Have you given your Advisory Council member roster a good, long look recently?  I am not talking about just looking at the number of members, but really analyzing the level of engagement from each member.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with realizing there are members on your Advisory Council who may have passed their prime or just no longer fit your Council's profile.  As such, it is important to review membership engagement on an annual basis.  These are just a few areas I recommend you consider when reviewing the level of engagement from each Advisory Council member:

1. Attendance and level of participation in Advisory Council functions, such as regular Council meetings and interim conference calls.
2. Willingness to be an advocate for your company or provide a referral.
3. The member continues to provide a perspective relevant to the strategic direction of your company.

In order to drive sustainable, predictable, and profitable growth, you must gain the level of insight only fully engaged customer decision makers can offer. Ensure your Advisory Council is providing that direction by evaluating each member's level of engagement.

As a project manager one of my responsibilities is developing timelines and project plans for my customer’s executive programs.  It is amazing to me as I put each project plan together, the number of individuals it takes to pull off a successful executive summit.  It truly takes the all hands on deck approach to coordinate all of the details and execute on each line of a project plan.   Key resources must be identified up front for overall program management, marketing creative, print production and communications.  Each of these areas is reliant upon the other to complete assigned tasks.


The list of areas necessary to execute each summit may vary by organization, but the areas I listed above are the ones I recommend be top priority.  Before you begin any summit planning activities make sure that you have identified the key resources you will need to have a successful summit for your organization.  I have a few other things that you may want to check out on our Execuitve Summit Checklist.

I just returned from an Executive Summit in Boston that had a full agenda with keynote speakers, panel discussions and interactive sessions with attendees. The planning and time dedicated to its success started well before the October event ever occurred. The all hands on deck approach was critical to ensuring every detail was taken care of, from the name badges to the on-site preparation with participants.

I wanted to share a few insights that might help with the initial planning for your next Executive Summit. In order to make your event something memorable for attendees, creating a brand for the summit and maintaining a personal touch throughout the event are areas I wanted to highlight.

Creating a Summit Brand

The selection of a summit name, associated graphics, colors, etc should be at the top of your priority list. Each of these items drives the overall summit brand and every piece of collateral that is created for the event. You want to create name recognition for the event, which perpetuates conversations about the summit long after the event has concluded. The summit brand is also extremely important if you decide to continue hosting summits into the future. Think about the brand recognition that events like Oracle’s OpenWorld or SAP’s Sapphire have within the IT space.

Maintaining a Personal Touch

The Executive Summits I have attended each included 50 attendees or less allowing the sponsoring company and each attendee to spend quality time networking and getting to know each other on a personal level. The smallest details around the attendee experience will ensure a connection is made with everyone. The connection begins with the personalized invitations and doesn’t end until a hand written thank you note is sent to each attendee.

What can you do to make your summit experience more personal?

My last blog detailed the preparation needed prior to extending the first invitation to a customer executive for your Executive Sponsor Program (ESP).  You are ready and your executive is ready to make initial contact with the customer executive.  There are many methods of contact, so determine the best approach for each customer executive.

• Meeting 
• Phone Call
• E-mail as the last resort

In my experience the majority of the invitations to customer executives are all made via phone.  Everyone has a hectic schedule, so actually getting the customer executive live on the phone the first time is pretty low.  I would like to offer a few tips in getting the customer executive to respond to your invitation:

Voicemail
• Zero-out to gain access to their administrative assistant
• Find out the mode of communication preferred and the time of day they can be reached; schedule 15 minutes on their calendar
• Focus attention on the company’s key challenges, industry trends or a compelling event

If you have been unsuccessful in contacting the customer executive by phone, as I mentioned earlier, the last resort would be to reach out to the customer executive through e-mail. 

E-mail
• Grab their attention in the subject line
• Keep the message brief (mobile device friendly)
• No attachments

Don’t be discouraged if multiple attempts have to be made before you receive a “yes” from the customer executive.  It is your follow-up and follow through that will make the difference to your customer executive.