The Questions to Ask Before Saying Yes to an Event

Speaker A: Hi, friends. Logan Clements here with the Better Events Podcast. And in this week's episode, it is a solo episode, so you'll just be hearing from me. But, um, I'm going to be diving into the questions that I ask before I say yes to an event. And it's not just the questions, but also kind of like my thought process and how it's evolved from when I first started in business through today. And it just is a very interesting conversation, I would say, to have and think about. And hopefully it is going to spark something for you about a way that you can evolve and how you evaluate potential events. Um, or if you are not in that season right now and you're just trying to say yes to everything, this will give you a little bit of a framework to keep in mind as you start to get more booked and busy and how you can better evaluate what events are the right fit for you and what might be the right fit for somebody else. But without further ado, let's get into the episode.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Better Events Podcast. Join two event strategists, Logan Clements and Mary Davidson, who who believe we can all create, host, and attend better events. In this podcast, you will learn about event strategy and actions that you can use today as an event host, planner, or manager. Hear directly from the people who are creating innovative and inspiring events today and tomorrow, and grow your business along the way. Now let's get started, and thanks for listening to the Better Events Podcast.

Speaker A: Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Better Events Podcast. And it's just going to be me today. Logan, one of your co hosts, Mary, is still out on maternity leave, and we figured, as I've had some guests come in and out, I do want to make sure that I still do some of these solo episodes with you guys where I can dive more into a topic that I'm feeling passionate about at the moment. And this week, we're going to talk about one that I feel like I've been mulling over a lot over the last couple years. Um, talking about some of the questions that I like to ask or things I like to think about before saying yes to an event. And I think this is an important discussion to have. I hope to kind of give you some inspiration about maybe you reflecting a bit on your process and why you say yes to certain events, um, and help you just kind of get closer to figuring out your perfect balance, whatever that looks like for you in terms of workload. Now, before we jump into it, I do want to remind you that Mary and I have a workshop for sale and and I will admit I probably have not been doing a good job about posting about it on social media. Uh, but as of right now, I am one person and I'm giving myself grace that I don't need to be everywhere doing all the things all at one time because I'm still running my business and doing events. Uh, but I am really excited about what we put together. It is all about how to start an event planning business. I do think the start might be a little misleading for folks because it does have tips for, uh, anybody who's in business. But it is a five hour, five part series. When you purchase it, you get access to all five hours of it. Um, and most recently we've had some folks do it who really have enjoyed it, said the time flew by, which is a great compliment. It's also chock full of templates. We get emails all the time from you guys saying that you want templates and this course comes with so many templates built in. You can also go to bettereventspod.com and we do just have some of those templates for sale. There are a number of templates like our pricing calculator, some sample contracts, some sample scopes of work. Those are exclusive to the workshop. So I just want to encourage you, if you haven't checked it out, go to our website bettereventspod.com or to click the link in our show notes to learn more. The questions to ask about saying yes to an event. I am going to treat this episode like it's the pep talk that I wish I got when I was first starting out in my business. And while there's no exact formula, I'm hoping some of what I'm going to talk about here today is going to help you evaluate your future event work. I do also think this event apply, this like topic applies to freelancers, but it can also apply to you if you're in house, especially as you start to work your way up and you are able to pick and choose what, where you allocate your time. Or maybe you're a business owner and you're building your team and you're trying to figure out how do I figure out more of what works for me? Um, and I just figured this is just a fun exercise to kind of put you guys as a little fly on the wall into my thought process as I kind of work my way through navigating what clients and events I decide to work and some of the ones I don't decide to work. So uh, first question I have here is, why did you start being more intentional about the questions you ask before saying yes to a project? And this is something that I think I've gotten better on. Everybody is going to be different. So the kinds of events that I'm doing, I like show calling a lot. I like production. I really love my sporting events. If you listen to other episodes. Um, so one of the reasons why I feel like I've had to be more intentional is because without intention, you probably are going to get booked on things, or you're going to feel the financial stress of not being booked, and you're just going to start to fill your calendar, which, when you're first starting out, I will admit, I was just trying to get booked. I just wanted. I needed money, I needed things to do. I needed to have, like, a booked calendar. And so I would just say yes to whatever came across my plate. And then as I was navigating, having said yes to those things, I started to realize and, like, tune in of, like, well, why do I love some events more than others? Why does this feel like, oh, yes, I'm doing the right thing. And then two weeks later, I'm on site for a different event, and now it feels like I'm kind of out of sync. And what I've realized is some of it is that intention behind it. So, um, I have learned that I need to kind of better gauge what event feels like it's the right fit for me right now. And I will say, this came up a couple years ago when I was realizing I got an opportunity came into my inbox and I read it and I went, ooh, like, eight years ago, me would have loved this opportunity. And it was like a light bulb moment where I was like, oh, I'm clocking that. Younger me would have liked this. Or earlier in her career, me would have liked this. But current me is kind of hesitating, and that's got to teach you something. And so my biggest piece of advice for when to say yes to an event or a new client or a new opportunity is you got to trust your gut. But the only way you build trust is over the course of time. And sometimes your gut might not be. It might not be that your gut's not right. It just be might that you're not, like, tuned in enough to it. Um, I've looked back on projects that I've kind of had either, uh, an experience where it didn't feel like we totally gelled the way we wanted to, or I just came out with this like weird aftertaste in my mouth of this event. And often I could go back to like, ooh, there was something in our like pre interview or our proposal stage where maybe they pushed back on budget or something. And like in my head I'd had a little bit of a like nudge of oop, wait, that could be something. And I kind of was like, no, no, no, that was just like a one off comment. It'll be fine, it'll be great. And then we'll get into the event and turns out it, you know, other things creeped up. But like, I can go back and be like, I think I had a moment there where my gut tried to tell me something and I ignored it. Um, and so I've gotten to be a little bit more intentional with it. One, because I'm one person. When you're a bigger company, maybe you have the opportunity, if it's not the right fit for this person, you can allocate it to somebody else. But for me, as a solopreneur and just a single member company, uh, I am the one doing all the work. So if I say yes to an event that takes place place over, let's say September 10th through 15th, I can't say yes to another event that is taking place over that amount of days. And even if you are someone who has a team, you're going to have to then delegate that to a team member. So for me, some of the intention behind what I say yes to is because there's only so much time that I have and there's only so much availability that I have with a date.

Speaker B: How.

Speaker A: Let's kind of first talk about, I guess when I first started. So how I felt early on, um, how did it feel early on to say no wasn't really an option. I guess I would say at the start you're just trying to get started. So you're like hungry. You just want to like uh, literally just hungry for work. You wanted to work. I really just wanted experience. And I will also admit, like, I just didn't know any better. I thought that maybe just by doing, which I think is my advice to anybody new to events is always, you might think, think on paper you like a certain type of an event, but until you do it, you're really not going to know. And so you're just trying to be a sponge and just work as many different events, work as many different roles, work with as many different people. And so there's like that experience hunger for you. And it might also be that you're financially motivated. When you're first starting out, it's hard to have confidence that things will just happen. You are definitely having to like go out and start those conversations and get that work and do that thing because you just, you need, you need the funds. It costs money to live here in the U.S. in any country, honestly. I should say it just costs money to live. It does. To rent, to pay for food, to pay for gas, to pay for whatever it is you need. And so I feel like when you were first getting started finding out somebody was willing to pay you a hundred dollars for a day rate, you're just going to say yes because you want that hundred dollars over the zero dollars. That is by saying no. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's just figuring out the longer you're doing stuff and like doing events. Where is that turning point for you from? I just have to say yes because I'm available to. I'd love to hear more about this event. And so my favorite thing right now, when you usually ask me to work an event, I'm most often going to say, um, if you just say, hey, are you available for this conference from June 17th to June 19th? And I might currently now be available for those dates. And so I usually would reply back, I. It looks like I do have availability on my calendar. But before I commit, I would love to learn more about exactly what the role is, what's the event, and to make sure it aligns with my current capacity leading up to your event. And you can literally steal that right away if you would like to utilize it. It's essentially me saying yes, but yes, I'm interested, but I need more information. And this has come from previous, earlier, younger me. When I first started, I would just say yes. And there was a lot of awesome things that came out of me just saying yes. I didn't waste time sometimes with the back and forth of trying to figure out the project. I think I made good impressions on people, but sometimes I just said yes and I didn't ask clarifying questions. And I can think about of a stark example of this was years ago, I got asked by a friend of a friend, they said, oh, I want to introduce you to a new agency. Uh, and they need somebody to run an event in May. They need someone to run a virtual event. And I was like, cool, virtual event, May wide open. I'm totally available. Yes, I want to get in with this new agency. So now I can't tell you if I told them yes. Or if I think I just told the agency yes. Next thing I know, I'm on a client call, which to me had felt fast, but I was like, cool, new agency, new me. Let's just figure out if this is like, I'm just excited. I'm on that client call and the, uh, client is starting to list out the dates of this event. I probably have told the story on the podcast before, but they're listing out the dates and they're like, okay, so yeah, our event's going to be may, uh, second to ninth, May 12th through 17th, May 19th through 26th. And I was like, excuse me, what? So I'm writing these down because I was like, the first week I was like, oh yeah, one week. Love that, that's a great event. And then they kept going, and then they kept going. And little did I know I had opted in not just for like a one day event or even a three day event, but I swear this came out to being like 23 show days over the course of the month of May. And it was because it was a virtual event and it was company wide, but they were having company. The, like, different divisions of the company rotate in each week, but it literally was like a four week virtual event. And I remember sitting there going, oh, no. Because this was going to be a lot of work. I knew I'd done like the one day events or the couple days events. I couldn't even fat. Like my brain couldn't even have fathomed what that event will be like. And so that is always something I think about whenever I just want to catch myself from just doing a blatant yes. Because while that event happened, I was proud of the work we did. I really liked working with that agency. I still work with those companies, uh, to this day. But I also was like, wow, I should have asked more questions before I had jumped into this new project just so I was more informed, better prepared in my head. And I'd also said yes to several other things around that time. And I remember having meetings with my therapist and I say meetings, I guess having therapy appointments where I was just talking to my therapist, being like, we just need to get through this. And she was literally coaching me through being like, we just need to get through the next week. Sounds like you have a plan, like, here's what we're going to do, like just keep moving forward. And we were just kind of breaking it into chunks of just getting through the scope of work because it had just been so much at the time. And again I'm very proud of that experience. It's led to other things. But if I could go back and tell, you know, earlier me that I probably would have asked a couple more questions before I said yes. So thinking about what you need to understand about a scope before you can confidently say yes, what I would encourage you to do is in that kind of like I gave you my, my little question I asked, but really it's knowing event, uh, dates are crucial. I right now will rarely say yes to anything that doesn't have dates associated with it because like I said, there's only so much I can do. I can't be in two places at once. So like I have to be available for the date if the goal is to have me on site at your event. So that's step one dates. But then it is also the, ideally the client, if they can't tell me, sometimes I'll sign an NDA so I can find out who the client is for some of my corporate stuff or just like roughly what area of the world, uh, and industry do they work in? What's their goal with the event? What's my role? And then actually listing out like sub bullet points of what that role does. And I say that because Mary and I have done so many episodes here where we've talked about jargon and I the number of times as a producer and a show caller, I have been hired as a producer. And sometimes that producer is both producer and show caller. But sometimes I'm the producer and someone else will show call. Or sometimes I've been hired as the show caller but I'm doing things that in my mind I would say a producer does, but it's a smaller enough production that they don't have a producer. So that's why those roles are combined. But I'm the show caller. And then there's also just like I think producer in general. So many people use that word who aren't doing the area of events that I'm doing. And that's okay. I will. I can probably do another rant about that about who should be using the term producer. But we can all say we produce events. Except I'm on the production side of an event. So that's why I would, where I would put producer. But producer could be everything as broad as like you're sitting in the room, you own that room. Anything that's happening av wise, programming wise, that is your, your sphere of influence. Or it could be like you're floating and there's other people in the rooms that are executing and you're just like floating support. And so that's something that if someone is using one of those terms, I always want to say, okay, on event day, where am I? Am I calling the show? Am I sitting in the room? Am I being the client's like main point of contact between, you know, them and the AV team? What does that look like? And I didn't do this in my first few years of business, but actually putting in like bullet points. And I now have a scope of work, like a one pager of, uh, version of my proposal or my contract where I will put that in. And if I can't get an agency to actually like sign it, that's my goal, is to have them sign it. But sometimes they can't. I'm like, let me just send this to you. Does this look like what you're looking for? Some agencies I work with these days, they already have that, which is awesome. But in my early days of working events, I did a lot of stuff that was just like a handshake or a text or something. It was like very casual about how I got hired in air quotes for an event. And so now I've learned, like, I really just want to make sure that the title of the role that you're hiring me for and then the responsibilities align. Because if anything, I am not that wedded to my title. Like, I can be a producer, I can be a show caller, I could be an event manager, a stage manager. It doesn't matter to me. But just trying to understand what are my actual day of responsibilities, because that can help me when I'm trying to figure out, does this fit my capacity, does this fit my rates? Am I being asked to do what I feel like is in scope of that kind of a role. So making sure you just get bullet points of what are you responsible for. I also then would say budget is a really important one. So making sure you are figuring that out ahead of time. I've had it in the last year where I feel like I still do this, whatever. I work now with a new agency. Not only am I asking about budget and rates, but I also am asking about payment terms, which means like how frequently they pay me or how quickly they will pay me. And this is something I'm usually pretty flexible on because I work with so many different clients. Everybody has their own preferred method. Some people want to pay me in like monthly installments or like a weighted, you know, low, medium high for the two months leading up to and then the full at the end My preferred way to get paid is 50% upfront to lock in your date, 50% after the fact. And I can add on any expenses or anything else that I had to pay for. Uh, but I found if I don't have that conversation, then we're both surprised later on when or like I found some of the larger companies who are writing larger checks, which is great, sometimes take a lot longer to pay. And that's just something I have to think about as a business if I want to work with this company. But they don't pay net 45, meaning I won't get paid until 45 days after I invoice. So it's a month and a half after an event that you're actually going to get paid for it. And again, depending on who you are, you might have expenses that come in before then. So maybe you have to limit how many different events you're doing that have those longer payment terms. So if I had to understand what scope I would want to know again, dates, like the little bit about the client, a couple sentences, the name of the role that I'm doing, the responsibilities, that's the key one, responsibilities that fall under that role. And then budget with a little caveat that I would love to have payment terms in there as well. Again, if I've worked with someone before, I don't usually have to ask that payment terms part. I already know. Um, but it's understanding all of the other information and just knowing like if you've been asked for something and you ask a follow up question. I think I was scared to do that when I first started because I didn't want to seem difficult or uninterested or worried they just might go with someone else. And the amount of times that that could that like someone maybe pick somebody else instead of me because I asked one question. I can't think of one right now, but I'm sure there's been like one time but almost every other time they're reaching out to me or they're wanting to work with me. And so asking a clarifying question doesn't make me look bad. It looks like I'm actually caring and I really am interested in this, but I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page. So those were some of like what I think about, about when saying yes to an event. I feel like also thinking about some red flags. Uh, these are not necessarily direct questions that I would ask of the client, but um, some questions to kind of figure out. I love and we've talked about this on the podcast, but it lives here in this episode is a good place to anchor it. If it's a new agency, new client, I will often ask, have they worked with freelancers before as a freelancer? That's usually different. I've found a little bit of friction can happen in past projects that I've worked where I was the first freelancer that they'd ever worked with because the expectations of like a full time employee where you can ping them at any time and they're going to instantaneously respond because that's their job, they're there full time versus a freelancer, those are different. And I ended up having some friction points with a, uh, with a client years ago that that was clearly their expectation. And so I move forward with the lesson learned that I need to ask is this the first time now that's not a deal breaker for me. That's not a red flag. I'd say it's maybe an orange flag. That will make me think a little bit more about what I have for capacity with this project. It will also help inform me when I'm making my proposal, just how much time I think I need to dedicate to it. Because I'm going to put a little more time into or like cushion that project a little more so I have more wiggle room in case they end up being someone that needs a lot of my attention. I want to have that buffer in there versus keeping in a very lean scope with very minimal prep time. Because again, they might not understand that that's actually what they're expecting. My second question I always ask is, is this a time based role or a task based role? And the time based meaning, is it going to be something where you're expecting quick replies from 9am to 4pm Eastern and I'm on the west coast, that's going to be something that would impact, you know, my availability. Um, or is it time task based in the sense that like we're going to have some certain deliverables, we just need it by Friday and today's Monday and you can work on this at any time. So you can be a late night person, you could wake up early in the morning and do it and like, yeah, you got to be able to respond to emails every so often, but it's a little bit more task based and those are two very different, you know, kinds of roles. I mainly do task based work. I do calls. I uh, will respond to Slack messages and things that people have. But like I would say I do More task based work where it's just things need to happen by a certain date. And again, that's just. I would bill that differently if it was time based. Then I would say, hey, we need to talk about billing hourly for actual hours. Like, hey, I was available from 9:00am M to 11:11am I had your inbox open, I had your slack open. I was monitoring and waiting for messages. Nothing came in. But I'm still billing you for those two hours. And you can see how time could get eaten up of your scope pretty quickly. So I don't like doing those roles because that doesn't feel very efficient to me. I enjoy more a task based role. But that is a good question to ask. Some people love a time based role versus a task based. So that would be another question that I would always put in there. Um, and then the reminder that the proposal process, while it's also you, maybe as the event business or the event freelancer, you are selling your skills to this person that is hiring you. They're also kind of selling themselves to you in a way, like they're making a first impression on you. And so I would just pay attention to any friction points or red flags that maybe come up in that process. Like if they're really hard to get a hold of or really slow to respond to things and they don't have a good explanation, maybe like, oh, I was out on vacation or it was just a busy time for us, we were just on site. Um, that is something to think about too in your, you know, evaluating of whether this event is the right fit for you and you want to say yes or not. Um, again, I definitely know when you're starting out you really just want to say yes and be a part of everything. Um, but I've also seen horror stories from people of not getting paid by clients, um, from months ago, work that they've already completed, or some other stuff that if you look back, maybe there were some moments that you could have looked and said, ooh, if they were kind of slow or kind of disorganized about this one thing, maybe maybe they're going to be kind of disorganized about these other things. So just knowing that it is like both, you know, it's a two way street, big red flag for me is going to be if someone doesn't want to pay any kind of deposit at all. Uh, I have had count on maybe only one hand the number of clients that I've ever done that kind of work for. Um, in the last couple years, I Usually like having a deposit because to me that means you've. They know that there's some skin in the game. They booked me for that event date. I know it's happening. It's not just a handshake or a verbal agreement. Um, and then it also just kind of hedges. If they tend to be slower to pay you. That kind of hedges. You've already received a bit of a deposit than waiting for all of it after an event. Um, um, so that is something too. If they're just like really hesitant to pay you at all in the upfront, I would have some pause there, some other questions that help me understand like how, like what kind of partner or client someone will be. I always, while email's amazing and it's a great tool, anytime you can get somebody on the phone, video, um, calls also work great because then you can start to read body language. Um, and they can kind of see your body language and personality and you can see their personality and you just kind of can pick up on like, how much do you gel, you know, when you, like, you're outside of work, when you're meeting a new friend or you meet someone new. You know how there's some people that you just are like, oh, yeah, I've talked to you for like 10 minutes, but like, we're locked in. This is going to be great. And then there's other people you've talked to five, 10 minutes, and you're like, I could never talk to that person again and that would be fine. And then there's probably a whole bunch of people that are in that middle ground. And so with new clients or new event work, I'm not saying you have to want to be best friends with every one of your clients. That would probably be a little toxic. Um, but I do think that that kind of feedback and information that you can give yourself and give them to make sure that you're the right fit can do nothing but help that partnership and that relationship moving forward. And so making sure that you kind of have that video call with them, look them in the eye, they're looking you in the eye. And you can kind of just start to get an idea of like, will we gel personality wise? Because Again, younger Logan, 2016 Logan, who first started her company is going to tell you, I want to work every event. I want to work with everybody. Stop. That's it. Full stop. Don't need to explain it anymore. Current me in 2026, 10 years later, is like, no, I've learned, like, there are people that probably Think I'm, um, the bee's knees. I'm the best thing out there. And then there's some other people that maybe we didn't get along as well. And it's not like it was a bad relationship or anything awful happened, but just there's your people that you really click with, and those are the events you want to lean into doing more of the ones where you really click with people and then keep exploring and trying to do some other new events. Um, but there's ones that like, yeah, I look back on now and they, you know, they didn't repeat or I didn't get to do another event with them after that. And it's one that I was like, again, nothing big happened. Nothing big and bad, but at the same time, both of us were kind of like, yeah, I'm good. We'll find somebody else. I. You know that. And so that's like, okay. I think I've gotten a little bit less devastated, uh, when things move on, because, again, I've learned I am for some people. The people that love me, they love working with me. Um, and that is a great compliment to have. I've also started to learn that people might love working with me. And I have seen things that they haven't noticed. Whether, uh, it's within their team or their organization or on site or just little details that I would say rubbed me the wrong way or maybe left a weird. Again, that weird feeling in my stomach. I can't. It's funny. I can't, like, put a good definition on it. It's really like my gut and, uh, my poor partner Archie has to hear me talk about this all the time because he's my sounding board often for these things that I was like, there's just some projects where I'm like, oh, I don't know. I got to think about it. You know, like, when you're tired after the adrenaline wears off of being on site and you're like, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm going to need some time and space from this event to first figure out. Then, like, yeah, am I going to repeat this? If they're interested in working with me? You know, that that's first. And then. And then am I interested in working with them? And that happens occasionally. There's a lot more I have where I was like, that was intense. There was some stress. But also, dang, I really love the team I worked with. Like, the team made it awesome. Yes. Heck, yes. I want to put this event on My calendar next year, I can put that soft hold. I will hold those dates. And like, I liked. I'm really impressed because I do this color coding system at the end of every year. I think I've talked about it on the pod about, um, I go back and look at the profitability of events, and I compare with my, um, time tracking and everything and kind of see how did my estimates where I thought, here's how many hours I thought it would take compared to the actuals. And then based on what I actually got paid, dividing that and coming out with like an hourly rate. And I color code it so I have like, green means, you know, I came out above what I wanted per hour for that year. Orange, uh, is like, in the middle. Like, I gave myself a range. It didn't have to be to the dollar, but just kind of a range close enough. And then I had red for the ones that were like, drastically under. And it's been really interesting because I've saved these, like, spreadsheets over the years. And you can see each year I have less of the red, which is awesome, more of the green and more of the orange. And then I have a column of, like, if I would I do this event again? And I can do like, heck, yes, sure, maybe unsure. And that also is going down. The unsures and then. And the maybes have become less and less over the years. So, like I said, I'm getting better at working with people that I really want to work with. And that's a great process. And I don't think I would realize that unless I'd been intentional both with asking some of these questions from the jump. I think I'm getting better at that part, but also taking the time after retroactively to look at these projects and see, like, did they make sense financially? That's just one data point. I have some clients and projects that I love working with that I will tell you, probably don't make the most financial sense for my time, how much time I spend on it versus what I get paid. But getting paid is not the only reason that I do events. If it, uh, was the only reason, if it was not the only reason for all events I did, I'd probably be struggling a little bit more. But I find a better balance where I have those events that are more profitable mixed in with the ones that are less so. So that I balance out somewhere in the middle where I want to be. So this was a good question that I was mapping out this episode. I was thinking about, like, how do I evaluate whether I'll have the support I need to be successful on site. This is a really tough one because you can't really feel all of that out at. In the, like, initial proposal stage when you're still trying to figure out if you want to work this event. Sometimes this has to be trial and error when you're working with a new client or a new company because you don't want in the proposal stage to be like, so, yeah, do you feed your crew? Do you guys do crew meals on site? Or you guys the kind of people have coffee for your team in the morning? Like, I, I don't ask those questions from, from the jump. So I usually just try to get a gauge of like, if I don't understand where the agency or the company, the event company that's hiring me, maybe they do more full event management. And I can tell they're not totally in the production space as opposed to a production agency. Um, I might ask them like, so on event day, I just want to. For clarify clarifying, you're hiring a producer. Um, and we've talked about it a bit. Sounds like I'm going to be show calling and working with the AV team. Um, um, will you be in the room with me or will someone else from the team be in there with me? And they'll be like, oh, no, we're overseeing everything else. The check in, the signage, all this other stuff. It'll just be you in the ballroom. It's like, okay, that's, that's good to know. Versus if I'm working at a production agency where it's like, oh, we have an executive producer who's above me. You're going to have other producers in other rooms that you guys can share resources and we'll even have coordinators to help us kind of with some of the other nitty gritty, gritty details and scheduling and logistics and. And like, there's this more like, robust ecosystem to help you. So I think you can ask that question in the initial stage if you're still again, trying to get a gauge of like, how much of this scope am I responsible for? I also do think it's really important in your proposal to also, while you lay out the bullets of what you're doing, it's also helpful to lay out the bullets of what the client is doing or the person hiring you is doing. I do this in my contracts, do this in my proposals. And I always say it's a caveat where this is not a complete list of everything the client does. I'm sure. But it's a great place for me to put things that sometimes fall in that gray area. Like I'll put in the client section, client to find and source all speakers and introduce Logan. And I put that there so that there's no assumption that me, Logan, is finding and sourcing the speakers for their event. And again, you can put any kind of task on their side and that document the scope work or even this email while you can say, hey, this is what I just put an initial draft from our conversation, our discovery call. I put together the scope of work for me and I just want to see what's your feedback on it. And it's really helpful and really telling. And to this day I have people, when they're new that I work with that do this, that they'll be like, hey, you wrote this one thing in here, and we don't do that. But actually this other group does it. And I'm like, that's great. I will put that other group's name in there. I'm still going to keep it on your half of my scope of work because that doesn't fall under me. But it's just good to know that it's not you, it's this other company. Um, and it starts that conversation so that you can get out of that gray area. Because where I found some of that friction comes up with me for events or after the fact, if I go don't know if it was the right fit and I can't again put my finger on it. It usually comes from assumptions that were made, whether those were assumptions that I made or assumptions that my client made. Not all the time is it very obvious what it is. But it's always like, uh, if we just had a conversation about this, we would have cleared it up. Um, and that's another one too, I guess I would add in. And the production world, it's very common to have overtime, especially in corporate events. There is no overtime in sporting events. I mean, anyone can write into me. I'm sure there's. Some of the pro teams do pay overtime at times, but I think I only had one experience once with a pro team and it was because it was a holiday that they had to pay us time and a half. Um, but with my corporate events, it's very normal to have overtime, but overtime is very arbitrary. Not every company is the same. It is not standardized as a country in the US or even a state here in Washington, it is different. And so that is another part of my proposal is also Laying out payment terms and also being like, hey, I normally do, uh, standard time. Like a day. You said a day. So I would say that's 10 hours on site consecutively. And then I usually do overtimes, 10 to 12 hours and then double time two times your hourly rate for anything that's 12 and over. And again, saying that because in past times I've just been like, oh, yeah, do you guys do overtime? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, great, that's all the information I needed. And then we have confusion post event where I'm billing it the way I normally bill it. They say, no, this is how we normally do it. And we have nothing to go back to to show. Wait, did we ever talk about it? And then usually I have to default to whatever they're doing because it's to me not worth the time or the effort. I'm moving on to the next event. So talking about overtime, that's another thing that's super helpful to think about. Same with expenses. Just certain things of like, hey, do you do per diem? Or again, are you guys going to feed us on site? Or is parking included? Or, you know, all these little things that I don't think you need to necessarily, you know, nickel and dime. Like I said, talking about the nitty gritty of do I get coffee in the morning? Is not a question bring up usually in the proposal phase. Um, but knowing if, yeah, they're going to feed you or if they offer per diem if you're traveling, those are all good things to ask. And so, uh, as we get towards the end of this episode, I do want to talk about budget, because budget is an important part of knowing if you're going to say yes to an event or not. And I say that because everybody's rates are going to be inexpensive for somebody, but expensive for somebody else. And so that is something to think about, that there's not necessarily a right number to charge for. I think we've talked about ad nauseam at this podcast. It's so custom to like the event where you're based out of. Where's the event happening? Your situation, do you have financial support? Are you the sole breadwinner? And so the budget for that role, there's no magic number of like, hey, it needs to be at least $2,000. And then you should definitely say, yes, listener. It's not, you might think. And I, again, I did events for like $100 when I first started. I also had clients at that exact same time paying me $1,000. There was no right or wrong. But I think figuring out what works for you, um, whether you do the hourly rate method, kind of like I do, where I try to kind of backtrack of like, okay, how many hours do I think I'm going to spend? What's my hourly rate roughly come out to? Um, that is really helpful for me as I just evaluate opportunities. It's also a place that I found sometimes clients will have wiggle room where they're going to come to you and say, hey, uh, you know, the day rates, 500 a day for this, this role, you know, that's. They tell you more about the project you're allowed to negotiate. And right now, again, the answer is no at this point, because they've set the rate. But it's not going to change unless you ask. And one of the negotiating tactics is always that you can do a range. So you can say, I really appreciate your budgets at 500. Normally, for something like this, I would charge between 600 and $700 a day. Don't know if you have any wiggle room in that budget, just let me know. And sometimes just that, giving that range, I've had somebody reply back and be like, great, I think we were able to figure it out, and we can do 650 a day. And with that, like, three sentences, you've now just increased your day rate by $150 from what they were going to give you, even if you were going to say yes to what you negotiated. So, again, it doesn't hurt to ask because they're also within their right to come back to you and say, hey, no, I budgeted $500 a day. Totally get it. If it's not, you know, not up to your current standards and they're going to ask somebody else, but they're often going to come back and just ask you, hey, would you still do it for that rate? I will admit anyone who's worked with me in the last couple years will know that I am very passionate about advocating for rates for my contractors. That being said, I usually try to ask them earlier on, hey, you know, what are you. Have your rates increased since the last time we worked together? What roughly are you looking for? Um, but I then when I tell folks that I have an offer for them, I have rate for this event. That's usually what it is. I, unfortunately, am not great at putting in big margins for my contractors. I really want them to be making what I'm charging out for them. So, uh, that is one where I'M like, that's unfortunately what it is. I don't have any extra hidden margin that I'm taking out of that. So, um, that's just for me. But I would just consider taking time to reflect again. End of the year is natural for me. Um, but anytime you're transitioning or trying to think of like, hey, what's next for me? That you think about budget in a way that, like, yes, maybe set a minimum amount that you're looking to make per event, or maybe a minimum hourly wage that you're looking to make perfect per event. Um, but I would make sure that budget isn't something that you use as like the live, you know, live and die by that specific number. Um, but I do encourage you. My earlier days, I did not. Some of my events, I didn't ask about budget. I just said, yes, I'm available and I'm doing it. And it would just be like, cool. How much am I making? What am I getting paid? I'm not sure. And that was fine because I was just trying to roll with it and, and wing it and get there. But just know that is very normal to ask, um, if they have any budget set aside for this, I will do this. Even if I am doing an initial call with them, the client, the person has not brought up the word budget. I will usually ask about it or just say, you know, do you have any kind of budget for this kind of role? Sometimes they're going to say, no, we have no idea what this kind of stuff costs. If you can just put together a proposal, I'm like, okay, that's great. And that's very hard to work with because you don't know what's lower. Again, like I said, one rate to somebody is really high while it's really low to someone else. So this is where I then will kind of do like a scale of that low, medium high to pitch to them of just like, okay, if you want really limited support leading up to the event, but I'm on site, here's what it would take. Okay, how about medium support? And how about super high touch? You're on the phone with me once a week. We're like, really working together on this event. That's what that is. And that gives them that kind of range. So, yeah, budget's important. I always would ask about it. Uh, again, if they get really dodgy or cagey about budget, that can be a red flag when thinking about saying yes to an event. Um, um, but usually that doesn't, uh, that doesn't throw people off too much, especially in a business relationship, I would flag that. Some people are going to ask you to do events that they just want to give you exposure or experience. And while that is great to some people, especially if you're, like, newer to events and just hungry and trying to get in, but it's okay to say no to that kind of stuff if you don't have capacity, if you don't have space in your schedule, if you're trying to get paid work. Like I said, being choosier about what you say yes to because there's only so many days of the year, and if you say yes to an event that's unpaid and later on an event that comes along that gets paid, while you might have a foot to stand on to say, okay, I'm going to bow out of the unpaid thing for the paid thing, you might be burning a bridge you didn't know, um, that you needed to burn because you'd said yes versus trying to advocate for getting it paid and then leaving yourself available for the next project. I do want to share before I let you go about soft holds. I've talked about this before, so how I know what to say yes to. Uh, I once had a vacation scheduled in December a couple years ago, and I did this really good thing where I was then not saying yes to any events that overlapped with that vacation. And I felt a little personally attacked. I think I had two or three. I think I had three events come through that would have overlapped with that vacation. I was like, no, I'm going on vacation. I'm going on vacation. I'm going. I'm like, so sorry. I'm on vacation. Everybody was really understanding. The fourth person asked me for those to overlap a bit with that vacation was one of my clients that I put in my, like, heck yes list. My clients that I'm just like, we jam, we gel. I, uh, love what they do. They love what I do. I really want to work with them. And the event they asked me for, I really, really, really wanted to do. And so I went to my partner and was like, hi, can we shift our vacation by two days so I can go do this amazing thing? And he's always been incredibly supportive of all of my work. So of course, like, he's like, if you're into it, I'm into into it. I was asking more because I just felt bad because been trying to protect vacations, and we ended up doing it, and I ended up shifting my vacation a bit so I could do this event and I had this moment where I was like, oh my gosh, I, if we didn't have this vacation, I would have said yes to the first, if not second project or person that asked me because those dates would have been available. And then by the time this fourth person would have asked me, I wouldn't have been available. I would have been booked. And that just like blew my mind because that event turned into an annual event that I got to do for a couple years and, and it was so much fun. And just one of those things where I was like, I have to be better at, ah, protecting my time because I want the space to be able to say yes to the heck yes things, the things that I really, really want to do. And I definitely wouldn't have done that if I didn't have vacation. And so I do these things called soft holds. I didn't make it up. It's, I'd say, pretty standard in the industry, but not everybody is, uh, aware of them. Um, and I, what I call a soft hold is that meaning I will verbally get a verbal ask from a client or an email, but I don't need a contract, I don't need any money to put a soft hold. And this is me just being aware of their event date. And I love to do this for any of my annual clients where we finish their event or we're maybe even in that event and they're announcing to their attendees, hey, yeah, uh, join us in Vegas next year, you know, March 17th to 23rd. And I'm like, cool, I'm going to put that on my, put that on my calendar. I'm just going to be aware of it. I might ask the client like, hey, I saw that. I'm available. You know, I saw that you announced your dates. Let me know if you're interested in me putting a soft hold on that. Usually that comes back as a yes, please put a soft hold. Um, and what it does is then, yeah, I'm aware and I can build my schedule. I will say, though, it is not a, uh, for sure hold it. I'm not contracted to have to work that event with them yet until we have a contract. But I like to use it because it helps me plan my year. I do also like it because it gives me a little bit of flexibility, though. If something else comes, comes in and overlaps, I'm then able to either go back to that client and say, hey, we need to sign something because I'm getting asked by some other folks about these dates, um, or if it's only a soft holding, again, they didn't pay a deposit, they didn't lock me in. I could say yes to something else. And that's like a little bit of the risk that comes with it. But the reward being for both of my, myself and my client that we can like hold these dates or have me be aware of them without necessarily having to sign that contract. Cause every company is a little different. Um, but I think it's really helpful for clients to know that I'm interested and available. Um, it's good for me to know there's most likely that business coming back. Um, but again, it's not anything contractual or I wouldn't make any money if they all of a sudden said no. So usually my best rule of like, rule of thumb with that is, yeah, I will go back to that original client if I get another offer that overlaps m unless it is one of my Heck yes events. And then I'm going to do everything in my power to help the original client find somebody else to fill that because somebody else was ready to pull the trigger on a tracked. But that story about having not booked something over a holiday, I do always have, uh, a sign now here next to where I'm recording that says there will always be another gig, another event. And that's something that I just want to leave you with as my final words here, uh, for this solo episode, talking about the questions I ask for saying yes to an event. And just remind yourself if you're early and starting, you know, just getting started, I feel like this, it can feel such like a herculean effort to get each and every event client and get hired every time. But I promise you, while if you say no a bunch of times, people might stop calling, but you can be picky and choosy about what you want to say yes to. And the more you do it and the more experience you get, it's going to be easier for you to figure out what that looks like. But I think if you even ask two of the questions that I've talked about here in today's episode, you're going to be better for it. So before we wrap up, I'm going to leave you with our bonus tip. And my bonus tip for you is if you are someone who is frequently on the road and like me having to print, run a shows or other little like event documents, consider getting yourself a travel printer. I have this small compact one. I didn't get the idea for it. I had an executive producer on a show I Worked two years ago who had it and I was really taken with it because it's quite small, uh, but it does what it needs to do in terms of printing, you know, runs a show. I use it to print MC cards. It's really cool. You can format it super easy, uh, to print those, Those like cards versus having to like cut it out on 8 and a half by 11 and then cut it and tape it and all that good stuff. And I now use it usually for my smaller events, um, where if I had to print run of shows for me and like the 4 person AV team, it probably would cost $20 the front desk. It is now just like an added, you know, thing in my toolkit that I just put make sure I have like ink and paper accounted for in my overall like business overhead. Um, but I will put the link in the show notes to the one I have. I love it. It is really, really handy. And just having that printing in your room and knowing your laptop will connect to that printer, ooh, it has been a game changer, especially when I'm just trying to get some basic stuff printed out. So that brings me to the end of the episode. You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn at better events Pod. You can send us an email@better eventspodmail.com and as always, you can connect with Mary and I directly on LinkedIn. We love to hear from you. Just let us know in that little note before you hit connect that you heard about us through the pod. And if you want even more Better Events content, consider joining our paid community over on Substack. We have a free subscription there on Substack, but the paid version gets you our bonus content and access to our Slack channel. And as always, we want to thank you for listening and we'll be back in your feeds again next Wednesday.