TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Our Experience for Your Use
This website was created created and co-founded by us – Sarah Breymeier and Ann Dosen.
Both of us have spent nearly ten years in the podiatry industry, attending dozens upon dozens of podiatric meetings and trade shows.
Therefore, we want to put our experience to good use!
Below are some helpful “tricks of the trade” from us to you… enjoy!
GOOD ADVICE – PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
No matter if you work in the podiatric profession as physician, vendor, or meeting organizer/planner, utilizing the tips and resources supplied below will serve you well!
Increase your Productivity and Without Getting Overwhelmed.
I read this book cover to cover in just a couple of days. It’s been a few years since I read it, but it always stands out as one that I recommend to anyone that wants to continue to achieve. Whether you own a small business (like a podiatry practice or a device company), it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the things you should be doing.
The Slight Edge provides practical/doable advice to help you set your goals and break down the activities that must take place to achieve those goals – step by step. By doing a little bit every single day, you will see big changes over time. There’s no need to do everything in one day, one week, one month, or even one year.
Do one action item every single day and the result will show itself!
-SARAH
Every day I listen to at least one podcast episode while I’m driving or working out to give me inspiration for the day. There are days when I wake up and don’t want to do a single thing other than catch up on episodes of Outlander, but after listening to one of these podcasts, I know I can take over the world! No matter what your daily life brings you, every single person on the planet will get something out of listening to these individuals.
John Maxwell Leadership Podcast – a weekly podcast from the leadership authority John Maxwell. This podcast focuses on the principles, practices, and process of becoming a transformational leader. Even if leadership is not one of your primary goals, the principles translate to any project or position you are in. I always come away with new motivation or a fresh outlook on a current project. Each episode comes with a downloadable resource to work through.
Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield – Amy Porterfield is considered the GIANT in the online marketing space. She is so inspiring to listen to. Her episodes include expert interviews, mini execution plans, and secrets from her product and service launches; all tied together by her mission to make each episode as actionable and profitable as possible. Every episode I listen to of hers gets me thinking about the next big thing I want us to tackle. Her advice is tangible and for real life.
Rise Podcast with Rachel Hollis – hosted by the best-selling author of “Girl, Wash Your Face”, this podcast is a series of conversations with business powerhouses and personal development leaders where each episode provides listeners with tactical, valuable takeaways.
-ANN
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Tips for DPMs
CHECK OUT OUR LIBRARY OF DPM DOWNLOADS – CLICK HERE!
Making Changes YOU Choose
This month, Ann's tip for meeting planners got my brain in gear about the same topic. She stated, one of the phrases she and I love to hate is, "we've always done it that way." If you want to see my unfiltered eye roll, that's one of the phrases you can use in front of me! This can go in several directions, but we're talking meetings - so how does this apply? We've hit on this concept before with No More Going Through the Motions. This year forced us to change in several ways (i.e. we are all now experts at Zoom [...]
Maximize Your Meeting Success with our New Meeting Workbook
We are extremely excited to launch our newest tool for DPMs to maximize success at their continuing education meetings and events. In Denver, during the APMA National Conference, DPMs will be able to purchase this valuable resource to ensure that you document everything you need for optimal learning from lectures, as well as optimal practice growth from the vendor hall. What can you expect to find in this handy-dandy tool? You will have an organized and complete outlet to take notes and remember all your important details including: Meeting Details for Future Reference Determine Educational Plans and Goals Helpful Checklists [...]
Working ON your Practice vs IN Your Practice
I'm sure the phrase, "you need to work ON your business vs. IN your business" is not unfamiliar. Like most business owners, finding time to stop yourself from being your company's best employee can be difficult; or it may just be a matter of changing habits along with time management. It also is a matter of being able to let go of some tactical control and delegate jobs that you are currently taking on yourself. I will be the first to admit that I am not good at that at all. I have major control issues - like most [...]
Avoiding the “Negative Nancy” Conversations
Meetings - while the number one goal is education, an equally important side effect is inspiration! Who is able to feel inspired and motivated if your energy is being pulled down by "Negative Nancies?" You know the pessimistic types of people I'm referring to... at a meeting they usually have these types of comments: "Wow, breakfast was horrible; I can't believe they fed us all sugar and carbs." "The lectures have all been so commercially charged; I can't believe they're letting the speakers get away with this." "The sales rep in the exhibit hall are so pushy; I can't go [...]
Engage Your Staff with Exhibit Hall Activities
We always encourage physicians to bring along their staff to conferences whenever possible. While you're in lectures, your team can be exploring the exhibit hall. Here's a great way to make it fun while also previewing new products and services for you to check out. Host an Exhibit Hall Scavenger Hunt! This is an entertaining project to get the team involved in a way that gets you some great information about a meeting's exhibitors and helps you make some important purchasing decisions. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR SCAVENGER HUNT SHEET! Want more DPM Downloads? CLICK HERE -ANN
No more just going through the meeting motions… make a plan – PART 2
Last month's newsletter provided thoughts regarding how you can increase the value of your meetings if you take some time to make an action plan beforehand. Click here to read that article. As promised, your DPM Downloads are now available to help you get that plan off the ground! CLICK HERE TO GO TO DPM DOWNLOADS AND GET YOURS NOW.
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Ideas for Meeting Planners
Improve Your Digital Branding Offerings
Have you been disappointed by the lack of interest in your organization’s digital branding opportunities for exhibitors and sponsors? Sarah and I have been having many discussions with our exhibitor colleagues lately and one of the topics we’ve been focusing on is the current branding opportunities available to exhibitors at meetings. We 100% believe in online, digital advertising. I mean, our livelihood is a website, right?! However, when reviewing various conference prospectus’ for digital opportunities, we’ve been noticing a need for improvement. Many times, the opportunity offered is a logo placement on the organization's website or in email communication. While logo [...]
Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner
During our Experienced Exhibitor Mastermind sessions, the focus was to brainstorm strategies meeting planners can implement to improve the exhibitor experience. Let me tell you, we came up with a TON of solid gold genius ideas. No way am I going to tell you all of them in one article! However, I will share two issues and solutions that came up repeatedly. Location, location, location. No, this time we’re not talking about booth location. We’re talking about the location of the exhibit hall. Too often, the exhibit hall is the furthest ballroom from the hotel or registration area. Exhibitors often walk past room [...]
Creating Fun and Inspired Environments
Over the last several days, Ann and I have had multiple conversations with exhibitors to gain insight which will could help meeting planners better understand how they can improve the exhibitor experience at their events. During that conversation, one of several interesting comments was made... to better communicate it, I will try to quote it: EXHIBITOR A : We crushed sales at that meeting; it was really good! EXHIBITOR B: We did too; we probably had more sales at that meeting than any other in the last several months. After I heard these two anonymous exhibitors make these statements, I [...]
“We’ve Always Done it This Way” is No Longer an Answer
One of our favorite phrases to hate is, "We've always done it this way." Sarah and I believe in change, in moving forward, in "rolling with the punches." While preparing the content for this month's newsletter, I read an article that shares these sentiments and warns about being hesitant to embrace what may be the future of events. In the article, the Convene editors write and quote Liz Caruso, founder and CEO of the techsytalk conference, "'I think organizers have been stuck in the way they have always done things. The concepts have been around for a long time, and [...]
Choosing Your Meeting Venue/City
Over the years we've been to all sorts of cities and hotels for meetings; i.e. large cities like Vegas, Chicago, NYC, Washington D.C. There have also been smaller cities that don't pack as much of a tourist punch. There are a lot of items to consider when putting on a meeting, and choosing a destination is a huge one. Often when speaking to DPMs, they tell us that they love the tourist cities because they can basically take a vacation. They can even take their families along. However, we challenge you to consider this - what does a big tourist [...]
Working ON your Meeting vs. IN your Meeting.
If you read this month's DPM and/or Vendor "Tricks of the Trade", you will catch that the theme for this month's newsletter is to work ON your business vs. IN your business. For meeting planners, specifically, this one is especially tough because so much of your event is simply getting it done. However, while meetings are task-oriented (and there are a million tasks), I think it's fair to say sometimes we are guilty of copying/pasting versus allocating the time to work on the elements of progress we know we need. But again, where do we start? Let's start with a [...]