Lead w. h a. h. tic. y & k. dness Be true to yo. b. . ess ac. . How you treat people in a time like this, I think, really says a lot about your business model, and how you treat your staff. Kate Kelly, CMP, CMM | Queen Bee & Owner, ConventionALL Management Inc. Proceed with your heart and your head, not forgetting to be grateful for the people who are helping you. Throw yourself in like you need to save your organization. It’s not because it’s an organization— it’s people, it’s a bunch of people and they’re an industry. If you’re not advocating for them, there aren’t other people who are going to do it for you. Marie Zimmerman, PhD | Executive Director, Hillside Festival I would say a piece of advice that I’ve picked up over the years would be, regardless of how or who you’re running a conference for, always negotiate on your client’s behalf, as though you were negotiating for yourself. Don’t ever allow your client to sign something, or engage in something that you wouldn’t be comfortable engaging in when it’s your own money on the line. Chris Lutz | Partner/VP Program Development, Verney Conference Management Think of everything—like if we don’t get this money back, we’re laying someone off. I could not deal with that unless I’d tried my hardest to get it back. Lauren Stewart | Director, Conferences & Operations, BookNet Canada Whatever decisions we have to make, I want that when we see each other walking down the street in the community, neither one of us drops our eyes. I want to come through this so that we can look each other in the eye with joy and pride. Nowshad Ali, CFRE, CPBA, CPVA | President & CEO, On Purpose Leadership Inc. G. sk. ed . c. tra. s We planners have to have that conversation with the hotel representatives. It’s going to be painful. Some people have some clients who have had to pay heavily for being on the pointy end of diffi cult contracts that were designed only with the hotel’s best interest in mind. Some of us had to wait until the very last minute with our hearts in our mouths, so that we could invoke force majeure or impossibility. There has to be a better way. I think hotels and planners need to rethink and work together for change. Ruth Abrahamson | CEO, Base Consulting and Management Inc. I think contracts are going to be hugely important moving forward. It’s essential to have a solid, balanced contract in place that allows you to recognize where your weaknesses are, where your strengths are, allows you fl exibility and allows you to build relationships. So, if you have a really solid contract, and a really good relationship with somebody at a venue, or a destination management organization or convention and visitor bureau, those things should be able to carry you through. Chantel Beaupre | Co-Owner, Say Something Communications Inc. 56 | Ignitemag.ca | November 2020
