Reacquainted with Oxley - by Lisa Wood

I recently took a trip down memory lane and visited Oxley Hall with my colleague Natalie Ruecroft (AKA Ginger).  I used to be the Assistant Hall Manager at Oxley Hall some 16 years ago and I must say I felt like a queen living, and working, in such a beautiful hall.  What a way to start my University career!

Working in the central sales office we have recently had a number of new enquiries for Oxley, hence our visit to introduce Natalie to the hall, and for myself to be reacquainted with the venue that kick-started my career.

I have fond memories of Oxley and the lovely surroundings. There are new flats in the grounds now as well as the main hall bedrooms, enhancing the selling opportunities – perfect for my current role!

Since visiting I have already secured a hockey camp booking for the Hall (ideal with it being next to Weetwood playing fields that are managed by the University’s sports department) and potentially a government booking at the venue also.

Post by MEETinLEEDS.

Knowing the Hall as I do I am confident that they will all have a fantastic stay and that they’ll all enjoy a real Oxley Hall welcome!

Oxley Hall is our #venueofthemonth for February.  You can find out more about Oxley Hall at www.meetinleeds.co.uk/oxleyresidences

You say jump, we say: how high? - by Ryan Johnson

They say that in order to succeed, any endeavour must adhere to the "5 P’s": planning and preparation prevent poor performance. In my house, this included an additional, colloquial, "P", and was often accompanied by "fail to prepare, prepare to fail" (my family is fond of appropriating slogans).

These have stuck with me throughout the years, and have never served me better than during the last month.

As regular readers will be aware, I have parachuted into the Conference Sales Office to assist during the busy conference season. As part of my development period, I decided it would be beneficial to work a conference from the enquiry stage right through to the completion of the event.

Courtesy of Youth Sport Trust

The victim of my undivided attention was to be the Youth Sports Trusts’ “Lead Your Generation” event. The Youth Sports Trust is a charity devoted to changing young people’s lives through sport, and the event is their personal London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic legacy commitment. The University of Leeds is no stranger to the 2012 Olympics, having hosted the Chinese Olympians and the Canadian Wheelchair Rugby Team in their pre-games training camps.

This, however, was a different challenge: 200 young people participating in a range of activities, from Boccia (no, me neither until I read this) to an inspirational speech by Jonathan Edwards, Olympic Gold medallist, current World Record holder and former Sports Personality of the year.

Meet in Leeds was able to meet the challenge as we have a wide range of venues on campus. The facilities at the School of Music and the Exhibition Centre were absolutely perfect for the clients’ needs, yet also within walking distance from each other. This ensured the event ran smoothly, according to schedule and without any of our young delegates straying.

I also saw first-hand the fruition of the hard work that is done by our catering team, for whom no individual dietary requirement is a chore and no delegate unimportant, regardless of age or how many records they hold.

Courtesy of Youth Sport Trust

I now appreciate the vital role of the Event Manager, from ensuring Wi-Fi access is available (of paramount importance to any self-respecting 15 year old with tweeting to be done) to securing easy access parking for VIP’s (did I mention Jonathan Edwards was in attendance?). I think that, in familial tradition, I would coin the slogan "The best event managers are rarely seen, yet always available."

Our future sports themed challenge now is preparing for the July 2014 Yorkshire Grand Depart, hotels for which can be booked via our website now!

Find out more about events for under 18’s and what venues Meet in Leeds can offer you by contacting our super sales team .

Top Conference Sales Team - by Richard Handscombe

Teamwork is defined as “the combined action of a group of people, especially when effective and efficient” (Oxford Dictionary).

In my earlier years in business I worked in several teams that would struggle hard to justify that definition.  In fact, I’d go so far as suggesting that effective and efficient are words that struggled to exist until at least the 1990's!  But today's world demands levels of effectiveness and efficiency far ahead of where we were in the last century.

Thankfully since then I have worked in, and led, some fantastic sales teams, none more so than my current sales and marketing team here at MEETinLEEDS, to whom I’d like to introduce you.

In the picture (l to r) are:

• Lisa (Woody) Wood, Conferences Sales Exec extraordinaire, dressed today in black but with an incredibly colourful personality that fills the office with fun.
• Matt (Dot Com) Hamnett, who speaks fluent cyberspeak and operates silently and black magically to bring us to prominence in the online world
• Natalie (Ginger) Ruecroft, Conference Sales Executive, whose natural flair for comedy keep us enthralled as she determinedly closes business.

Missing from the picture is our Sales Manager, Harriet (“H”) Boatwright, currently on maternity leave, and whose vast knowledge and skill we look forward to regaining toward the end of the year.

Finally, also missing from the picture is Ryan (Ry-Ry) Johnson, a practitioner of the Barnsley accent, and promoter of good coffee, who parachuted into our team to assist in Harriet’s absence.

The skills and personalities embodied in the above team come together in a really great way.  In sales, first impressions are everything and we're totally confident on this score.  So, when looking for your next venue, why not give us a call and experience the “Leeds Hug”?

My first conference as a delegate! - by Natalie Ruecroft

November 2nd-4th 2011 saw me attend my first Venuemasters conference (also my first ever conference!) in the beautiful, but freezing cold, city of Edinburgh. The cold didn't bother me that much as I spent most of my time indoors drinking tea or sparkling wine!

I’d just like to say:
Firstly: what a fantastic conference! Plenty of great speakers and a chance to mingle with fellow academic venue conference sales types.
Secondly: What a beautiful city Edinburgh is.  Not quite as good as Leeds (obviously!!) but full of very welcoming people who made our stay very comfortable.

The conference really was great, it provided really useful workshops throughout the day and a chance to relax and meet new friends in the evening. Also a chance to dress up as Bonnie and Clyde with my favourite Head of Sales and Marketing, Richard Handscombe.

I took away some great sales tips and advice, especially from Adrian Webster who delivered a humorous, highly energetic and, at times, emotional speech on delivering extraordinary customer service. In fact, his TNT (tiny noticeable things) idea has spurred me on to add a little personal touch to my ‘Getting Venue Finding Agencies to Book Leeds’ campaign!
 
I am currently in the process of handwriting very attractive and glittery Christmas cards to each of the agents who have used us and thanking them for choosing the University of Leeds. I did contemplate sending a photograph of myself with a beard saying "Ho, Ho, Ho" but decided against this!

Merry Christmas everyone!

No mystery to MEETinLEEDS’ latest triumph - by Matt Hamnett

Every now and then someone calls the conference sales office, asks a number of questions about our venues and, under a false name, makes an enquiry for a totally fictitious event that will never happen.  And we fall for it every time.

The conference sales team at MEETinLEEDS are constantly looking at ways in which we can improve how we work to help our customers create the event they’re looking for with as much ease as possible.

We've worked hard to put systems in place which allow our customers a seamless experience from making an enquiry to booking a venue and we pride ourselves on the level of knowledge our team has on all of our facilities.  Once the event is over then we ask the organisers, and the delegates too, if everything went as planned.  If for any reason something isn’t quite right then we make sure we know about it so that we can put it right next time.

Sometimes this isn’t quite enough though.  Whilst we’re quietly confident that we deliver a fantastic customer experience (and our feedback confirms this) it’s important that we look at our business through fresh eyes.  It’s for this reason that we allow a total stranger to conjure up these fabricated conferences as part of a mystery shopping program.  And we happen to do quite well in them!

Last year the team took part in several mystery shopping measures looking at their telephone and booking skills.  The mystery shopper assesses things such as: how quickly the call was answered; whether it was answered in a professional manner and whether the relevant person was able to take the call.  The sales team scored 91% and 100% on the last two occasions.

This year we wanted to look at how well we perform show-rounds at our venues, as well as the initial telephone enquiry, and we’re proud to say that we scored a fantastic 97.2%.

Of course all of these results don’t mean that we’ll be resting on our laurels.  We’ll continue to look for more ways that we can make ourselves even more helpful, and we’ll go on testing ourselves to make sure that we’re getting it right!

Read more about our Mystery Shopper by reading our news page.

Socially Adept - by Matt Hamnett

For a conference sales office at a major UK university we like to think of ourselves as a sociable, friendly and interesting group of people who will go out of our way to help our customers. For those of you who have been keeping up with this blog I hope that this has come across well: perhaps we’ve helped you manage your event, understand your competition or even cater for your in-laws?!

In order to show everybody just how sociable and helpful we are we use a number of very different online tools; we have a YouTube channel, a news page, a Flickr account, a regular email newsletter and of course this blog. 

All of these have been fantastic ways to keep in contact with our growing number of customers but it is our twitter account that has seen the most online progress.

Just recently we’ve moved past the 500 followers mark. Ok, we’ll never be a Stephen Fry or Justin Bieber, but seeing as we rarely promote ourselves on twitter we’re very pleased to have made an impression on so many people.

To satisfy this demand for more information on our venues and services, and in order to reach out to a different audience, we’ve developed a Facebook page.

We’re interested to see where this latest social space will take us and we hope you will join us by liking our Facebook page.

Would you invite a Chef to a dinner party? - by Natasha Lockwood

No, of course you wouldn’t. Why? Because it’s not healthy for anyone concerned.

It’s not healthy for you because before you have even said "entrees" they’ll have produced a whisk and whipped up a delicious Fresh Fruit Pavlova (where did they get the eggs from!?) that puts your ‘Angel Delight served in Martini Glasses’ to shame.

It’s not healthy for them either: the minute they spy you emerging from the kitchen with your ‘Pate on Toast’ starter the evening is a write-off and the only logical course of action is for them to protect their taste buds by getting in the kitchen and doing the job themselves.

Which leaves me to wonder... as an event planner in training (a bit like a Jedi, but without the light sabre), is it really healthy for me to be organising my own wedding?

If I were to place an advert in the local newspaper for an Event Manager tomorrow, it would look something like this:
The candidate must be
• Organised
• Mildly telapathic
• Very, very paranoid. All the time. About everything.

One phrase you will never hear an Event Manager say is “I assume”, because we don’t. Ever.

Everyone in my office possesses the qualities required to be an Event Manager; they are experienced fountains of knowledge and wisdom, kind of like Yoda.

On the one hand it makes me proud to be part of this team, and to know we do a fantastic job.  On the other hand it makes me feel very sick; because if we are the 'Yoda' of event management, then the Event Manager of my wedding is definitely the opposite of this, or ‘Oppoyoda’, if you will.

From the very first email, on which I was instructed to go on to ‘Google Maps’ to find their venue, I knew that this was not going to be easy.  Bad quickly went to worse when, on the food tasting, I mentioned that in a room full of 350 people there was bound to be at least one vegetarian/dairy free/low fat/Atkins diet/don’t like tomato/chocoholic – who would probably only make their preferences known on the day. I received a blank, open mouthed, gaze in return.

I had also naively thought that we would receive a show round of the venue on our first meeting, as is common practise here. Wrong again. Not only did Oppoyoda neither offer or arrange a show round, they actually suggested that I do it myself, direct with the venue, as it wasn't their department.

Sometimes I forget how very lucky we are here to have a fantastic marketing, conference and catering department, all under one roof.  Who, funnily enough, we communicate with daily.

Several weeks later, tired of waiting around for Oppoyoda to reply to my messages regarding the venue contact, I took matters into my own hands and found the right person myself. Having arranged my own show round I re-contacted Oppoyoda to request his presence, to which he had the audacity to accuse me of going behind his back on the matter, further adding that he would have to check his diary for availability.

Is it any wonder I need something stronger than Angel Delight - where did I put those Martini Glasses?

Know Your Competition - by Richard Handscombe

There are many facets that are key to running a business – great products, good service, effective marketing, defined goals and so on, but one very important piece of knowledge is to be aware of what our competitors are doing.  We can find out what our competitors say about themselves by searching the web, going to exhibitions, and reading the trade press and the same means can tell us what others say about them.  But one of the best ways to learn about the competition is to get out there and visit them.

I used to be a wine importer and seller.  I found that in order to do my job better, I had to drag myself through vineyards and wineries in Italy, France, Germany, Yugoslavia (yes it was a while ago) and California;  I didn’t want to do it of course, but you just have to knuckle down and put up with the drudgery.  Although one vineyard is actually quite similar to the next, the knowledge of the region, the company and its people, picked up during these visits, gave us the competitive edge when we sat in front of buyers trying to sell the wines;  our stories could be told with passion, and were always better than a competitor who had never been to the region.

OK, perhaps visiting venues in Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham and here in Leeds is just a smidgeon less glamorous than Verona and Epernay, but the learning experience is actually similar, and as a bonus, you don’t need any sun-cream.

When the conference sales team visit competitor venues, they gain an understanding of the strengths and limitations of our competition;  they also, incidentally pick up some good ideas that we can pinch!  These visits are done quite openly - none of this Mary Portas stuff, with hidden cameras and the like (although wouldn’t that be fun?) – as by and large our business sector is very hospitable and anxious to show off.  We simply make an appointment, walk through their venue, ask a million questions and Bob, as they say, is your mother’s brother!

Naturally, the quid pro quo means that we have to be open to visits from our competitors too.  We’ve had just a handful, which gives me a warm glow of satisfaction – we know what they do, but they haven’t got much of a clue about what we do, other than what we write in press releases and on the web.

And we write that.


Find out what we write at www.meetinleeds.co.uk/news

First Agency Fam Trip Goes Down a Storm - by Natalie Ruecroft

November 26^th saw Richard and I host Leeds University’s first ever agency fam trip. The purpose of this trip was for us to show off everything that the University has to offer when it comes to conference and events.

Outside Leeds Town Hall

Five agents joined us on our weekend of wine tasting, sight seeing and fine dining. Needless to say, the guests were extremely impressed with our facilities and even more impressed with our prices!

As hard as I tried to make a good impression it was Storm Jameson Court that stole the show.  I think our guests found it hard to believe that such high standard of accommodation was:

a) Student accommodation and 

b) Available to conference delegates at such a competitive price. 

With its 24hr reception, stylish rooms and larger beds, I think we can safely say that Storm Jameson Court will be an important part of our future!

A big thank you to all that helped put the trip together, it was a huge success and we will now hopefully see the enquiries start rolling in! 

Angel for a Day - by Natasha Lockwood

Have you ever found a £20 note on the pavement? At first it feels really good and exiting, but then after a while you start to feel guilty that you have received something you don’t deserve.

Richard (aka Charlie) and me, being an Angel

This, I've learnt, is similar to the feeling when you accept praise from friends and family, because they’ve seen a picture of you in a nice dress collecting an award for something that wasn’t really your work!  Here’s the picture, and the story to accompany it, of how I became an angel for a day.

Let me first set the scene. In our Conferencing department we have a Sales & Marketing office and an Operations office. The difference between the two is quite clear (I usually work on the operational side); you would be able to distinguish us as we have been known to have chipped nail varnish, often get covered in random substances such as paint or pollen, and have occasionally stepped in to become cloakroom attendants or even waiters. I like to think of us as the engine of a car, everything needs to work well and efficiently in order to run, but you wouldn’t necessarily want to see it!

If  we are the engine, then the Sales & Marketing office is the sleek bodywork of the Audi TT!  When I walk into the office I often think I can hear music, but that could just be me.  The brains of the operation is Richard (aka Charlie) also pictured, but as the saying goes, behind every good man is a good woman – or in his case three.

Harriet, Lisa & Natalie are definitely the Angels to his Charlie, each one more glamorous than the one before; these ladies have never been seen with lipstick on their teeth or ladders in their tights.  Even in the snow they still manage to glide into work in 4 inch heels. Apart from making men want them and women want to be them, they also happen to be very good at what they do. With honey toned voices they accept and deal with all range of enquiries in a polite and prompt manner, hence how I got into my little predicament.

 

These ladies are so capable they managed to bag themselves second prize in the Venuemasters Mystery Shopping Award – for those who don’t know, this is when someone rings up claiming to be a potential client with a fabricated enquiry in order to score us on how well we deal with this, from the initial call to the follow up.

One maternity leave and one holiday later, Charlie was down to just one angel on site, meaning he needed a stand in accomplice for the Venuemasters Annual Conference.  This is where I come in.  Knowing I had to look the part, I packed my most glamorous evening gown and glittery heels and spent the day networking, trying my best to do what I have seen the Angels do so many times before. Then we come to the evening, where winners were announced, and the prizes were doled out, and this, my friends, is how I ended up getting pictured in a nice dress,  receiving a prize which I had not really earned, and how I got to be an Angel for a day.