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Lessons from a User Group Event

Published by Manoj Ranaweera on August 3, 2006

One of my friends who recently launched a product, held a User Group Event recently. It was the first such event I attended. I was very much interested in learning so that when ebdex runs its User Conferences/Seminars, we have an appreciation from the "attendees" point of view. List below is what I took home::

  1. Make sure attendees are comfortable as much as possible.

  2. This does not mean you have to provide executive seats, but ensure attendees are not under any pressure to "buy".
  3. Make sure the event does not turn into an "Amway" style pushy sale event.
  4. Remember, a soft sale is much better than a hard sale.
  5. Not every attendee will want to buy your product.
  6. People like to "buy" and hate being "sold to"
  7. If your intention is to sell your product at the end, make sure you qualify attendees as prospective buyers before inviting.
  8. If a presentation is given, make sure all attendees can easily see the screen.
  9. If you have a choice of a Board Room vs. Presentation Suite, choose the Presentation Suite, provided its affordable and cost effective.
  10. This will allow them to stretch their legs and give opportunity to have breaks for networking from time to time.
  11. If its going to take 3 to 4 hours, let the attendees know in advance.
  12. Stick to a programme – get someone else to chair the session
  13. Remember, some of the attendees are there to help you improve your product with comments and feedback, when they could have easily spent that time improving their own businesses, etc!
  14. Appreciate that attendees are not there simply to eat your food and drink your wine.
  15. Attendees have volunteered their time and therefore one must respect that.
  16. Make sure you have control of your team.
  17. Don’t let one person in your team spoil the event.
  18. If possible, have a clear way to identify (coloured sticker) who is in your team and who is not
  19. Make sure its an interactive session.
  20. Make sure it is fun (as much as possible without loosing focus)

Most of above are "soft" issues. But they do matter from attendee’s perspective.

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