You will plan, run and follow up a small event for clients and their guests.
You have three event ideas from lesson 7.1, a one-page plan from lesson 7.2 and a decision about keeping clients connected from lesson 7.3. This project puts them to work. You'll plan, run and follow up one small event for clients and their guests, then record what came of it.
It takes about an hour of focused work spread over a few weeks, plus the event itself. Most of the time goes on invitations and follow-up, which is where the value is.
Run one small client event in the next four to six weeks. Invite a small group of clients, each with a plus-one. Run it to your plan, and talk to every guest. Follow up within two days. Record attendance, guests, follow-ups sent, contacts made and the consent status for each new contact, and any referral that comes out of it.
Small means small enough that you personally talk to every person there. For most people that's somewhere between six and fifteen guests including plus-ones. If you work in a regulated industry, get your firm's approval for the event and any materials before you send invitations, and build in time for it.
Start from the event plan you wrote in lesson 7.2, Plan and run a client event. Confirm the date, venue and topic. Then pick the clients to invite. Choose clients who'd find the topic useful and who are likely to bring a good guest; the referrers in your tracker from lesson 6.4, Build your referral system, are a natural place to start.
Send each invitation personally, with a specific plus-one: "Feel free to bring a practice manager from another clinic who might find this useful." Ask for dietary needs only if you're serving food. Tell guests how you'll use their contact details. Send a reminder a few days before.
Wei Ling invited eight practice managers to a breakfast on handling the Monday rush, each with a plus-one. Six said yes, and four of them brought a guest, so she planned for ten.
On the day, arrive early. Greet each person as they come in, and introduce guests to each other by what they have in common. If you're taking photos to post, say so at the start and respect anyone who'd rather not appear.
Keep your talk short and practical, with no selling, and leave plenty of time for discussion. Your main job is to talk to every guest, not just the clients you know best. Ask the plus-ones about their work. Listen more than you talk. Make a quick note after the event, or discreetly during a break, of what each person mentioned, so your follow-up can be personal.
Wei Ling's breakfast ran 75 minutes. She gave a 15-minute talk, then moved between tables. By the end she'd had a proper conversation with all ten guests, and had noted, for example, that one guest's clinic was about to open a second branch.
Follow up within two days, while the event is fresh. Send each guest a thank-you with one personal line based on your conversation, and any material you promised, such as slides or a checklist. Send a personal thank-you to each client who brought a guest.
For guests who showed interest in what you do, send a short separate message suggesting a further conversation, with a reason that's about them. Wei Ling wrote to the guest whose clinic was opening a second branch: "Good to meet you on Tuesday. You mentioned the second branch opening in March. If it'd help to talk through how other clinics handled bookings across two sites, I'd be happy to, say 20 minutes in the next few weeks?"
Before you add any guest to your CRM, a group or a mailing list, check that they've agreed to it.
Then record the event in one place, in your tracker or a simple sheet. Include: who attended, which clients brought guests and who those guests were, the follow-up sent to each person and the date, any new contact with their consent status, and any referral or meeting that came from the event.
Wei Ling's record showed ten attendees, four guests, ten thank-yous sent the next day, three guests who agreed to stay in touch, and one meeting booked with the clinic opening a second branch. She added the four guests to her referral tracker with the client who brought each one as the referrer, so the thank-you and updates from module 6 would happen too.
A finished project is an event that actually happened, with an attendance list, the guests brought and who brought them, follow-up messages sent within two days, and new contacts recorded with their consent status. Add two lines on what you'd change next time. The activity below asks you to run the event and keep that record.
Run a small client event and record attendance, guests, follow-ups sent and contacts made with their consent status.
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