Sarah Fejfar
If you've ever wondered what it takes to really ensure that your guests feel seen and heard and and cared for during your events, then I have got something special for you today. Coming to you from Down Under in Australia, I think you're absolutely going to love what you're going to have to share on the topic of transformation and memorable experiences. Inquiring minds want to know, how are entrepreneurs like us daring bravely to build a stage ditch the swipe hands and step up to the mic? How do we create our own transformative events so we can get our message out into the world in a bigger way that's not only profitable, but it's actually something we can be proud of. That's the question and the answers are inside this podcast. My name is Sarah Fejfar, welcome to Green Room Central.
Sarah Fejfar
Hey, it Sarah, I have an invitation for you right now. You can join entrepreneurs from across the globe who share a passion for hosting their own events become part of the community that inspires and cheers you on over at greenroom central.com.
Sarah Fejfar
Today, I brought into greenroom central studios, Dr. Juergen Strauss, founder and chief innovator at Innova biz, and I'm enter for podcasters all around the world. He hosts bowtique events locally in Australia and in some exotic tropical locations around the world. His events are dedicated to a common purpose, working with businesses to affect transformation, you're again welcome to Green Room, central studios say hello to linchpin nation,
Jurgen Strauss
hi linchpin nation, and thanks for having me on the show, Sarah, really appreciate it.
Sarah Fejfar
Oh, we appreciate you being here, all the way from Australia. And first, I want to get into what type of events you host, and just have you describe them a little more detail than I just gave folks in the intro. If you weren't?
Jurgen Strauss
Well, the big events that we've been hosting that I've talked to you about are a boutique retreat. And what we do is take up to 15 business owners and businesses out of their business, away from their business, preferably in a location that has them out of contact with the business, which is quite a challenge for a lot of businesses. And we also want to have them come into a pampered environment. So really take care of themselves first, and put themselves into a mindset of relaxation, of really high focus on then planning for the next year for their business, their vision, their mission, looking at long term plans, and then really digging down into a detailed one year plan that we then review quarterly with them. We do that in a way that we use a lot of NLP techniques where there's accelerated learning involved, there's digging into values, there's alignment of values, removal of limiting beliefs, a lot of those things that go on as well as the nitty gritty work of the planning. That happens and, and the events that we've run so far have just been transformational. And for me, it's always been an inspiration, not only to see the other businesses transform and come away from that event with a new sense of purpose and vigor and excitement about their business. But it also rubs off on me, I often learned things that I can then implement in my business, we also work on our own business as well. So it's we get in front of the room when it's our turn to present our vision and our mission. And the participants get to challenge that as well. So we're sort of in the trenches with all the participants there.
Sarah Fejfar
So it's a circle, if you will, everyone's kind of learning from each other. I love that I love that you're, you're taking them out of their everyday lives in order to do this super important work of that long term planning, which I think is typically really challenging to do when you're got the distractions of running a business, you're kind of at the forefront. And so you're saying that you create an environment that's really conducive to them kind of turning off their their real life, if you will, the distractions and really getting focused, what are some of the things that you do?
Jurgen Strauss
Well, the first thing we like to do is go into a warm tropical location, because we were talking before the show are recording, we're actually having a spell of tropical weather here in Melbourne, at the moment, but in the middle of winter, our winter, which is June. And that's typically when we run these businesses, it's cold, wet and miserable. And so what we like to do is take people out of that cold, wet and miserable environment that can be a bit depressing, and take them to a tropical location. Now we've been to places like Coconut Island in Thailand, we've been to Vanuatu, we've been to Fiji, and we go to resorts that are that cater for all of our needs. So obviously, we require good meeting rooms, good breakout rooms, good business facilities that we can do the work that we do, but at the same time, also catering for the fun side of things. So having a really nice room, having really good food, really good service, being taken care of in that environment. So there's nothing people have to worry about we we kind of package everything up, people don't have to worry about anything, we organize the travel the flights, the the transfers from the airport to the resort and back, there's nothing the participants have to worry about other than bringing a good mindset and bringing their energy into that planning and that that work that we do, then, in the environment, then some of the things some of the smaller things that we focus on that we really value highly, because I think they contribute a lot to the success of this is the environment of the actual working location. So if we have a room that we work in, it's got to be natural light, it's got to be really well lit, it's got to be a comfortable temperature, there's got to be water available for the participants to keep hydrated, because a lot of the work we do is actually very tiring mentally. And that requires you to be hydrated so that you can function at your best. We also have setups to video people when they do their presentation so that they can have a record of what they've presented and take that away with them. We set up the rooms in a way that we can run the Disney creativity strategy. So we typically set our agenda up that in the morning, we have the kind of the dreaming room session. So we look at the visioning and the plan, or the visioning and dreaming about the plans and imagining what might be, then in mid morning session, we typically go into the sweat room, where we do the work to put the meat on the bones of that. And then in the afternoon session, we go into the reality room, where we kind of challenge that we say, well, you know that that's a really good plan. But do you have the resources to achieve that within that timeframe? What if this goes wrong? What if the environment changes here, and then start to build contingency plans around that, and the next morning, we go back into the dreaming room, so it keeps doing those cycles.
Sarah Fejfar
So I want to get this straight, you're again, you contract for three separate spaces to be using and cycling through.
Jurgen Strauss
We have had three separate rooms, we have also had a large room where we've taken areas, and we've just said yeah, now we move over into this section. So physically the participants know because we're physically moving into this area, it's kind of that's the session we're working in. So there's actually a trigger. It's not just us saying okay, we're going to switch our work style or we're going to switch our mindset to dreaming or to sweat room to working conditions or to reality checking. There's actually a physical trigger as well because we either go to another room or to another space within a larger room.
Sarah Fejfar
I absolutely love that. I was just learning a couple of weeks ago about this concept of of different colors of hats in in. I don't remember what the title is like green hat is like creativity and imagination. And you know, Bono's six thinking hats There you go. Yes. And I was loving that, that description of like having these times when okay if I have and so you're doing it with physical spaces where when we're here, this is where You know, like, nothing's off the table, get all the ideas out, be creative, be imaginative, like stretch the bounds of what's possible. And then, but you have different spaces where like you call it a reality space where, okay, now we have to really challenge what's there and decide if it's easy to figure out what's possible. And I absolutely love that you're using physical triggers, whether in the same room moving them or different rooms, to help get people into the right mindset set the Help help you set expectations for the work that needs to be done during that time. Brilliant. I, so I'm hearing that you're caring for a lot of the pieces of their environment, like you're handling their travel expenses, and probably their meals and things like that. So they really can't just show up and, and do the work. And so you're removing a lot of the the barriers to saying yes, is that do you find that helps in your marketing?
Jurgen Strauss
Yes, it does help in the marketing. And what it does do, of course, is it makes it a much more high ticket item. So if we were to just sell the cost of the event itself, there'll be considerably lower cost. But some people prefer to know that, if I attend this, this is my overall investment, rather than this is the the investment I have to make for the ticket to the event. And then I've got to worry about my accommodation, and then I've got to book my flights. So there's yeah, there's, it's a lot easier. We're taking away the friction at the moment. So here's the total investment for that event. And if you say yes, then we go, we just take care of everything for you. It's frictionless there.
Sarah Fejfar
I love that style of event planning, it's really my personal favorite to do it that way.
Jurgen Strauss
And, of course, part of the attraction as well as we've, we've chosen a really good location, geographically in terms of where we're going, which country, which location, as well as the facility that we're going to. So that helps us in our marketing, and we can use the marketing collateral of the resort, we're going to, for example, and say, Well, this is where you're staying. So that of course, gets people into a very nice emotional state, because they're getting excited. Wow, that looks really nice. That resort looks nice, the pool looks nice, the gym looks nice, the rooms look nice, the food looks nice.
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah, oh, that's brilliant to use the marketing materials that already exist that the hotel has. And the resort has spent lots and lots of money and attention and care and putting together and to be able to use that in your marketing. And
Jurgen Strauss
of course, the other, the other thing that comes into that is that we can negotiate a package with the resort. And also we can negotiate group travel arrangements with the number of people that were booking for once, whereas if everybody did it for themselves, they'd be paying whatever the full price is typically.
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah, I want to circle back to the and talk a little bit more about the frameworks that you're using, because you mentioned a couple of things. You mentioned NLP, you mentioned Disney creativity. What are all the models that you're using? Why are you using them? Like how did that? I know it's a big question. But how did it come to be that that you became aware of these different models that you can integrate into the events that you that you run?
Jurgen Strauss
Well, it comes back. So we do these events as a joint partnership with my business and my business coaches business. My business coach has a training business that her primary work is training people in an LP. So I did some NLP training with her to a very advanced level and started helping run some of those training programs with her. And as we were doing that we were sharing our vision of what else we'd like to do with our business. And one of the things that intersected in our visions was the idea of traveling around and going to fabulous places to work. And so we came up with this idea. Well, let's take this concept of the training and expand it to try to actually a planning, exercise and take people to these places and travel for work.
Sarah Fejfar
That's a good idea. I a huge, huge travel fan. And it is been on my mind as well to start a mastermind where I can be bringing people to other locations that I have on my list of, of places I want to go. And it sounds like you're, you've been doing that for quite some time, it's, it's got to be fun to be able to live out some of your, your travel dreams, while also helping to impact these businesses so profoundly at the same time.
Jurgen Strauss
Yeah, it is fun and the whole, like organizing it. I mean, there are a lot of challenges in organizing this. And it's a lot harder than organizing a family vacation, because it's a lot of different moving pieces that have to have to be managed. But it is really fun in the lead up phase in the planning and the anticipation. And then of course, when we arrive at the resort, and we get together on the first evening, just as a group to have a casual dinner. And that's the what we do there is primarily make sure everybody knows one another and starts to feel comfortable with one another. So we ensure that everybody feels they're part of this tribe, they're part of this group, this is a safe space, everybody's here to support one another. And then the next morning, when we get started and kick off. Usually everybody's quite comfortable in starting to share some fairly personal things, you know, they may be personal personal, they may be about the business, but they're comfortable sharing, for example, what kind of revenue they've got right now and what their dreams are for revenue in the future and how they, and then we start to work obviously on how they will get there.
Sarah Fejfar
So it sounds like fostering community within these events is something that you're really intentional about, is there something that a specific tactic that you you've used that it seems to work pretty well, maybe on that first night?
Jurgen Strauss
It's, yeah, we have, we start off with getting everybody to introduce themselves. And then there's a lot of NLP techniques that we use that I'm not even conscious of all the ones I'm doing a lot of these are unconscious. A lot of it is getting people to have deeper conversations and asking some really good questions to move beyond the Hi, I'm Juergen and my businesses in over beers. And here's what we do. And here's my website, go and check it out. So that's typically what happens when you first meet somebody, we kind of quickly get beyond that, and say, Okay, well, where do you want to? Where do you see your business or, obviously, because we're in in this unique environment, then there's a lot of things that we can talk about. In the past, most of our participants have come from near Melbourne. And so we've organised to travel together as a group. So we're already building that community feel in the aircraft or in the group. And on one occasion, we, we, our flight got delayed. That was I think it was Vanuatu because there was a tropical storm in Vanuatu, and they couldn't land or take off whatever the flight was delayed for about five hours. So hanging around the airport on a connecting flight in Sydney for five hours. And we use that time, obviously, everybody was frustrated, because it's kind of dead time. But we actually use that time to foster that sense of community. And of course, it was a shared experience. So we had lots to talk about there. When we arrived at the resort, there are a couple of other people that traveled independently because they were coming from different parts of the country. So our challenge, then was immediately bringing them into that group, because the group had already kind of established, it was a bit of a challenge, because now all of a sudden, there were some outsiders and so we had to make sure they were brought in. And again, it was about start steering the conversations into what are the things that we have in common? How can we kind of share those How can we get on the same page? And how can we start to have deeper conversations around that and that then leads naturally into the work we start doing the next morning obviously where we get into some really deep conversations.
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah, and linchpin nation what I want you to hear from what you're getting just said was really how how he's taking on a leadership role of like creating this community and you know, setting the expectations for how to fit in and pulling people into the fold and asking the right questions just making, you know, just noticing, like, Who's, who's, who's feeling like they're part of the fold, who isn't and really working to incorporate everyone. And I think that that's on all of us as event leaders is to take that leadership role during our events, and especially just plan to spend some time at the beginning to really work on that. And you might even need to assign a team member or two or three to be helping with with that. So great love that love that you're doing it that way you're going. And I'm guessing that everyone who comes just feels really, like seen and heard at your events. And then also probably celebrated after you get them through the the planning piece. And they they present. So you're talking all about these in person events. And we're just kind of living through this tiny little thing called a pandemic right now. What things have you been considering? As you get back into events after a pandemic? Pause, assuming that you perhaps took a little bit of one?
Jurgen Strauss
Yes, we did definitely did take a pause, we had planned an event for 2020. And the the big event at the start of that year was some massive bushfires in Australia. And that was the worst we've ever seen, I think right across the board in Australia. And we thought that was going to be the defining event of 2020. Of course, we know now that was a bit naive to think that what we decided at that time was that rather than go overseas, we would actually go to a regional Australian location. Of course, Australia, we're lucky here, the northern part of Australia is a tropical, a tropical environment. So we were looking at a couple of resorts there, and we've kind of gotten down to two and we're in negotiations for packages there, when the pandemic broke out. And all that uncertainty in the initial phase came about around travel, and so on. So we put everything on hold. And of course, since then, we haven't done any more for in person events. What what we're looking at right now, I mean, it's still pretty uncertain from Australia to travel internationally, it's not that easy yet, although things are improving and starting to open up. So we're looking at possibly doing something in 2023. Get my years, right. So we have had a higher, we would have had a hiatus of nearly four years by then. In the meantime, I've been running some zoom events with a difference where we bring people together just for an hour or an hour and a half. And allow them to get together and start to have those meaningful conversations. So in a way, it's that model of that initial, bring people together and get them to know one another, a little bit of a deeper level. And the way I do it is that at the end of that hour or hour and a half people have permission. And usually they want to continue that conversation with many of the people that I've met on the event and that that's led to things like these podcast interviews, it's led to some joint venture initiatives that have gotten started, it's led to people doing business with one another because they found somebody that did what they need right then and there, or they found somebody that knew somebody else who did what I needed right then and there. Or they found somebody that could connect them with someone that could help them get their product or service out into the marketplace and the word out more. So we've been doing that regularly as as a zoom event, but as I say, a zoom event with a difference. I keep hearing these comments that I'm all zoomed out. And part of that, I think is that a lot of the events, people just present. So there's one maybe more people presenting, it's a one way street. These events are very participative very active. There's lots of music and dancing, it's high energy. So that that's what we've been doing around the pandemic time to at least keep bringing people together and keep encouraging those meaningful conversations.
Sarah Fejfar
And would you because I agree, I hear that all the time. Like oh, everyone's all zoomed out and I just think it's totally not true. It's it's really more of out the, the the host than it is the the guest people are not all tired of zoom, is there something that you think that you do better than than others in terms of making those zoom events more engaging?
Jurgen Strauss
Well, I think it's just getting people to participate. So it's not about me presenting something, or, in fact, most of those events, I don't actually present anything other than talking about the logistics of the event, here's how it's going to run, here's what's going to happen. That's really all I present. And then the rest of it is all participation. So I just facilitate conversations between people, give them opportunities to mingle in small groups, so that everybody has a chance to have a say, and also have a chance to listen and focus on a few other people rather than a big group that that everybody might be there. The total might be a big group, but we break that up into smaller groups. So everybody has that opportunity to really listen carefully and get to know some people at a deeper level, and also to have their say, and it's really great for introverts, I think. And the other thing is really just try to make it fun. Like I like to have fun on these events. And I sort of do it in a way that hopefully everybody can have fun. And I keep emphasizing this as a party. And one of the challenges, of course, with these events is everybody's in different time zones. So I start off by saying, well, some of you it's dinner time for some of you, it's breakfast time for some of you, it's lunchtime, for some of you, it might be one o'clock. So whatever it is that you need, as food or beverage right now, you're welcome to have that while we're having this, this event, and it is a party. So just enjoy.
Sarah Fejfar
So talk to talk to me more about how you make your in person events fun. What do you like to do?
Jurgen Strauss
Well, first of all, that whole conversation we've had about the environment, I think everybody is in a really good mood to start with. And I think that's core to setting the scene and getting everybody in the right frame of mind. Then, of course, we the food, we make sure that the food is first class. And usually we come away from those things having put on a bit of weight unless somebody's disciplined enough to go to the gym in between time. The usually it's at the water so morning walks at the beach, sometimes we have activities if people have the energy to do activities after we've completed the day's event. Usually we try to wrap up the day's event by about three or four in the afternoon. And then we'll sort of reconvene for dinner at 630 or so. In between that time we've run little mini workshops, you know, I'm a keen photographer. So I've taken people out on the beach and said, Hey, if you want to learn about some really just simple tips and tricks for taking photographs, things like photographing sunsets, which people find challenging or things like how do you make a photo stand out? There's some beautiful scenery here. It's easy to take that photograph and people will say that's beautiful scenery. But how do you make the photo stand out that it's actually different to just the standard postcard? And so we'll do little things like that. And we've had other people talk about what was we've had some health, some physical health, or we've had some we've done some hypnosis, just playing with hypnosis, as as little mini workshops just to kind of lighten the mood to have people enjoy themselves, but learn something from one of the people that has some particular expertise. Then we also schedule a full day where we do nothing in the middle. So usually the events go for six days. And in on the third day, or the fourth day, depending on how the program pans out. We'll basically leave work completely and go and do something. So in Fiji, we went to a Fiji village we walked to a waterfall beautiful waterfall we swam in the water there and under the waterfall which was fun. We participated in a kava ceremony. So there's lots of fun stuff that that we do. And again, it's as a group, we do this and we had a tour guide and just having fun and relaxing and really enjoying ourselves. So when people come back after that day, there's almost renewed energy again and also during that day. Of course there's lots of conversations happening about what's been going on. Last three days, and people reflect on their plans or reflect on the things that they've worked on, up till then. And often on that day after that rest day feel like it's, there's almost another transformation because there's been a lot of stuff happening unconsciously while people are distracted and in their minds on other things. So in Vanuatu, we went horseback riding, we went canoeing. In Thailand, I think we went, we took a boat off the island and went to a night market nearby across on the mainland. So yeah, we always have that one day where, and that's clear from the start. But yeah, the fun aspect is all throughout. And having said that, we're still challenging people. To be real, we're challenging people, to be honest. So if somebody's trying to BS their way through an exercise or something, we'll call them out on that. And even that we do in a fun way. But it's clear that hey, you're not getting away with this.
Sarah Fejfar
Hey, I don't want you to miss out. Did you know that this conversation always continues inside the linchpin nation community. It's a free modern discussion forum exclusively for greenroom central listeners, that will have a profound impact on the way you look at events in your business, get answers to your biggest questions here behind the scenes nuggets from event leaders, and get access to helpful templates, guides and checklists. As you start in scale events in your business, be part of the daily discussion with entrepreneurs just like you, you can join for free over at Green Room central.com, I'll see you inside. That's important to to know that, that when a guest knows that they're there, they're being put, they signed up for a specific reason to get a certain transformation or kick off a certain transformation, if you will. And I love that you're, you're challenging them as the leader in the room, and so that they, they get every last ounce of what they came for out of it, you're not going to let anybody kind of fall behind because they're not challenging themselves sufficiently or thinking through a task, the right way, I've been in a room like that before. And you know, it's almost like when you're, you're you have like the hard teacher growing up, that you know, just won't let you get away with stuff. And it's going to make you push yourself harder. And in the moment, you don't love it. But then, you know, looking back years later, you really have such a sense of fondness and admiration, and just gratitude for being pushed and challenged to reach your potential. So I love that you're adding a little bit of that to your events.
Jurgen Strauss
Yeah. Yeah, of course, we do it from a much kind of perspective, in some sense there, then that strict teacher because we often, often I'd take the point of view of, I've noticed that because it's something I do, as well. And here's how I tried to stop myself doing that. And I'm calling you out on it now. Because I'm noticing that you're doing this now too. So in a way, it's a little bit kinda because it gives people permission to accept that nobody's perfect, but at the same time to realize that we're doing something now that that actually gets in our own way.
Sarah Fejfar
Well, you're helping them collapse time, right? That's why they're paying you to be there. And so you're positioning your challengers in that way. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me how do you feel after you get done with one of these events?
Jurgen Strauss
In a way it's it's a mixture of relief, exhaustion, and absolute elation. The relief usually is wow you know, we've worked really hard to put this all together to get organized there's been a lot of stuff that we've done in the lead up and we've been on the go for six days now. So the relief is wow, that actually worked really well and it's done now we can take that off and and then we usually spend a couple of weeks just enjoying that. Then we sit down and debrief and say okay, what worked well what can we do better next time. The exhaustion part is it is physically quite quite draining. So often when when we get back particularly if there's a long travel involved, I'll only two or three days just to recover. And the other thing is I'm actually Be an introvert. So to get out in front of people to talk to people a time to be the initiator of conversations, takes a lot of energy, I have to put a lot of energy into doing that. And so once I switch that off, I really notice it physically. So usually I have a few days where I have to sleep a lot or just relax. But the elation part is is the bit that really is most exciting. I, I'm elated, because of the transformations that I've observed, because of the possibilities that are coming out of that. And most of the time, two to three months later, I mean, at the three month mark, we have a review with our participants. And at that mark, there's usually a whole lot of stuff already in place, that's already happening, that's already changed the business that's already grown their business that's already moved them a big step towards the goals that they've set themselves. And even straight after the event, I can tell that those things are in place, and the wheels are turning, the wheels are moving, it's going to be really hard to stop that actually happening if they do the work. And I'm convinced they will. So that's the elation part I sort of really feel elated at that, you know, I've I've contributed to this transformation, they've done the work, but we've set the environment, we've provided the framework, we've kind of facilitated the the whole process that got them there.
Sarah Fejfar
Hmm. So good. And I want to pause for a moment on one thing you said about the exhaustion. So, linchpin nation, I want you to hear what he said, he takes like a few days to decompress, and that is totally normal. And I think a lot of people don't put that time on their calendar, they just, they just kind of plan to just go right back into daily life. And after putting on an event, you really do need time to decompress, and recenter yourself. I think even if you're an extrovert, I don't think this is just for introverts. And I think you should have planned on your calendar two to four days, at least you'll figure out what it is for you after you get into a rhythm of putting on your own events. But you're going to need that time. And I'll just say for myself, it's a it's typically closer to the, the, you know, like 234, then, you know, one, two, and definitely for the first day after an event, I don't even move, like off of a couch. And for anybody who knows me, they, it's just absolutely like, I think something's wrong. Because I don't ever sit down. Like I'm always like, busy with something. I remember after I had an event once and I was it was in the town where I live, which is not normal, I usually do events that are away from where I live. And in my parents, I live close by at the time and they stopped by my house, the day after the event. And the whole time, like from the moment they arrived, the whole conversation they left I like I was like draped over a chair and did not move. And I think everyone thought, you know, like, I don't know, hell had frozen over. But it really is
Jurgen Strauss
a bad event.
Sarah Fejfar
I think it's a good one. But yeah, it's just the reality. And I think we should go in like eyes wide open and have that time blocked on our calendars afterwards and not have expectations of yourself because it's a real thing to decompress from an event. And I appreciate that you are taking that time.
Jurgen Strauss
And also, I think the other important thing around that is to in that decompression time to reflect in what worked really well. And rejoice in and celebrate the successes and what went well in the event. Before you get on to we'll do that went wrong and this went wrong. And next time I do this, I have to fix that particular part of the system or fix this particular part that comes a little bit later. Allow time in that decompression and a little bit going beyond as I say we usually go for two weeks before we come back and do a debrief on the event. And in that time it's really about rejoicing in all the all the good things that happened, all the transformations that happen and all the fun we had everything that worked well.
Sarah Fejfar
I'd love that rule that you have to celebrate the wins in that first two week period and then you're allowed to do the debrief with them. What could what could be done differently next time? And so you typically do that about two weeks out.
Jurgen Strauss
Yeah. And usually about that, in do you bring together
Sarah Fejfar
kind of all of the any team that was involved and do it as a group?
Jurgen Strauss
Yeah, we do that as a team, the team that, that put it all together there and support team. And we also get feedback from all of the participants. So we get their feedback, in terms of what worked well, what did they learn? And what would they like to see more of a difference,
Sarah Fejfar
and you bring the results of that survey to that meeting is like a discussion point. Excellent. I'm a huge fan of post event surveys of guests, and there's so much to learn there. And glad glad to hear that you're doing them, too. So, before we wrap up, I want to move into a little bit of a rapid fire segment, if you will. And I want to ask you a few questions and see what what's top of mind for you. So the first one I want to ask you is, what do you see yourself backstage and onstage?
Jurgen Strauss
Yeah, I heard you ask this question of a lot of other people. And it's, it's interesting, I was having a conversation yesterday with a number of people that were just starting out in Toastmasters as speakers, and talking about nerves and so on. I'm not really sure what I say to myself before I what I normally do, and I do this, when I start my podcast as well is in the lead up to it, I really just focus on my mindset and bringing a mindset of I'm the servant here, I'm, I'm here to serve my audience. I'm here to serve my event participants. And I've got to bring my A game to this the what's you know what's best for me right now. And it's got to be my A game, it's got to serve the audience. So anything that I try to suppress anything, I'm thinking about myself like that, my hair might be going a darker shade of gray than I would like, or whatever it is, because that's about me, and the audience doesn't really care about that they're here to get value from whatever I've got to say or bring. So I remind myself of that, and take those deep breaths just before I go on stage to kind of just get settled. And I embrace the nerves, because the moment I'm no longer nervous, it means I probably don't care anymore. So and that was what I said to those people yesterday, because they're all had had you're so confident onstage. How do you overcome the nerves? You know, how do you get rid of the nerves, and I said, Well, I was nervous. But my nervousness is around, caring about making the impact that I want to make. And so I embrace that, because that's good. And so by doing that, it means it doesn't necessarily get in the way because I know it's there to hold me accountable. I know it's there to to make sure that I'm bringing my A game that I've got the energy and I've got the mindset and everything to bring my game.
Sarah Fejfar
So good. So you're my next question is, is about filling events, I'd love to hear your best tip for filling your events.
Jurgen Strauss
Yeah, our our best process really is through networking through word of mouth, they are boutique events. So we don't do a huge amount of advertising. Most of it is word of mouth, from previous event participants that recommend it to other people and say, Hey, this was a fabulous event. And we expect the next one will be fabulous as well. And then of course, through our own networks, where either we've done business with people in some other some other service or product, or they know of people that might be a good fit for us. And so we leverage that network to build that word of mouth marketing.
Sarah Fejfar
Sure. Is there something specific that you say to past guests as a way of asking them for referrals or to talk about it? Or is it just naturally happen?
Jurgen Strauss
Yeah, we talk about it and encourage them right throughout the process. Of Well, first of all, we do a lot of video recordings and part of the one of the video recordings we do during the event is if on the last day when we Do video recordings of them presenting their pitches, whether that's to for their marketing program or for investors. And then we say, well, if anybody's up for it, while we're doing that recording, if you could do a video testimonial for us, and for this event, that would be wonderful. Most people are quite happy to do that, as well. They're there in front of the camera already. So we just keep keep it rolling for that. And then we encourage them, of course, to speak about their experience at the event with their colleagues with their network, and just let them know that we're going to be doing it again in two years time. COVID.
Sarah Fejfar
I love that you do video testimonials during the event that's so wise and actually also really easy to do in a virtual setting too. So I encourage that highly. What's what's your favorite event moment at events that you host?
Jurgen Strauss
Whoo, that's a tough question that one because it's there's so many. I think there are a couple of times where we've noticed somebody something going on with somebody. And it's hard to figure out what is it that's going on with that person, they've just, what you observe is they've just kind of gone inside or withdrawn from an event or they haven't come out for a dinner or something. And so is that maybe they're just tired, and they need a rest or what's going on. And on a couple of those occasions, we've figured out that there was a deeper issue, and we're able to actually bring the person back into the fold in a way that made it okay for them to share that issue. And then with the group of people, there's somebody, and usually together, we help them solve that particular issue, whether it was they were missing their family at home, there might be instances, or there were instances like that. But we've then created a situation where they could talk with their family, and they could actually tell them about some of the exciting stuff happening. And that was okay. Whereas normally we were kind of saying, well, we've really cut off from the world hearing, the idea is to be really focused on ourselves and what we're doing with our business. There's been other occasions where somebody didn't want to come on an excursion and we thought, well, they just didn't like what we had planned, which was a surprise, because we canvassed everybody upfront, and then it turned out that they were balking at the cost of it. Because they wanted to spend that money on bringing home gifts for their family. And so we said, look, we'll we'll pay for the excursion, that's, you know, it's more important that we're aware. And that those moments when people realize that they're being taken care of, even when they're having a little crisis moment, if you like, they're still being taken care of and seeing them embrace that and know that they're really cared for that that's I guess, that's a couple of the moments where I've really felt, you know, this is really touching
Sarah Fejfar
sex, and probably makes you feel like such, like good, like important work that you're doing. And I love that. What's the best thing about hosting your own events that you've found since kind of adding them into your business?
Jurgen Strauss
For me, the best thing is, I mean, it's like we're presenting a service to the event participants. At the same time. We're also going through those exercises. And I find even when we're in presenter mode, or we're in facilitator mode, that I learned so much from each and every participant, I learned so much from going through the process, I learned so much about what's going on just by observing the whole environment, the interactions between people, the plans they have and how they go about realizing them and the shift in mindset, the shift in you know, limiting beliefs just sort of falling away almost momentarily. Sometimes. They're the things that I think are the best for me about the event that there's so much that I learned by running the event.
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. There's it really isn't about serving them at some point. You realize that it's It's so much free as much for you as it is, it is for them. I'd love to know what you're reading right now.
Jurgen Strauss
I've just finished a really interesting book called marketer in chief by Jason Voinovich. And it talks about each of so he's a, he's a marketer. And he's also a hobby historian. So he's passionate about history and learning from the lessons of history. And what he's done in this book is presented each of the American presidents from George Washington right up to to forgotten the name of the current, the current guide, that's what he said about our prime minister, Joe Biden, from from George Washington to Joe Biden, every single president, and he presented them in the light of what was the environment they were operating in? And how did they sell the narrative of what they wanted people to do? And he looked at it from the from, sort of different eras as well. So in the early stages of the Republic, there were, they were essentially innovators. So he made that metaphor, and lessons for modern marketers. So in the early stages are essentially innovators because they are inventing it, they were kind of flying by the seat of their pants. There was no rulebook really, they were developing the rulebook. And then, as that got established, then there was a period where folks were trying to figure out how do we operate this rulebook? How do we operate these processes? And then of course, there was the Civil War period and the disruption of people challenging whether those processes was right, or whether some of the stuff that was still inherent in the whole system was right. And how did the president there sell the narrative to bring people on board, particularly where there was such division within the country, and then going forward and right up to the present day where, you know, the challenges are now different than they were 100 years ago, the challenges of environmental change the challenges of technology, the technology revolution, the challenges of sort of in a global arms race is still there. And that that's probably been around for 50 years, and how each of the Presidents shaped the narrative, as a marketing narrative to bring people on board. So I'd thought it was a really fascinating look at history. And also with the lessons that he then drew parallels to how, how we could apply some of those things in marketing business.
Sarah Fejfar
That sounds super fascinating. I already want to read it. And I've already got somebody I want to recommend it to that sounds awesome. Thank you. So what have you got going on right now that we should know about? And where can linchpin nation find you? And definitely share your podcasts, too, because it's such a good one.
Jurgen Strauss
Yeah, well, it's the Innova buzz podcast, and people can find that by going to either Innova buzz.com, that will take you straight to the podcast page, or it is on our website in over biz.com.au. And check out Sarah's conversation with me on that podcast. I can't remember the episode number now. But it would have been in high four hundreds. So we've just recorded a bunch of panel conversations to celebrate our 500th episode. And that'll be that will be out in March. And one of the things that I'm really excited about this year is taking some of these online event type frameworks and also the whole framework and process that we have for our podcast and using that to help people build content, whether that's around podcasting, whether that's promoting books, whether that's putting together a series of courses, all of those things. We've got the frameworks that that are easily applied to that and I'm really excited to explore that and help people put together those assets for their business that will help promote their business that some people find quite challenging to, to build content as assets for the business. And yet most people have everything they need, up here inside their head or they've written a book or they've written blog posts and by having those conversations, we can help draw that out and repurpose them produce a whole lot of additional assets that they didn't realize they actually had hidden somewhere inside their business or inside their head.
Sarah Fejfar
So good. And where can we hear about that?
Jurgen Strauss
Well, I've got a full, I've published an audio course about our full podcasting process. And you can find that at Innova biz.co. Forward slash flywheel. Got it? Well, we call that our flywheel. And that's a full audio course of how we go about producing our podcast from launch to the 500th episode and beyond, as well as talking about how do we get guests on board? How do we promote the show? How do we ensure that there's an exceptional experience along the way for everyone? So that's all about the environment that we talked about in the event? And how do we generate referrals so that guests always being sent our way?
Sarah Fejfar
So good. I actually want to go listen to that myself. I will link all that up in the show notes. And huge congratulations to you on your 500th episode after just being a few in myself. i It's easier now for me to appreciate what a huge accomplishment that is. So just kudos from me on that. Thank you again for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Jurgen Strauss
Thanks, Sarah. And thanks for having me on the show. And I really enjoyed the conversation.
Sarah Fejfar
Thank you for listening to the greenroom central podcast. If you love this episode, then please take a screenshot on your phone and post it to Instagram. And be sure to tag at therapy for and let me know why you liked it and what you'd like to hear or who you'd like to hear from in the future. That'll let me know what to create for you.
Sarah Fejfar
If right now you're thinking, Sarah, yes, an event is happening. Most definitely. But here's the thing. I have a sizable team who can make this happen. But we need someone to teach us how well then go to Green Room central right now to book a private workshop. You'll get a customized two day virtual workshop for your team. During the workshop. Everyone will learn a repeatable framework that can be used to start or scale events in your business. You'll then create a roadmap as a team so that everyone leaves the workshop with a shared vision for how to move forward with confidence.
Sarah Fejfar
On average, I spend about an hour a day reading every month of every year. If you love learning on the go as much as I do, then I want you to go to greenroom. central.com To get a free audiobook and a free 30 day trial of Audible, my AUDIO BOOK platform of choice and a sponsor of greenroom Central, please grab a copy of Marketer-in-Chief How Each President Sold the American Idea by Jason Voiovich like like Juergen did, or perhaps you want to grab a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie with what's on my audible bookshelf right now. I'm absolutely loving it. Perhaps give one of those a try.
Sarah Fejfar
I appreciate your commitment to leveling up and learning the mindset and the strategies of live events. I want you to keep going I want you to keep learning. If you want more, head over to Greenroomcentral.com For show notes and all the links from today's episode
