Today, on the Merchant of DIR podcast, episode number 41. We're gonna develop jelly vision. No. That does not mean you're gonna be able to see through jars. No. Instead, we're going to take the concept of someone else's event management process and look behind the curtain to see how they address struggles and challenges of putting on events. Some of these lessons apply directly to how you build your outdoor business.
And here we get Welcome to the Merchant of DIRTT podcast, Recreational Engineering for a better outdoor life. And now your host, Kyle Bondo.
Thank you for joining me for the Merchant of DIR podcast. I am Kyle Bondo, your recreational engineer, your merchant of DIRTT and hopefully your coach for today of learning how to build an off road business or an outdoor business from start to finish. My goal was to teach you that art and science behind the things that happen now, the outdoors that don't really happen to everybody else. So pay attention to what we're gonna talk about today. Because today's topic is very, very particular.
We're going to learn something about event management that maybe you never thought about. And that is looking at other kinds of event management and other kinds of industries to find out what we can take from those and apply directly to our own outdoor businesses. And today is I have a very special guest. She is 1 of the hosts of the jellyvision show, and this is thejellyvisionshow.podbean.com, where she is really responsible for helping creatives and visionaries
these kind of in these kind of misfits. And I guess you could just call us as merchants of your people, the people in the, you know, like an outdoor world. We're a little we're a little off. We're a little out there. So she fits perfectly right in with this. And she's really interested in helping benefit communities, find out, you know, what makes people successful and understanding the the the things that make people tick behind their businesses. And with that, she's
she creates I love it. How it's it's not an episode. It's a jelly soad. So she completely embraces the jelly brand into everything she does. She's also the creator and producer. And I guess you could tell her the event director
of the DC pod fest. And this is an event that takes place in Washington DC every year, sometimes around on the October November time frame, where really a collective group of podcast, I guess you call them independent podcasters get together, and I have the privilege of going to this conference and talking to our guest today, which is Jennifer
Jelly Crawford from the Jelly Vision Show. And she's going to give us a little insight on how she put together DC podcast, some of the challenges and struggles she had with creating this event from the ground up. And I think you're going to find that a lot of the things, a lot of the challenges that she had in creating DC podcast are the same kind of challenges you have in creating events for your business
only that no matter where you're building events, somewhat the same struggles, the same challenges pop up. And during this interview, I'm gonna pop in every now and then and kind of like point out the the key points I think that are important. And without any further ado, here's Jennifer Crawford. I'm Jennifer Crawford of the Jelly Vision Show podcast. Perfect. Alright.
Is kind of your approach to building a conference like this? What is the kind of thing that where do you start with the vision and kind of coming up with your how to put this dang thing together? I think the first thing is, you know, everyone that's coming to this conference has a commonality. So in this case, the commonality is podcasting. But I think your most successful conferences are gonna have people with a very specific commonality. So with it's bike racing. It could be I'm helping
a business client of mine do a conference for authors. Actually, riders who are in the process of getting their books published. And the whole conference is about how they can become transform from a writer into a profession a traditional author because they're 2 different things. Yeah. And so she runs a publishing company. So by I recommended that she run a conference because essentially, it's it's like you're fishing and you're casting
the the kind of net you need to catch the exact kind of fish that you want. Okay. So her clients for her publishing and editing company are writers. And so now she is running a conference that she's branded. She's booking speakers. She's her own sponsor essentially for the event, and she's bringing people to her, the exact kind of people that make good clients for her.
So maybe she's not gonna make a lot of money on the conference. So when I put together a conference, the goal is just not to lose money. You've gotta be able to cover your expenses and hopefully make profit. But for me, when I'm putting together a conference, I'm looking at bigger goals. Okay. So when I started this conference, it was just because I wanted to connect with podcasters because I felt like a lonely podcaster.
And I thought, I've been doing this so long. Why don't I know more people doing this? And I wanna talk about this with people that know what I'm talking about. Mhmm. Where are they? How do I find them? Let's gather them. Let's all get better together. Let's respect the art form of podcasting and learn
and grow with each other. So that was the purpose of the podcast. It has ended up helping my business because I got all these skills from doing this. Now I know how to organize a a conference, and now I see the benefit for any community. So if you want to enhance or build a community, enhance or build your brand, all of that can happen simultaneously. Wow. It's it's Kyle again. I wanna wanna emphasize that point about the benefit to your community.
Think about when you're getting people together, what that means for that group of people, that you're creating the event and the environment that you are creating a place for them to gather and meet each other and know who they are. And I think as you start to build more and more of these events, you're gonna find that these people
really start to know each other. A community starts to form, especially if they have like interests like mountain biking or trail running. I think this is a an interest a very powerful point that Jennifer just made. With a conference. So I'm less worried about the it, although I I wanna be profitable and more more concerned at least initially in in the other benefits from the podcast. I mean, from the conference that I get. Sure. And so building community relationships,
seeing people repeat return people coming back, Yeah. Engagement are kinda more of the key fundamental pieces in addition to breakeven. Yeah. So you have those kind of, like, they kind of play against each other. Do you find is there a what at what point do you do you consider a conference to be a success or failure with those kind of goals in mind? I that's that's a good question.
I I think this is a success if you gather the right kind of people together, and they're happy, like, with the money they've spent. They feel like they've gotten a lot of value or more you than they expected from the event. If the next year it grows, it's successful. And then ultimately, my goal now is to be able to pay people, including myself, because I don't I don't take any money for all of the hours I spent on this. We have a handful of volunteers that help us they get a free ticket to the event and lunch and all of that, but it's not it's not real money that's not gonna pay anybody's rent. So
so we have it looks like we made a profit this year in terms of we have a few $1000 that we can we'll have left over to seed next year. Like a war chest. Yeah. But it's not a real but it's not for me. I'm a business person. It's not real profit because nobody got paid. Right. So we're still not tech physically
in the red, like, or in the black, the the way I wanna see us in the black. So to me, success would be to the point where we have the money to pay people Okay. And and then still have a little money left over to see it the following year. So we're not quite there yet.
Alright. I think this is an interesting point that you need to really think about when you're when you're coming about building your outdoor business is because a lot of outdoor businesses, event managers, race directors think about volunteer only type operations. And that's kind of the thing same thing Jennifer is talking about here, where at the beginning, volunteers are really kind of how you get off the ground. But you can't rely on volunteers forever.
At some point, you're going to have to build a staff. You're going to have to have some more dependable type of help, a more consistent type of help. You need some stability, and you need to build your vent up big enough so that you can actually pay these people. I mean, volunteer work for free ticket or volunteer work for a free event pass or maybe some wag on the side is great
for a while. You will burn volunteers out this way, which is why you need to really kind of focus on getting some of those key volunteers and getting them in a staff position, where if you're gonna build this up into a business, you need to really think about finding those core people that you can you can you can keep around if there is some value to it in it for them. Volunteers are really good people because they will do a lot for very little.
But if you can convince them to be part of your staff to be put, even if it's just for 5 or 10 hours a week or maybe even 5 or 10 hours a month depending on on what your your timetable is, that's an important thing. Because they could become dependable, or you can actually they'll rely on their ability to be where you need to be and do what you need to do. By having the ability to pay them.
This is the whole model that Jennifer is talking about in building this conference is building a revenue base up bit you know, that and enough to make the event profitable so that she can pay those people who have been doing everything based basically for free. But we're seeing goal then for. What do you have what would you see if this was this was the the best conference
environment, the best people to come to rents. Everyone gets paid. What's that look like? What's kind of your vision for DC podcasts? It probably looks closer to 100 people. I think we're at about a 100 a hundred people who bought tickets, and then there are about 30 speakers. And panelists. Okay. So, you know, at our maximum number here this weekend, we were probably, like, 1:30. So but I'd like to get to 200 in ticket sales, and I think that's where I'm gonna cap the conference.
Okay. I think I like that number. I think it's it's small enough that you still get the deeper connections with people, you get more time, more depth of experience, yet it's big enough that we can we can get profitable and sustainable. No. This is a really interesting point here. Because as an event director or race director or some kind of outdoor business where you're doing for the ground up type of of event or service. The in kind sponsor
is usually the first 1 that shows up. These are the guys or gals who who wanna give you some sort of product. They want to supplement your podium prizes or they wanna supplement maybe your refreshing refreshment station or maybe they have some sort of swag they wanna give you. It's never cash. When you're first getting started, no one's gonna stroke you a check.
Few. There are there's a few out there who might, and usually it depends on your relationships you developed over time. But really it's the in kind thing at the very beginning. So as you start think you start events and you're thinking about sponsorships, It's really I mean, it's really a valuable point to think about is sponsors
want an event successful because they have a motive and an agenda as well. They want their word out, and they want to be able to get it in front of as many eyeballs and in this as many people's hands or brains as possible. And if you're a tiny little event, can't do that for them. That's why they're not coming to you. They need something too. It's a pit pro quo. You have to give them something before they give you something. And she talked about it first,
you know, the end kind was all you got, and that's not how you pay for an event. You're gonna have to pay for it other ways. But it is a start as relationship. And as you stick to it, not just doing 1 event and then saying, it's never gonna work. But doing 2 events and 3 events, and maybe it's your 4th year and 5th year as you start to build momentum and start to build and recognition.
As an event that's stable, it's not going away tomorrow. This is when the sponsors with actual money start showing up because they start to see that people are are thinking of your event and putting it on their calendar of something they want to go to. But really, this is a lot to do with longevity and staying with the the struggle of not giving up, not quitting. And I think that's an important point you need to think about when considering using sponsors to fund your event.
Very interesting. So I'm kinda curious where you yeah. Where you where you land because this is very similar to when you're working into parks and like, in when when big other event we did just a few months ago Yeah. The road washed out after a big storm. Oh my gosh. Had to change the entire the tariff course. So you're kinda experiencing the venue problems that happen with outdoor events Yeah. Seem to happen with indoor events as well. You're mother nature. So she's very unpredictable. Yes. Absolutely.
So final question Okay. Then is for people who wanna put on a conference for their very first time, What's kind of your your, like, the biggest lesson learned you could think of before you go in, you should know this. This is gonna sound so simplistic. But you can't do anything without a date and a venue. So, I mean, it kinda all starts there. So do site visits, find your space, and then don't be intimidated by the cost of the venue because
venues can be very expensive. The venue that we're in, when we met with them, they were like, it's gonna gonna be 8 to $10,000 for you to be here for 2 days. And I said, well, hey. What if we just give you 50% of our tickets sales. And that's and then, you know, if if if if that ends up being more than the rent space,
we're willing to pay 20 cent more than the rent space. But we don't want a minimum. We don't want to have to make a minimum. And then agreed to. Space. I was like What's the worst vacancy? They actually said, yes. And I think Fill the space. Sometimes it's better than not. Well, I think we were doing something in November. It was a relative it beginning, it was a relatively new event space. And so they just had a a blank calendar. And I and I tested that by asking them
for dates if they had dates available. So I picked a date that was really close, and then I picked a date that was further out, and both dates were available. So I was like, okay. So they're not they're not booking this space every weekend because I I just tested 2 dates, and they're open. So I that gave you a little confidence for the ask to ask if they'd be willing. And, yeah, we I think we paid the 1st year for the space, maybe 1200. So we were nowhere year, they're $8000.
And then the next year, we paid maybe 33,000. I think about 3000 was about half of the ticket sales. Okay. And then this year is gonna be a lot more than that, probably closer to 45100, something like that. So Slowly building to that. So it's the it's the it's the space and date. Those are the key. You have to walk that in before you Yeah. How can you explain anything? How can you talk
to speakers? You can't talk to speakers? You can't talk to speakers? You can't talk to speakers? Makers. You can't you can't talk to vendors. You can't do anything because what are you gonna tell them? I have this idea for a conference. I have no date. Because nobody can commit to you until you've committed to a date and a time, and it's blowing a date time in place. Yeah. That is excellent advice. Cool. Thank you very much, Adam. Thank you.
Alright. I wanna thank Jennifer Crawford from The Television Show. Again, her website is the jellyvisionshow.podbean.com. And if you're really interested in learning more about different businesses and different ways of looking at a business. Her show is not only is it interesting because of the type of guests they have on the show, and her cohost too. But her to together with her cohost, they're hilarious.
So go check go check out the vision show. If you've got Pocket cast or Overcast or iTunes, go find Jelly Vision Show on there and subscribe and listen listen to her podcast. It's It's
I'd I'd tell you what. It takes, like, couple episodes to kinda get to get into the groove. And once you do, you're gonna be hooked. So I highly recommend the Gelavision show. And I wanna thank Jennifer very much for giving me that it was kind of an on the fly side side bar interview that did with her. And really, that last point she made, I wanna I wanna kind of come back to that. And that is the thinking about you you can't do anything without a date in the venue.
If you really think about that, this is it's December. And December is the perfect month to be thinking about, if I'm doing event in 2018, there's already already starting to see some events event directors, race directors of different type of of disciplines. So the the event calendars are starting to pop up. They've already populated their event calendars. They've finally decided which dates they're going to do, and they've committed to those dates. And
in most cases, they've committed to the venue for that date too. Now do they have the permit? Do they have all that stuff lined up? No. No. But they have decided they're gonna do it. This venue, this date. Because what Jennifer talked about was very true is you can't really aim anything at the target of that of that event until you understand where it's gonna be and when it's going to be. You can't tell sponsors You can't tell volunteers, you can't tell your staff, you can't plan in the future
until you know these things. And a lot of times, if you're gonna do this as a as a as a good side gig or as a a full time as a full time job as a career. Then this is the month where you need to have sat down and decided what your schedule is going to be. And in the show notes, I'm gonna put a link to an article I wrote at wreckingyear.com
talking about setting up your schedules because I think that's an important thing for you to read is is knowing the strategy for I mean, how do I do this? How do I sit down? And build my schedule. Maybe you've never done that before. Maybe you've never decided to to sit down and actually build your race schedule early. Maybe you're the type of event manager or race director who decided to build their schedule 3 months before the event or a month before the event.
Like I have multiple times, let me tell you the stress and struggle of trying to do a Lassman event is way too difficult to try to shove that much planning into such a little time. Don't you don't wanna create that kind of stress. Not only you not only you're stressful as in you do your anxiety and and you may this may not work and, you know, all the things that you have to get into place at that time. But you just you give yourself all this difficulty by thinking about it that way.
So think about that. Event date or venue and date is the tie this is the time to be doing that and releasing that calendar and putting out there. I've already seen them popped up on on Facebook, on websites. People are already broadcasting, hey, my event dates are out there at these venues or at these
maybe venues. Some places are some some venture racing places have you know, they keep it kind of, you know, close to the vest. They wanna let you know. There's secret location. You might go out there and recon it so you'll have an advantage. And maybe you're you're you're watching the other competitors
you know, if this race company or that race company or this event or that event is going to to what dates are they gonna pick so you can not you know, pick dates that conflict with them. Maybe you're waiting for that, but this is the month to do it. So thanks very much, Jennifer Crawford from the Jelly Vision Show. I really appreciate a a good interview, and I hope you learned something from that. Because you can never learn enough from other events or other event managers or other industries.
Those those struggles and challenges they have, although they may have some unique ones, a lot of them are the same. And sometimes they have an approach to them that we don't really normally consider in the outdoor industry. So think about what you can learn from watching and looking at other industries that maybe you can apply to your own up to our business. And now it's time to pack it up with some final thoughts.
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Okay. This final point I wanna make has a lot to do with with finding out that DC podcast might not be in the same venue it was last that it was this year, that next year it's gonna have to move around. Now, this is I think that for event producers, race directors, you need to to kind of come to grips with a real big reality. And that is you cannot be married to your venue
is that you can't you can't think that it's always gonna be someplace else. You have to be prepared that it just might not work out that year at that place. It might be a financial thing that maybe the venue just wants too much money and it's just not sustainable anymore. Maybe it's a size thing. Maybe the the your group has gotten so big that that space doesn't fit anymore to the size of of customers you're attracting.
Don't be married to where you want the location. Always have the backup. And if you have to move, which which, in this case, at Mute DC pod podcast is in this wonderful building called the Wonder Bread Factory, and it's in Downtown DC, and it's where they used to make wonder bread. It's, you know, it's not just a clever name. And it's, you know, it's got these aesthetic with prick and Steel, and it's a great location.
But knowing what I know about the creativity of of Jennifer and the way she does her podcast, that the next venue they find is gonna be just as cool. And really, if you're building a community, if you're building a group of people, that you wanna be around with. Sometimes the venue is kinda secondary if you think about that. It's it's doesn't have to be perfect as long as
the content or the quality of the production value is worth it. Because I can I can build a race in 4 or 5 different places? I pick 1 pick place because I just happen to like it. It's convenient. There's a lot of things working for it. But if I have to change it now that I've learned this, I have to change that change that venue, well, It's gonna be rough and not gonna like it, but I'm ready. And I think that's that's kind of the takeaway from this is your venue's gonna change.
Are you ready for that, or do you plan for that? Make sure that you've included that in your plans, and now you know. Thank you so much for listening to the merch editor podcast. I'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to me via email at [email protected]. We're on Twitter at mergersadirt, and, of course, come to the website at merchandisinger.com. And of course, definitely go drink some coffee at Rick roasters at Rick roasters.com.
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you feel a hope While you're trying to think about these things that Jennifer Crawford from Jelly Vision Show talked about in building DC profits, you can apply to your own business. I will see you on the next episode of the merchandiser podcast. Until then, I hope you take what you learned today and go start a new outdoor life. Take care, and Merry Christmas to you. Jelly. Gelly.