Keppler

Back to Business: Leading Your Organization Out of the Recession

With positive indicators appearing in recent economic forecasts, all signs are pointing towards an end to the recession. For the meetings industry, that means that now is the time to make changes that will create greater stability for the future.

In my last column for Behind the Mic., I wrote about how you can think and plan differently to enhance the meetings experience. In this issue, I want to help you look further into the future, focusing on how changes implemented today can make your organization better and more stable in the coming months and years. Consider the suggestions below and ask yourself the questions that follow. Engage in conversations with your colleagues and friends about how to implement strategies that will help you emerge from the recession stronger and healthier than you entered it.

1. What are you doing to ensure that meetings across your industry, not just for your organization, succeed? With fewer meetings and lower attendance, it's important for us in the industry to support one another! If you don't support your colleagues' meetings, how can you expect them to support yours? Make a case for professional development across the board and provide the rationale for why training budgets need to be reinstated and maintained.

2. Provide input for long-range strategies for your organization. If you are not a meeting professional with a "seat at the table," find someone who has a seat and make your case to them so that they can make it to others. If meetings haven't been integrated into the organizations's strategies before, make sure they are now and as you move forward.

3. Find out who the advocates for meetings and professional development are in your organization. Assess what they already understand and what else they need to know to advocate the case for meetings more effectively. Be an active advocate!

4. Determine who is responsible for knowing and disseminating information about your own industry's economic health, how this information is factored into how you plan and market your meetings, and how you are brought into those strategic conversations. Once again, be an active advocate and secure the buy-in of others!

5. If you already have contracts in place for meetings, determine your strategy for considering what has been contracted. Determine what information you need to provide to your business partners (including hotel, AV companies, transportation providers, etc.) about the state of your organization and industry and the potential impact. Do it now!

6. Stay in the know! Sign up for resources like Twitter (where you can follow me as well as Keppler Speakers (http://twitter.com/joaneisenstodt and http://www.twitter.com/kepplerspeakers), sign up for daily updates from hotel-online.com and bizjournals.com; and go to www.google.com/alerts to sign up for alerts for organizations with which you do business.

The meetings and hospitality industry still have a long way to go before returning to pre-recession prosperity. Right now, begin to evaluate strategies and determine what can be improved to make meetings flourish in the economic recovery that is soon to come.