90p Admin

Interesting phone chat with Mike DeRosa. He said he joined 90 Minds because he wants to go to MOTM but he wanted to know if he could get the early bird rate since he just joined. I told him no but that it is still a good deal at $750. He wants to send two people (he added an additional member as well) but ""with all the changes with Sage, I am trying to figure out what I can afford this coming year."" Told him he should come just for that reason! He also wanted to know if he can sign up a non-member for the scripting class. (He has ten employees.) Did we decide on that? I'm thinking yes? He is going to things with his other member and register or not soon. I told him there is only one scripting spot open so don't delay if he is interested in that. I'm thinking he will at least come for the conference but maybe not both.

I'm thinking the same as you. However if you talk to him further and feel an exception must be made in any of those areas I'm not opposed to whatever you decide.

Yes on the scripting - any firm member can sign up. Doesn't have to attend the two day meeting. Potential slippery slope for missing the early bird cut off. Currently, we have 160K in the bank account so we certainly don't need the money. I thought this is why we have guest policy so that they wouldn't have to join just to experience the thrill of a MOTM meeting...

That's my understanding on the scripting as well. They already joined.

Well he has already joined so that isn't the issue. I think he talked with Steve Engmann who told him to attend the conference. He said he looked for the link but didn't find it until he joined and saw the link in one of my posts. So, if Steve had given him the link, he could have registered for the conference for $600 for ONE guest? I could offer him that?

Understood, but he indicated he joined so he could attend the conference - He didn't HAVE to join........... He completed the entry form on the 15th which was after the cutoff. $600 is fine with me. I doubt that we will have any others.

Understood but no one else knows the guest policy. If he had called me BEFORE joining, I could have told him about it. I don't think he minds being a member, he just felt bad about not having the opportunity for the early bird rate. I'll monitor the registrations to see if he registers or not. If he doesn't, I will offer the him the $600 rate.

Understood....

@JimWoodhead is there a reason I do not get email notifications of new registrations?

Don't know..I haven't made any changes. Are they in your spam folder?

Do we need to open up a couple tickets for him at $600?

Not yet, no. I have never received them. It's set up using my 90 Minds address. Not sure why I don't get them, although I don't receive most of the emails I'm supposed to from SC either which uses my gmail account.

BTW, given that the conference fee doesn't cover hotel rooms, at $400 and some $750, MOTM must be making quite a net positive cash flow, or am I out of touch with what the conference costs to put on? And if I'm right, when is the MOTM top shelf drink fest? :)

you kidding right.. This includes the hotel rooms, 2 lunches , a cruise on Friday night, Dinner on Sat and all the motm overhead. Our cost is about $600 per head, We should probably be charging $750

My bad. Do you know the eventbrite ad doesn't say any of that?

Yes, meeting rooms.

Actually, it specifically says it doesn't include the hotel rooms. did you mean the meeting rooms?

Keep in mind, the guests pay $125 for the 2 nights of meals and events. That means at $400, $275 goes towards the meeting room and 2 lunches. If they pay $750, $575 goes towards 2 meeting rooms and 2 lunches plus whatever overhead I dont' want to start a riot here, but if I'm thinking this other members might so it may be worth mentioning to the public

No, the guest fee for the meals is only if you are bringing a guest. Otherwise, it is included in the registration fee.

I know that. Just pointing out that if a member reads the pricing, they would assume, the cost of the 2 night events are $125, so they are paying $275 for the meeting room & 2 lunches or $625 after 12/19

It really depends on what the value proposition is for the members attending. Most aren't looking at the costs the same way you are Mark but some are/will.

I didn't say it didn't have value, I just said, are we hitting the bar with the profits? :)

In summary here's our costs: Total cost per attendee assuming 96 total - $ 672 Breakout: Meeting rooms $2,200 Refreshments $1,920 Lunch $9,600 Entertainment - meet and greet - $3,840 Entertainment - after hours - $2,880 AV - $3,000 (est) Unanticipated - $2,500 Supplies - $750 Promo - $300 Presenters - $2,000 (gift cards) Eventbrite - $1,925 Dinner - first night $13,200 Event - second night - $7,680 Admin travel - $8,000 Admin event mgt - $3,235 Admin mgt - 1,500 Projected expenses - $64,530 The largest portion of expense for events like this is the hotel food and beverage. We could certainly remove the admin costs for covering out meeting at the hotel however in reality as I've explained once you start relying on 100% volunteers it is those volunteers who are subsidizing your events and I don't believe the group would run long terms relying on 100% volunteerism and paying an outside firm to manage would also still require one more of us to supervise an outside firm.

It's funny how quickly those relatively small numbers add up.

Hilarious....

It seems on the surface that you should be able to hold an event very inexpensively until you factor in the refreshments -- we used $10 a person for breaks and $50 a person for lunch (and surprisingly those numbers probably won't be far off). Vendor meet and greet - $40/ea and after hours sundry entertainment of $15/ea (there's your bar bill I think). The places where we've gone off budget in the past have usually been relatively small -- supplies like name tags or extension cords. At Summit we had to spring for some additional food quickly when we found that Sage did not offer food at the event prior to our scheduled event. It all adds up quickly

What were sodas for the break(s), $4.50 a can?

They are insanely overpriced - but just try not having them and listen to 75 people complain about how you cheaped out... I think the first or second year we were able to sneak in some food and drinks but once you get past a couple dozen people you have a hard time getting that much in unnoticed plus someone has to dedicate time to pickup and delivery..

The cruise on Friday is not inexpensive but it is a great celebration event for all the 90Minders. Everyone had a blast last year.

We have 66 paid attendees to date. To my knowledge only two person have indicated that they are not attending due to cost, but both said that it was NOT a matter of the fee being too high but more of a cash flow squeeze in 2014. Jim and Therese have a lot of things planned making this the biggest ever. To date, we have $38K in Eventbrite collections, leaving us shy a couple thousand or so...... Added to this is some allocation of vendor membership fees as they get a session slot. As Wayne and Therese have noted, meeting room fees, luncheons and beverages are outrageous. We priced the early bird rate low to entice the maximum number to commit. Without commitment, it was a not go. So yes, a quick pencil does make it seem high, but tallying all the numbers in the end will show that we break very close to even or we subsidize a couple hundred for the early birds. As far as value, it will be priceless.

Wow, we just found the business to be in instead of dying ERP...Meeting Rooms, food and liquor...

In a way, hospitality IS our business.....

At the Gaylord National for ITA they did not offer tabletop AC power strips. Reason? The Gaylord charges $90 per. Also I noticed that in some rooms at the Gaylord - mostly the smaller ones - they removed the regular outlets and replaced them with proprietary jacks so you couldn't bring your own power strip or even plug in a laptop without renting a power plug adapter...... And here's more salt for the wound - Marriott (who I think owns Gaylord) wants to block your WiFi hotspot so that you can't get around paying them for a days worth of WiFi... http://recode.net/2014/12/22/google-wireless-industry-not-down-with-marriotts-wi-fi-blocking-plan/ I think the Gaylord somewhere got caught blocking Wifi and fined. The hotels basically trap you inside and take advantage of you. It's not as bad when you are 20 people and can use an alternate site like a conference room. Grow much above that and your options become limited and expensive. So who is making the money from conferences? Hotels for one.

I believe it was Marriott as a whole who got fined for the mifi blocking. They happened shortly after the Gaylord acquisition.

Movie theaters are just as bad. I think per pound popcorn is close to the price of silver...

You'd think with movie theaters making most of their money off of concessions, they'd do a better job of taking care of the customers and getting them served quickly.

Thats true. The AMC Dine In is a pretty cool concept but to me it seems less profitable than traditional snack garbage.

Mike would like to send two people to MOTM @ $600. @JimWoodhead how should they register?

Can I just create two tickets at $600?

I will create a promo code for him.

Perfect, thanks!

Are you going to send it to him or do you want to give it to me so I can email it to him? @JimWoodhead

Ok I have added a new ""SPEICAL RSVP MOTM 2015"" Ticket type for them for $600 each. (Below Vendor member tickets) There are 2 tickets for them. They can login with the regular MOTM2015 password and buy them.

Just emailed him.