Will: Welcome to the Passle CMO Series podcast where we discuss all things marketing and business development. My name is Will Eke and today actually we're going to be focusing a bit more on the business development side which I always enjoy. We're going to be exploring how law firms and especially law firms in the IP space can adopt a BD focused approach to events. I'm really excited and trying to get John Austin Brooks on for a while. John is the commercial director at Abel + Imray. They're a leading IP firm. So John, he's going to share today with us how he's been driving business development through events. He's got a small team, but it's really important that he's very strategic so that he can maximise and get the best out of his attorneys and build these client relationships that last a long time.

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Will: John, welcome. Really happy to have you on.

John: Thank you, Will, it is a pleasure to be here as well. And thanks for the invite.

Will: Working with law firms, working with IP firms and consultancies, events are really, really important. And obviously, fee-earners go to events that they may not be speaking at, might be client-led events. But what we want to focus on today was more about the events that, you know, Abel + Imray run, law firms run. How can you get the best out of those? Because obviously everyone, partnerships are looking at, you know, return on investment it's a really powerful business development marketing tool, if we start… you know how can you share a bit more about your approach at Abel + Imray and how the approach to events has sort of evolved since you joined the firm, John?

John: Yeah sure and look, I think for the purpose of this I will dip in and out of, well let's call them third-party events as well because I think there's a good crossover with some of the some of the approach and hopefully insights I'm going to share yeah as a firm when I joined back in what 2018 there wasn't much going on in the way of our own events we had occasional ones but they weren't really structured they may have been around a particular topic if we felt was burning but again it was it wasn't it wasn't framed if you like. So yeah events and conferences they're just part of the bd marketing mix. And I think what we need to see them as is a touch point, either to initially meet people or to continue to connect with people. The reality is, and I think we need to frame this, the reality is certainly from the data I've got here and other data from when I've been in other entities, I've worked in mainstream law firms, I've worked in other professional services firms, the reality is you don't land the deal at these events. It's very, very unusual. Often it's the start of a conversation, however they they have their purpose. So for example, most of our sort of inquiries or opportunities which convert into business chargeable business come from referrals but again this is sometimes how you how you use these. So how it's evolved is, we put a structure around the aims. What's the aim of the event? So for a while we focused on particular sector to try and boost opportunities for one of our teams our trademark team and we also built some analytics into that as well. The idea being we could gauge how much effort were we put into something and how successful was it from regarding anything and that could have been a follow-up it could have been a connection it yeah it may have been what we perceived as an opportunity as well. I guess the the fly in the ointment was for everybody was when when COVID came along, events and conferences slowed down and then stopped depending on which part of the world you're in and I think it's taken a it's taken a while for them to build a backup. Again so when we've been hosting stuff maybe out in the states we've not always had the people that we may have had but two years before three years four years before simply because they're not travelling as much yeah so now how it's evolved and I'm sure we'll cover this off in a bit further is there's a bit more structure around how we approach these things what we're looking to get from them and obviously what we then do following through as well.

Will: Thanks for sharing that, John. I think it is interesting as you say because it leads on to the next question about you know why does it need to be more strategic in terms of events but I suppose that sort of change to more online events could make you more strategic in some ways right because you could see who was logging on. You could see people, obviously not in the same way as you would face-to-face, but you sort of were face-to-face. But you had a bit of technology that could then tell you who turned up to the meeting, where sometimes I suppose it is quite hard to capture everything, or you're relying on your fear in doing that, which, as we all know, doesn't always happen. When did you sort of realize that there was this need for you know more strategic approach and a more structured process to support your role and your team from a business development perspective?

John: Yeah so look, I  think this applies to all professional service events. I know all firms sort of put this as law firms and IP firms but I'd say anybody who's got a client base where there's an ongoing service ongoing relationship beyond just single transaction action. Yeah, this is a useful thing to think about with them so yeah I simply brought with me what I'd put into place in other firms. And you're right to highlight the online, yeah how easily we forget the move to online events and the challenges with certain software not being supported by certain entities so yeah there's a couple of our clients where there was a pretty spectacular sort of hybrid or almost yeah trying to bring the in-person experience to online conferences yet because it was such a new piece of software the the entity prohibited itfrom being used by its by its employees so that was a challenge with swapping between zoom and something else to uh actually get a a conference feel to something and you're right, it did give us access to people who perhaps wouldn't necessarily have normally gone to conferences or events. It did give us some insights into who they were and what they were interested in. And, yeah, we were able to put some of that to good use. Why do they need to think about a more strategic approach to events? I would say there's a number of reasons. One is it's your time. And that will be the fee-earner's time. It will be their support team, whether that's business development, marketing, or somebody else. Their time in organising the event and then obviously following through on that you've got the overall cost if it's an in-person event venues and stuff like that but also if you're doing that what aren't you doing so if you've got a limited number of hours you've got for business development and marketing activities how do you how do you ensure that balance of using your time let's call it wisely and that's yeah that's obviously an ongoing challenge for many of us, but the more you can do to put that under the microscope in a balanced way i think the better outcomes you're likely to have because you're clear about things taking that approach. How can we make the most of these activities because it may be about business development it might be about something else it might be a just a… let's call it client entertainment, it still has a purpose with building and forming those relationships, whether that's meeting existing clients and contacts or indeed trying to build industry knowledge. So that's like third party events doing that as well. I think it's become probably more challenging. When we're looking at third-party events now, Will, it's become more challenging about that sort of fear of missing out with the sort of paid-to-speak or exhibit opportunities. And you can get swept up with, oh, X is speaking there, or, oh, Y is exhibiting there, or trying to chase a guest speaker as well, yourself, to speak at your own events. And that often unfortunately doesn't always deliver what you think it's going to deliver yeah with the third party events sometimes the speaker is literally on the stage and if you don't catch them on the way to the exit door you've missed them so all you all you achieve was getting to hear them there are things you can obviously do with a follow-up there but obviously if you're going for that sort of face-to-face contact that might be a limited opportunity so what can they what can we do more as firms it's about the preparation the follow-up, it's understanding the benefit and the cost of such activities both in time and obviously. The money of the firm and you know all all this plays out this isn't just one perspective from working at Abel + Imray this is from working at yeah several other organizations where we've had to put events and conferences our own and third parties under the microscope and actually decide what are we actually able to achieve and what is it we are achieving from those as well.

Will: And in terms of I mean this next question i'm sure will resonate with many of the listeners and it can sometimes be political but it's a tricky thing sometimes when you have you know an individual attorney, and in your case at Abel + Imray, you know they've got a request for BD support how do you marry that up with a sort of more unified event strategy how do you sort of you and the team decide where to allocate budget and resource you know especially for an attorney one shouting louder than the other about a particular event how do you how do you deal with that?

John: Yeah well I'd like to say we've got it cracked but I don't… we don't. The reality is that we're all different personalities who come to work. I i like to feel that I work across our source structures and in different ways with different people depend on their style. And yeah I know that we are closer to having a let's call it an understanding about what we try and achieve as a firm but also recognise there are certain individuals who've got you know activities that they really want to focus on they're passionate about them and yeah we know that having a passion about something is a yeah it's a good driver to hopefully make a success of something so… Often, so obviously we go about setting a budget and I look at that you know around 50 percent of our budget is about events and conferences those are mostly third party but there will be some internal ones as well yeah it has been challenging running some internal events but we'll come on to that in a bit I think however by understanding what my fee earners are planning to do enables us to have an early conversation about what resources needed what the aims are etc so I build in a buffer to for anything which is sits outside the strategic strategy or the plans and it gives also the ability to adapt to any ad hoc opportunities. I mentioned earlier about scrolling down the feed in LinkedIn if there's something coming up it might be that actually it's a really suitable opportunity for us that we are completely unaware of and that gives us the opportunity to actually go and do something with that rather than just say oh well it's out the budget so I sit down with the attorneys either as a group or as an individual in their plans and we talk about what's the you know what's the aim of an event so we're going to host one internally I'm usually driving that because it will come out of a team or an individual's plan and it will be about how do we actually grow their their network of people that they can connect with And that might be either for referral relationships. Or it may be for obviously trying to acquire a direct client as well. We'll look at the audience. So, you know, for our internal ones, we've been hosting some investor and innovator meetups recently around some different themes. And it's really important that we make sure that the audience is applicable to the venue. You so the concept for these events are that you're an investor you're going to come along for a couple of hours you're going to meet innovators who are creating ideas services, in the space that you're looking to invest in and vice versa if you're an innovator you'll find an investor who might have an interest in what you're doing we do obviously get service providers try and get on there and that's useful yeah useful for us to manage that list so that the people in the room up as pure as we could get it so that the conversations go on and i'll talk about how we benefit from that in a little while and then obviously costs there are some eye-watering prices out there if you're looking to rent space and I'm not talking just in London there are some absolutely insane prices which just make events of a sort of a bit of a test completely completely unviable and likewise there are some of you know third-party events mostly outside of the UK again where there are some you know, extortionate amounts of money on the premise that you might get to speak with four or five people who may vaguely have an interest in what you do at some point in the future and you know those that does become a big factor then. It is the cost of the actual participation but also the cost of the fee-earners chargeable time as well you know if we had people going out to events and conferences every every week our clients wouldn’t be too happy because their work would be getting dragged out over a period of time which is not acceptable, but also you know the attorneys need to have some time focused on the day-to-day work and yeah hopefully be near their their home and locale as well.  There's a big need to constantly be agile whilst having an anchor which is their BD strategy, and the BD budget so that things can be robustly discussed and challenged when necessary as well and that's often when you've got an outlier come in and say I want to do this or I'm going to do this or often I've signed up to this that you can actually have a conversation about it and learn from that.

Will:  Yeah it's interesting I mean you've got to have a bit of luck sometimes as well haven't you the timing has to be right as well with some of these events and you've touched upon it there but how do you sort of make sure that all of these events align with business development goals and also can you tell us a bit more about the process you know what does that process look like on the BD side in an ideal world for you?

John: Yeah so in the ideal world you would it sounds quite analytical and to some extent it is.  I mean you can make this as analytical as you. Want I think if you ask yourself at least one question you've taken a step towards being more robust around your events and your conferences that you're either putting on or you're you're going to, and it helps you check in yeah I think with many many firms there ends up being a habit that we go and participate in this because we've always done it and that's not to say that we don't do it it perhaps means that you adapt it in some way or you're or you're honest about what it is that you're getting from it so it might be that actually there's an event that people go to and they call it business development but actually it's more continued personal development or it might be more around just understanding what's going on in the industry and that there may not be anybody there that you're necessarily thinking that they're a primary connection i want to want to make as a an outset point to begin with. We know that in all law firms, it's good for the fee-earner, for people to get out and get away from the office on occasion, be that to an evening event or be that to a three-day conference, so that they can actually feel that they're getting a bit more from their role than simply crunching through the work, and that there's something more for them to adapt and be involved in. So if these cross over from two yeah both internal events but also third party events, Will, and I often start with does it fit in the business development plans? Pretty much every every fee-earner in our firm has an individual plan for some that's quite a complex document, that’s a live document others it's very simplistic it might have one or two things on it for others there might be lots of different activities they're involved in through the year and yeah often how does that fit into what the team's trying to achieve and how does that fit in with what the organisation's trying to achieve and yeah that's still work in progress for us it's something we're still working on because yeah someone will come along and say I want to do this which perhaps sits outside the strategy and it's working through as we said before about how it fits with the business aims. But the questions that I'll be asking myself is why this event so if if we're looking at attending an event or looking to put it on the event why what is it about this event you know what are the aims of us attending or putting this event on do they fit with BD or is it something else so at an early stage you might turn around and say actually there might not be much BD here. The attendees may be sitting in this particular space that we were aware of but perhaps we don't see as a direct linkage to our clients, but actually there's a learning point here so that's why we're going to attend it and any BD opportunities which fall out of it are a bonus. We then think about who should attend. So who in the firm, you know, if it's around a particular subject matter or we put it on about a particular subject matter, let's get the right people if they're available to actually be present and be involved in this. And what are we going to do while we're there? I'm sure we've been forced in our lifetime. People will be sent off to an event or conference and they are the people standing near the coffee or standing near the wall and not really want to engage with people because that's not something they're comfortable with and that's that's a whole other podcast about you know working with people about yeah enabling them to be more interactive in those sorts of sessions. Then we move into the research stage so again if it's something that we're looking to put on ourselves who are we going to invite who do we want to maybe speakers who do we want to participate in this and how we could find those people and reach them if we want them to be an attendee likewise what's the event about where we've got in our sites you know as a third-party event you know how has it been run previously how who tends to go have we been previously because sometimes we may have left something for a few years and it might be going back to it again so it's sort of doing some sort of high-level research on that and then practice what we're going to do there and put in place the logistics.

Obviously when we've ran the event or attended the event yeah what we've been building up to how do we make the most from this event what is it that what does good look like? My first proper sort of conference that I went to I remember my my line manager said go there and get at least five business cards. Which is fine and it was a yeah simple way of me having to interact with people. There was no value really to those business cards because we probably… I don't think we went into any depth about conversation about what it was that we were looking for offered because the conversations didn't simply get there but I came away with five business cards being a bit more sophisticated now I'd be looking for more quality than quantity. This comes into the debrief about we do look at how many qualitative conversations did you have so qualitative conversations to me not talking about travel there not talking about the weather but actually trying to have a conversation around perhaps what's been discussed or around what that person does what their entity does. Then we may move into follow-ups so you've got your let's call it your entry-level follow-up which is connecting with the person by email or LinkedIn afterwards great nice to meet you the event and this works for both internal and external events. And then you've got the high-quality follow-ups, which are where there may be an opportunity to at least continue the conversation. And you're moving towards finding a way to do that, which may be another face-to-face meeting, a Zoom call, or something else. Just a way of keeping the follow-up. And I think this is where many entities, many organizations fall over. However, I know from my inbox that I get, yeah, I get, not necessarily a follow-up, but I get an email and I may get a second email, but I don't get a third or fourth or fifth. And I think with, with follow-ups, you just have to bear in mind that a lot of this is about timing and also about relevance. Relevance so the follow-ups are probably the most important part of any event because that's the keeping the conversation going or at least nurturing the conversation so when you're planning the event have a think about what those follow-ups may look like you know do that initial do that initial email of course it doesn't need to be heavyweight unless there's something that you specifically were following up on however there may be some other emails that you're going to then send or whatever that communication might be and mix it up a bit some people. Don't read their emails but read their linkedin messages yeah you can maybe establish that if you've spoken to the person directly dare I say even a phone call yeah sometimes if someone phones me if I'm not busy I will take the call because i've been on the receiving end of this and And, you know, the phone calls can be an interesting way to have a two-way dialogue again. However, going back to, you know, if email is your flavour, that actually having something useful to send the person, it might be an invitation to another event. It might be some information that you wanted to share with them. It certainly isn't, did you read my previous email? Yeah, there's not many times that an email doesn't get through. So, yeah, you need to be a little bit thoughtful about these things. But the follow-ups are key. if you don't have anything that you're going to follow through with even if it's to have an understanding what email two or email three or even action two an action three look like perhaps you need to get those in place before you do so much more with the event, otherwise you do all that effort you go to that or put on that event and then your conversation dries up because you simply don't know what to do and then work gets busy and then nothing happens so it's paramount. If there's any fee-earners listening to this do discuss this with your BD marketing colleague about okay how we how am I going to continue the conversation what does it look like what are you comfortable doing I'm sure, Will I'm sure you'll pick up the phone just as well as I would do or have a Zoom call with the camera on just as much as I would do I know that's not what everyone's comfortable doing so we need to find different ways both for the person you're trying to nurture the relationship and also our colleagues about how that looks. And I think that is that is the sort of key way that's worked for me and for the firms that I've worked with. So what's the event? What's it about? What we're trying to get from it? Is it BD? or is it not BD? Whom from the team should attend what are we going to do while we're there are we going to hang around the coffee stand or actually we could go around the exhibitors are we going to make sure that the team is displaced around the room so that they can talk to all new arrivals if it's our own event what's the research we're going to do you know you can overdo that research you can have so much information that is unmanageable so think about the research you need to do and want to do and how you're going to deploy that think about the logistics so how we get in there what we're doing, what are we going to do around the event and practice as well you know work with the fee-earners on any any bits that they need about introducing themselves what they're going to say is there's particular messaging that they want to do, the engagement people. And then put in place that debrief. So try and put that in either when the event's happened or ideally, if you know when it's possible, put it in before the event even takes place so it's in the diary. And then obviously plan for those follow-ups and make sure those follow-ups are done as well or has to be copied into them or has to be kept up to date about them. And then, yeah, we use our CRM tracker to ensure that we do follow up on stuff. If we've not heard from someone for a week or two weeks, What's the next move? Okay, let's get back on that. And yeah, hopefully that will get some success, whatever success looks like from that event.

Will: There's a lot of great stuff in there, John, to unpack, and being obviously in BD myself, I fully understand what you're saying. And I suppose it's that coaching, you know, in terms of the follow-up and things like that. It's so important for fee earners to get it right, which is also to your other point, don't just stand by the coffee machine, not engaging. Because actually the conversations you have with, you know, future clients, existing clients, they're normally, they shape the follow-up, right? It's normally absolutely you have to have I'll just throw one one example that's what always makes me laugh but in a previous life I worked on magazines and things selling display space but I remember we went to Brussels one year and it was for a swimming pool magazine it sounds like something like have I got news for you would bring up but basically it was the best ever hook because I got I was trying to get particular bit of business from various companies this guy called Paul, I met him for the first time and I was like you know you advertise in the rival brand anyway we ended up you know as you do partying away having a few beers and the ultimate thing happened he left and he left his he left his Oakley sunglasses so i took them and obviously contacted him when we got back to england I said paul you've I’ve got your sunglasses. And he said oh can you send them to me and so I sent them in the post anyway when he received the next thing he did was he bought a page of advertising all right okay my magazine I was like yes! I mean it was the only one he bought unfortunately but the point was that was the ultimate hook because you know that I had something of his but yeah to your sage advice you sort of going to those events you you know you need that follow-up it's so key to have the follow-up and make it bespoke make it authentic and and make it something that's valuable for the key clients. Have you run a recent event or been to a third party event that you thought was really successful and what, and if, if so, you know, can you put your finger on what made it work so well?

John: Yeah, so there's a couple. One not so recent, but it's a good example, which I'll come to in a second. But from our own perspective, I've mentioned earlier about these investor and innovator meetups. Yeah, they are a trial. We're still in the trial stage. But yeah, we held our third one a couple of weeks ago. And we focused on a particular subject matter. And I think we've got better at understanding what we're trying to get from these. It is a challenge getting people to come along. so we had around 75 people signed up I think we had 50 percent turnout which is better than we received but actually it's about the quality of the people in the room and so we had the right people in the room because we you know we managed the guest list. There was a lot of people who were just trying to get on there we've absolutely no connection as an investor or an invader to the to the topic. When I have time we do try and obviously ascertain if there's something we're missing but a lot of time we just have to cancel the person's ticket because it's just yeah it's not a good use of my time chasing people when actually most people never get back to me. The beauty with the event recently was we did get more investors in the room so there were more conversations going on and we also had a couple of our clients turn up as well who are looking for funding so this is a bit of a service for them and you know through the event we've got a good level of follow-ups so yeah these aren't just hello nice to meet you these are actually opportunities so we've got a yeah probably close to about eight opportunities which uh you know have different degrees of probability of going somewhere. One of my colleagues turned around and said yeah I think we should continue doing these because actually it's a good use of my time it's only a couple of hours it's in the office so I can work in the office because we've been holding them in our London office, and i'm actually getting to speak to people more relevant than perhaps going to a more general industry or sort of topic conference which is where I tend to pick up more information and maybe about the broader marketplace but actually most people on the stands aren't the people I want to be speaking with they're not the innovators necessarily. So that was good and yeah we will continue to you know hopefully run a few more events to cement that.

The other event I was thinking of was one which was held in a bit of a remote location. So it was a taxi journey from the railway station. It wasn't in London. However, what the organisers had done really well, and they'd actually gone with a hybrid event, which was a bit quirky because we were back into seeing people. It was probably about 100 people at the event. But what they've done really well was they'd factored in some buffer time for networking and stuff they understood that people going along to conferences yes of course you'd be speaking to people to your left and right maybe behind you but actually having that time to then spend with other delegates and talk to people was important and yeah they did you know it was a commercial event so they would have had the need to fill the agenda with you know paid to speak opportunities, however it was important and it was well-received, actually they did build in that buffer time so that when things overran you still had 15 minutes or 20 minutes to actually grab a coffee and speak to some people rather than oh can you just grab a coffee and come straight back in and that's yeah that's probably something for everyone to think about if they're organising something over a day or half a day is remember that yeah some people were there to actually connect and listen with and talk with other people and as much as it is about how important the conference is the ability to ask questions and get answers from people both speakers and otherwise is very important.

Will: Yeah, that's an interesting point, John, as well. I think when thinking about events as a mix, as you said at the start, in reality, you're not going to get a deal probably straight away at an event. It is that touch point. And there's different types of events as well that you can build into your plan over the year, right? So there's those more intimate ones that you described, the sort of investors coming. We do sort of roundtables that are quite intimate. And then you get to spend quality time. It's all about the quality of people and it's a very intimate setting which is very different than you know a massive lavish industry event which also has its perks but it might just be more about getting the brand out there or slapping the backs of existing clients you know that so there is a different mix to think about in terms of that.

John: That's spot on, Will, I mean, I think where I've taken the firm to now is we do sometimes attend award dinners there's a couple of memberships where they have events or dinners in locations that people just wouldn't normally get access to and we use those more as a predominantly as a thank you to our existing clients or our contacts or referral contacts because it's a nice environment something they wouldn't be experienced to before and rather than trying to put the hard drive onto BD of course we try and get along a potential new client or potential new referrer where we can however we don't see it as a fail if we don't it's it's about yeah building those relationships and sometimes as you know you're sat around a table or you might be having a drink pre-event and the conversation drifts to the subject that you haven't really discussed before we haven't gone into any depth before and you find that nugget that actually helps develop that relationship even further or that opportunity which actually enables you both to collaborate further. That's something that a Zoom call certainly doesn't always get because we're, you know, or even in the office around a meeting table. Sometimes it's that social, that sort of semi-social element that can just let the conversation flow somewhere else.

Will: Yeah, it's really interesting. And I think we touched upon this before. People do act quite differently at the big exhibitions as well. It seems like if you believe them, everyone will buy from you.

John: Yeah, I think the euphoria of what's said at the conference isn't necessarily what then happens a day or week or month later.

Will:  Yeah which again comes back to your point about follow-up you know that is that is why it's important actually sometimes you can waste a lot of time following up with the wrong person actually and it never it never was an opportunity just something again that you sort of learn I suppose over time with experience. John, I'm going to start with a few quick-fire questions for you now if that's okay. So the first one is going to be what are you listening to or are you actually reading, old school books these days?

John: So it's a bit of a pleasure read I'm still working my way through finishing off the books I bought for my holiday back in august so it's a John Le Carre novel called A Most Wanted Man, so no spoilers please. I'm still early days into that one.

Will:  You sound like me, yeah all the best laid plans you take a book away and then you don't actually read much of it or you get through halfway and then you…

John: That's it.

Will:  Yes, good stuff, next question what was your what was your first job?

John:  So straight out of school when when you didn't have to do college or apprenticeships so that ages me a little bit I went and worked in a for warehouse for plumbing merchants I did that for about a year but then I guess my first career as I call it was with the royal air force was an engineer for about 12 years.

Will: Yeah, that sounds like a proper job, that one. Question three, personally and professionally, what is the one piece of technology that you can't live without?

John: Right. Well, personally, any device that can play music. Yeah, music's the soul of life. Professionally, I think LinkedIn, I use that quite significantly in my professional life. So, yeah, that as a platform is quite a robust resource for me.

Will: What's a small habit you have you think could help others?

John:  So I guess back to LinkedIn really, Will. Yeah, if someone was to spend five to ten minutes each day, it doesn't have to be a complete ten minutes and stop.You can split it up throughout the day. Just trawling through your LinkedIn feed, particularly if you set it to recent rather than top, so alternate it so you've got a bit of top and then you've got a bit of the top posts and then the recent posts what I've discovered is it's a really excellent way of finding any news or insights pertinent to myself or my colleagues or indeed I've actually found events which is what we're talking about today that I may not have been aware of so we've got them either for coming up in the future or indeed they may have just happened and it's something to sort of mark down for maybe the next financial year so that's my that's probably my one habit that I've formed and stuck with big.

Will: Big shout out to LinkedIn today, you can't answer LinkedIn for this next question because you can't visit it…  where is your favorite place to visit and why?

John:  Okay so it's been quite a number of years since i've been there but Corsica is a hidden gem. I've been mountain walking there done beach holidays there it's it's got such a dramatic change of landscape. And it's such a it's an island you can you know if you wanted to you can get around in probably a couple weeks but it's better to take your time there. It's just a great location during the summer i wasn't to add to go to with such a dramatic change of landscapes particularly up in the north northeast so highly recommended.

Will:  Yeah I can testament for that as well i've actually been there and done some cycling there which was well some lovely mountains to go up.

John:  Yes yeah it's easier to walk than the probably cycle the way I imagine.

Will: Great stuff. John, it's been fascinating because obviously it's a an area that I work in as well and it's been great having you on i'm going to try and there's a lot to unpack for our listeners but I'm going to try and steer towards on this last question. One piece of advice that you would give someone coming through in BD or some of your peers in terms of if they're thinking about events and taking this more BD-focused approach, to conferences, third-party ones, ones that they're running, what would your one sage bit of advice be?

John: Yeah, so I guess this is something that we do on an ongoing basis is list the activities you currently do or you're planning to do. Yeah, get it onto a spreadsheet or whatever works for you get just get it written down and then map those against your business running objectives you know the aims and then what outcomes you're expecting from that as well and as I said you know if you start putting down I want to get 14 conversions from an event well. If you're even a certain product line you probably get that but I think in professional services you might need to measure that a little bit so yeah think about a realistic outcome which might be, two follow-ups or whatever that might be or x amount of conversations but how does it fit into your BD plan and then once you've sort of started looking at that. Include the fee-earners in the discussion because they will give you a full narrative I've had two people go to the same conference one person say I'm not going back again another person go this is great I want to go again and they've got different reasons for doing that so yeah you have to include them because one, they're the people who are often doing it. And secondly, if you ask some open questions, you may get some information that moves away from the numbers. It's not about just how many conversations do you have. It's where do those conversations go? What else did they learn? And then once you've got that information, then you can take it back and robustly look at it and say, well, if we're going to spend £20,000 on hosting this conference or going to this conference with X amount of people. Or how does this fit in with the plan? You can then look at, okay, it does this, it does this, it does this. And then you know, moving forward, that you've taken a look at it. If you don't do that it's all a little bit guesswork isn't it. You know, just a simple thing of list the activities map them, look at the aims, outcomes and talk about them and that that will take you many steps forward from perhaps if you're not doing that where you are now.

Will: There you go. Good stuff and it sounds like an ongoing education piece as well in getting people to do that.

John:  Of course it is we're all we're all yeah we all have our own ways of approaching stuff and yeah the reality is not everyone's going to do it the way that you think that they should be doing it because everyone's got their own style or their own approach it's trying to bring it as close to some form of consistency around how you do it, will then give you the ability to look across everything and see how it fits and is it doing what you expected to do and if not what can you do to change it.

Will: John thanks so much for coming on, some brilliant bits of advice there good luck with all of your upcoming events for the rest of the year and thank you for sharing that with all of our listeners.

John: Will, it's been a pleasure thank you very much.