At your Service - by Richard Handscombe

Rumour has it that the recession is over and recovery has begun!  This may be so, but in the events market it’s still a fact that there is an over-abundance of suppliers and therefore a massive choice – a buyer’s market.

When retail shopping, we tend not to compare products with products – we compare experiences, and this in the end guides where we shop.  As venues, it’s hard to resist “bigging up” our décor and audio-visual facilities as “state-of-the-art”, but in reality, buyers now simply expect top quality facilities in any venue.

The two main deciders in the conference market have historically been location and price, and the former is often a combination of geographical, micro- and macro-location.  At first glance, if a potential customer states that the destination they want is for instance Liverpool, and we are in Leeds, the location seems hard to counter in a sales context.  And also, in this over-supplied market, price can be tough to beat.  This is where differentiation can play a major part, and there are two key differentiators – innovation and service. The experience.

To work to advantage, innovation needs to be creative and constant, because, given the speed of modern communications and mass connectivity, competitor copying can occur instantly.  Overnight change is a reality we have to live with.

Excellent service gives us the edge, and if we get it right, can overcome both location and price challenges.  I have even experienced examples myself, where good service has even overcome product quality issues!  I gave one particular Leeds restaurant - which shall be nameless - a second chance, due to fantastic service, even though the quality of the meal was dire.  Suffice it to say that they won’t be getting a third chance regardless of the service!

There’s an old adage that people buy people, indeed in some cases people are the ONLY experience, for example many products bought from visits by trusted sales reps. Customers will also buy trusted brands without even trying them first.  But service is also a major factor in many successful top brands, eg M&S, Prêt á Manger, John Lewis.  Once this close association of service, quality and brand becomes complete you’re flying.  The idea behind the marketing of these companies is to induce “loyalty beyond reason”. The creation of loyal customers who don’t quite realise why.

It’s very similar to LOVE. 

Brands that have this have actually been called “Lovemarks” (Saatchi & Saatchi).

At the heart of a strong brand, will be a great experience, and at the heart of that are people.

Success needs people who are committed, creative, engaging, professional, pleasant, caring, competitive, enthusiastic, conscientious, and saleable (phew!).  Commitment to providing good service needs to be strong Service delivery needs to be excellent, and the product great. Exactly our goals at MeetInLeeds.  No wonder our order books are filling!

Sentenced to Email Servitude - by Richard Handscombe

“Thou shalt reply to every email” isn’t really the commandment most of us think it is.  How many times have you sent an email to someone only to receive a reply saying “thanks”.   If you’re a polite and well-brought-up Yorkshire lad like me, the temptation is to write “You’re welcome”.  So far, I have resisted this fearing that I’ll receive a reply saying “the pleasure was all mine”, but the temptation remains….

The email inbox is up there with action points from meetings, completing tax returns, and inviting the in-laws to dinner as one of life’s more oppressive monkeys on our back; something to nag away at us, give us indigestion and feed our guilt complex.  If you read about strategies for handling email, you’ll find these two rules expounded:

a)    If you’re working efficiently, you can read, file and/or respond to every email you read
b)    Non-response is unacceptable where an email implicitly or explicitly asks for a response.

Considering the first of the above decrees:  I first saw email in 1995, and I think it would have been around 1997 when my email inbox reached a volume at which it became largely unmanageable! My inbox is now TB41P (too big for one person), and anyway, work gets in the way.

As for the second of the above statutes, I think it’s a hangover from the pre-email era (PEE), as an acknowledgement that the person who had sent the letter (this is a piece of paper with squiggles written by a pen.  A pen is an instrument …. Oh never mind) had actually gone to some trouble and expense writing the letter and envelope, stamping it, and trudging to the post-box!  That’s almost heroic and clearly deserves a response.  But in order to accomplish this level of courtesy today, we have to give up personal time swatting emails with our smart phones on the train and at home because there’s just not enough time in the working day.  And don’t we all love the après-holiday backlog?


I don’t know the answer, so I’ll leave the question out there and you can email me if you do.  I promise to respond. But here’s an out-of-office message suggestion I read recently which, although not recommended as it’s probably professionally suicidal, made me smile.

Due to the volume of email I receive, I no longer personally review every message. If you are interested in learning more about why I have decided to set limits on my email time, you can read this [link to their blog post]. If you do not receive a further reply within 72 hours, please assume that I have had to focus on other professional or personal priorities at this time. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Rant over.  I won’t even start on why we actually type in our names at the bottom of an email reply when it already has an automatic signature and anyway should be obvious from whom it came…….

Making an Exhibition of Myself - by Richard Handscombe

As 2014 dawns, I have been thinking of how the conference business has changed in the last 20 years….

Back in 1993 when I came into the academic conference sector, computers were few and far between (we had just one in our department), and very basic, with dark screens and green writing, and Windows were things to watch rain drip down.  We wrote letters…real letters, with typewriters (typewriters were things with keyboards connected to sort of hammers with letters on…never mind, Google it!).  Oh yes, and we had to go to the library to research anything because the World Wide Web was a year or two away!

Back in those days, when we’d only just heard of Bill Clinton,  the final episode of Cheers was in the can, and Whitney Houston was topping the charts screeching  “I Will Always Love You” (I know these things because I Googled them), I used to exhibit at seven or eight venue shows.  These included Venuemasters, EIBTM, Confex, Chase, HRD, and the Chartered Institute of Professional Development (CIPD).

How times have changed.  Although face-to-face discussions are still said to be important to buyers, the years are littered with failed attempts to launch new shows and attendances at exhibitions went into a steep decline.  The truth is that the speed, content and usability of the Web means that we can exchange vast amounts of information in a microsecond, and increasingly savvy buyers can comprehensively research venues without leaving their offices.  And conversely, venues are able to seek out and target potential buyers without breaking sweat.

These days at MEETinLEEDS we routinely attend only one, very focused exhibition (Venuemasters, 14th May 2014, at the Earl’s Court Ibis) and the rest, like Bill and Whitney, are history.

I actually did tot up the number of exhibitions I’ve done over these twenty years and I reckon it’s an astounding 60 at a cost probably well in excess of £150k!  Although this seems a high cost, we did see a lot of business coming from exhibitions when they were at their zenith, and in fact I can remember one single enquiry returning £150k of revenue.

What will the picture be in another 20 years?  It’s anybody’s guess, but thinking very positively, One Direction will be no more…..

Leeds Taking the Lead - by Richard Handscombe

I was at school in Leeds and spent my very important formative teenage years living here during the 1960’s.  That’s so far back now, that it really does qualify as the “black and white days”.  I remember the city as a fairly grim place – blackened from the soot of industry, with journeys home from school through dense “pea-souper” fogs;  The high street food offer back then was limited to prawn cocktail, steak and chips and Black Forest gateau at Jacomelli’s, or the delights of the Wimpy Bar – oh yes, and there was one Chinese Restaurant!

But my, how things have changed…..
The big changes began around 17 years ago, with the completion of the Victoria Quarter retail development.  Quite quickly, Leeds became a mecca for trendy shoppers visiting the growing number of designer shops, and of course Harvey Nick’s.  Retail growth continued strongly and today Leeds leads the retail race in the north.  In the same year (1996) the Royal Armouries Museum, a spectacular extension of the Tower of London’s collections opened, bringing a truly remarkable tourist attraction into Leeds.

The city now has a vibrant, continental feel, with dozens of quality restaurants, and alfresco dining wherever you look – something that would have led to ridicule had you suggested it in the ‘60’s!  Nightlife is also superb, with top quality theatres, dining and clubs.

But recent times have seen a step-change in the city’s fortunes and ambitions, and the future is much more than just rosy….

The huge Trinity shopping mall opened its doors in March this year, boosting the already strong retail offer of this great city.  The spectacular 12,000-seat First Direct Arena, a long-overdue major entertainment venue for Leeds, opens in September, a development which is already catalysing hotel and restaurant developments around it.  The NGT (New Generation Transport) system is at an advanced stage of planning with construction beginning in the next couple of years, bringing space-age electric-powered buses running in exclusive bus lanes in several directions across the city.  In July 2014, the world’s biggest annual sporting event, the Tour de France starts right here in Leeds, with a potential 3 billion TV viewers enjoying the sights and sounds of Leeds and Yorkshire, apart from the excitement of the race itself!

The Leeds of today is almost unrecognisable from the town I grew up in – thank goodness.  Leeds is ambitious and confident, and it shows!  I’m not normally known for banging on about my old home town but looking around, I really am proud to be from Leeds, and to be promoting the benefits of Leeds as a venue for major conferences and events.

And if you’ve not been to Leeds, don’t take my word for it – come and see for yourself!

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”?

Year of the Dragon - by Richard Handscombe

This year, the Year of the Dragon, is considered the luckiest Chinese year, which bodes well for the Chinese athletes who are training in Leeds ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games.  Not that they seem to need much luck, as they topped the medal tables at the last Games in Beijing.

Seven years of work came good late last year when Leeds was finally announced as the training base for this “superteam”, but that’s when the really hard work begins!

Think about it – nearly 300 Chinese people, with us for almost a month, many of whom will never have visited the UK, or eaten European food, don’t speak English and are, well, Olympians!  These boys and girls are at the highest possible level of their sport.  This will be their last training camp before the Games, so stress levels will be high.  This is set to be an interesting year full of challenges for the events department, catering services and Sport.

Bev Kenny has accepted the considerable menu challenge, and as I write this is in the midst of organising some pretty exotic offerings which will be delivered by our own chefs aided by some of the Chinese team’s chefs.  Residences are gearing up to welcome around 10 disciplines to Storm Jameson Court, all of whom come and go on different dates during July.  Sport and Physical Activity (SPA) is planning to install specialised equipment for such sports as fencing, taekwondo and table tennis.  And these are just some of the issues to be covered.  

BBC cameras broadcast the show live to China.

At the beginning of February, the BBC broadcast a variety show from the Refectory, live to China in celebration of the Leeds training camp.  The show was presented by one of our own students, Marie Tulloch, speaking in fluent Mandarin Chinese.  This was incredibly impressive but did nothing to ease my own worries about my own challenge to learn basic Mandarin so that I can at least greet our guests, and maybe even answer simple questions.  The one thing I’ve learnt so far, after just two lessons, is that there is no such thing as a simple question in Chinese.  Just one small two-letter word can have six meanings depending on how it is pronounced, and many of these will probably be offensive!

So, this is going to be a great year to be in Leeds, with the University playing a valuable part in the Olympics – Bev can be happy in the knowledge that she has helped fuel every medal won by the Chinese.  Residences and SPA will know that they have played an important part in preparing the athletes for every gold, silver and bronze they take back to China.   And I’ll probably have insulted everyone in every possible way, as I stumble thorough the Mandarin minefield.  But it will be a year we will remember forever…  

Find out more about the event at the Refectory:

• Read an article in the Yorkshire Post
• View the video
• Take a look at some pictures

The Best Restaurant in the World - by Richard Handscombe

I’ve just been to the best restaurant in the world, and I don’t mean my favourite Bradford curry house, or the original Harry Ramsden’s chippy.  True, they have their place, but good though they are, they are not the Best Restaurant in the World; this accolade, awarded by Restaurant magazine, belongs to a restaurant called NOMA, in Copenhagen harbour.   My daughter Sally is a “foodie”, so to celebrate her milestone birthday we decided to take her to the best there is.  This sounds simple, but getting a table there isn’t that easy; when they were awarded the title in 2010, I’m told they had more than 100,000 bookings within 24 hours!  They opened the reservation book for March 2011 on 1^st December 2010, and were fully booked within hours, including I’m glad to say, a table for the four of us.  So we headed off for Denmark in some excitement.  

Copenhagen is a beautiful city full of the nicest folk you could meet; we loved it, but can’t wait to return at some time when the sea isn't frozen.  “Cold” doesn't begin to describe it. But anyway, we saw the sights, found some nice bars, and practised paying a lot in a number of restaurants, getting ready for the NOMA experience.

To me, service is the key element in the success of any operation.  In the UK’s hospitality industry, everyone pays lip-service to service, and some even walk the talk, but often the customer is left with a feeling that something is missing.     

Noma

The NOMA customer journey really started as we stepped from the taxi.  Two of the waiting staff opened the taxi door with warm greetings, and it was obvious they had been briefed that we had travelled from the UK.  As soon as we had touched down at the table, we began to experience the kind of service you can only dream about.  NOMA has an army of chefs – I was told 14 were on contract and a further 20 are “stagieurs” – young chefs who work for nothing for three months just to get NOMA on their CV. 

It looked to me as if there were about 10 waiters too – and all this in a restaurant with just 34 diners!  Apart from naturally being experts in their various fields, they had obviously been very highly trained on how to deal with people, how to put them at their ease, and how to up-sell.  This last skill was fine to observe for professional reasons, but fell on fairly stony ground because I had checked my bank account before leaving home! 

They proceeded to serve us with eight snacks and twelve courses over four hours, each one a delight on the eye and a surprise to the palate.  The dishes were rarely what they first appear to be, and the amount of preparation and science involved in each dish is awesome.  There was just one tense moment, when we realised that what we had just eaten was – wait for it – reindeer’s tongue, a dish which probably elicits a different reaction from Danes than from squeamish Yorkshire people.  Our trauma obviously registered with the waiter, for within seconds, the head chef was at our table.  He didn’t even mention the reindeers tongue, but sat and chatted to us then offered to let us tour the kitchens and meet the chefs after service had finished – in the Best Restaurant in the World!  We gasped, grinned, and grasped the opportunity, which was one of the highlights of the experience and definitely made us forget about Rudolph (at least it wasn’t his nose)!  They had skilfully turned a negative into a positive.  We were treated like long-lost buddies in the kitchens and were even introduced to Ali the pot-washer.  Then of course, came the pain of the bill.  I did some quick calculations afterwards and worked out that four of the cars I’d owned were cheaper than that bill – all added together. 

So I’ll take away the memory of that customer journey, and a restaurant experience that was like going to the opera and the theatre as well as having dinner, and which underlined my belief in the value of service excellence.  The thing is, it doesn’t take all those people and a massive bill to produce good service.   Good service comes from having the right people, and the right culture in your organisation, and a determination to be the best.  If we have all that, we could serve up Bambi on a plate and no-one would bat an eyelid!   

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

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.

A Burning Question - by Richard Handscombe

The editor of Exhibition News recently posed the question:  “are live web-feeds from building sites really necessary?”.

As a question, I’d guess it won’t feature on Newsnight any time soon - although I can almost hear the cynical tones of Mr Paxman himself looking into the camera and asking the question.

We recently featured on our website, a series of stills showing our new conference asset, Storm Jameson Court, rising from the ground as if by magic.  It was fascinating.  There for all to see was the artistic scaffolding, the mysteriously shrouded delivery trucks, big digging thingies, and occasional glimpses of Bob in his yellow hard hat as he went around building.  

This was stirring, gripping stuff that I’m 100% positive had the whole nation glued to their PC monitors, eager to see what would happen next.  A bit like Eastenders, only much, much more interesting.  Gradually this epic building, an emerging star in the conference universe, emerged from its chrysalis.

And now, that fascinating time is all over, and the building has been revealed in all it’s glory.  Soap fans will have to go back to watching their favourite TV shows, struggling to catch up on the storylines, and sadly missing the Storm Jameson Court Saga.

And just in case national opinion says that building site pics are not in fact necessary, we’ve removed them from the website.

Conference bookings are now being taken for our magnificent new building. Take a look on www.meetinleeds.co.uk/stormjamesoncourt

We Know How to Throw a Fam Trip (& cook corned beef hash!) - by Natalie Ruecroft

I’ve learnt a lot whilst I’ve been working for Richard Handscombe, our Head of Sales & Marketing.  Last week he taught me two things: firstly, how to make Corned Beef Hash and secondly, that the chef in the Teppanyaki restaurant doesn’t throw the Egg Fried Rice into your mouth, just pieces of sliced potato!  I’m hoping that over the next few months I’ll learn a lot more, specifically about Event Booking Agencies.

‘Let’s tackle agencies’ Mr Handscombe said to me shortly after I started my role here in the Conference Sales Office.

‘Venue finding agencies play a huge part in the Conference and Events industry and we need to make sure that the University of Leeds is a venue that agencies are aware of. Let’s invite them to the city and show them what we can offer!’

A great idea, I thought, from my Head of Sales and Marketing. This is going to be a fun project that I can really get my teeth into (much like the Corned Beef Hash) – I’m looking forward to this!

The plan is to host a ‘weekend break’ for agency staff where Richard and I will show the guests around the city of Leeds and also give them a tour of our impressive campus meeting space. A tour of our brand new accommodation development Storm Jameson Court will also be on the cards. With overnight accommodation being offered at Weetwood Hall, a deluxe 4star property owned by the University and lunch at one of Leeds’ fine restaurants, I’m sure we’ll get a fair few people interested!

We’ll be putting the final details together pretty soon so invites will be sent out in the next month or so. Exciting!

The main aim of this project is to put our University on the ‘agency map’ and make the University of Leeds the first place agents think of when looking for a conference or event venue in Leeds. I’ll be working pretty closely with Richard on this project as he has many years of experience working with agencies – I’m hoping that he’ll pass some of this knowledge on to me!