The next instalment of Event Head TV features the Founder of The Connection Exchange Suzanne Chadwick, who is also the creator of EPIC Planning Summits, the first of which featured the incredible Lisa Messenger in early 2015.
Suzanne founded The Connection Exchange in March 2014 with a desire to support women starting businesses. She provides business coaching, an online community, an eCourse and most importantly - events! Alongside the annual EPIC summits, Suz also provides regular workshops and in person training for those who need to build up their skills in certain areas so she was the perfect person to speak too about coming up with event content, finding guest speakers and ensuring that the attendees, the speakers and the organiser all have the best possible outcome! Watch our interview here:
My key takeaways from this interview were:
- Epic was born from one conversation. Inspiration can hit you like a lightening bolt and for Suz, it was speaking to a friend that made her realise where there was a gap and exactly how she could fill it using her prior experience and current business model.
- With her guest speakers, Suz usually already has a personal relationship with them or is very familiar with their work. I like how she says that she chooses women who are well positioned in what they do, they are very experienced and knoweldgeable in their fields and their personality resonates with her brand. I think that this is something that something that people forget at times - speakers at your event will have an impact on your brand and you want to ensure that they give your audience a positive experience.
- When thinking about outcomes for the attendees, Suz ensured that she told her speakers she wanted them to provide actionable content in both spoken and written form for the workbooks. This enabled attendees to walk away with ability to implement what was spoken about on the day effectively and easily. You can see here that communication is key so be upfront about what you want on the day and expectations on both sides, as well as all the plans and details.
- Being aware of all of your costs and the fine print around your venue and service providers is very important, especially for larger events in case you need to change the date or something needs to change.
If you are planning on having guest speakers at your next event, this is a fabulous example of what you should be thinking about and what you can do to ensure that everybody has an amazing time! And for the cheeky little Q&A with Suz about what she loves about events both attending them and facilitating them, have a look at this little clip here:
I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did filming it! If you want to stay up to date with the interviews to come, just hit the Subscribe button on my You Tube channel and you’ll be notified whenever a new video is released and please give the videos a like if you enjoyed them.
Enjoy! x