Molly Ruland:

Little countdown. And then, yeah, if you need to restart or whatever, just just say something, and then we’ll just edit it out later. So, you know, we do a good bit of editing on these things. Alright. And then I say your last name is Latham. Is that right? Lathan with an s. N. Lathan.

Molly Ruland:

Okay. Liz, of course, is Liz Lathan. Alright. So here we go. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to camp, look at me. I’m a professional. Alright, ladies and gentlemen.

Molly Ruland:

Welcome to camp content. I’m excited for this week’s guest, Liz Lathan. I have recently connected with her on LinkedIn, and I am so glad that I did because her content is super awesome, really fresh, really insightful, and really gets you thinking about stuff in a good way. And so I’m excited for her to be on the show today, and so let me introduce her a little bit more. Liz is the mastermind creative behind the Community Factory, which is revolutionizing event engagement in 2024 and and beyond and before. If you’re tired of the same old boring corporate gatherings, then you need Liz. She’s got the antidote with her signature spontaneous think tank where attendees lead the conversation. If you want a community that lasts year round, Liz’s community as a service offering has you covered.

Molly Ruland:

It’s content marketing with a butt with a people first twist. Plus, she runs Club Ichi, an oasis for event professionals seeking inspiration and networking opportunities. I love how specific that is. So tune in for a fresh take on community building and event engagement with Liz from The Community Factory, the innovative hub for connecting individuals and fostering meaningful connections. And you know I love building relationships, and I love having a good time, and I love events. So without further ado, welcome to the show, Liz. Thanks for being here.

Liz Lathan:

Thanks for having me. This is gonna be a blast.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. I love it. It is gonna be a blast. I gotta move my tabs around so I can see you. That’s the problem with having too many things open. I am really excited

Liz Lathan:

about that. Is at all times.

Molly Ruland:

So Seriously. I get it. Trust me. I get it. It’s a problem over here. I really am excited to have you on the show. Like, I love that you responded right away. And just like I said, looking at your content and seeing everything you’re doing, it’s super cool.

Molly Ruland:

I really appreciate it. I did events for a very long time. I’ve owned a multimedia company for the last 23 years, and so I have done my share of creative things. But I’m just seeing what you’re doing in these, like, very regular spaces and doing really creative things that I think speak so much more to where we are in the business world. You know? And especially getting people to events. I can only imagine that it’s become different post pandemic. And you really need to, like, you know, shake things up and get people moving, literally, physically moving around and thinking differently about things. So what was, you know, what was the inspiration behind the community factory? You know, tell us a little bit about that.

Liz Lathan:

My background was all corporate events in the Fortune 100 world, the Dell, IBM, and doing all of the corporate things. And while we did a lot of really fun things to pull people out of just the normal sit and get, it was pretty formulaic. I mean, you know, events are events, and that is what we do. We have the purpose of bringing people together so we can sell them a thing. And so then we really relied on our partners and our sponsors to do the activities and to do fun things, and we would put our moments of insight in there. But toward the end of that corporate career of mine, I started seeing that, you know, it’s not so much about the box that you’re building. It’s more about what the people do when you get inside the box, and we’re not putting enough thought behind that. It was a little bit of, you know, push because we have to push the parade of presidents on stage and then, you know, doing all the things you need to do.

Liz Lathan:

So I started really playing more. And before I left IBM, I would say, forgiveness, not permission, I did some really fun engaging things that worked out phenomenally well and kind of built my confidence that, you know what? We can push the boundaries here. And then, in 2019, I had started a company with some friends, and we did the world’s first secret business trip. And it was our intent to show people that you did not have to be confined by the walls of a ballroom in order to create an event that drives business. So we invited 80 experiential marketers to meet us at JFK, bring their passport, pack for 6 days, and we told them nothing else. When they got to the airport, we revealed that we had chartered a plane to Tuscany, and we whisked them away for a 6 day spontaneous think tank filled with truffle hunting and pasta making and conversations and all the things. And, I mean, the ROI on that, like, 5 years later, the WhatsApp group that was really originally created to tell people when the bus was coming to their villa is still going. People are RFP ing in that WhatsApp group.

Liz Lathan:

Like, the business that’s been done, over $25,000,000 in business among the people on the plane together in the last five years. So proof that you don’t have to put people in a ballroom and sell to them all day.

Molly Ruland:

I mean, that my head is spinning. That is absolutely insane. Okay. The first thing I gotta know as a business manager, how did you come up with all the money to do that? That’s a lot of money. That must have cost you. I mean, I got the ROI, but that was a huge upfront investment for you. That must have been a real leap of faith.

Liz Lathan:

Well, we charged people to attend, so they paid between 2535100 to come on the trip, and they didn’t know where they were going. So it was a leap of faith for them too. Okay. It was definitely us doing this thing together.

Molly Ruland:

So how did you reach those people? Like, were these people that you had engaged with a little bit before? Like, this is fascinating to me.

Liz Lathan:

A little bit. Some of the people that came on the plane knew us. Some of the people were, like, straight cold outreach on LinkedIn, telling them what it was, and they were like, well, that sounds interesting. We thought we were gonna bring just kind of experiential managers and people at that level. We ended up, I think, with 28 CEOs of event agencies that were like, oh, let’s try this and really think differently about it. So it was amazing.

Molly Ruland:

That is the coolest thing ever. Liz, you’re freaking awesome. I swear to god. This is so cool. I love that. I did a party for one year for New Year’s Eve, and when anybody bought a ticket, I had a bike courier show up at their house within an hour with a gold box and, like, a skeleton key on a velvet rope. You know? And, like, so, like, I I’m I’m down for the, like, let’s push the envelope. Not I mean, I just told my little janky key story with your Italy story, but whatever.

Liz Lathan:

And completely comparable because who’s doing that today? Nobody’s doing that. That’s unbelievable.

Molly Ruland:

And I love it. You have never seen people happier to show up to a party in your life. They were like, here’s my necklace. Here’s my. You know? It was worth every bit of effort put into it. People still talk about that party. You know what I mean? Because of that. So I know it makes a difference, right? Like, because everybody’s doing the same stuff.

Molly Ruland:

You gotta you gotta stand out a little bit more. You gotta make it an experience, something you’re gonna remember. And, you know, I think there’s something to be said for attracting the type of people you wanna work with too. And somebody who’s willing to just, like, bring their passport and show up at the airport, like, that’s my kind of person too. I would you know? Like, it’s a great way to suss out your people and your client base. Right? Like, people That

Liz Lathan:

is 100%.

Molly Ruland:

Yes. Cheers to you. Okay. So let’s talk about communities. Right? So I know you have some communities. Let’s talk about your communities. What are they, and why are you running communities?

Liz Lathan:

Yeah. So the Community Factory is the company, and, really, it was created for us to help people put a sense of community at their events. So we would do these spontaneous think tanks, and we would do those ad events and create this whole sense of community. And then what ended up happening was the people at those events would go, oh my god. We just made the most amazing community. How do we keep it going year round? Like, well, I guess we can help with that. And so the whole idea of this community as a service, just how do we keep people engaged throughout the year until they come back to the next one was born. But from that, from my background in corporate and my business partner Nicole’s background in corporate as well, we kind of had this community following from the secret trip and all those things.

Liz Lathan:

So we launched the community that we call Club Ichi, and Ichi comes from the Japanese word 1. I found this phrase, ichigo, ichii, which means one moment, one time, which is what we try to create with events. Right? It’s that moment where you’re just like, woah. That could never have happened the way it happened. It was so beautiful. So that’s what the community is about, and it acts as our showpiece for what we believe the year round community should be. And it’s kind of both a showpiece for the community as a service and our playground. So we can try engaging things within our community, and it can fail.

Liz Lathan:

And everybody’s like, that’s cool, and then we don’t sell that to clients. Right? So it’s just a fun place for people to be okay trying new things, especially for our corporate event professionals because they are so like, everything they do has to be pixel perfect. You know? There’s no room for mistakes when you’re doing these big events. But within our community, we can try these things and test it out and allow it to fail and really learn with each other, and that’s the cool part. Then we have another community called Team CMO that is for heads of marketing. And, similarly, it’s, you know, it’s a much more, I would say, low engagement community compared to the event folks because they don’t need as much. But when they do, they’re small groups. They’re great roundtable discussions.

Liz Lathan:

They’re really great at learning from each other once a month online, and it’s exactly what they need when they need it. And so, again, it allows us to show the juxtaposition of, like, this really ridiculously engaged community, and this community that’s there for practice and for a purpose and for when they need us.

Molly Ruland:

I mean, there’s value in both. Right? Because, like, not everybody needs, you know, different strokes for different folks, right, like, and it’s nice to know that you have those resources when you need them, but sometimes it can be overwhelming, you know. You know, I really like, you know, kind of, thinking about, there was a question I had for you. It was like, oh, yeah. The difference between creating a community and creating a sense of community. Like, creating a sense of community versus actually creating a community, and that really resonated with me because I think that, you know, I could be a little jaded and cynical sometimes for sure. You know, it’s part of my charm. Both of my parents and my mom’s from Brooklyn.

Molly Ruland:

My dad’s from the Bronx. I can’t help myself. But, you know, I think a lot of times people are, like, creating community, but I’m like, no. It’s a Facebook group. It’s not a it’s not, like, it’s not an actual community. Like, you’re just teeing people up to sell to them, and, like, that’s doing a disservice to the actual word community and the meaning of community, what community actually is. And so I that, you know, it kinda resonates with me, like, you’re you know, this real community versus just a sense of community or the sales of a community. You know?

Liz Lathan:

Yeah. Well and we because I’m just a little bit of waffle bran. Have you ever heard of the waffle bran and spaghetti bran? Like, waffle bran people have syrup in 1 spirit at a time. Spaghetti bran people have sauce on every noodle every time. So I’m kinda like the spaghetti brain, but I have to, like, line up the noodles before I put them back in and count them, you know, all that. So I have to create frameworks to help get the sauce on all the noodles. And so I have, like, my sense of community framework, which is my 5 c’s, and I have my community funnel, which is, like, how do you engage an actual community, which I call my 5 s’s. So my 5 c’s, this is the sense of community. You can create it in an event.

Liz Lathan:

You can do it in a Facebook group, wherever you need to create a sense of community. But it is to care, collaborate, co create, converse, and connect. And when people create communities, they think, well, we’re just gonna let create an environment for connection. If you don’t just throw people in a room with cheese cubes and loud music and expect it to happen.

Molly Ruland:

Right.

Liz Lathan:

Like, you have to actually do these things. So number 1 is care. You have to care about the environment you’re creating, and the people have to care when they’re coming to it that they want to connect. Because if they’re literally just there to go learn something, then they’re not there for community. It’s gonna fail. They have to be willing. The collaboration part, people have to start being willing to kind of share their thoughts with each other openly, and then co creating that collaboration leads to creating something together when you realize you have a shared connection. Can’t do anything without conversation, so that’s where you build in the conversation.

Liz Lathan:

If your entire event is sit and get and learn, then you’ve missed out on the whole opportunity for that connection. So that’s my 5 c’s of community. Now if you’ve decided it is not a sense of community that we’ve built, it is a community that we want to keep going, The framework that we came up with, we call the 5 s’s. And you don’t have to have all of these, but the best, most thriving communities I see have all of them, and that’s the show, the site, the series of gatherings, the sounding board, and the share of a moment. So the show is what’s your top of the funnel. So, like, what you’ve got here with the show. What allows people outside of the community a little bit of access inside the community. So you’re highlighting the people that are in your community.

Liz Lathan:

You’re bringing new people in by asking them to be guests. This is your top of the funnel. The site is now a LinkedIn group, Facebook group, Slack channel, whatever. It’s the place where the people can meet each other asynchronously and have conversations. The series of gatherings could be online or in person, could be once every 4 years, could be every month. Whatever your cadence is, that’s how the people get together. My sounding board is my small group, my 5 to 7 people that I can use to bounce ideas off of, get their insights, tell me who should be on my show next, and really gonna be my inner circle. And then my shareable moments could be anything from swag to the content you’re creating inside the community, to bits from the show, to the insights that come from the gatherings.

Liz Lathan:

I’m having these things. I Need to talk. Sorry. The dog went crazy while sleeping.

Molly Ruland:

That’s okay. I have 3 of them, and they’re being shockingly quiet right now. I shouldn’t have even said that. I jinxed myself. I’m sure.

Liz Lathan:

But Alright. We got through the second. Alright. Yeah. So

Molly Ruland:

okay. Yeah. So the 5 s’s and the last one are the shareable moments.

Liz Lathan:

Yes. So shareable moments, swag, the pieces from inside the community, insights, bits from your show, anything that can be shared outside the community by your folks that are inside it.

Molly Ruland:

So who is best suited to create communities for their business? Who do you primarily work for with this community as

Liz Lathan:

a service? It’s so interesting because it could be anyone from the VP of marketing to the director of product to somebody who’s basically a customer advocacy person. So it’s whatever part of the business really needs the community, and the community serves a different purpose. Because they could be advisory in nature, if it’s coming from the director of product, or it could truly be a sales community in nature. It’s coming from the director of marketing. It’s not wrong to sell to your community and monetize it, but the people that are coming into it have to understand what they’re getting into.

Molly Ruland:

Interesting. So who who is, like, your who is your who is the favorite, like, avatar of a client that you’ve worked with? Like, you don’t have to say their name, but, like, what was the most rewarding place where you saw the most impact with your work?

Liz Lathan:

My favorite is when it’s a company that wants to launch an advisory council, formatted to get customer feedback and create peer to peer conversation, and now they wanna keep that council going for 1 year or 2 years or whatever. And so that allows us to do a kickoff and then kinda keep it running. So that’s kind of our favorite group. It’s small enough, but large enough to have an impact. You know?

Molly Ruland:

Very interesting. Very interesting. I love this. Okay. Let’s see. I have another one. Oh, yeah. I wanna talk about the, you just meant, the spontaneous think tank.

Molly Ruland:

Let’s talk a little bit about that. What is that?

Liz Lathan:

Seriously apologize. There’s somebody knocking at the door, which is making the dog go crazy. Can you pause for just a second?

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Go for it. Don’t worry.

Liz Lathan:

1. Alright. So sorry. He was asking if my phone is out. I don’t have a phone, so I don’t know if it’s out. But I’m gonna say it’s not out.

Molly Ruland:

And let’s see. 18 minutes. I’m just taking notes.

Liz Lathan:

Yes. So when Liz screwed it all up.

Molly Ruland:

Oh, no. Not at all. Not at all. Okay. Yeah. So I asked you about the think tank.

Liz Lathan:

Spontaneous think tanks.

Molly Ruland:

Yes.

Liz Lathan:

Okay. Spontaneous think tanks are, you know, they’re you may have heard of an unconference. They were really big in the eighties. It was like a bunch of people that were really unformatted. And then came this thing called open space formats, where it was super unformatted, and the participants got together and figured out what they’re going to talk about. And then I spent some time at IBM, so we had the, you know, the idea design thinking with all the sticky notes everywhere. So, basically, if you take those three things, put them together, and kind of a little bit like a hackathon, that’s what it ends up being. But the idea came from sitting at industry conferences that, again, were keynote breakout expos, and they did not give us any time to talk to each other.

Liz Lathan:

And when you get to a certain point in your career, you just wanna talk to the other people in the room, And the events weren’t letting us do that. So we took all of those other formats and said, okay. We’re gonna bring people together. We’re gonna bring the big sticky notes. We always use the big 6 by 8 sticky notes, and we ask people, what one challenge are you trying to solve today? And they can use one sticky note per challenge, and they fill the wall, we call it the wall of woes, all the problems everybody’s trying to solve. And then we ask them, step back, Take a look at the wall of woes. And if you see something up there that you’ve solved in your business, go write your name on that. And so now you start to see, oh, this person’s done this, this person’s done that, and the conversation happens.

Liz Lathan:

And then all, like, this beautiful prosocial effervescence of, like, the popcorn popping, and people like, oh, yeah. I’ve done that. Oh, yeah. Oh, you get to talk to me about that. And so from there, we then create peer to peer sessions by asking the folks who’ve solved the problem to lead a conversation about how they solved it. And so the rest of the agenda is putting people in small groups to solve these problems together. So we call it a think tank because it’s all about solving problems. We call it spontaneous because we don’t know what their problems

Molly Ruland:

are till they get there. That is so good. That is so good. I love that. I used to work in the mortgage industry, and we would have different lenders come in every week, and they would tell us their products. And then we would get education on new lenders all the time, and then they would leave, and anybody with problem files would stay at the table. And we’d say, you know, I got a guy, you know, bank statements only, self employed, you know, 20% down, and, oh, yeah. Yeah.

Molly Ruland:

Go to First Jefferson. But, you know, after working there for a year, you knew every single lender, every single program, every single product, every single person to call. I mean, it was amazing. It was the most effective business I think I’ve ever worked in, honestly, from sharing that information. You know? Who knows? It’s so good. And it

Liz Lathan:

It’s still interesting to me that, like, the executives are still a little nervous about allowing that fear period that is true peer to peer at their corporate events because they’re always afraid it’ll devolve into, like, some complaint session or whatever. And it never does. I mean, anytime that it gets into that segment of, like, oh, people saying bad things, they all bring it back. Or if you’ve got subject matter experts in there,

Molly Ruland:

It’s so great. For sure. Yeah. I mean, that’s really brilliant. I love it. I love it. Okay. Let’s see.

Molly Ruland:

And then one more question. How do you measure the success of, like, community building initiatives? What does that look like exactly?

Liz Lathan:

It depends on why you created the community. Right? So there there’s 3 kinds. There’s community of practice, community of product, and community of purpose. And so if it’s a practice, it’s a group of people that are coming together in the same industry. And so it could be acts of advocacy. It could be things that they’re learning. Maybe monetization of your community is the metric. You’re just trying to hit a certain revenue level.

Liz Lathan:

If it’s a community of products, it’s usually people around some sort of software product or something else or even, like, again, like, Liquid Death, maybe, you know, their community that is really trying to drive people in the music industry to drink their water or whatever. But that’s measured by whatever is usually either growth or feedback. And a lot of times, it is feedback in the product, and so they’ll create the community around that. And then, of course, communities of purpose are the goods, and they definitely have their advocacy, their engagement, their impressions, whatever they’re trying to accomplish. So that’s kind of something that we work out in the strategy, and I hate the answer of it depends, but it depends.

Molly Ruland:

Well, no. I mean, that’s relevant. That’s a that’s and that’s a proper answer. Alright. So now we’re gonna move on to our speed round portion of the podcast. You don’t have to answer them super fast, but, you know, they’re just fun questions. So alright. Are you ready? Are you ready for the speed round?

Liz Lathan:

Ready. Let’s do it.

Molly Ruland:

Alright. Number 1. How do you see content marketing evolving in the next 5 years?

Liz Lathan:

Okay. So the big scary part of content marketing is AI generated content. So how do you get through the noise of everything that everybody is putting out there? And I think this is where community comes in. Because if the content is coming from within the community, featuring people in the community, or highlighting things relevant to your community, that’s going to cut through the noise. And so I think that drives me to my answer of it’s about intention, not attention. Oh.

Molly Ruland:

Oh, that’s a good one. Intention, not attention. All that is good. That’s a gem right there. We’re making a graphic out of that one for sure. It’s so true though. It’s so true. There’s so much stuff out there.

Molly Ruland:

You know what I mean? Like, that’s that’s that’s people people get confused sometimes, I think. Like, even with podcasting, they’re like, well, how many downloads? I’m like, why do you get the phone ringing? Are you getting discovery calls? Do you wanna be Joe Rogan, or you wanna make money? You know what I mean? What’s the metric here? Right? So, intention not attention. Oh my god. That’s so good. I’m a put that on a T shirt and put your name under

Liz Lathan:

1. Yes.

Molly Ruland:

I’ll call you for it. I’ll call you for it. Okay. Number 2. Do you think that content plays a role in community building?

Liz Lathan:

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think that content comes into the community because people look to that community to each other for the insights that they’re sharing and the content they’re bringing in. And then I think content comes out of the community. Because if you’re doing it right, you’re asking your community what challenges they’re trying to solve, and they’re telling you what their pain points are.

Liz Lathan:

And you can share that outwardly and help people feel a sense of belonging. Like, oh, I’m not the only one going through that. Oh my god. That’s amazing. So I think that content is a pivotal part of the community.

Molly Ruland:

I love it. Okay. What was the best installation you ever created at an event?

Liz Lathan:

No. K. Let’s see. I did this ridiculous one at IBM that I went off brand, and so I couldn’t use the IBM logo on anywhere. But, it was at IBM conference, so I thought it was cool. But it was called Datatopia, and we really told the story of our customers as their heroes, as the superheroes, but we brought in this artist to make these huge panels that were all, comic books. And so as you went in, you went through the story of, like, the data swamp, and all of your data is in bad places, and then it took you into the heroes. And all of these customers were the superheroes that were kind of showing how they had saved their data wares and challenges.

Liz Lathan:

We had Paul Rudd there signing autographs. He’s a very nice guy. We had to make him pre sign autographs because he talked way too long for each person. He’s an amazing human. And we had, like, sketch artists turning people into, of course, super heroes. And then we had one of those, like, vertical walls that’s laying down, so if you lay down, it looks like you’re scaling the wall for the photo thing. And, like, it was just so freaking fun. I loved every second of it.

Molly Ruland:

That’s awesome. Okay. Now an equal question. What was the worst installation or the biggest flop?

Liz Lathan:

Let’s see. I mean, I did want to do an event that was one of those standard boring, like, I guess you could call it, like, a steak and storage. Right? It’s at the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, and you’ll come get your pitch, and then you’ll get your free steak, and all that kind of stuff. And we’re doing a couple of those. And, you know, after a while, doing audience acquisition to those is really, really tough. So when you’re supposed to have 30 people and 5 show up, I think that’s, you know, that teaches you a lesson in maybe how you’re engaging people and what you’re doing, and that maybe it would have been way more interesting to throw pottery on a pottery wheel than to just have another steak dinner.

Molly Ruland:

Amen. You know, I did events for a long time, and, you know, when they’re good, they’re good. And when they’re bad, it’s the most painful thing in your whole life. It’s you know?

Liz Lathan:

And then you have to carry the whole conversation as if you meant for 5 people to be there.

Molly Ruland:

It’s the worst. It is the worst. But, you know, if you can get through that and do it again, then you’ve got some grit and you’re probably gonna make it.

Liz Lathan:

Well, it turns out you just gotta be able to turn on a dime, right, and be like, you truly do believe that those 5 people that are there are the most amazing people. You have a very small table. You have an incredible conversation. Those 5 people were actually super highly qualified leads. You’re probably gonna close more than you did at the dinner with 30 people. So it’s a matter of really switching the mindset around it, making sure that you do it right, and then keep going. Like, okay. It was a bad city.

Liz Lathan:

You won’t go back there, but those 5 people were awesome. Right?

Molly Ruland:

And you must

Liz Lathan:

be very gut wrenching embarrassment of being Yeah.

Molly Ruland:

Well well, there’s yeah. Once you get through that, once you wade through that, see, you know, then but you’re right. It is more intimate. It’s a perspective shift. It’s a mindset shift on what you ‘re gonna do with what you got instead. So, I really like that a lot for sure. What do you think is gonna be the big trend in, like, activations at events in 2024?

Liz Lathan:

If you know, when experiential came out kind of in the 20 tens or whatever, everybody went to the very consumer focused activities at these business events. Like, Money 2020, if you see images from that, they’re phenomenal, some of the activations that they’ve had. But I started to see that they’re no longer taking the time, effort, or strategy to connect it to the content or the business. They are doing activations for the purpose of looking cool instead of actually tying it back to the business. So I think the trend that I’m gonna see that I’m hoping to see is that those engaging activations actually mean something and are actually tied to a relevant campaign and are truly gonna be tied back to ROI instead of just tied to, you know, vanity metrics of we have this many people come spin out wheel or whatever, which I think it had gotten away back to that for a while.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. I went to Expo West a couple years ago, like, before the pandemic, and I was, like, super overwhelmed. And I definitely, you know, through our conversation, I’m, like, remembering lots of examples of good and bad there and just the amount of money that is spent on those things. I mean, holy Yeah. Holy, man.

Liz Lathan:

We went South this year, and I did an experience crawl for Club ichi. So we set up 10 experiences that we got to go to and talk to the event manager to find out why they were doing it, who their target audience was, and what they were and what the metrics of success were for them. And I was mind boggled that of the 10 we went to, I think only 2 or 3 had answers to those questions. The others were like, oh, we’re just doing it because the CMO wanted to. I’m like,

Molly Ruland:

but Just to do it.

Liz Lathan:

Surely the CMO has a purpose. Right? And they’re like, well, probably.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. It’s pretty wild. It’s pretty wild. The amount of money that gets spent and the time and the energy and the effort and the lodging and the flights and the shipping and the this, and then it’s like, what’s the metric for success? What email addresses did you get? Are they real email addresses? You know what I mean? Like, what did you do? And, you know, especially when you know, Expo West is just like, oh god. It’s like Las Vegas. So it’s like, you know, you’ve got companies that have these hanging things from the c I mean, they spend $1,000,000 on an installation, and so what’s your little booth gonna do? How are you gonna keep up with them? So, you know, it’s pretty we actually just did a thing for retail Vudu, and they walked around Expo West saying, you’ve been judged. And they all wore hot pink, and they had a bag, the little bag of judgment, and they would go up to a booth and say, you’ve been judged, and leave a card, and they could scan it and see how they were judged. And it was all real time, so we built that activation.

Molly Ruland:

But, like, talk about Brilliant. Like, they didn’t spend a dime on a booth, and they engaged with everybody. And then they did, like, a people’s choice award, and now they have email addresses and people in the funnel. It was, like, the most love. Highest return thing. So we built the back end system for them so that when they’re voting, it’s updating real time and adding the photo and all that. So as soon as people scanned, they could see what their score was, you know Yes. Immediately.

Molly Ruland:

And so and they’re wearing these hot pink shirts, and so people are walking around going, like, who the hell are these guys? And then they’ll go to their website, and they’re like, oh, they designed KIND Bars and Essentia Water and Russell Stover and you know? The list goes on and on and on. Lesser evil popcorn, you’re like, oh, well, geez. You know? We were fortunate to be judged by that group of people. No booths.

Liz Lathan:

I love it.

Molly Ruland:

Some t-shirts, bags, and a couple of iPads. No booth. That’s, like, right up your alley. I should introduce it to her, actually. I will. I have a dream

Liz Lathan:

of convincing a cybersecurity company to sponsor the bathrooms at an industry event and have, like, one of those card words where it looks like there’s someone looking over the stall and that says value your privacy, visit us in booth 210 or something. Like, this is my dream.

Molly Ruland:

Somebody can

Liz Lathan:

come in, someone to do it.

Molly Ruland:

Yes. Well, if I find a cyber company with some good sense of humor, I will send them your way,

Liz Lathan:

Liz, because I

Molly Ruland:

I love some, I mean, come on. What are we doing? We’re all doing the same stuff. You know what I mean? So it’s like you gotta switch it up a little bit, and it’s not always about how much money you spend or how much money you waste. Right? Because you think about the amount of wasted, like, in Expo West. It’s like Jesus Christ. You could feed every homeless person in America with all the food they throw away at Expo West. I mean

Liz Lathan:

It’s mind boggling.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. It is. And then and then and and then who are you selling to? You’re selling to the people who are buying your products anyway, like Whole Foods. So I don’t really know. I don’t really fully understand any of it, to be honest, you know, but, you know, but it works. Right? It all it all works, you know, you gotta get Someone’s

Liz Lathan:

making money off of it.

Molly Ruland:

Some hotels, I think, the convention center is the one who’s really shaking it all home. But, yeah, I mean, standing out as a brand, doing something different, you know, it really makes a difference because I think people are getting a little bit more particular about how they spend their money too. And so I think it really, really makes it Yeah.

Liz Lathan:

And the human engagement piece. I mean, the more we can bring the people back into it, have actual people at your booth, and not have them behind the table. Have them in front. Actually talk. We actually did one of our spontaneous think tanks in the client’s booth where during the opening reception in the expo hall, we were asking that we were the booth engagement people going, hey. What are you here trying to solve today? Filled that whole wall of woes. And instead of doing theater sessions in the booth, they ran sessions based on what the people were saying they were trying to solve and put up an agenda. And my dream would be for them instead of even doing those kinds of sessions to put a podcast booth in there.

Liz Lathan:

Because if you would get 4 people to sit down in there and talk about one of those topics, now you got 4 really incredible prospects on your podcast with you. Right?

Molly Ruland:

As I was literally just saying, Liz, when you go pitch that, you let me know. I’ll be there. I’ll show up with microphones and cameras. I love that stuff. I love that renegade field work. That’s my that’s my I’m just a big nerd behind a microphone is really what’s going on here. I love technology and audio and video, so, like, I’m into it. I love doing on-site stuff like that.

Molly Ruland:

You know? Because it’s so interesting. It’s important, and you can have conversations and podcast recordings in a place like that. It adds this whole, like, effect to it and its content, and it’s a runway to continue those relationships more importantly. You have a relationship now, the gift of reciprocity. You can keep it going after the convention. It’s not just another business card at the bottom of the tote bag.

Liz Lathan:

Well and imagine everyone you scanned at your booth, instead of sending them to an SDR to just reach out, you’re actually sending them a playlist from all the podcasts that were recorded in the booth. And now there’s something valuable. You’re giving them value.

Molly Ruland:

Which, you know, exists because the wall of woes told you everything that they were struggling with, and you can answer those problems right there. It’s brilliant. The wall of woes. I’m gonna put 1 in my bedroom. Where to start? Brilliant. I didn’t even know they made Post its that big. I’m like, well, I live in Costa Rica. We don’t even have Post-its, I don’t think, honestly.

Molly Ruland:

But next time I come back, I’m getting the big ones. Those look awesome for sure.

Liz Lathan:

They’re amazing. They’re

Molly Ruland:

I mean, I love it. Like, I don’t have all my whole house windows, so I don’t have any place to put a whiteboard. So I just write on all the windows. People come over, they think I’m crazy, but I don’t care.

Liz Lathan:

No. I love it. Windows are the best for the post it notes too because you put them up there, and they just give you that beautiful color pop. They’re great.

Molly Ruland:

Yes. Oh, I’m into it. I love that I’m a sucker for organization. I really am, so I’m into it. Okay. Alright. We’re gonna get off track here. Alright.

Molly Ruland:

I have a wild card question for you. If a community of content marketing had a theme song for community building, what would it be and why?

Liz Lathan:

It would be a purple hat. Have you heard this song? No. Okay. Let’s see. It’s a purple hat by Sophie Tucker. That’s the song he wants.

Molly Ruland:

Okay. I love it. We’ll see if we can play a few seconds of it without getting sued. We’ll try to make that happen. Okay. And well, and why? What is it? Why would that be your song? Because it talks about the people. It’s the people and the people on the people on the people. It’s like the best song, and it’s all about the people.

Molly Ruland:

And it’s just being with the people and partying with the people and hanging with

Liz Lathan:

the people. It’s just perfect.

Molly Ruland:

I love it. I mean, at the end of the day, relationships close deals. Right? Like, not downloads, not any of this other stuff, and so you wanna work with people that you like and you resonate with, so I’m here for it. Okay. Alright. And the last segment of the show, this one is called real or fake, and I’m gonna read out podcast names, and you’re gonna tell me if you think they’re real or fake. I tried to, like, create them around your industry, so we’ll see. Okay.

Molly Ruland:

Number 1, hotel moment.

Liz Lathan:

Fake?

Molly Ruland:

It’s real. I can’t believe that. I’m like, what kind of podcast is this? It was about doing events in hospitality at hotels. Very poorly named. Okay. Alright. Next one. Engageorama.

Liz Lathan:

Oh god. That’s probably real.

Molly Ruland:

It’s fake. Okay. Okay. Next one. Top floor.

Liz Lathan:

Well, I’m gonna say it’s fake.

Molly Ruland:

It’s real.

Liz Lathan:

Of course, it is. Because I keep thinking, if it means nothing, it would have been made up. But, no, if it means nothing, apparently, it’s what you name your podcast.

Molly Ruland:

I mean, you know, anybody can name a podcast. That’s the lesson we’re getting here. Okay. Number 4, hospitality from within. Oh. Oh. I know. I was like, what have I stumbled on? It’s real.

Molly Ruland:

It’s actually real. I’m like, I’ll have to look at

Liz Lathan:

the category. For that one. If you have not read the book Unreasonable Hospitality, I highly recommend that book. It’s phenomenal. The guy that did 11 Madison Park, like, the best book ever.

Molly Ruland:

Okay. Good. I love a good book recommendation. I need to add that to the segments because I love a good book. Okay. And the last one is Unboring Corporate Events.

Liz Lathan:

Well, that should be a podcast, but I’m gonna say it’s fake.

Molly Ruland:

It is fake, and I think you should start that podcast, actually. That sounds fantastic. Boom. Alright. Well, you were 1 for 4, but, you know, there’s always room for

Liz Lathan:

Benchmarking. I’m just benchmarking you.

Molly Ruland:

Hey. Luckily, it’s not what you do for a living, so no, you know, no love lost. We’re good. But, yeah, there’s so many ridiculous podcasts. I was like, this is a great segment because there’s so many likes, everybody gets them wrong because they’re so ridiculously named. You know what I mean? And so what are you gonna do? Well, listen, I have had so much fun hanging out with you, Liz. You’re great. I I love all the stuff that you’re doing and all the content on LinkedIn.

Molly Ruland:

So I would say, you know, for anybody listening to this, follow Liz on LinkedIn. All her links are gonna be in the show notes and stuff because her content is great, and it’ll inspire you. And these communities sound really great. So I would say event professionals. Right? You know, what would you like to say to people before we go? What are your final words of wisdom, and where can people find you, and all the good stuff?

Liz Lathan:

Oh, I love it. So I just think that we go back to the attention over attention. And if you just put that really at the forefront of your content creation and your people, curation is you bring people into your life. You know? It’s not about having the biggest following. It’s about having the right following, and I think that’s important. So, find me on LinkedIn, Liz Lathan, and the www.communityfactory.com we have a newsletter called the engaged attendee that goes out every Monday that’s just got fun ideas and thoughts on how to engage your audience. And then, of course, if you are an event professional, clubechey.com.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. That sounds cool. You know, that could be a lonely world, so I bet that’s a great option for people in that space. You’re always trying to be innovative and creative,

Liz Lathan:

that world is not so little anymore. There’s a lot to it.

Molly Ruland:

For sure. So especially when you’re doing stuff as cool as you are, like the secret business trip and all these other events. So, Liz, absolutely, pleasure hanging out with you. Thanks for coming on the show. I think this is interesting and valuable. I’m sure our listeners will too. So thank you for taking time to hang out with me today. I appreciate it.

Liz Lathan:

Thank you. So fun.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. So thank you for tuning in to camp content. I hope you guys found this valuable. Liz is a lot of fun. Follow her on LinkedIn. Check out all the links. And if you’re planning an event, hit her up. Like, I think you’re gonna be sold when you see her LinkedIn content and all the stuff she’s doing.

Molly Ruland:

It’s really innovative, really fun, and there’s a little something for everybody. That’s one thing I noticed about her content. There’s all kinds of events that she’s showing up at and doing things at. So no matter what your industry is, you might wanna consider hitting her up, especially if you’re in the podcast industry and you got a convention coming up. Let lets let’s bring Liz in and spice some things up a little bit. I think she’s got some great ideas. So, on that note, if you found the content valuable, please consider, just commenting on LinkedIn or sharing the content and hitting us up. And, until then, please be excellent to each other, and we’ll see you in a couple days.

Molly Ruland:

Alright.