Pre-Covid, our CEO & Founder, Holly Moore bootstrapped the business for nearly a decade. Determined to continue delivering the ultimate experience for clients, despite sustaining monthly losses, Holly wasn’t going to give up on a business she is so proud of. When £3.5 million of revenue dropped out of the business in April 2020, and running costs going nowhere, a PIVOT strategy and restructure was critical. Unfortunately, this resulted in three redundancies, but now as we get back to normality, new faces have joined, and we’re excited to be recruiting even more team members to keep up with new business.
Since PIVOTING, Make Events made waves through the industry. Producing its first public virtual event in March 2021, ‘The Make Events Show’ was a hit – gaining 1000 viewers and over a 40% database increase. Leading the event, alongside Gethin Jones, Holly teased future plans for launching ‘Anything is Possible’ as a motivational brand and left the audience curious for more…
Dreaming big.
Inspiring others to reach their dreams is something Holly is very passionate about, so over the last 20 months, building a motivational culture for the team has been a key focus. And to do this, feedback from the team was the perfect starting point. Using a LEVEL UP employee survey, Holly found out how the team were feeling, their values, pains and priorities.
And the results? Burnout, overwhelm and lack of time were the biggest problems. But it’s no surprise, anyone who works in the events industry will tell you this is their biggest challenge.
Keeping up with new business and being profitable requires the whole team to work hard, whilst trying to be as productive as possible. So to show the team just how valuable they are and the importance of all their efforts, Holly introduced a new profitability bonus scheme to help incentivise and motivate them.
Plus, to kick-start growth, both inside and outside of work, the whole team is now part of the ‘Anything is Possible’ programme, a tailored personal development scheme to help tackle their challenges, improve efficiencies and nail their goals.
Anything is possible.
The ‘Anything is Possible’ (AIP) brand value is so much more than a colourful display of Make Events’ pantones.
It’s a value that must live in every single one of the team:
- Make Events write goals down and achieve them
- Make Events survived and thrived through a global pandemic – taking no borrowing despite huge losses and growing revenue by 2144% over nearly a decade
- Make Events dream big and make it happen – personally and professionally
By coaching the team and future newbies on how to hone these skills, Make Events can grow forth and conquer together. The filming of the training is just the start of a bank of development videos that will form part of the AIP programme, dedicated to improving culture.
To get these huge plans off the ground, the right person needed to take all the ideas out of Holly’s head, blend it with their coaching expertise and execute the session brilliantly to make sure the team got the most out it. And the perfect person to deliver this? The talented, Juliet Tripp, is an Events Industry Coach and Speaker, alongside her full time events role. Following Holly’s personal coaching with Juliet, she knew first-hand, how amazing Juliet is at helping people grow and that she would be perfect for ‘Anything is Possible’.
The day:
- Get stuff done – mastering time management. The team have banned ‘busy’ and now put a positive spin on tackling the day-to-day.
- Manifestation & goal setting workshop. Learning how to use the wheel of life, branded vision board activities & getting crafty with magazines.
- Q&A with Juliet Tripp, Events Industry Coach. Gives guidance on how to be your own biggest fan and career tips.
- Make Events company update
…And this was all captured on video for future training.
Practise what you preach.
Covid has taught the team a lot. And putting everything they’ve learnt into practise has brought them closer. (…Ironically, but socially distanced of course!)
Keeping people engaged at conferences isn’t easy. So seeing all the team enjoy a tangible activity like this was amazing to see. It’s proven how creativity can calm the mind, cutting out shapes and sticking down your dreams helps you achieve them. Punchy, well-curated and conversational team building is the key to unlocking more engagement from your audience.
Make Events’ passion for deeper engagement runs through every experience they create for clients, and is taken seriously in the way they work, how they inspire and value each other, both internally and externally.
As Make Events are still recovering from financial losses, it was a brave move to invest so much time and budget in soft skills when there aren’t enough hours in the day, but an important investment long term. Events in the employee engagement space are Holly’s passion, and it was her world before she built Make Events.
The team said,
“It was perfect. All of us completely embraced every second.”
As Make Events will roll out this programme month by month, Holly is also working on it as an external brand and has plans to launch it as an event next Summer to celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary. Moore says, “Expect a conference that is as exciting as a party and packed with juicy content that will inspire anyone at any age, at any level.”
