Experience University Podcast

S5E13: Solving for Underemployment

October 05, 2021 Extraordinary Events Season 5 Episode 13
Experience University Podcast
S5E13: Solving for Underemployment
Show Notes Transcript

Can you tell how passionate I've been recently? Today, I'm adding on a bit to our last episode in addition to how under-employment is and my thoughts on the potential resolutions. And I had the opportunity to respond to someone on this episode! I love hearing from you guys! Keep the conversation going!

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Dr.K: Hello, hello, my beautiful friends, it's another great day to be alive. It's super interesting for this podcast today, because I had it planned in my calendar, the original topic of what we were going to talk about, then I received some messages from some listeners, and I adjusted the topic of what it's going to be about. And then I got a ton of feedback from last week's episode, in terms of the pricing for value. So I'm going to kind of do a little bit of a blend where I will address some of the comments from the pricing per value. And then I'm gonna do kind of a mini topic I was saving for next week. And then next week, I'll do the revised one for this week. And then the week after that, I'll do the one that I originally planned for. 

So always keeping up with the comments. If you as a valued listener, if you want to hear about something, if you're intrigued about something happening in the industry or something that's been talked about, then definitely reach out, send me a message, you can reach out to me on Instagram, or TikTok or Facebook or via email. All of the links are in the show notes. Tell me what you want to hear. All right. So last week, I shared a podcast about pricing for value. And it's funny because some people who listened to the podcast had reached out and said, Wow, these are getting really passionate. And it's because I'm starting to talk about a lot of controversial things in our industry. I think in our industry, there's definitely an old school mindset and a new school mindset, and mindsets that are kind of in the middle. And they're all butting heads just a little bit. And I want to address those heads on because there's no right answer. But there are alternate ways of thinking about it. And I think that we could try those hats on and see how they fit. And if we don't like it, that's okay. But at least we could try that thought. So last week, I was talking about pricing for value. And depending on your purpose and your why which you should always start with, what is your why? What is your purpose for having this event? Where does this event fit within the overall marketing and strategy plan for your organization for whether it's an association or a corporation? Where does that event fit? And there was a big discussion about how COVID happened, a lot of online events became free, because the purpose at that point was whether that's to extend reach or just to maintain visibility, a lot of things became free.

But that wasn't always the best thing for those organizations, not just in terms of revenue, but because then the attendees or participants, they may be downgraded subconsciously that value within their mindset because it was free. I talked about this a lot in terms of students. It's a little controversial. But the students today are way different than university students decades ago. A lot of the students today are working full time jobs within the industry, to pay their bills and to get experience because that is necessary. And so maybe decades ago, students who came to university maybe focused exclusively on being a student, or maybe they had a part time job. Now a lot of our college students, particularly within events, or within hospitality or business. They have this incredible experience that they can list on their resume that will help them get a job. And I tell events students all the time I say your experience is what's going to get you in the door but your education is what will help you grow much faster, move up through the ranks much faster because your your mindsets going to be a little different in terms of marketing and strategy and design. But really that education that that four year degree or or however long you're in school isn't going to get you in the door, you have to have some experience to get in the door. 

The reason why I'm talking about this is because students will list their experience on their resume. You have to list that in a very certain way or else those that are hiring you are going to kind of subconsciously downgrade that experience, they're going to say, Oh, well, you were a student, or oh, well, this was an internship. So all of a sudden, that experience is worth, quote unquote, less than what it would be if you weren't a student, or if this wasn't labeled as an internship. And it's one of the things that drives me crazy as a faculty member, because students have this incredible experience more experience than non-students have. But it's subconsciously downgraded in your mind, because you're thinking that it's being more maybe hand held than those who aren't doing it as a student or as an internship. The same exact thing is happening in terms of value proposition. Just because an event is free, or really inexpensive, subconsciously, maybe your participants and attendees are saying that the content or the value isn't as much as if they paid a lot of money for it. It's such an interesting concept to actually think about, that your pricing for value. 

So I talked a lot about this last week. If you haven't downloaded that episode, I highly, highly recommend downloading it. I'm super passionate in it, because it's something that I'm kind of arguing for in one of my groups right now is that we need to charge money, because that way, the value in the mindset is there. I got this super interesting comment from Elias? Aelius? I'm sorry, if I'm saying that wrong.   

He said, This is such an interesting point, Kristin, I was going to kind of argue this idea of more for less, as some users and clients see the price tag first, whereas a priority, they would lead to the conclusion that cheaper is better. But if it's well explained, more expensive would mean cheaper on the long run. So you would be paying, in my words right here, a lot of people tend to think that you charge more based on how much time. So if you have a one day event versus a five day event, the five day event would clearly be more expensive, so you build in more time. Elias says, however, your podcast made me think about that value that you correctly pointed out. If the company or organization can show that a longer time equals better value when positioning their event, it could lead to a higher awareness, awareness and sale can send that 

Sorry, I'm reading this lead to a higher awareness and sale conversion from the potential attendee base. On the other hand, if the group fails to do so, a prospective customers could see longer events as a valued diminisher, thus negatively impacting the bottom line. It's so so true. In our industry, right now, in the world right now. It's not necessarily more for less in terms of a product or an event. But we're very time focused, now, we have more and more and more demands on our time. And just because your event is three hours, doesn't mean that it should be cheaper than a five day event, because you really should be pricing for value. If I am selling you an event that I say is going to be a life changer a transformative event. And it's two hours instead of six weeks. If it's truly transformative, then you should charge more for it, because you're providing more value. I'm saying, hey, Elias, I'm only taking two hours out of your life to change your life instead of six weeks. So I'm actually going to charge you more because it's more valuable, because I'm taking less of your time but providing an equal or higher transformational value. 

So I got a ton of feedback from this podcast last week. So I really, really hope that you all take this into consideration when you're pricing your future events. So thank you so much. I'm saying this specifically to Elias because I read yours word for word. And again, I'm so sorry if I spelled your name wrong. But I definitely hope that all the listeners will kind of try on this hat and kind of think about this in a different way. 

So I'm looking at the clock now and I've already been talking for nine minutes, and I really, really try to keep my podcast around fifteen minutes. So thinking about the topic that I want to introduce, I truly truly feel like I'm going to need another podcast just to really dive deep into this. I really want to introduce a topic that I've actually been requested to speak on a lot. I have three different workshops within the next six weeks around this topic. And this topic is about recruiting employees to the organization. And I'm not talking about just students I'm talking about. As you know, in the world right now, under employment is a huge issue. It's not specific to events. And actually, two of the three presentations and workshops that I'll be leading are not specific to the event industry. So you say, why are you being invited to speak on this.

And I put this concept out in the universe, I don't know, maybe six or seven months ago, about how marketing traditionally has been external to the organization. You have a marketing team that works for the organization, and they are advertising their products or services or events externally to potential customers and clients. And when we're thinking about employment, and employees, we often think about human resources. So human resources drafts a job description, maybe they send it out on a listserv, or they post it on a website. And there's really not a lot of marketing or quote-unquote, sexiness involved in it. It's a job description and email text. I introduced this concept that we need to actually be marketing for potential employees, because of COVID, and the acceptance of remote workers, you know, working from home. It's now kind of a global competition for the best workers. I'm based in Nebraska in the United States. But I can now work for companies in Europe or in Asia, or in different parts of the United States. I'm a quality employee, but I no longer need to move. Before it was kind of based on your geographical region. 

I love living where I'm living, I don't want to move to these expensive cities, where it's super, super expensive in terms of cost of living. And so I was kind of kept within my geographical bubble. So I've been giving these workshops, in terms of maybe your marketing team should be the one who's trying to recruit your potential attendees. Maybe focus Human Resources a little bit more in terms of onboarding, once they have accepted their offer, their onboarding, and the different processes internally, you should almost have a separate marketing person marketing to these potential employees. And this is a really, really interesting concept, not just in terms of emails and papers, but also for events. Instead of having events just for brand awareness to potential customers or clients. We could almost be having events specific to potential employees, people that are interested in the brand that you want to capture all that knowledge and intent and, and get them within the organization. So this is definitely a topic I'm asked to speak on a lot now and to also lead workshops on what does that look like? How do we market for this potential employee base? What did those events look like? What does that copy look like in terms of the emails and, and the different offerings?

I was speaking a couple of months ago to a Lodging Association, in terms of underemployment, re-envisioning who that target market looks like, where we can get those employees. And then, of course, that dreadful listserv email. I think a lot of times, human resources and job descriptions, they focus a lot on the salary. And as we all know, employees might take a less salary if they have a better environment, better perks, and better benefits. So oftentimes, especially in the hospitality industry, you say, well, I can't offer more money. And sometimes it's like, well, what do you have that doesn't technically cost you more money? Maybe you can market to these potential employees. Maybe you say, you can come in and use our pool when you're not working. Maybe you can come in and use our gym when you're not working. What are different assets you have as an organization that you can pull these people into? And then how do you get awareness to these potential employees outside of a stuffy job fair, and that's where events can really come into that concept. You have to always remember that events is part of the overall marketing and strategy plan. They're not just one off events anymore. They're really incorporated into the overall strategy. And I think sometimes a lot of people forget that. And think of events as maybe a one-off type deal. Even special events, like the Olympics or the Super Bowl, they're overall part of a larger strat strategy plan. And it's so often easy to forget that. 

All right, so I'm over fifteen minutes. And I'm going to end with introducing that concept here. And then I promise in a couple of weeks, we're gonna dive in super deep about what that could look like. Because I know as a globe, we're all really struggling with this underemployment. And then there's also some interesting ethical things from organization standpoints that are coming to light in terms of organizations that are maximizing their profit by keeping skeleton crews. So they're intentionally offering and listing jobs that are underpaid and requiring ridiculous qualifications to give their internal employees hope that help is coming when they really have no intent to expand their workforce. It's really interesting some of the ethical things that are coming on. 

So if you think about it, you're overworked and understaffed. Your crew is just dying, and they're working long hours, and they're saying to themselves, like, oh, my gosh, why is nobody applying right now? Like, yes, people need to stop being lazy and get off unemployment, and that we need help. But you constantly have this hope that more help is coming. So you're working hard and getting burnt out, going through all the steps, when really your organization might be saying on paper that they're advertising for these positions, but they actually have no intent to actually hire anyone. So that's why the salaries are really low. And the qualifications are really high, because they're trying to actually dissuade you from applying. So it's really interesting because some organizations and industries truly do have underemployment, and some it's almost like a green washing effect, which is really fascinating. 

So we're gonna dive into that in a couple weeks. If there's something that you want to hear about, if there's thoughts that you want to share, definitely, definitely reach out. And rate, share, subscribe, if you found this content interesting share it with a friend. We are, I think being heard in 49 countries. That's the last statistics that I pulled from the website, so 49 countries. So share with us what you're seeing in your country. I try to be well read and well researched in a variety of issues across the globe. But if something's really hitting home in your country, reach out, let me know I'd be happy to share about it on the podcast, and even interview you every other Thursday. We do industry interviews, I would love to have some more global guests on the podcast that are sharing about specific issues in your country. I think that'd be really fascinating. 

As always, I do not take your time for granted. I hope you find the 15 to 20 minutes with me each week to be valuable. I always appreciate you taking the time to make the time to listen in. I will talk with you soon.