Get your Message to Resonate with Conference Attendees

Good day! George Berlin, Illustrator and Animator Extraordinaire here!

I’d like to share the tale of how the message at your events can easily resonate with your attendees and BE REMEMBERED!! It’s all in the delivery…

Picture the scene: you’ve gotten your 100 top salespeople- or even 1000!- all together for the annual sales kick-off conference in an upscale hotel, maybe even Vegas. Thousands of sales-hours have been lost by bringing all of them together for 3 days, not to mention the cost of the space, the huge production staff and video techs, as well as the stage rental, food, cost to design and present the event, and all of those hotel rooms!!

You’re easily in for at least half a million dollars- maybe a million! All the marks have been hit, the keynote presenter (maybe your head of North American Sales- or even your CEO!) steps up to the podium and starts to speak. He hits the key point in his pitch and…

STOCK IMAGERY POPS UP BEHIND HIM!!

…and 3/4 of the minds in the audience immediately shut down as a conditioned defense mechanism.

Later, back at the office, everyone remembers the great pool at the hotel, seeing old friends from other locations, even the great food you had at the party after the keynote.

But wait, what was the keynote about again?

Anyway, man, those delicious little Kobe beef sliders mmm.

What went wrong?  You’ve put your beautiful- and extremely VITAL- message in the wrong wrapping paper.  The event was created SOLELY to deliver your talking points- which got forgotten because of their delivery.

Let’s try this again…

Your CEO has lead the company through some trying times, with overhauls to several major parts of the way you do business. She opens her keynote with this image instead:

Feeling better now? Everyone understands- it’s like hugging your Aunt Bertha. It might seem a little scary at first, but change really IS good (just like sweet old Aunt Bertha.)
It’s a warm and comforting image that conveys the uneasiness everyone is feeling, with a lighthearted touch that says “We get it.”

And it’s a great contrast to the normally serious graphic style they’re used to from events like this, so it gets their attention. Disarmed and alert, they hang on your every word…

The CEO continues that some things are beyond all of our control- hers included! And that we’ll all just need to hold course and continue on our journey together… to this image:

A lot more endearing than some stock photography of a stern looking
business guy in a stripey three-piece suit, isn’t it? And now, instead of feeling like you just told them all to “buck it up, times are tough, so take it on the chin!” you’ve instead made them all feel like brave sea captains- fighting a good battle against outside forces and that, darnit, we’re going to survive on our skill and wits and hold each other together!

Quite a change. Will your message resonate with them now? You bet.

Yes, custom illustration like these (done for a major medical device manufacturer’s growth conference) will cost you more than simple stock imagery. But if you’ve spent close to $1 Million to get all of them together to hear your message, what’s several thousand dollars more to insure that it sticks with them once they’re back at the office?

Take a look around my site www.georgeberlin.com for ideas on how to deliver your message more effectively with clever and lighthearted visuals and animation.

Drop me a line:
George@GeorgeBerlin.com
and let’s talk about where I can take your message!

Thanks!

 

Written by: George Berlin