move. 

0:57:40

(Speaker 7)

So I, and I think it, it opens it up for a lot of people who are looking for, um, you don't have to be in Boston, especially as a consultant to support a Boston based company. 

0:57:50

(Katie Wengenroth)

Right. That was interesting. So, uh, it finally caught me. He was chasing me all, all episode and now it's finally here. Katie, this has been, uh, Fantastic. 

0:57:58

(Speaker 6)

I've been looking forward to having you on the show for a long time. 

0:58:00

(Chris Dunn)

I know the timing took a while to kind of make it all come together, but this has been a great conversation. It's been really great also to have been having recently just kind of get to work together again and do a project that we just pretty much wrapped up with a show. 

0:58:16

(Katie Wengenroth)

So all good stuff. Thanks for joining us. I think, you know, your story is is really cool. And I know a lot of similarities with kind of, you know, Brendan's track and you just a few years behind us, which is which is good. 

0:58:29

(Chris Dunn)

Anyways, we're wrapping up here on the toolbox. A couple of takeaways, Katie, what are what are some things that either some brand new thing or, you know, kind of put a bow on something that you've already talked about a couple little nuggets that you can leave with our listeners. Yeah. I mean, I think like number one, relationships are really key in this industry. I mean, in general, I think like prioritizing your relationships and making sure that you're continuing to build them along with your personal brand along the way, I think is really important. Also, like we talked about a lot, like tracking, right. 

0:58:59

(Chris Dunn)

Making sure that you're being intentional with what you're doing and kind of have a reason behind. behind your actions, I think that will allow longevity and success in all of your events. Yeah. Awesome. 

0:59:12

(Speaker 5)

Awesome. 

0:59:12

(Katie Wengenroth)

Yeah. Fantastic. And last question for me, how do people get ahold of you? 

0:59:16

(Speaker 4)

Should they want to reach out and engage your services? Yeah, no, I'm, I'm always happy to kind of pass along any knowledge that's helpful, especially anyone who's thinking about, you know, going down the consulting path. Um, you, the best way is probably email. I think it'll be put in the chat somewhere, but katie at kvtevents . co or feel free to find me on LinkedIn. Well, guys, great conversation. 

0:59:39

Appreciate it. We got to wrap this guy up. This was episode number 49. Next one coming up is 50. We're going to do an awesome recap for the year. And again, thank you, Brendan, sitting in the co -host seat. 

0:59:49

Thank you, Katie, joining us from Snowy and Chilly, Vermont. Everybody have a great one and cheers. Thanks so much. Take care. Bye bye. Thanks, Chris. 

0:59:57

Thanks, Brendan. Thank you.