Who expected the nationwide shutdown on Mar. 16, 2020? It closed schools and businesses. Since the pandemic events have been perhaps the hardest hit. Sharon McCullough of Expert Events along with Kris Parsons of Parsons PR who collaborates with Sharon on some of her bigger fund raising events, have had to pivot in a way that her clients expressed gratitude for her years of experience and are excited to try new and efficient ways to achieve their goals. Learn more about our podcasts at www.theluckiestpeopleintheworld.com
Reach Sharon McCullough at http://www.expertevents.com
Reach Kris Parsons at parsons-pr.com
TRANSCRIPT
Diane Dayton 0:02
This is changing the rules, a podcast about designing the life you want to live, hosted by KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world.
KC Dempster 0:12
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Changing the Rules. I'm KC Dempster. And I'm here with Ray Loewe in the wonderful and continually morphing Wildfire Podcast studios in Woodbury, New Jersey, that every time I come in here, there's been something different added or moved or whatever. And it's kind of like, what are we going to see today?
Ray Loewe 0:35
That's because Wildfire is a company on the move. Yes. Okay. Yes.
You know, and again, let me make my comment. I'm gonna let you get a word in edgewise here, because our experience with Wildfire has been a wonderful one.
KC Dempster 0:49
They should have a mute button.
Ray Loewe 0:51
Well, okay, well, you can mute me just hit me with that hammer you have. But But I think one of the wonderful things that happened is that they have all the experience that allowed us to go from knowing absolutely nothing to where we are now, which is two steps above nothing. But But, but we do have a podcast every couple weeks, and we are on the air. And we do actually get wonderful people to come in and talk with us. And we got a couple of them today. Okay, and what else does everybody need to know about Changing the Rules?
KC Dempster 1:24
Well, Changing the Rules, as our wonderful introduction said, Is this is about creating the life that you want, and then living it to the fullest. And what we do with Changing the Rules podcast is we bring interesting people in who are doing interesting things, because we want to provide fodder for the people who are or want to be the luckiest people in the world. Because maybe there's something that they hadn't thought of that that we talked about
Ray Loewe 1:54
Fodder?
KC Dempster 1:55
I knew you were going to give me a hard time on that.
Ray Loewe 1:58
How about a role model?
KC Dempster 1:59
Well, that's that's too, but fodder goes beyond that.
Ray Loewe 2:04
Well, we have two people sitting here we have Sharon McCullough, we have Kris Parsons back again, she just keeps coming back all the time.
Kris Parsons 2:12
I love it so much.
Ray Loewe 2:13
And they're two people that work together in a very interesting business during these times. And I think the way they've handled it is a really interesting role model for people that want to be the luckiest people in the world.
KC Dempster 2:28
Are you sure it's not fodder?
Kris Parsons 2:29
I was just gonna say maybe fodder,
Ray Loewe 2:32
Mater Mater doesn't work, you know, father gets all the credit. So anyway, we all have a lousy sense of humor Will you know, I'll concede to that. But let me introduce Sharon McCullough. Sharon, just say hi.
Sharon McCullough 2:46
Hi.
Ray Loewe 2:47
And Kris Parsons. Just say hi.
Kris Parsons 2:49
Hi, not Hello, hi.
Ray Loewe 2:53
Okay,
Kris Parsons 2:53
We're changing the rules, Ray. We're changing the rules
Ray Loewe 2:56
well, and I expect that so. So let's start by talking to Sharon a little bit first, because everybody knows who you are Kris. So So Sharon, and I had the opportunity to meet and talk a little bit before this interview and, and Sharon used to work for my alma mater. Okay, University of Pennsylvania. And explain a little bit about what you were doing with Penn because it's the crux of what you're doing now and where you're going, I think,
Sharon McCullough 3:27
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. I started working at Penn when I was 20. I guess, 2, by that point. And I had a wonderful 12 years there good experience. I spent a lot of time at the Wharton School. And one of the things that I look back on and question myself on is, after all those years at Penn, where I could have taken classes for free. And I was at the Wharton School and then started a business. Why didn't I Why didn't I do that out then I didn't. But I sort of muddled through with getting started. But my time at Penn was was wonderful. It was a great place to be, a great place to work, lots of energy, I got wonderful experience kind of thrown into the deep end of the pool at a job change when I got put on the committee as part of my role in the events office for development to help plan the 250th anniversary for Penn. Wow. So that was coming out of that I knew that this was event planning was what I wanted to do. I subsequently switched to the Alumni Affairs Office, which gave me good perspective on big development events versus big alumni events. The budgets are significantly different. So I learned a little bit more about finding some corporate sponsors and some funding and making those alumni programs. Well done. And after 12 years, I got the entrepreneurial bug and decided to start Expert Events and purely grassroots, I got a client and then bought a fax machine and ran it from my house for a while and finally moved to center city where I was for 20 years. And then with the way the world is now two years ago, where it doesn't matter where you are to work, and I go to my clients, as opposed to having them come to my office, I gave up that center city space at the end of the lease and moved back home. So I'm able to I do a lot of traveling or did before COVID.
Kris Parsons 5:33
You had to pivot,
Sharon McCullough 5:33
I had to pivot. That's the that's the industry where to industry words, pivot and hybrid. And I think we talked a little bit about that last week.
Ray Loewe 5:40
Yeah. And and so let's define for everybody what you mean, when you talk about event planning, because it's really everything and anything and
KC Dempster 5:50
People think weddings, but it goes so much farther.
Ray Loewe 5:52
Yeah. So what does it take? What does it take, you know, you're looking at helping a charitable organization, raise money. And that's primarily where you center most of your activity.
Sharon McCullough 6:05
Higher Ed and nonprofit. Yeah.
Ray Loewe 6:06
Okay. So So what kind of events are you doing? And then what is the what are the some of the pieces that go into this?
Sharon McCullough 6:13
Well, there are a lot of pieces. And I think, again, going back to Penn and taking all the experience that I had there, which was a lot of communications and publications work, the alumni constituency building piece, supporting fundraising, looking at all of that, and working with my clients to you know, when we get on board, the first thing I do with people is get everybody around the table that's going to touch whatever event or series of events, we're going to plan and make sure that everybody's on the same page. Because especially in large organizations, that's sometimes really difficult. And setting goals for what they want the events to do for them and fundraising is whether it's a direct line fundraiser or not, fundraising is always the primary goal. But there are others, like how much media coverage are you looking for? Are you going to sit? What do you when you wake up after it's over? How do you know when you were a success if you weren't, if you don't know what you were trying to achieve. And so setting those goals down, and then throwing out every event idea in the known universe, I work with a lot of colleges and universities on major anniversaries. After the 250th s at Penn, I worked with Columbia on launching their 250th. And I've done the centennial at Pace University. And that's where we start each time, you know, what do you want to get out of this? And then let's throw out every idea in the book, you know, from? How are you going to license a new logo to put it on the teddy bear that you're selling the bookstore? To? What do you want the events to do? And and then measure up those events against the goals their people's ideas against the goals, and try to keep people from spinning their wheels so that if they don't answer the goals, let's not spend time on it. You don't want to do it. Right. And, you know, massaging that a little bit as we go along.
Ray Loewe 8:11
Yeah, I'm sure that's especially difficult because you're dealing often with volunteer boards.
Sharon McCullough 8:16
You got that right.
Ray Loewe 8:17
Yeah. Well, I know what they're like. Yeah. And, you know, to one thing, when somebody is getting paid to do something in another zone, it's kind of hard to fire that volunteer sometimes you know, when Right, yeah.
Sharon McCullough 8:28
And I and I've been in that, you know, position where I serve on some boards. And I think, oh, boy, you know, I got a board meeting coming up. And I haven't even looked at this stuff. And then I think, Well, you know, that's what you're kind of dealing with people along to do. And it is hard. It is hard when you're a volunteer and those people do incredible work for all the organizations that I work for.
Ray Loewe 8:50
And during your career here. You aren't necessarily all the events for every organization, but you were doing with the big ones that somebody had to focus on. Right?
Sharon McCullough 8:59
Well, that's right. And I look back again, at my my time at Penn, I was an event staff person. And there are loads of people at Penn that do events across all the schools and centrally but when it came to the 250th they still hired an outside consultant for the major pieces of that because all of us had our roles that we do year in year out annually the reunions, this and that and these blips in the scale are where I really focus my marketing for the business because I don't want to come in and step on the event planners that are on staff on their toes. But on the other hand, I want to be a support to them. When big things like inaugurating a new president or launching a capital campaign. Those kind of things come along. You still have to maintain your regular job. Yeah. So having an extra pair of hands and and we bring a whole support group of people, my staff and I learned a long time ago that the best way To get the best people is to work in partnership with people that don't do that support what I do, but don't necessarily I don't do it. So that's when I started working with Kris. And I have some fundraising consultants that we bring in where that level of support is needed speech writers, AV techs, that can be consultants, as well as providing the actual services at the event.
Ray Loewe 10:27
Okay, so you did this for 28 years on your own right. And you had offices and how many cities?
Sharon McCullough 10:35
Well, three, Philadelphia is obviously my home base, I live here. But I have office use in Manhattan, a graphic designer, that's another partnership that that we bring in with people. I worked with her. She redesigned the Wharton alumni magazine for me when I was the editor. And so I've known her for a long time. And she has beautiful office space three blocks from Penn Station. So that's, that's a great base for me when I've got a lot of New York clients. And I also have one in Virginia.
Ray Loewe 11:10
You know, being a Wharton alumnus, and I get that magazine every month, I guess I really had to look at the artwork now and pay attention, right? Well,
Sharon McCullough 11:17
you should. But what you really need to do is go back about 30 years and pull one of those out of the archives. Well, so those are the ones I was working on.
Ray Loewe 11:25
30 years ago I was a Wharton alumnus too. So anyway, so let's get rid of this time stuff. So. So anyway, you did this in your own way. And you built this pretty good business, helping a lot of organizations raise money. And then I think March 16, is an interesting day this year. Yes. Tell us about March 16,
Sharon McCullough 11:47
well, probably a week, or maybe 10 days ahead of March 16. Kris and I are both working with a client in Philadelphia, and we had the the hard meeting with them that just said, you know, it was a it was a very, very food focused tasting event for about 600 people, lots of lots of touching, yes. A and, you know, in an indoor space. And we just looked at each other and said, Well, you know, we can't do this. And so what are we going to do, and I've been working with several different clients who have approached it very differently. Some, you know, kind of just dug in, and the smaller organizations had to focus on what they do day to day. And that was the priority, then their staff was the next priority. So most of those organizations just pushed a year, you know, just said, Okay, we're not doing 2020, right. And some organizations said, Well, you know, we've got to get out there with something. And so I've been working, mainly consulting with some AV partners who have really approached the whole thing in a bigger way. And Kris and I are working now with that same group that had to cancel on that the event that got moved to 2021. And we in fact, even moved it a little further than exactly a year we moved from March to June of '21.
Kris Parsons 13:14
So we couldn't be outside.
Sharon McCullough 13:15
And we're still looking now at only outdoor venues. So we don't have to hopefully, back up again, no matter what happens. But most groups I'm working with now we're working on parallel tracks, you know, if I'm working on a big conference, that'll happen up in Providence, Rhode Island, also, next year, and to basically be ready to take it all virtual, because it is a conference and it's panels, and we could shoot those in advance, and maybe getting them to look at regionalizing that a little more so that people don't have to get on airplanes and try to travel. So you've got it, just think around all the angles, and trying to get it off the ground. Again,
KC Dempster 13:59
it's a challenge to your creativity, really,
Kris Parsons 14:02
it's really talked about Changing the Rules, we've had to do a lot because you really have to look at things in a completely different way. And one of the things you know, I do the PR with Sharon is the communication. A lot of people did really panic when when this COVID hit and just stopped talking to their customers, their constituents. And so what Sharon and I did was talk to them and say, Look, you just can't stop the communication. You have to keep reaching out letting everybody know what's going on, you know, sharing with them that you're trying to figure it out to but don't let go of them and especially now because with online and virtually that's what everyone's doing. So you're better off talking to them more that way trying to figure out what the next steps are. Right.
Ray Loewe 14:43
You know, when when we look ahead, okay. Hopefully, you know we have a virus now. Vaccine. All right. We don't sweat the little thing. You know, but but hopefully we have a vaccine And hopefully it's going to allow us to open up a little bit. But we don't know. And we don't know if there's going to be another COVID. Somewhere along the line, we've kind of learned our lesson. We've also learned that we have tools in terms of the internet and Zoom and, and all of these other things in the background. So when you think and when you work with larger organizations, where's the thinking going now? What what are some of the innovations that are going to come in?
Sharon McCullough 15:29
I think the important thing is to take those, if you are going to do your event, in a virtual format, that you totally, you do have to totally rethink it. You know, people walk into a gala in a ballroom and you have cocktails and you sit down and you have a bit of program, and then you have some dessert, and then you dance, it's three or four hours out of your life. And people you know, you get dressed up, it's a nice evening out, it's fun. Well, if you're going to do that, and expect people to sit either at their desk or watch their TV in their living room, it has to be a very different event, the recommended is 45 to 75 minutes, that's what you can capture with that. So if your CEO got to speak before, for 10 to 12 minutes, which is still too long, they get two or three. And you're you've got a really that's where Kris comes in with that as well getting you know, directing the messaging. And my my one thing that I always hold out, that's absolutely the most important with any event that you do, no matter how you do it, is that if you're not delivering your message and mission, you've you've missed the whole point. So making sure that you're condensing those events, so you don't have multiple ways across the course of a whole evening. To do that, that you've done it in a concise way that's entertaining. And that those that event, just like a stage managed event in a ballroom has to never have a second, that's missing. Right, right, because you're gonna lose them.
Ray Loewe 17:04
You know, when when? What do you do about things? So when you look at the old style event food and drink at dancing, we're probably major parts of this, and you probably throw in a silent auction to where you can do the silent auction probably online. But what do you do about the food and the booze and the other stuff? And how do you keep keep people interested?
Sharon McCullough 17:28
Well, I think that it is definitely harder. But the good thing, from from these organizations from their standpoint is Yes, they're going to spend a lot more money on the technology. And and you don't do it via Zoom, you do there are much more professional, high net net on that to be able to do, but you do have to engage them. And that's where corporate sponsorship comes in. I know that the Preservation Alliance for instance, in Philadelphia, I didn't work on it, but their recent event, when you signed on, they they partnered with DiBrunobrothers, and at the level you signed on for, that's the the kind of size goodie box that you got delivered to your house, from DIBruno's. And I think that's, that's what people have to do. We've, we've talked with alumni groups that you know, send, you know, sign up with a winery and send three or four bottles of wine and do just small audience specific events. And I think that, that those are all excellent ideas, and that, that they were very well done. To do that down to you know, a cooking demonstration or whatever, you know, you're going to send people the ingredients, and they can they can join in and, and do that there's all kinds of creative ideas that you can do to engage your audience. And the real upside of the whole virtual piece, I think will continue once we can even go back to big time, hundreds of people in a space, because it does allow you to have those hundreds of people, but also reach out to the thousand that you know, maybe halfway across the country that aren't going to get on plane and come to your event but great for Penn reunions, or any schools reunions that you know, you get to the evening dinner and the President's going to speak you didn't you didn't show up for you 40th reunion because you weren't gonna come to Philly from California. But you could still get the message
Ray Loewe 19:34
I didn't show up and I'm in Philadelphia. I hate to admit that but but but anyway, you know, I think what your clients are going to see here is the value you bring to the table. And it's not the same old same old at this point. It's going to be brand new creative stuff and, and we're getting near the end of our time, but I do want to ask one question, you know, and take this down now to my level over Hear? Because I'm worried about how do I get together with my family? How do I create interesting things now, so that I can bring my sisters from Denver and from Chicago into a picture where we can't get together anymore. And I understand there's two ways now that you can ship meals to people, you can do all kinds of great, and this isn't what you do, but it's part of the change part of the technology that's been there.,
Sharon McCullough 20:31
Oh absolutely. They're, they're all good. I mean, I think that's a that's a side of this industry, that's that seeing a nice increase in business, to be able to, to do that there's also technology is so wonderful now that you know, you can get your whole family to video, something there, even these, these websites that you set up to, you know, send little tribute videos, everybody could contribute to that. And then, you know, everybody could see it in their own homes and feel like, you know, you could still do the do the Zoom up, which you probably do at the family level. But you can then you know, click on somebody's computer that's going to pull up that video, and you can all watch it together and see everybody's good comments.
Ray Loewe 21:17
You know, Kris, Kris has got me doing a coffee demo for my friend for Christmas, you know, and, and, and I, you see incredibly interesting things happening with this change. So everybody looks at it initially and says what a downer. And I don't think it's a downer at all. I think the creative people are going to probably prosper from this, I think your business is going to boom, because you have the technology expertise along with the event planning expertise. And you're going to be able to bring that to clients to don't otherwise know what to do.
Kris Parsons 21:46
And the nice thing about Expert Events, Sharon's Expert Events is that she is willing to to sit with everybody and have a consultation, sit and talk to them and say, you know, what is your situation and analyze some of your current events, how they are because you're right, it's gonna be a change. And if you call her she'll kind of help you assess the situation and figure out how to go forward.
Ray Loewe 22:07
Well, well, we are at the end of our time, unfortunately, yeah. we'll have you back some time. And we'll continue this discussion. Also, Sharon pops on every once in a while to our coffee and cocktail conversation kind of a thing. And
KC Dempster 22:21
Which they're on Thursdays, coffee in the morning, cocktails in the afternoon, and you can go to our website, theluckiestpeopleintheworld.com. And right on that homepage, there's a button to push to register. So it's easy as pie.
Kris Parsons 22:35
It's free.
Ray Loewe 22:36
And if you want to meet people like Sharon, she's not there every week, but she pops on often. And often. You can say hi. And you can get great ideas, whether it's family or professional. So once again, thanks for being with us, Sharon. Thanks for Kris comment, bringing them back.
Ray Loewe
Yeah. And KC, sign off for us.
KC Dempster 22:56
Okay, well, thank you, everybody, for listening. We will be back in a week with another wonderful and interesting podcast and enjoy the weather while we have it.
Ray Loewe 23:07
So thank you, everybody.
Diane Dayton 23:10
Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules, a podcast designed to help you live your life the way you want, and give you what you need to make it happen. Join us in two weeks for our next exciting topics on Changing the Rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world