I just read the following and thought that it would be important to share with our readers… Even if things work differently at your place of business, remember that ‘things’ often change.

Before you dive into the details of event planning next year, be prepared to defend your decisions. One of our Clients now require the following input as a bare minimum in the process of event planning. I thought the instructions were worth sharing:

“Dear Business Development Executive,
If you wish to tap the marketing budget for your event in 2010, please answer the following questions and we will review your application in the order in which it was received:
1) which of our solutions can be sold (incremental business) by inviting people to this event?
2) exact cost (number of people and cost per person)?
3) how many leads / business opportunities can be generated with this event?
4) how much revenue do I expect to generate from these leads?

Each event planner needs to follow this procedure for each event in order to be eligible for funding. Should you feel that this process is a waste of time, we wish you the best of luck with your self-funded / sponsored event.”