The Speaker Journey - Peter Gentile - Speaking of Events - Episode # 035

Today’s guest helps to elevate brands through unique events that stand apart from the rest. He has worked with all sorts of companies, from Fortune 500 to emerging startups. Peter Gentile is the Vice President of Sales at OVATION, INC. Not to be confused with Ovation Communication, LLC, the company that is run by our very own host Kerri Garbis. Peter joins Kerri to talk about what he has learned from the professional event industry and share some of his tips with the listeners today!   Takeaways: Events allow for a better opportunity for human connection. It’s not always about someone standing on a stage and talking for hours, but rather it could be smaller incremental presentations or smaller groups. You can see a tremendous amount of revenue growth from having meetings where you invite potential or current customers to see how your product works.  When setting up an event, you have to not only think about the attendee journey but also the speaker journey and how to have the speaker be part of your content story. When working with speakers, you want to make sure you are being very clear and detailed with them about what they will have at their disposal (ie, the size of the projector they might be using and the format of it) You want to make sure that no matter what, the speaker you are using for an event goes through the rehearsal process and checks out the slide deck that you prepare for them. You don’t want them to be caught off guard by not preparing.  Putting in the extra effort to an event can make all the difference in how the event will turn out. It might cost extra money, but it makes the event run more smoothly and be a better experience for all in attendance.  There are expenses that have come up exponentially around events. Things such as travel, access to technology and the cost of technicians in the marketplace have gone up which makes it harder to find the right and best people.   Quote of the Show: 6:20 “The collective idea about events is it's an opportunity to gather together to do something important.” - Peter Gentile    Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pgentile/ Website: https://ovationevents.com/   Ways to Tune In: Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a158d222-4beb-4c72-9569-0916e79a80f4/speaking-of-events Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speaking-of-events/id1611059542 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/699re9JSEnwNXnrNLGLUkz Google Play - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3BlYWtpbmdvZmV2ZW50cy5jb20vZmVlZC54bWw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwiI6PWe2o73AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en YouTube - https://youtu.be/OpV7XUZM-Mw   Speaking of Events is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/