Spoiler Alert: Your Company Event Will Be Fun But Probably Won’t Help Your Business Much

Events.

From Network Marketing, Real Estate, to Insurance, events are hallowed ground. The conventional wisdom goes, “If you want to be REALLY successful, you have to get to ALL of the company events.”

This line and its many variations are repeated ad nauseam from leaders and would be leaders alike every 3–6 months in commission based sales opportunities.

Downlines are pulverized from all angles with event hype. And it’s masterful hype. Every event is set to be the “game changer”, “epic”, “life-changing”, and so on.

With all this noise about events, it must be absolutely proven without a shadow of a doubt that events help you grow your business right?

Wrong.

Let’s Give Events Their Due

I’ve been to countless events over the years for companies I’ve been affiliated with. And every one of them was enjoyable. There are some things I think are really cool about events that can’t be ignored.

You meet some really cool people on the same journey as you.

Most people in your regular life have no clue as to why you’re excited to do the kind of work you’ve chosen to do. Which is a nice way to say they think you’re nuts. When you go to events you get to spend a few days around a bunch of people who are on the path with you. It’s great to shake hands and break bread with folks you only know from Facebook Groups and Conference Calls. If you play your cards right you can make some lifelong friends.

You get dunked in your business.

Being away from home and all its responsibilities allows you to be dunked in the Kool-Aid for a few days. While the effects of this are super shorted lived when you get back home, you do get a chance to be an entrepreneur all the way for a few days and that allows you think about things you may have never thought about before.

You see leaders as they are… normal people.

I remember one of my first events. I went down for an early morning hotel breakfast and there having the same cold eggs and day old coffee was one of the biggest leaders in our company at the time. We get a little too easily star struck by the person on the conference call, webinar, or website and forget, their lives are remarkable normal. They don’t wear capes or have any superpowers. This is worth the prices of admission; if they can do it, I can do it.

Decoding The Fishing Stories

All that being said, it drives me right to the crazy when I hear folks say things like, “If you’re really serious about your business” or “If you want to succeed”…. “You have to be at every event.”

Friends, this is just not true.

Please read this very carefully. There has never been one study, one evaluation of performance done by someone outside your organization, that has ever conclusively shown that the master key to success is attending events. It doesn’t exist. It’s a fishing story.

But this is where it gets interesting.

This line of “get to events” sells really well to a group that is largely failing. Look at any group of commission based sales folks and most are failing. There are many reasons for that but when folks are hurting they will take any medicine a doctor prescribes if they think it can take the pain away.

Events are good business for companies because they have to find a way to keep a largely failing and struggling field engaged. Events are the giant carrot to dangle in front of the field to do just that.

Ever notice how most events often will have elements such as launches, product releases, or some earth-shattering piece of information that will only be available at the event? Those are the carrots.

And those elements work. There’s nothing wrong with that other than being incredibly patronizing because given enough time the audio and videos of the event will be released to the field. (normally for sale) The “secret information” will be passed onto the field in the coming weeks. The sizzle will have stopped sizzling and everyone’s attention span is just short enough to not even notice.

This whole “have to be at the event to be successful” thing is confirmation bias as its best. The new person sees leader X at the event. The new person says, “If I want to be where they are, I have to go to all the events too!”

Huh?

The activities that got leader X to the leader X position have absolutely nothing to do with the event. It has to do with the daily actions, consistently taken over time.

The hype surge from an event has a shelf life of about half a second. The cool lights, thundering music, and cheering don’t last. Why do so many people who attend one event never come back? Because they’ve already quit. Event motivation IS NOT enough.

I know top producers in network marketing, real estate, and insurance that either attend events fairly infrequently or not at all. And it works just fine for them.

Notice though I’m not suggesting that the key to success is to not attend events. That would be wildly speculative and lacking some serious data. Just like saying, “If you want to do well you have to attend” is equally as irresponsible because it’s not universally true. If it were universally true, every person who attended an event would leave and come back to the next in better shape every time. They obviously don’t. That’s not the events fault or the companies, but painting with such a broad brush as to preach events are the “key to success” is ridiculous.

Attendance vs. Production

The world of sales, whatever flavor it is, is highly emotional. Radical highs, dark lows. And often when emotion runs high critical thinking takes a back seat.

Destination style events (where you have to travel and stay away from your home) are expensive. If you have children and other work responsibilities, are difficult to pull off sometimes.

Understand this; if you can’t attend for whatever reason, that DOES NOT mean you can’t still do very well in your business of choice.

You get paid on production not on attendance.

If you’re a leader, encourage event attendance but ease up on the dogmatic zealotry. Because when examined in light of facts, what you’re saying is just not true. It sounds good, but it’s not true.

You can change up the scripting just a little and at least make it closer to true. “Many people who attend events do better in their businesses.”

That’s better but also still incomplete.

There are so many factors that contribute to sales and/or recruiting success. Events may be the sacred cow that is worshipped as the “only way” but it’s long overdue that we kick that cow over and deal with facts instead.

Before You Go…

If you speak fluent entrepreneur and the thought of a day job nearly gives you a panic attack, you’ll be among friends here.