TCC Podcast #151: The Power of Events with Patsy Kenney

Marketing strategist and event planner, Patsy Kenney, is our guest for the 151st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Patsy is wrapping up a couple of transitions in her business, including combining her event planning business into an agency with two of her best friends. We asked Patsy about all the changes in her life and... •  how Patsy became a brand and event specialist •  all the things someone needs to know to be an event planner •  how to think about the purpose of your event to magnify your ripple effect •  Patsy’s 4P process for event planning •  the power of being intentional about everything at an event •  how to foster more connection at an event (what we try to do at TCCIRL) •  the part that branding and marketing play in your event •  when copywriters should consider holding their own events •  why retreats and personal gatherings are such a great opportunity •  the mistakes she’s seen others make with their events •  why she decided to fold her business into an agency with friends •  navigating business and growing when life throws you a setback •  what comes next for Patsy and her business(es) To hear the brilliant things Patsy shared about events and dealing with change, click the play button below, or download this episode to your favorite podcast app. Or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Nikki Groom The Good Life Project Seth Godin Vidyard AndCelebrate.com TheBrandingEdit.com Patsy's Instagram Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira:   You're invited to join the club for episode 151 as we chat with branding and events strategist, Patsy Kenney, about celebrating something every day, what it's like to start an agency with your best friends, how to know if you should have your own event, and what it takes to make an event successful. Welcome, Patsy. Rob:   Hey, Patsy. Patsy:            Hey, thank you both so much for having me. I'm really excited about this conversation. Kira:   Yes, we are excited, and we met ... I was trying to trace it back, but we met via Nikki Groom, who is also on our show, and we met at the Good Life Project, which is such a nice place to meet you. Patsy:            We did. It was a lovely space, and I just adore that community because it is full of amazing people like yourself who are looking to really get the most out of this human experience that we're a part of. Kira:   All right, so, Patsy, let's kick us off with your story. I know you've gone through a lot of changes in your business and your life. Let's just start with how you ended up becoming a brand and event strategist. Patsy:            Awesome. Yeah, so my path has not been a linear one by any means. When I first graduated from high school, I grew up in a small town in Maine, and I knew I wanted to leave the state, at least for those four years of college. I found myself in Rhode Island. When I first started that college pathway, I really didn't know what I wanted to focus on, and I didn't really have a great sense of self. I knew that I loved learning about people, and I was a decent writer. Those two things as my filter, I eventually found myself pursuing a public relations degree, and quickly, after graduation, found myself in a corporate setting in a marketing department for very well-known brands, but in an industry and space that wasn't exactly what I would call interesting to me. While it was a great foundational place for me to land in terms of learning about how a business works and what it's like to be out in this sort of corporate world, it was wonderful. The people I met during that time period were very integral in how I sort of shaped my path forward beyond that, but very quickly into that first six months of "adult" corporate life, I thought, "Gosh, there has to be more to life than this." I ended up going back to school to pursue something more creative. I was studying graphics, multimedia, and web design in a small college here in Rhode Island, working full-time, going to school at night. That's where really the time and place that I fell into branding and brand development and the art of that, and finding the deeper meaning behind the messaging, and how you can utilize visuals to tell a story, as well as copywriting to connect as quickly and deeply with your clients or future prospective customers as possible. That really lit me up, so I found myself over the last decade or so, prior to starting my own business, kind of bouncing from ... I would say these were intentional leaps, but bouncing from corporate job to nonprofit setting to different industries, and sort of getting this broad scope of how I could utilize all of this knowledge in a new way to serve different markets, and along the way, event creation came into that. When it finally came time for me to step out onto my own, I launched this blog, and I wanted to form a business around this idea of celebration and events, and that marketing background all started to come into play. My first anchor clients kind of came into my path by happenstance and said to me, while I still had a corporate job at the time, "I am a business coach. I'm looking to serve other coaches and consultants and help them build their businesses, and I'm planning this live event. It sounds to me like you have all the ingredients to support me with that, from the conception and visuals and experience side to marketing and how do I actually attract people into this experience." She sort of saw something in me before I even saw it in me and led me into my first opportunity, and I was able to build a successful business in that realm over the last few years. Rob:   Can we talk a little bit about that in-depth? What are all those pieces that come together to make a good event planner? Patsy:            Yeah, oh, gosh. Rob:   Or, event strategist, I guess, is the better word. Patsy:            I think it's really above anything else knowing what your purpose is for an experience. A lot of times, when I'm first introduced to folks, they're looking for someone to support them with logistics. They're like, "Oh, my gosh. Planning an event." They know enough to know that planning an event is a heck of a lot of work, and it's a full-time job in and of itself a lot of times, depending on the scale of what you're looking to create. We get kind of, I think, by nature, get caught up in the details of where's it going to be, how are people going to get there, what's it going to look like, the feel, all that kind of stuff. Hosting an event for your business is to take a step back and say, "Okay, from this greater point of view, how could this experience help you propel your business forward in a way you want to go?" How do you want to grow? Five years from now, what do you want to be doing inside of your business? Let's take that knowledge, that sort of future look ahead, and see what we can do intentionally and strategically now in creating this experience to help you lay the foundation for where you want to go. Why are we gathering people together? How is the event going to help people? What transformation do you want them to have inside of that container of that experience? And, one of my favorite questions to ask is, how do you want your guests to feel? How are they feeling before they come into this space, and then what are they saying when they leave the space? Who are they calling? Whether it's their best friend or their partner or business colleague or spouse on the way home, what are they saying about this experience when they leave? Because really, when it comes down to marketing, and you both know this so well in terms of copywriting, but it's like how do we evoke a feeling which ignites a memory inside of someone so that you're creating this word-of-mouth sort of ecosystem for your brand and your business, and people leave the experience talking about you in a way that you want to be talked about. It's like, I think, through those one-to-one-to-one connections that that's how the ripple effect grows around your brand, around your business, around how you're showing up in the world, and how you can continue to help people beyond your own network. Kira:   Can you give us an overview of your process when you're working with a client? Maybe we can pull some of your ideas and use them as our own so that you can do that so that people do walk away with a certain feeling, and your client achieves the big goal. What's your process like to make sure that happens? Patsy:            I have sort of four Ps that I work from, and the first being purpose. What is your purpose, your mission, your greater sort of purpose in the world, and what are you trying to say with your brand or your business? Then, we kind of hone in on that specifically for an event because it can be quite daunting to try to jam your entire message into ... Say it's like a three-hour experience, it really kind of depends on context too. The first phase of any work I do is always around getting clear on what's the context here. What are our goals? What's the purpose for gathering? Then, the second P is people, like who is this specifically for? Without those two elements, you can't really craft an experience without knowing both of those and being really clear on those. Sometimes people come in with sort of broad strokes of what they like to do, and then, through a series of questions,