September 4, 2025 • 15 mins
In this special episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from the Innovation Pavilion at Cvent CONNECT 2025, Matt spoke with Monika Martin, Manager, Marketing Operations at Baker Tilly.
Don't miss an episode! Subscribe to Sales Pipeline Radio or tune in live Thursdays at 11:30 PT | 12:30 MT | 1:30 CT | 2:30 ET on LinkedIn (also available on demand). In just 20 fast-paced minutes, host Matt interviews the brightest minds in sales and marketing, delivering actionable advice, best practices, and insights for B2B sales and marketing professionals. Sales Pipeline Radio was recently recognized as one of the 25 Best Sales Management Podcasts and Top 60 Sales Podcasts—don’t miss out! You can subscribe right at Sales Pipeline Radio and/or listen to full recordings of past shows everywhere you listen to podcasts! You can even ask Siri, Alexa and Google or search on Audible!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Welcome back.
We are recording here live atthe Cvent CONNECT Conference.
We're on the third flooroutside the innovation pavilion.
Monika Martin, welcome.
Hi, nice to be here.
Glad you are here.
Thank you.
How's the event been for you so far?
Event has been amazing.
Awesome.
Cvent has outdone themselves yet again.
Another fantastic CONNECT 2025here in beautiful San Antonio and
(00:36):
every year I come in and say, youknow, I've been there, done that.
Yeah.
Outperform, outclass every singleyear, what they did the year before.
So just amazing.
What stands out to you at an eventlike this that makes it so special?
So I think there were two thingsthis year that really did it for me.
Mm-hmm.
Number one was the amount ofpersonalization that was in their app.
(00:57):
Yeah.
I knew exactly where I had to bewhen I needed to be somewhere.
Yeah.
So they're definitelydrinking their own champagne.
Yes.
And making sure that weare being personalized too.
Yep.
And then the other one isjust the, I think the overall.
Robustness of the programsthat they're putting into play.
There is something for everybody.
There's no way that you could come toa Cvent CONNECT and not walk away with,
(01:19):
you know, five new pieces of information.
Yeah.
So really top notch.
It's impressive.
I think it's difficult when you've gotan event technology company marketing
to event professionals at an event.
There's a lot of meta going on there.
Oh yeah.
And it's a high bar.
Yes.
Because I think people here, theyknow what a good event looks like.
Mm-hmm.
And so to hear people here just see theenergy here as well from people that are
just boy events are back in a big way.
(01:40):
Big way.
We're gonna talk about acomponent of that here today.
Excited to have you here.
We've got Monika Martin; she's the managerof marketing operations at Baker Tilly.
And there've been a lot of conversationsover the last couple days about this
concept of "total event programs".
Yes.
And event led growth and reallycreating events at the center
of your go-to-market strategy.
And increasingly we're seeing companiesreally think about self-service models and
(02:01):
that's what I wanna talk about here today.
I think that this is something thatisn't a part of a lot of go-to-market
strategies and event strategies andwould love to hear about from you of what
does that mean and why Is it somethingyou're looking at to build into your
go-to-market event motion as well?
Yeah, happy to do so.
So we've been working with Cvent,our customer success manager,
and with Cvent Consulting.
So I came to Baker Tilly in 2022and we were just getting back
(02:24):
into the entire event spectrum.
And before my time coming there,all of the events were taken
care of by agency marketers.
And these are our external facing events.
So where we are going to events or we arehosting events - not our internal side.
Yep.
And so that's 500 plus events per yearthat were being hosted within some brand
(02:47):
standards; they might have had a littlebit of uniqueness to each one of them.
Sure.
But they were taken care of ad hoc.
Mm-hmm.
When I came in, our CMO had a vision tocentralize all of the events so that there
was some brand consistency, there wereguardrails that were put up in place.
There was a consistentattendee experience.
When you would go event to event.
(03:09):
And my team of myself plusfour more, so a team of five.
We really can't handle550 events per year.
So what does that mean?
So the first thing it meant tous is that we had to come up with
some sort of a tiering model.
So we've got high touch.
These are really important events.
These are the ones thathave our VIPs at them.
(03:30):
They might have a large numberof our principles at them
from a dollar perspective.
These are our top budgetaryfrom our marketing budget.
They're also what we wouldconsider to be our big bets.
So these are the ones that we'reputting a lot of investment into.
Yeah.
Then we've got our medium ones,which are kind of a collaboration
between still our agency marketersand us as the events team.
We can do a little bit more for you - butyou still get to kind of drive the boat.
(03:53):
Then we come to our smaller events.
Yeah.
And these are not unimportantevents, but these are events that
are a little bit lower touch.
These are events that are notas much risk involved to them.
So there's not the players that areinvolved that we need to have a little bit
more of that white glove experience to.
These are the ones we're looking atfor more of that self-service model.
(04:14):
Got
it.
And these are repetitive.
These are the ones that have ahigher frequency, and as I said,
a little bit lower risk when itcomes to the overall experience.
Think of these kind of in therealm of small user round tables.
Happy hours.
Any kind of maybe a cocktail reception.
Something that happens over and over againwhere if we could get something in place
(04:37):
that says, this is how you do it, then itcan be executed on time and time again.
In this repetitive but wellconstructed model of self-service.
So you talk about, you talked aboutsome of the benefits of a self-service
model in a scale; speed; better use ofinternal resources, cost control for sure.
I think one of the things I'veheard a lot of people talk about
(04:58):
as a concern with self-service isstill losing some of that control.
Yeah.
Self-service model doesn't necessarilymean it's all going to go as planned.
How do you try to mitigate thatwhen you're designing what a self
service model's gonna look like?
So again, we're kind of in the ideationstage here, so I'm taking best practices
from actually people that I've metat Cvent before and leaning into
(05:20):
some best practices that our CventCustomer Success Manager has been able
to share with us as well, and thingsthat we've seen and been able to
kind of execute through in the field.
So what we've really learned inour exposure so far, things that
are going to help mitigate thatrisk is putting up some guardrails.
Yep.
And those guardrails are still TBD (to bedetermined), but things like, you know,
(05:43):
you have to comply by brand guidelines.
Mm-hmm.
You need to run your thingsthrough legal; contracts need to
go through legal; you need to havebrand standards that are there.
We have to talk in thesame kind of brand voice.
Whatever the invitationis that's going out.
That's right.
And when It comes to ensuring thatcontracts are fulfilled correctly and,
you know, are we taking advantage of thefact that through all of our small events.
(06:07):
We have procurement involved thatis going to be able to recognize
that we're taking advantage ofthat kind of bulk buy processing.
Talk a little more about like thetype of events you think are really
good for this kind of a model.
I think, you know, when I've seenself-service work in the past, it's been
a lot of sort of field events for sales.
For account management teams, those thatalready have a relationship with some
(06:28):
of the people that are gonna be there.
Yeah.
In the ideation phase, as you guys thinkabout what this looks like, are there
certain types of events and contexts ofevents that you gravitate towards more?
So I would say that when we areattending a conference, for example.
Yeah.
We're going to Bob's Animal Show.
Yep.
Oftentimes we want to havehappy hour attached to that.
(06:49):
We can take some guests with us,we can go to the happy hour, get
to meet them a little bit more.
Usually it's attached to theevent in some way, shape or form.
And.
That happens over and over and over again.
So that kind of repeatable where we canput together a very clear step-by-step
guide, how to do it, what to look for.
Same kind of invitation,same kind of registration.
(07:11):
That's what we are looking foras far as a good model to start
with in this self-service journey.
Got it.
We are recording this outside theInnovation Pavilion at Cvent CONNECT.
Excited to be here with Monika Martin.
She's the Manager of MarketingOperations at Baker Tilly.
You know, I've seen versionsof this work in the past.
They've been kind of like "eventin a box" kind of playbooks.
(07:31):
Yeah.
Yep.
And giving people guidelines, andeven if you give people some brand
guidelines and materials and here's somethings you can pull out and print out,
whatever else, it still is a challengewithout the right technology in place.
It's a little challenge withouthaving sort of the back office work
that sort of integrates it with therest of your go-to-market systems.
Talk about how you at Baker Tilly ingeneral think about marketing ops to
(07:53):
support events and how that will applyon the self-service side as well.
So actually I am, I'm keeping myfingers crossed as I say this.
Sure.
We are very excited about the impendinggeneral availability of essentials.
So that's what we are planningon putting into play for this.
That will be our tech stack that will takecare of our registrations, our website.
(08:16):
It will have the ability for us to linkpeople directly to the access portal,
and be able to pull resources from there,so they can have a set template for what
they're looking for, they can have a, asyou said, a playbook, direct access to
some menus that we can provide for them.
So, you know, oh, "I'm gonna have 50people." We know that your return on
(08:37):
registration is looking at about 60%,so you don't need to order for all 50.
You need to order for maybe about 25.
Right.
So those kind of little hints and tipswill all be a part of that "event in
a box" packaging and whatever thatnaming convention comes around to it.
I love that.
And I think it's, let's editit together a little bit.
'cause I mean, you got me thinkingabout like how to use cases for where
(08:58):
a self-service model could work.
One of the things I think a lot about,we've talked about this in a few
episodes, is partner enablement - andreally helping to enable a partner
ecosystem to be successful whetherit's market development funds or just
partners that want to do a good event.
You've got a set of best practices ofwhat an event can do to be successful.
I'd love to hear other things thatyou've in sort of thinking about
where self-service programs cango, what are the other sort of
(09:20):
use cases you're thinking about?
So we're also thinking about it, i'mgoing to step a little bit outside of
my realm here, because my colleaguesover in our internal events are also
thinking about it quite a bit as well.
What we really love is thefact that Cvent's Toolkit will
enable us to have it firm-wide.
So it's not just gonna be asiloed compartment of information.
We're looking to really deployit across our entire firm.
(09:41):
So we're looking at things like in officeevents; we're looking at things like lunch
and learns; maybe things such as smallhalf day trainings that just require a
little bit of help along the way - butnot a lot of high touch easy things like
dinners to put together - just thosekind of repeatable, again, low risk
is where we're coming from on these.
(10:03):
Yeah, I I think one of the challenges inputting together a self-service model is
that you can say, okay, like we're gonnaput less time and attention on this over
time, which is one of the benefits ofdoing it, but I think it's, it won't work
if those, if those programs work in silos.
Right?
Yeah.
It won't work if you just have sales oraccount management doing it on its own.
What are some considerationswhen you think about supporting
(10:24):
that across functions, especiallyfrom an ops standpoint?
Absolutely.
I actually was able to speak aboutthe self-service model yesterday
and, uh, the colleague next to methat they have already launched their
self-service program, and now she'sin the piloting phase of it, she said
that their meeting request form thatwe know, is very integral to the Cvent
(10:46):
componentry is not actually, in theirvernacular, a "meeting request form"
- it's a meeting registration form.
So that is, to me, a huge key takeawayis let's get every single event
meeting registered so we can start tohave visibility on them, because when
you have visibility into them, thenyou can see how often they repeat.
Yeah.
How many attendees are there so thatthen you can start to say, well,
(11:09):
I don't need to touch this one asmuch because it's going really well.
Mm-hmm.
Another thing about where we'relooking at is getting a good
taxonomy across the entire firm.
Yeah.
What are all of these events?
What do they look like?
What are they called?
Who?
What are roles and responsibilities?
Yeah.
Clarity and defining is goingto really be essential in this.
(11:30):
That's right.
And then tiering those (11:30):
that high touch, medium touch, and low touch - will then
further help define how we're going topull out which ones of those are going
to be the self-service events thatwe are gonna be moving forward with.
So we got a little bit of time left.
I wanna pull back and ask a questionaround the broader event strategy at
Baker Tilly and talk about scorecardsand what you measure and sort of how
(11:52):
to determine whether an event has beensuccessful and what elements of that
do you sort of see as sort of carryingover to the self-service model as well?
So that's a little bit still in process.
Sure.
As I said, we're a little bitnew to the game here as far as
having a centralized program.
So that's actually one of the thingsthat Cvent is also helping us work on,
is how to actually measure events with ascorecard that will be something that is
(12:17):
maintainable and repeatable, so that wecan have good qualitative data coming in
and then be able to measure against it.
Yep.
When I think about our events, eachof our key stakeholders might have
a little bit different vision asto what makes an event successful.
So being able to define what those areand then capture that, and then measuring
(12:38):
each one via a survey afterwards, or doinganalysis thereafter can help us really
begin to identify (12:44):
"how did this hit the mark?" Or "what can we do to ensure
that next time it can hit the mark?"
I know you're early in this process,and I know, but I also know that that
means there's people that are earlierin the process mean they haven't even
thought about self-service to begin with.
It's not something that'sreally even on their radar.
And I think in general, like whenit comes to event strategy overall,
let alone self-service, this is alljust a journey versus a destination.
(13:06):
The rules keep changing; trendschange what people are willing to
engage with continues to change.
For those that haven't even startedalong this, that may have started this
episode saying, "hadn't even thought aboutself-service as an option", what are some
things you're already starting to learn?
What are some lessons for peoplegetting started that can help them
accelerate their progress down this path?
I would say number one is "get started".
(13:26):
Yeah.
Do something.
Yep.
Don't just sit still.
Mm-hmm.
Do something.
Mm-hmm.
Number two (13:31):
don't draw things with sharpies; draw things with pencils.
So that we can move that line ifit needs be, which kind of leads
to the third thing is (13:39):
start small.
We are looking at piloting verysmall nuggets of programs to begin
with to be able to have a feedbackloop to be able to refine them.
Start to have more of a broaderscale to look for adoption and
then further get the buy-in on it.
(14:01):
So I think those are the thingsthat I'm really considering is can't
solve the world to begin with, it'sgoing to take a process of time,
but do get started on something.
Yep.
And move forward.
We're seven episodes in on theserecordings - you may have just given
the best piece of advice of the sessionso far: the idea that you're writing in
pencil and not in Sharpie, and I thinkabout the context in work and in life; if
(14:25):
people knew that this was in pencil andthere was an eraser on the other side of
the implement, would they be a little morecourageous in giving something a shot?
I think so, yeah.
And how do we encourage, andthis is a broader question, maybe
we'll end on this, is how do weencourage a culture of pencil.
How do you encourage either in yourmarketing team or your company overall
the ability and the courage to go andtry something knowing that it can be
(14:48):
mostly erased if it's not working?
Yeah, that's a great question, and reallywhat we strive for at Baker Tilly is
a mindset and a culture of curiosity.
Don't just stand still.
We're leaping, you know?
So it's okay.
We've got your back.
If you're gonna try something,consider it; don't, don't just go
crazy with it, but take a shot atit; come up with, "here's the plan
(15:10):
that I think I wanna execute on".
Yeah.
Maybe, you know, test the watersa little bit, get some buy-in
from other people, and then giveit a shot and then learn from it.
Yep.
I'm excited to have you here next yearto hear what after 12 months, what the
next stage of the journey is for you.
What's still in pencil, what'sstarting to be inked in a little bit.
Sounds good.
We're all making progress forward.
So Monika Martin, so much for joining us.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
(15:31):
Thank you.
Welcome back.
We are recording here live atthe Cvent CONNECT Conference.
We're on the third flooroutside the innovation pavilion.
Monika Martin, welcome.
Hi, nice to be here.
Glad you are here.
Thank you.
How's the event been for you so far?
Event has been amazing.
Awesome.
Cvent has outdone themselves yet again.
Another fantastic CONNECT 2025here in beautiful San Antonio and
(00:36):
every year I come in and say, youknow, I've been there, done that.
Yeah.
Outperform, outclass every singleyear, what they did the year before.
So just amazing.
What stands out to you at an eventlike this that makes it so special?
So I think there were two thingsthis year that really did it for me.
Mm-hmm.
Number one was the amount ofpersonalization that was in their app.
(00:57):
Yeah.
I knew exactly where I had to bewhen I needed to be somewhere.
Yeah.
So they're definitelydrinking their own champagne.
Yes.
And making sure that weare being personalized too.
Yep.
And then the other one isjust the, I think the overall.
Robustness of the programsthat they're putting into play.
There is something for everybody.
There's no way that you could come toa Cvent CONNECT and not walk away with,
(01:19):
you know, five new pieces of information.
Yeah.
So really top notch.
It's impressive.
I think it's difficult when you've gotan event technology company marketing
to event professionals at an event.
There's a lot of meta going on there.
Oh yeah.
And it's a high bar.
Yes.
Because I think people here, theyknow what a good event looks like.
Mm-hmm.
And so to hear people here just see theenergy here as well from people that are
just boy events are back in a big way.
(01:40):
Big way.
We're gonna talk about acomponent of that here today.
Excited to have you here.
We've got Monika Martin; she's the managerof marketing operations at Baker Tilly.
And there've been a lot of conversationsover the last couple days about this
concept of "total event programs".
Yes.
And event led growth and reallycreating events at the center
of your go-to-market strategy.
And increasingly we're seeing companiesreally think about self-service models and
(02:01):
that's what I wanna talk about here today.
I think that this is something thatisn't a part of a lot of go-to-market
strategies and event strategies andwould love to hear about from you of what
does that mean and why Is it somethingyou're looking at to build into your
go-to-market event motion as well?
Yeah, happy to do so.
So we've been working with Cvent,our customer success manager,
and with Cvent Consulting.
So I came to Baker Tilly in 2022and we were just getting back
(02:24):
into the entire event spectrum.
And before my time coming there,all of the events were taken
care of by agency marketers.
And these are our external facing events.
So where we are going to events or we arehosting events - not our internal side.
Yep.
And so that's 500 plus events per yearthat were being hosted within some brand
(02:47):
standards; they might have had a littlebit of uniqueness to each one of them.
Sure.
But they were taken care of ad hoc.
Mm-hmm.
When I came in, our CMO had a vision tocentralize all of the events so that there
was some brand consistency, there wereguardrails that were put up in place.
There was a consistentattendee experience.
When you would go event to event.
(03:09):
And my team of myself plusfour more, so a team of five.
We really can't handle550 events per year.
So what does that mean?
So the first thing it meant tous is that we had to come up with
some sort of a tiering model.
So we've got high touch.
These are really important events.
These are the ones thathave our VIPs at them.
(03:30):
They might have a large numberof our principles at them
from a dollar perspective.
These are our top budgetaryfrom our marketing budget.
They're also what we wouldconsider to be our big bets.
So these are the ones that we'reputting a lot of investment into.
Yeah.
Then we've got our medium ones,which are kind of a collaboration
between still our agency marketersand us as the events team.
We can do a little bit more for you - butyou still get to kind of drive the boat.
(03:53):
Then we come to our smaller events.
Yeah.
And these are not unimportantevents, but these are events that
are a little bit lower touch.
These are events that are notas much risk involved to them.
So there's not the players that areinvolved that we need to have a little bit
more of that white glove experience to.
These are the ones we're looking atfor more of that self-service model.
(04:14):
Got
it.
And these are repetitive.
These are the ones that have ahigher frequency, and as I said,
a little bit lower risk when itcomes to the overall experience.
Think of these kind of in therealm of small user round tables.
Happy hours.
Any kind of maybe a cocktail reception.
Something that happens over and over againwhere if we could get something in place
(04:37):
that says, this is how you do it, then itcan be executed on time and time again.
In this repetitive but wellconstructed model of self-service.
So you talk about, you talked aboutsome of the benefits of a self-service
model in a scale; speed; better use ofinternal resources, cost control for sure.
I think one of the things I'veheard a lot of people talk about
(04:58):
as a concern with self-service isstill losing some of that control.
Yeah.
Self-service model doesn't necessarilymean it's all going to go as planned.
How do you try to mitigate thatwhen you're designing what a self
service model's gonna look like?
So again, we're kind of in the ideationstage here, so I'm taking best practices
from actually people that I've metat Cvent before and leaning into
(05:20):
some best practices that our CventCustomer Success Manager has been able
to share with us as well, and thingsthat we've seen and been able to
kind of execute through in the field.
So what we've really learned inour exposure so far, things that
are going to help mitigate thatrisk is putting up some guardrails.
Yep.
And those guardrails are still TBD (to bedetermined), but things like, you know,
(05:43):
you have to comply by brand guidelines.
Mm-hmm.
You need to run your thingsthrough legal; contracts need to
go through legal; you need to havebrand standards that are there.
We have to talk in thesame kind of brand voice.
Whatever the invitationis that's going out.
That's right.
And when It comes to ensuring thatcontracts are fulfilled correctly and,
you know, are we taking advantage of thefact that through all of our small events.
(06:07):
We have procurement involved thatis going to be able to recognize
that we're taking advantage ofthat kind of bulk buy processing.
Talk a little more about like thetype of events you think are really
good for this kind of a model.
I think, you know, when I've seenself-service work in the past, it's been
a lot of sort of field events for sales.
For account management teams, those thatalready have a relationship with some
(06:28):
of the people that are gonna be there.
Yeah.
In the ideation phase, as you guys thinkabout what this looks like, are there
certain types of events and contexts ofevents that you gravitate towards more?
So I would say that when we areattending a conference, for example.
Yeah.
We're going to Bob's Animal Show.
Yep.
Oftentimes we want to havehappy hour attached to that.
(06:49):
We can take some guests with us,we can go to the happy hour, get
to meet them a little bit more.
Usually it's attached to theevent in some way, shape or form.
And.
That happens over and over and over again.
So that kind of repeatable where we canput together a very clear step-by-step
guide, how to do it, what to look for.
Same kind of invitation,same kind of registration.
(07:11):
That's what we are looking foras far as a good model to start
with in this self-service journey.
Got it.
We are recording this outside theInnovation Pavilion at Cvent CONNECT.
Excited to be here with Monika Martin.
She's the Manager of MarketingOperations at Baker Tilly.
You know, I've seen versionsof this work in the past.
They've been kind of like "eventin a box" kind of playbooks.
(07:31):
Yeah.
Yep.
And giving people guidelines, andeven if you give people some brand
guidelines and materials and here's somethings you can pull out and print out,
whatever else, it still is a challengewithout the right technology in place.
It's a little challenge withouthaving sort of the back office work
that sort of integrates it with therest of your go-to-market systems.
Talk about how you at Baker Tilly ingeneral think about marketing ops to
(07:53):
support events and how that will applyon the self-service side as well.
So actually I am, I'm keeping myfingers crossed as I say this.
Sure.
We are very excited about the impendinggeneral availability of essentials.
So that's what we are planningon putting into play for this.
That will be our tech stack that will takecare of our registrations, our website.
(08:16):
It will have the ability for us to linkpeople directly to the access portal,
and be able to pull resources from there,so they can have a set template for what
they're looking for, they can have a, asyou said, a playbook, direct access to
some menus that we can provide for them.
So, you know, oh, "I'm gonna have 50people." We know that your return on
(08:37):
registration is looking at about 60%,so you don't need to order for all 50.
You need to order for maybe about 25.
Right.
So those kind of little hints and tipswill all be a part of that "event in
a box" packaging and whatever thatnaming convention comes around to it.
I love that.
And I think it's, let's editit together a little bit.
'cause I mean, you got me thinkingabout like how to use cases for where
(08:58):
a self-service model could work.
One of the things I think a lot about,we've talked about this in a few
episodes, is partner enablement - andreally helping to enable a partner
ecosystem to be successful whetherit's market development funds or just
partners that want to do a good event.
You've got a set of best practices ofwhat an event can do to be successful.
I'd love to hear other things thatyou've in sort of thinking about
where self-service programs cango, what are the other sort of
(09:20):
use cases you're thinking about?
So we're also thinking about it, i'mgoing to step a little bit outside of
my realm here, because my colleaguesover in our internal events are also
thinking about it quite a bit as well.
What we really love is thefact that Cvent's Toolkit will
enable us to have it firm-wide.
So it's not just gonna be asiloed compartment of information.
We're looking to really deployit across our entire firm.
(09:41):
So we're looking at things like in officeevents; we're looking at things like lunch
and learns; maybe things such as smallhalf day trainings that just require a
little bit of help along the way - butnot a lot of high touch easy things like
dinners to put together - just thosekind of repeatable, again, low risk
is where we're coming from on these.
(10:03):
Yeah, I I think one of the challenges inputting together a self-service model is
that you can say, okay, like we're gonnaput less time and attention on this over
time, which is one of the benefits ofdoing it, but I think it's, it won't work
if those, if those programs work in silos.
Right?
Yeah.
It won't work if you just have sales oraccount management doing it on its own.
What are some considerationswhen you think about supporting
(10:24):
that across functions, especiallyfrom an ops standpoint?
Absolutely.
I actually was able to speak aboutthe self-service model yesterday
and, uh, the colleague next to methat they have already launched their
self-service program, and now she'sin the piloting phase of it, she said
that their meeting request form thatwe know, is very integral to the Cvent
(10:46):
componentry is not actually, in theirvernacular, a "meeting request form"
- it's a meeting registration form.
So that is, to me, a huge key takeawayis let's get every single event
meeting registered so we can start tohave visibility on them, because when
you have visibility into them, thenyou can see how often they repeat.
Yeah.
How many attendees are there so thatthen you can start to say, well,
(11:09):
I don't need to touch this one asmuch because it's going really well.
Mm-hmm.
Another thing about where we'relooking at is getting a good
taxonomy across the entire firm.
Yeah.
What are all of these events?
What do they look like?
What are they called?
Who?
What are roles and responsibilities?
Yeah.
Clarity and defining is goingto really be essential in this.
(11:30):
That's right.
And then tiering those (11:30):
that high touch, medium touch, and low touch - will then
further help define how we're going topull out which ones of those are going
to be the self-service events thatwe are gonna be moving forward with.
So we got a little bit of time left.
I wanna pull back and ask a questionaround the broader event strategy at
Baker Tilly and talk about scorecardsand what you measure and sort of how
(11:52):
to determine whether an event has beensuccessful and what elements of that
do you sort of see as sort of carryingover to the self-service model as well?
So that's a little bit still in process.
Sure.
As I said, we're a little bitnew to the game here as far as
having a centralized program.
So that's actually one of the thingsthat Cvent is also helping us work on,
is how to actually measure events with ascorecard that will be something that is
(12:17):
maintainable and repeatable, so that wecan have good qualitative data coming in
and then be able to measure against it.
Yep.
When I think about our events, eachof our key stakeholders might have
a little bit different vision asto what makes an event successful.
So being able to define what those areand then capture that, and then measuring
(12:38):
each one via a survey afterwards, or doinganalysis thereafter can help us really
begin to identify (12:44):
"how did this hit the mark?" Or "what can we do to ensure
that next time it can hit the mark?"
I know you're early in this process,and I know, but I also know that that
means there's people that are earlierin the process mean they haven't even
thought about self-service to begin with.
It's not something that'sreally even on their radar.
And I think in general, like whenit comes to event strategy overall,
let alone self-service, this is alljust a journey versus a destination.
(13:06):
The rules keep changing; trendschange what people are willing to
engage with continues to change.
For those that haven't even startedalong this, that may have started this
episode saying, "hadn't even thought aboutself-service as an option", what are some
things you're already starting to learn?
What are some lessons for peoplegetting started that can help them
accelerate their progress down this path?
I would say number one is "get started".
(13:26):
Yeah.
Do something.
Yep.
Don't just sit still.
Mm-hmm.
Do something.
Mm-hmm.
Number two (13:31):
don't draw things with sharpies; draw things with pencils.
So that we can move that line ifit needs be, which kind of leads
to the third thing is (13:39):
start small.
We are looking at piloting verysmall nuggets of programs to begin
with to be able to have a feedbackloop to be able to refine them.
Start to have more of a broaderscale to look for adoption and
then further get the buy-in on it.
(14:01):
So I think those are the thingsthat I'm really considering is can't
solve the world to begin with, it'sgoing to take a process of time,
but do get started on something.
Yep.
And move forward.
We're seven episodes in on theserecordings - you may have just given
the best piece of advice of the sessionso far: the idea that you're writing in
pencil and not in Sharpie, and I thinkabout the context in work and in life; if
(14:25):
people knew that this was in pencil andthere was an eraser on the other side of
the implement, would they be a little morecourageous in giving something a shot?
I think so, yeah.
And how do we encourage, andthis is a broader question, maybe
we'll end on this, is how do weencourage a culture of pencil.
How do you encourage either in yourmarketing team or your company overall
the ability and the courage to go andtry something knowing that it can be
(14:48):
mostly erased if it's not working?
Yeah, that's a great question, and reallywhat we strive for at Baker Tilly is
a mindset and a culture of curiosity.
Don't just stand still.
We're leaping, you know?
So it's okay.
We've got your back.
If you're gonna try something,consider it; don't, don't just go
crazy with it, but take a shot atit; come up with, "here's the plan
(15:10):
that I think I wanna execute on".
Yeah.
Maybe, you know, test the watersa little bit, get some buy-in
from other people, and then giveit a shot and then learn from it.
Yep.
I'm excited to have you here next yearto hear what after 12 months, what the
next stage of the journey is for you.
What's still in pencil, what'sstarting to be inked in a little bit.
Sounds good.
We're all making progress forward.
So Monika Martin, so much for joining us.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
(15:31):
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com