Unit five: Principles of supporting business events

Assessment

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Please note that this Assessment document has 3 pages and is made up of 3 Sections.

Name:

Section 1 – Understand how to support the organisation of a business event

1. When organising a business event, describe the range of support activities that may be required.

When organising an event there are so many support activities that are required and these will vary depending on the size of the event. Firstly the venue needs to be arranged, this very often has to be done with quite a big advance notice as places can be booked far in advance depending on popularity. You need to make sure that it is big enough to hold your event but not too big where it will look like nobody has attended, also sticking within a budget is important as venues can be very expensive.
Equipment needs to be arranged, are computers needed? Will you be talking to a large crowd and will need microphones? Or on an even larger scale, a stage and public toilets may be needed to be arranged. Getting to the day event and realising you do not have the appropriate equipment could lead to a disaster of an event.
Who will be at your event? Perhaps a speaker is needed, someone who people will come to the event especially to see, their availability needs to be checked and again, making sure they are within a budget. The speaker could be the main focus point of the whole event so it is normally recommended not to scrimp on the costing for this.
You need to ensure that refreshments are provided, whether that be that cold water or hot drinks are on hand, or you may be putting on a banquet for your guests, you need to ensure that the if there are any special diet requirements they are catered for.
It’s all good and well having a fabulous event and being all organised, but you need to people to turn up!- that involves advertising and promotion. Whether it be a simple email sent, rsvp invites in the post are ticket sales, this will also give you a rough idea of attendance numbers.
Some places need certain licenses so it is important that these are adhered to, for example if you wanted to provide alcohol you need to make sure that the venue you have arranged is allowed to serve it, also it is worth looking into insurance for you event, for example the weather may completely undermine your whole event, if you have insurance then this will cover you incase you need to cancel.

2. Complete the table below by identifying two ways of providing support before, during and after a business event.

Before During After
1.

Booking a venue, ensuring that it is perfect for your event - introduce yourself to management and keep in contact. Careful planning.

1.

Liaise with venue staff, making sure that they all know their responsibilities and what is expected.
Helping afterwards to tidy and show appreciation.

1.

You could offer a review of the event, show your appreciation by sending some form of thanks. Recommend to others if the event was a success.
Return any hired equipment.

2.

Send out invitations/ Sell Tickets

2.

Warm welcome, collecting tickets and offering a drink when they enter the venue

2.

Send out thank you letters, appreciation notes. Send some kind of letter to let people know the outcome of event. If money was raised, highlight the positives.
Produce minutes and notes to send to the attendees.
Inform of next event if poss.

Section 2 – Understand the purpose of displaying professional and helpful behaviour whilst supporting a business event and how to do so

1. Explain the purpose of displaying professional and helpful behaviour when supporting a business event.

The impact of your behaviour can have a huge effect on the event in so many ways, no matter what the purpose of the event, having a professional attitude and acting well behaved will ultimately have a better outcome than if you don’t.

People are very judgemental when it comes to first impressions and it can be hard to change their opinion, so from the very beginning you need to remain professional when sending out the invites all the way through to thanking them for coming.

If you are unprofessional or badly behaved, this will not only reflect on yourself but also the company and could mean losing custom and business. Acting professional will gain respect from your guests and they will take you more serious with what it is that you want to say, plus if the event is a success they are more likely to talk about it and attend the next one. However, if the event is not a success then they are very likely to talk about it – just not in the way you would like.

2. Describe ways of exhibiting professional and helpful behaviour whilst supporting a business event.

There are many ways of exhibiting professional and helpful behaviour, this may be over the phone/email or face-to-face. You need to ensure that you are organised, have control of the situation and remain calm.

Being helpful doesn’t always necessarily mean knowing exactly what to say, but if you remain positive and friendly then this will have a very positive effect with all situations, this could simply be by having a clean image, well groomed and fresh breathed. Smiling and showing clear signs that you are listening.

It is important to keep attendees informed at all times, whether that be a change to the itinerary or a polite notice on dress code, they will appreciate any information you can offer. Not only attendees but staff need to be kept updated regularly, you may find it more efficient to have a checklist, making sure that tasks are completed and making sure that high priority issues are dealt with. There will be a lot to remember, so something simple like telling a member of staff that their shift has changed may not be a

You must be prepared for any questions that someone may ask you, so making sure you have done your research is important, as it will look professional if you are able to answer the question clearly and confidently.

Section 3 – Understand how to deal with problems encountered when supporting a business event

1. What are the main types of problems that may occur when supporting a business event? You should include at least three different types of problems in your answer.

There are many problems that may occur, whether that be large or small, problems that you have control over and problems you don’t.
People can cause many problems when it comes to arranging an event, you may have a guest speaker booked in and then they let you down last minute, this can be a huge problem depending on the scale of who they are and the demand to see them.
Equipment very often has issues that can cause mayhem at an event, I recently went to a concert where the video footage for the people at the back to see, wasn’t working properly, this resulted in people complaining and not enjoying themselves as much as they could have done.
Issues can occur from problems with processes too, very often now businesses use mail-merge to send an email out to a mass of people. This could be the method used to send out invitations to the event, but there is always a chance of this going wrong and the invite being sent to the wrong people.
Weather is also a huge factor when it comes to problems, especially if the whole of your event is for a dry weather condition. You need to ensure that you are prepared for anything changing last minute.

2. Identify possible solutions for each of the problems you have listed in Question 1 above.

When a problem arises one of the most important things to remember is to stay calm, nobody wants to see you fail so do not be afraid to ask for help when needed.

If a guest speaker for example decides not turn up last minute, this can be very disappointing, but you need to be prepared for this and have a backup plan, ask people who have arranged similar events for advice. What about previous to this, does this speaker have a history of letting people down? If so, maybe it’s worth not even booking them in the first place, prevent it from happening from the offset.

It is hard to have a solution for equipment failure, but it is important to ensure that you have a test run, double checking that all equipment is working properly beforehand and learning from previous events, what worked well before and what didn’t. Remembering the words ‘what if’, there is always a chance that something will go wrong, so eliminating as many of these before the event is important.

With processes, just from one simple click of a button a huge error can be made. You need to remain calm, if for example it is that a mass email invite was sent out to the wrong people, remain calm, be polite and apologise for the mistake. People will understand that there is such a thing as human error, but if possible, try and get to them first before they point out your mistake to remain professional and controlled of the situation.
Resend the email but making sure that extra care and attention is given, get someone else to triple check it for you, people understand when one mistake is made but a repeat mistake will just look unprofessional and have a negative impact on your business.