The Return to Live Events with Amway North America

How have two years of primarily virtual programs permanently impacted the landscape for in-person events? 

Our very own Lynn Kafka from the Client Services team is joined by Dilayna Ventura, Head of Special Events and Recognition at Amway North America. Together they’ll discuss the return to live events, Amway's hybrid approach to Achievers '21, and more. 

You will learn:

•  Amway's event strategy for its unique IBO audience 
•  Its content share approach for both virtual and in-person attendees
• How brands can successfully deliver a multi-pronged approach to events moving forward
  
  

Transcript

Lynn Kafka (00:08):

Welcome to the IVC podcast, the Xcast, where we help brands navigate audience engagement in times of change. I'm Lynn Kafka, and I'm a part of the client services team at InVision Communications, a full service audience engagement agency, where we move people to action through connected experiences and integrated marketing solutions. We're here today to talk about the return to live events after roughly two-ish years of seeing primarily virtual programs. With me today is Dilayna Ventura. Dilayna leads Special Events and Recognition for Amway North America. Welcome Dilayna. We're delighted to have you, and it's great to see you.

Dilayna Ventura (00:49):

Thank you so much, Lynn, and thank you so much for the opportunity.

Lynn Kafka (00:53):

Wonderful. Well, let's get started. Dilayna, can you begin by introducing yourself and telling us a little bit, for those who might not be familiar, a little bit about the Amway organization?

Dilayna Ventura (01:04):

Absolutely. As you said, my name is Dilayna Ventura, and I lead the Events and Recognition team for Amway North America, which is the United States, Canada, and the Dominican Republic. Amway, for those of you who don't know, is a leading direct selling company. We manufacture and distribute nutrition, beauty, personal care and home care products, which then are exclusively sold through independent business owners, or as we like to call them, IBOs.

Lynn Kafka (01:32):

Great. InVision's been lucky enough to work with Amway for the past decade or so, and you have a really unique audience in your IBOs and really unique events. Can you expand a little bit about your audience and the events that you are in charge of?

Dilayna Ventura (01:48):

Oh, for sure. Our IBOs dedicate themselves to building teams and selling to customers and then, based on their business results, then they qualify for bonuses, incentives and then event experiences, which is where I come in, where me and my team come in, to create those really exciting reward trips for them. They're a highly engaged group of people. We strive to create motivating, informational, and just really exciting experiences for them, always keeping that first class treatment as a top priority. They love being part of a community of highly successful business owners. We want to also create fun recognition moments that they can also take and use back with their teams to motivate them to reach levels in their organizations as well.

Lynn Kafka (02:39):

Fantastic. Obviously you have a tremendous amount of experience and success and doing that over the years, but like many brands you were forced to utilize virtual events throughout 2020 and much of 2021 but found the strong need to return to live events towards the end of 2021. Talk to me about what went into those conversations and those decisions to ... Yes, you were one of the first brands to really return to a large event towards the end of last year.

Dilayna Ventura (03:08):

Well, it wasn't easy. I can tell you that. It wasn't an easy decision, right? We had so much going on with COVID, but our business is fundamentally based on relationships and people connections. It is important for us to help IBOs celebrate their accomplishments with their peer group and to give them an opportunity to interact and learn from each other and to interact with the company and its leaders, to not only discuss what's happening right now, but also help shape the future of the business. They also love hands-on opportunities to try our products. We know that's important to them. That's what was top of mind as we navigated when was the appropriate time and how to go about going to back to live events. I am very fortunate to work with a great, wonderful group of people who are extremely passionate and just take great pride in what they do.

Dilayna Ventura (04:02):

Over the last couple of years, you can imagine, right, they're not able to do that in the same manner that they did before. It was challenging, but they've rallied around each other, and they've really just tackled those challenges head on. Right? It took a lot of creative solutioning. It took a lot of research, a lot of training, just because we needed to understand how to navigate events in a pandemic world. It's different than what you're used to. Teamwork and a lot of open communication, not only with each other, with our leadership team, but also with our IBOs to really understand what they needed, how they wanted to be rewarded, what kind of experiences they were looking for and their comfort level through all this.

Dilayna Ventura (04:43):

We got a lot into that, and then as we were planning for the event, we just kept our number one priority top of mind, and that was safety. Not only for our employees, but also for our IBOs. Every decision that we made during the planning process revolved around that. It was through those lenses. How do we uphold that commitment to safety? At the end of the day, we feel that where we landed was the best option for where our audience comfort level was and what we needed to do to make sure that we were meeting those goals.

Lynn Kafka (05:17):

Fantastic. You mentioned where you landed and while this was a large live event, it also had a virtual component to it. Can you expand on that and how you arrived at the event format that you executed?

Dilayna Ventura (05:28):

Absolutely. We essentially did two events in one. We did two tracks. We did a virtual only track, and then we did a hybrid approach. One of the things that we knew is that from a business content standpoint, like state of the business, changes, and just information, we could provide to all of the attendees at one time through a virtual business meeting. We did that pre the in person component of the event, a couple of weeks before. Every attendee, whether they were coming on site or they were virtual only, was able to view that business meeting at one time.

Dilayna Ventura (06:08):

Then we offered the in person experience in Orlando, and people could sign up for that. During that experience, we did an expo. We did activities and celebrations and so on. Then post event, we did our virtual recognition celebration for all attendees. For the virtual only, they also had the option to be able to go on a virtual expo. It's not like they missed out on all the resources and tools and information that we were providing on site. They were able to get all of that through the virtual experience, and then also they had opportunities to share a lot of the content with their teams, which is something that we always want to make sure they're able to do.

Lynn Kafka (06:50):

Absolutely. I know that's a big part of your content sharing at your events. One thing our leaders might be interested in, and you mentioned earlier, was to the extent that you engaged your IBO audience as you were making these decisions along the way, can you talk to us about how you went about engaging them? Was through the use of any surveys? Conversations? How was that handled?

Dilayna Ventura (07:12):

It's a little bit of both. We did a few surveys throughout the planning process because we wanted to understand where people were at from a comfort level standpoint. One, participating in a live event, being on a plane, sleeping at a hotel. The last couple of years just have been really different for people and their comfort level varies. I may be okay being in the ballroom, but I'm not okay being on plane. We really wanted to gauge where everybody was, but we did that a few times throughout the year because obviously as COVID change, also people's comfort level change. We saw that.

Dilayna Ventura (07:49):

We also have partnered really heavily with some of the field IBO leaders. Essentially, we wanted to hear from them. What are they hearing from their teams? What are the questions that they have? Also provide us with an opportunity to ask for feedback on some of the approaches we were taking during the planning process to make sure we were on the same wavelength. Is this the right thing for us to do? How would it land on them? We stayed really connected with them. Honestly we feel that we arrived again where the majority of the people felt really comfortable participating in this.

Lynn Kafka (08:27):

Yeah. I was always really impressed with how much you brought that audience perspective and how fluid you and your team were able to be in terms of really hearing that response and incorporating that into the decisions. One thing that we've observed with the audience is that you've used an event app over the past couple of years. How did that aid in the planning of the event in a COVID environment?

Dilayna Ventura (08:49):

Yeah. We have been leveraging the app for a few years, like you said, and we've had really good adoption rate, but last year it was like, "Oh, this is the right tool to use for limiting that exposure when it comes to COVID." We had a lot of really strong COVID protocols. One of the things that we got into was like, "Oh, are we going to go paperless with this event?" Do we want people to hand out paper to people? We said no. Thankfully we had the app already that we had already started doing and using, and we just said this is the tool, and we're just going to go with it and really maximize how we're using it going forward. During that event, I think we had the highest adoption rate that we've had in the last few years.

Dilayna Ventura (09:31):

We also use different digital tools. It wasn't just the app. We used QR codes for gamification and in creating interactive experiences during the expo. We really try to leverage what we could from a digital format on site to create experiences, to maximize the shareability, opportunities for them and their teams, but also to keep safety again at the forefront of what we do. Yeah, the app was instrumental in making sure that was one additional thing in our safety protocols that we could do well.

Lynn Kafka (10:06):

Sure. It sounds like it was a win-win for you from a COVID safety perspective and also moving your audience along in their digital journey and allowing you to-

Dilayna Ventura (10:14):

Absolutely. That's something that we're going to continue to just leverage because I'm not going to go back to providing paper if people embrace the app. We can customize it. You guys have created a great way to help us with that. Whether there's notifications, whether it's things that we can say, "Oh, these schedules for this specific participant." Things like that that we in the past maybe didn't do, but now that we're going that route, we can continue to enhance upon and just make sure that we're doing it really well for the attendees.

Lynn Kafka (10:48):

Absolutely. You mentioned, Dilayna, earlier that you essentially planned two events. With the live event track, as well as the virtual component. Can you talk to us about where things landed? How many attendees did you see take advantage of either track? Any feedback that you received from your audience?

Dilayna Ventura (11:06):

Yeah, absolutely. We actually had record attendance for our in person component. We had the largest event we've had so far, at least in the last recent history, 10 years or so. We had over 4,000 IBOs in attendance, the in person part, and then around 600 virtual only. People are ready, Lynn, to get back together and to celebrate. I think it helped too that the event was in the later part of the year. By then, some of the COVID things and hesitations and sensitivities were maybe not as heightened as they were at the beginning of the year. I think that with all the protocols that we took as well, people felt really comfortable coming to the event. We went as far as having a clinic on site where people could go and get tested if they needed to, or to provide testing for people who needed it to go back home to the Dominican Republic or to Canada.

Dilayna Ventura (12:06):

We partner with that clinic and the medical team for the entire planning process, just to make sure right that we were really following through on that safety commitment. We were fortunate enough, as well, that the hotel that we partnered with for this event had really strong COVID protocols. By the time the event came to life, we had enough out there and communicated enough with the attendees that they felt really comfortable that if they participated, they were going to be ... It was going to be in a safe manner.

Lynn Kafka (12:36):

Sounds like communication was really key to you success.

Dilayna Ventura (12:40):

It was. It really was.

Lynn Kafka (12:41):

Wow. It's been a whirlwind couple of years. Let's pivot to the future. Are there any learnings or changes that you see in executing a return to a normal event cadence in terms of your planning process?

Dilayna Ventura (12:56):

Absolutely. How could you not after the last couple of years? We got really good satisfaction scores. I'm not going to lie. Last year, we do a post event survey. Our score was 93% for overall satisfaction. That's pretty good. But that doesn't mean we can't enhance upon and improve things. While they were happy with being back together and being just really grateful of how we did things last year, there was a lot of learnings for us. The biggest one is understanding that our recognition celebrations, while we did such a great job with them in a virtual format, it's not as impactful as it is in an in person format. As I said earlier, our IBOs want to feel part of that community, and they want to celebrate and rally around each other's accomplishments.

Dilayna Ventura (13:51):

We found that the best way to do that is in person. It just doesn't ... Nothing can compare to that personal touch and those human connections that we're able to create during those times. We also learned that the hybrid format has worked really well. We can get information out to people all at once. They all hear it at the same time when it comes to like the business content and the state of the business and changes and new product information. Then while they're on site with us, then they can have more effective discussions with our staff. That's something that we're going to continue to incorporate into our events going forward, just so we can get them all the information they need up front. While they're with us, we can have really meaningful conversations, but then celebrate them in person.

Dilayna Ventura (14:43):

Another learning was that continuous use of the digital tools, something that we've been dabbling in, and we've just got to keep moving on and continue to do that just because it was so well received, and it was so efficient for us too, and effective. We got what we needed out of it, but now it's like okay. How do we take it up a notch and continue to enhance those integrated virtual and digital experiences, even though we're at an in-person event? I know that your team and I will connect, and we'll make sure to partner on that and look for great ways to not only leverage those, but also enhance upon our recognition celebrations because we can't just go back to doing things how we did it pre-COVID. We learned a lot through this process, and we got to make sure that we're leveraging what we know works, but also the learnings, and then coming up with something completely new to really reward and celebrate our attendees.

Lynn Kafka (15:38):

I love all of that Dilayna, and I've really appreciated that in conversations with your team, that there really wasn't just a desire to "go back to normal," but that you really did want to push the envelope and apply those learnings that we've had over the last couple of years, so that we can now bring the best of both worlds to your attendees and ultimately elevate the events that we're bringing to them. That's all fantastic. Any advice as we wrap up for brands that might be just starting to look at what their own live events will look like in the future?

Dilayna Ventura (16:13):

Yeah. First and foremost, I think it's understanding your audience. We know our IBOs really, really well, and we have such a great partnership with them, and we always keep those lines of communication open, so we can really gauge how they're feeling about certain things. If what we're planning is what they will like to receive. That's one. Understanding them and really keeping the lines of communication open with the audience. Two is making decisions too based on what is your overall goal. What are you trying to accomplish at the end of this? If it's a safe event, make decisions around safety. If it's creating memorable experiences, then how do you do that in a safe way. Really finding strong partners.

Dilayna Ventura (17:01):

We were very fortunate that we work with you guys and other really strong partners through this process who could be a good thought partner too, not just executing on site, but also like, "Hey, this is a challenge. Help us out. Let's brainstorm and let's do a lot of creative solution to come up with the best way to really do what we need to and make sure that our audience walks away with a great, memorable and exciting moment that we created at this event." That's it. Make sure that you know who you're trying to solve, to who your attendee is, keep lines of communication open and really strong partnerships across the board.

Lynn Kafka (17:43):

That's fantastic advice. Thank you, Dilayna. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for all of the great insights you shared today. Thanks for all of our listeners for tuning in and be sure to join us for the next installment of the IBC podcast. Thanks everyone.