Alex Pratt: How to Lead Major Industry Events – Alex Pratt on Balancing Success with Well-Being

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Lan was up 33% Bane 432 Africa 20% there so many reasons why this was a pivotal moment for ice it's always been positioned as this Global event UK is still number one attende but those other countries and those other regions really kind of filled that Gap it was hard hard work Co calling no one knew Skype I remember we had a sax machine you'd went your order to come back through direct mail but you do direct mail by yourself you print it out on the printer put it in lots of brown envelopes there was a moment Le where we nearly lost that entire business like

overnight that was stressful welcome to the igaming leader podcast where we uncover The Human Side of some of the most inspirational leaders in our industry I'm your host Leo Judkins and as an exi gaming director turned performance coach I've worked with over 200 leaders from companies like entain 365 flutter and many more to help them build the habits to achieve sustainable high performance in these episodes we share exactly what it takes for you to achieve the same so with that being said let's dive in hey everybody Welcome to the igaming leader podcast I am here joined today by Alex Pratt's amazing journey in I gam

has been in the industry for a long long time I've been at igaming business now Clarion group managing director and yeah welcome welcome Alex really excited to talk to you today brilliant thank you Leo excited hey uh we got to start with ice I guess right so man what an event the feedback has been phenomenal that must have been such a difficult move for you initially you must have you must have really been sweating as you as you kind of moved from London to to Barca how were you feeling beforehand while making that decision the whole journey of that move is stressful to be fair

on the last six months I oddly was quite confident I think that's because the way we did it we worked with customers so actually they made the decision for us so and we had so much data so much research it said it was the right place that we just had to I guess go for it I think it was a bit before which drove us into the process so when I sort of rejoined clar and gaming to head it out back in 2020 back end of 2023 in Co and yeah it wasn't the nicest place to be I think everyone was questioning events ice was

being look it's the biggest event it's the biggest spend and a lot of people were saying is it really worth it so we had to look at everything including like it's the location right and it was never going to be an easy Jersey that made everyone happy I'm so glad we did it now and now I can like live in glory and not be fired but I can tell you it was like a Really Brave leader Le decision but to be fair we found these incredible couple who are Consultants that randomly met or the CEO of Cl randomly met in Singapore and they helped run

this whole process and it was if I showed you the excels you'd be in there for days of the depth of analysis that they went into so know it's brilliant so happy love it mate like one of the things I I really loved as as we were talking before the event is how you were even pulling up stats you know from from registration kind of how the registration was flowing and registrations from different countries and how they were comparing to to previous year you you were saying UK is a bit behind logically right because it's not in the UK anymore so what does that what

did that look like that whole journey leading leading up to the events actually kicking off that was actually it turned out to be quite stressful the I think I spoke to you as just before Christmas it thing got really stressful the problem is the way we'll measure registration will be weeks out from the event the issue we had is the event was taking place got what three or four weeks earlier this time so Christmas and year would have occurred in a different part of the week's out earlier so just before Christmas our registration was flying up year on year UK was down but only marginal

and then Christmas hit and everything just fell off a cliff you expect as normal you expect that but then you you're kind of like okay when are people coming back to work when's it going to hear and it was just after January obviously the registration start piling in but UK just suddenly didn't really come back we were about a week into January and we're like oh oh my God like we had a at that point we were 60% down on UK registrations and that makes up 40% of our normal attendees and we're like well actually we need is this going to be made up of

other places and it interestingly it was the companies were coming but the individuals the volume of individuals so if you use like someone like hipper Drome would send 56 people to ice last year this year they were sending nine so you're because they're sending the right people and actually they kind of stick them all on the purple line to get down to excel luckily as time went on and tons of people were piling into analysis and creating graphs that were far bigger and T than me it came in and look latam was up 33% Bane 4 32% Africa 20% actually for me there's so many

reasons why this is a pivotal moment for ice and it's look it's 89 years old but it it's always been positioned as this Global event but actually it was very heavy UK and for the first time UK is still number one attendee but actually those other countries and those other regions really kind of filled that Gap but yeah it was a relief in the end but it wasn't enjoyable for about a week or so because you just you you're always going to hope for about 10 or 15,000 people to rock up on site God knows why they don't register before but you sort of crossing

your fingers and just hoping and luckily did and it's like it kind of gets out of your control as well right you've done all the work and now you're looking at the numbers and you can't really do that much about it anymore so I can imagine and we'll R we we ran we'll we'll run some UK Le campaigns with that point and talk about the fact that it's cheaper to come to Barcelona London if you don't live in London and yeah and try and move but to be honest most people have made a decision by them although actually I think a few get persuaded by

social media or Pho I think actually and it was in still only 100 quid on the flight 120 quid so I think a few people jumped on last minute but yeah it's kind of out of your control which is hard it's always yeah well we would have had the same conversation if it would have been horrible you know so like I'm happy that you're here and you're not fired so that's good I wanted to kind of start at your start if that's all right I saw that you like when you you've been in the industry for a long time but you kind of coming out

of uni you started in sales and I always love talking to people that kickoff in sales what what um tell me a little bit more about that why did you kick off in sales and what did that teach you about you know leadership in general and how did that help you in your career yeah look it was a conscious choice for one that I didn't really have much control over I did sociology at pson University Pon lovely University but the combination of those two doesn't set you up to walking into some high powerered like grad program so you open the guardian and the first three

pages are just ad sales jobs so you go on the train I ended up working for the Institute of mechanical Engineers they had their own publishing magazine membership mag selling the tiny little box ads and it was I was there four years and it is UK engineering and that God knows when that was 2000 I mean UK engineering is hard anyway it's always going to be tough but at that time it was no everyone was kind of struggling but we also had 32 competitors we were a weekly a monthly the internet didn't I mean it existed but no was selling ads online it was hard

hard work call calling tell it like I mean there was no Skype no one knew Skype I remember we had a fax machine you'd wa for your order to come back through direct mail but you do direct mail by yourself you print it out on the printer put it in lots of brown envelopes but yeah it's brilliant and it really I think it sets you up for resilience um mixing with people that you wouldn't normally mix with and weirdly I just whatever I'm in I become passionate for so at the time I was people used to be goes to the pubs with my mates we

all three years out of uni and I'd be bangging on about cfd and FAA analysis and like drivetrains and stuff I can't even remember anymore I remember going from that to the game industry and I made my first call and liting engineer is all about like what the what's the response rate I'm not going to read book blah blah blah and it was like one man and I remember speaking com micro gaming or chart well and I was like what are you looking no one even cared about response no they were just like you could literally make phone call and people were just booking ads

I was like this is the best industry ever but you applied the greatest thing is I applied the work ethic to to that and suddenly it's not from an arrogant perspective I think a lot of people because they were were my competitors they were kind of doing the bare middle because that was making them lots of money but if you just applied actually the 32 competitor ethic my God like we broke records immediately on the first issue and all I do is pick up the phone yeah it was uh wasn't anything special I I see what you mean it makes a lot of sense right

because you've been taught and you've set a certain standards and a certain bar for yourself right in that previous role picking up dials running dials doing 100 calls a day whatever it is right and obviously a lot of competition and it come into gaming and I'd love to talk a little bit about when you like when you joined the magazine I gaming business there was I think it was a quarterly quarterly print at the time smallish and you like it exploded as you were there so tell me a little bit more about that about that journey and how you grew it and how that all

kind of manifested itself it amazing really I started but best weekend you could ever start a job he started on the Friday I S to Vegas on the Saturday I luckily and I don't know if you've had him on here but highly R guy called Rob darling there's two rob Darlings in Rob darling at the time pentasia um and Bruce and he and Rob's brother I call him my sort of father of gaming so I sort of went to Vegas with him they the biggest customer of I business but we were also the biggest platform for them so they were starting up as well they'd

use our boardroom and our creative and we' use I'd use him to help me like meet and understand people um and it was just a brilliant time because it was everything was exploding I was young naive didn't know what the limit was I got on the plane and on the back of every in in the internal flight in America every back of every seat was I think it was one of the old casinos that don't exist anymore I was like well the hell there online casinos at the back of headrest and it was just such a sector that was growing up really fast but also

so friendly and I think that for me that's always always be being all the way through actually that it's just a really friendly helpful sector and you could go in and be quite vulnerable that you know nothing and and you suddenly met the world and people introduced you to people and yeah was and then I met first meeting was with lady called Aden Shaw that's now a consultant in in Malta who was the marketing director at the time for chart well yeah it's brilliant she's my mother of gaming Rob Robin ad my mother and father say she's also the Godmother to my CH I mean

it really is you kind of become these close relationships but um yeah she taught me about how marketing Works she sat there and got yeah remember this yellow pad saying this is what we want as marketers this is what how it works how what we measure and it's just little things like that that you you just go on this journey and then look the growing that magazine was just a a whole journey of mistakes and successes of should we try this should we try that we see I remember going to a show and seeing people have webinars like let's try webinars and yeah 20 years

on we're still bloody doing webinar doing um yeah or reports or subscriptions and data there's so many things we failed that or so many that luckily survived but yeah brilliant time stressful but brilliant I bet what was what was some of the the most difficult times that you've had there Alex what was like moments where you thought oh my God this is just where is this going to go um there's probably back then we launched cat magazine which was a joint venture with Casino affiliate programs.com that uh later became called igb affiliate magazine when we we bought them out of that joint venture we also

launched um cap Euro with them as well which be then became the affiliate events you see all the shows now there was a moment where we nearly lost that entire business like overnight that was stressful and actually I remember see in October probably it was our first Barcelona vent it would have been around 0708 probably 08 and we sat at this table like this is amazing like the mar that ailia Mark was super young at the time was so connected our aim was to legitimize Affiliates like make them be proud of the job they do like give them a voice give them a platform whether

it is in the forums on their forums or at the same time the guys that owned it had had seen an opportunity and launched and their own online casino and poker Unfortunately they weren't honest with the market about owning it and actually they started to compete with their own customers now as our business but they were tied into to ours and that turned into a whole load of stuff that you could probably find online who knows where but but they fell out at that point the industry then suddenly felt that they didn't want us to organize the event so created some something called Gap gambling

affiliate programs.com I think about 20 of them met in a room in Amsterdam to talk about whether they like relaunching their own event like they don't need us anymore it was a rapid three weeks of rebranding to igb affiliate and it had to be something generic because we're still joint venture Partners we might go back and it's the only reason they're not called it anymore but for years it's called affiliate com BFF here Budapest blah blah any inser City have to buy every possible domain in any City we might end up at and then just calling the customers and just being and the thing that

got me through was that I'd always been completely transparent honest with the market and actually people trusted me when I said look this is going forward this is like and we had to have I if you ever seen J Todd he used to apcw who quite actively watch YouTube channel and that has me J Todd like Jay told us we had to come in look at ours look at this business and actually nothing is wrong with it like we're transpar we're part of the markets so we did a lot of work and yeah came out luckily the the events continue we continue but it was

it was really stressful because at the time I I get business was owned by a very small floated company on AIM and and it was one of the bigger parts that made the profit for the business and actually the event certainly made a big chunk of that so there was like stress around that and yeah losing losing the entire business but luckily we did it and everything became good thanks right I mean it's it's that that must have been like you said it was super stressful because it feels like it's spiraling right and it's a lot of stuff that is then out of your control

because other people are having these meetings and kind of setting these things up and how did that affect you like personally God such a long time ago now I think the problem is back then well I was quite young and fairly naive but it was for me it was really personal because it was about who I was as a person rather than the business and actually yeah I always really believed in K of being a good person I don't know if that's like something weird in my upbringing that I always want to please people had a therapy the other day she couldn't work out why

I've got this innate thing that I just want to make people happy I want them to be happy so I think I found that really difficult I had a really good CEO at the time he taught me a few things one is just actually look you just got stay Ted to yourself saying sorry is like one of the most powerful things you can ever do rather than trying to defend and defend actually saying look we we messed up or I'm sorry and actually it gives you all the power back because actually at that point the the other party or person all they can do is

either say well don't accept that and get angry or accept it and actually I think that helped a lot but it was difficult and I don't think I had a lot of the tools back then understand like how to deal with those sorts of things you power through it right and like you said it feels then a personal attack almost uh because it questions your integrity so that is so tough especially when you don't have the tools I mean we have that a lot lot in events the difference on my background is publishing events we just fell into and made it up as we long

it was easy to make mistakes for the first few years because the industry wanted the event and we were their partner so they would forgive you all along the way and actually they were with you for those mist takes I think as you get bigger and Sly when you're in Clarion and you you're seen more as this corporate you're not seen as individuals and people with events everything is laid out like there's no hiding if something bad if no one turns up or something goes wrong there's no hiding from and H his criticism you an individual which doesn't often happen I think in uh other

sectors because you can your mistakes are often not seeing or could be hidden pretty fast and everybody talks about it right straight away and well you've seen it now with ice it's turn out very positively but that that's exactly what happens right if something goes wrong straight away and people love a bit of complaining as well so it's usually under a microscope straight away too right so so when you think back to events let's taking events in general and you know that there must have been things where that's there must have been situations where that's happened and that must have really kind of hit you

have you had those situations and and if so had how did you how did you deal with it yes tons of times and the the worst is when you're on site and when we were a smaller business and I have slightly different strategy now but we'd throw events out everywhere like we see opportunities we did them in France in French in Spain and in Sweden we'd follow any kind of trend or and and not somewh some didn't but some of those where you on site and no one turn not no one but half the people don't turn up in answer your question I used to

just go and hide in the Lo that was my really but there's nowhere to go you can't get to the star you can't go anywhere and I used to Richard R AER you know what the seat reserves for me I be like I've just got to go to the L and you just put you just put the seat down you sit there close the door and you'd be like oh my God and sometimes he might have a cry sometimes he just and he's just you just have your own quiet place yeah to get away to all it is really hard and I think something you

always learn event it takes a few years that it always will be okay right nothing is going to be the wor although it may feel like the worst thing in the world it will always be okay and I think you just have to do your best and be honest with people and for me as I've got older it's human to human like you can be as angry as you like at me but I am I'm a human and you're a human so let's like like relax like there's more to life than than and that moment in time it feels like it's everything but actually so

much more to life than getting really stressed yeah it's hard it's hard to think that in the moment exactly when you're in the middle of it right and and especially if you're like you said you know your people pleaser you want to do your best and you have worked like the outcome is something different from how much time and effort you've put in so you know how much time and effort you've put in and that's a ton right and because you want to do your best and then there's this person that turns up out of nowhere hasn't put in the time and effort and criticizes

that thing that you've rightly or wrongly so that thing that you've put so much time and effort in so that like that must be so that's such a contrast between who you are and like the effort that you've put in and and then the feedback that you're getting that that's tough and customers in gaming that they're the vast amount of them are confident not afraid to tell you what they think when I was younger I found it really hard to deal with those situations and those situations of conflict as I get older more mature more experienced actually I think it's it's just much easier just

to yeah attack the as an individual and actually know that and that could be where a customer in the past probably hasn't been polite either to myself or a member of staff and in those days I probably would have let it go now I'm like actually do you know what that's not how the world works anymore if you if you're going to make someone feel like that you're you're not welcome at this event and that it doesn't matter how much money you're spending I think that's been a I think it's been a shift in society about making people accountable for Behavior also got I think

a shift in the confidence I have have in order to be able to say actually that's not okay and in fact part of our briefing pre-event we do a big brief for the staff part of it is that there's a section called it's not okay and it's not okay for you as a member of Staff but also not as okay for you as a as a attendee or an exhibitor to not feel okay on site no matter what whether it's behavior of someone or someone might be exhibiting something in a certain way and that we'll rely on things like code of conduct to deal with

that but I think yeah I think over time become more confident to to deal with that stuff let me ask you about that then Alex because we talk here on the podcast we talk a lot about authentic leadership it's bit of a buzzword right and uh but we all know that being yourself is like the way to go that is what that's what real leadership is however I think the problem for most people is not that they're not authentic is that they're afraid to execute on their boundaries if you will you know to to be like you were saying this behavior is not okay right

that like saying that is difficult and I think that's kind of what you're describing that changes over time right as you get older but also as you put in the Reps and you realize that you know when things go wrong actually the world is not going to burn down it's going to be okay you you realize those things happening so how's that now what's what's what are some things that have helped for you to set stronger boundaries around what you do and do not accept part of it just education and learning I've um I've got a a girlfriend now she opened my eyes up to

to feminism a while ago I read the Sher Samberg book and I was like oh my God then read I can't even remember the name of the book there's a whole book around data and around everything from I don't know the way a car is designed on a uh the bad that explodes to the size of an iPhone to the temperature we set a room to all these things of things that AR fair and then as you start to dig into to these sorts of areas I start to care more and and I think me as a person I think I've just started and I

not I didn't care before I just think some awareness and understanding and and I guess experience in life like I would say if I held my hands up I remember a lady that worked for me many years ago got pregnant and in no way did did did I do anything legally wrong but I actually don't believe I dealt with it in a sensitive way as I could have in terms of like understanding that actually their feet swell and they may not want to come in understanding coming back to work and really being sensitive about that and actually well not realizing how nervous that person is

to come back to work having then had a child multiple children now and seeing the other side it makes me much more aware of how people feel and I think I've tried to so get a bit older I've tried to think more about how people feel and what's morally right and actually it's okay not to make money if you can do what's right it's about a balance between driving a business that can be really successful but also just doing what's right and when I come across it I get angry these days and I do something about it I think there's something's changed in me now

where I I also don't want to be that leader that sweeps under the carpet and I remember a couple years ago there was someone at work that felt uncomfortable about someone's behavior and I'd heard about it via someone someone and they had to raised it because they were like actually no one's going to do anything about it what's the point and I was like this is ridiculous so spoke to her we dealt with it we investigated it and I want people to know that if you're going to raise something we will do something about it and the only way I can do that is by

standing by that every single day and then every single opportunity throughout our business and that we will get things wrong all the time but yeah for me just one of those I guess personal pillars that I want to act on I want to I want people to feel safe and I want people to enjoy work and and be happy and I want some look and unfortunately the majority of times it is gazy men or men that are using unconscious bias or don't realize that they're behaving in a certain way but actually there's stuff of that could be mended through discipline but a lot of it's

around education and actually understanding that I talk a lot too much to be honest it was being aware that a female or someone from an underrepresented group often doesn't talk up in a meeting and actually you as a leader need to be able to make time and put try and get their voice in the meeting whether they all an introvert all these things it's just being aware of these things so some of it is not intentional so yes become a real sort of passion for me and I'm certainly not as good as ads but it's something I want to constantly educate myself on and become

better I think it's amazing Alex because that adaptive leadership is all about your awareness of it right it's you it's not about you being perfect with it and you still like you said you still go wrong and that's that's fine right that's I think that's one of the big mistakes we make in leadership in general is that we think everything should be perfect straight away as soon as we make a decision on how we maybe change our Behavior or how we change the way we work we think ah it needs to be that's the way I'm and it needs to be perfect and then it

goes wrong of course it goes wrong because it's the first time you're kind of practicing it but it's in that Journey right of of falling over and getting back up just like a baby learns to walk it's the same thing right and I think half the B is there too many in the past there was too many examples of incorrect leadership that you tried to enr relay and now there's too many YouTubers telling me that I should be like yes this D mental and the bit for me and I talk I've seen some great Elite leaders young and old some incredible like in in gaming

right now we've got two forun they both called Amy but leading the sales team and they are brilliant leaders they're really vble authentic and actually they've learned that really fast and for me that was the difference when you realize you didn't need to be perfect like I remember when I was splitting up with my wife and I was moving it was during covid and I was moving from uh into another place and I started putting up a background CU I was like God in fies people are going to know and then my coach like why are you not telling people what's going on in your

life I guess part of me didn't want to get into it and actually once I did it allowed people to understand what what going through and why sudden had this weird background but also it just it just allowed you to be seen as a human um and that things do go wrong you don't need to hide it and like the other day we had a someone leave a company that had worked with me for 15 years and may have had a few wines but I got a little bit emotion in the speech and it was an impromptu speech didn't ask going to do it did

it and actually it was interesting that one of the guys that's worked with me seven am of time came up to me was like that is the best speech I've ever saiden I've never honestly and then two weeks later she's like I'm still thinking about that I like bloody hell I thought I look like a blubbering wet it turns out like you still have moments well all you're always learning and it's like if you can if you can be a bit more yeah it's that authentic you don't realize that it's the bit that actually people want to see not the Gordon gecko standing on stage

telling you always be closing yeah coffee is for closes um exactly uh I love it and and you know what I think as well Alex is that when you when that happens right like the example of you and your wife breaking up when you actually step into that right your authentic self and and and just openly communicating about it it's no longer in the back of your mind all the time right and now it's not a weight on your mental energy it's not something that you're constantly thinking about and as a result your it massively impacts your I think your performance your your overall well-being

how well you sleep all of that right it's it's it's a and we hold on to so many things and if we would just let go or if we would just talk about it it it it changes everything but it's the fear of talking about it right is why we often don't do it the fear of judgment is that how you felt as well definitely I think you're right what you do is you store things in the back and if you don't talk about it it doesn't you don't need to deal with it and I think I do that quite a lot to be honest

I'm in a similar group to what you run but it's a mix to have sort of fers and MDS and things like this from multiple sectors it took me a year to realize the best thing about that group was talking about actually what was going on in your not your big business brilliant we all have the same problems we'll solve it together but actually it was about what was going on in my personal life whether it it's health or troubles at home or like Finance or ambition or like kids or all these things and I remember we do a once a year goals Retreat and

it's fascinating the first time I did it my goals were all business goals everyone else is were like lifestyle and health and family I was like oh got the year later I almost broke down up there it was the time when I'd split out with my wife it was I was moving out he so much going on I had talked to anyone about it and my God I remember one of my girls was that and hey but it was it totally changed my relationship with the group and then what we talk about and how we help each other you have to be so brave yeah

or it feels that you have to be brave actually once you've talked about these things and been yourself he not that brave but at the time it feels very hard it's just going to get over yourself right you just got to take that first step I see it all the time especially with new people coming into our group you know big hesitation and then as soon as you pull the trigger on that first bit of emotion that you share wow what a changer you know because it's all about relationships we've got people in our group where they've got co-founders or business partners yeah and actually

it's a lot of the problems they have are not business it's the relationship with the people they work with and actually that's a that's just that's a human that's life we need to learn together hey if you're a VP a director founder or executive in igaming and you want to achieve sustainable high performance with sacrificing your personal life or your well-being then the igaming leader Mastermind might be your kind of thing it is a highly vetted community in which we work together with other igaming leaders in the industry to achieve that sustainable high performance because leadership in igaming can be really lonely and isolating but

when you've got the right people around you it can make such a difference to your performance your productivity and your personal life so if that's something you want to know a little bit more about head over to igaming leer.com and apply to join I've got a few questions from our I gaming leader Mastermind one of them by the way Alex was how do you how do you stay looking so young after all these years Bo no and not even Botox I'd love to say it it's Botox I love um running and I did something years ago called whole life challenge which I've not affiliated with

and it was brilliant for me for about a year and a half it's like seven habits in fact it's you've got Hab shoting back there but it's like a wellness drinking sleeping flexibility exercise and you change and you get points and I love scoring comp competitions and that that actually changed my life forever right just in terms of just just being aware of lots of different things like and some things I I will repeat or not repeat but being thankful and just being happy I think keeps you young and I've had a fourth child after nine years of having three well I've got so got

three there youngest is nine and I've just had a fourth thre a year and a bit ago and to be honest I tell myself that keeps you yell yeah I mean he's got no choice I get old I'm not gonna be got to pick it out yeah I love it um we a question from uh Richard M he's um he's a flutter and he said you've seen the evolution of the industry events firsthand what constitutes a good event uh in today's landscape and do you think the current pack calendar is sustainable I mean there's great question I think there's so many right and so so

how what's your views on that um now on the pack Canada is not sustainable don't know how many times I've said if you keep spending money they'll keep doing it like but you I can see consolidation happening and I could see changes I could see people merging their events with themselves I can see Halls declining I think we've probably got a year more of it and I think we'll we'll see change next year I've made all the m not say mistakes it might work to them and actually worked for us we sold the business and it was brilliant but there is this inate I guess

when you on entrepreneur when you you you keep chasing and you keep inventing you and you keep expanding and so I get really question why are we not doing an event in Brazil because everyone's doing one you can make money probably if I thre one out there I would make money but it's not what the customer wants actually the amount of time resource and effort to to launch events all over the world is a massive drain especially on your team it doesn't make sense for a business perspective and like when I took over that's why I closed 26 products since 2020 and that was training

products that was some content but that was Ice Africa ice North America I did close the Brazil event that been there 12 years I me stuff all over the world because actually we just focus on our core and the margin goes up the people can just focus on that we can not bomb our data or you may think we do anyway so yeah I think it will consolidate it's ridiculous it is ridiculous I've never seen a market like this I think what makes a good event look it comes to a personal perspective for me events have changed since covid and are and will keep changing

I think experience has become a lot more important now than it was preco because that we speak to a lot of companies now that use the events not just to buy to meet buyers and sellers actually it's to meet their team but a lot of them in the evenings aren't going to the buyers actually that's having team dinners because that's their time to meet I also think as a consumer I've always felt strongly about this just because we're in a B2B environment doesn't mean we're not a consumer anymore so I think actually giving that consumer feeling I think the sustainability comes more important and choice

of where we go I think that experience element is really important I think there is an increasing focus on Roi or value actually value we've done a load of analysis recently about what data across the entire claran portfolio what what are the data points that drives repeat repeat business and increase in spend and the event industry as a whole relies on NPS and still does investors do and we'll keep NPS B NPS has zero zero relevance for future spend or you coming back to the show because you can have a bad taxi que it could rain and that'll influence your your NPS what it is

is importance of show value for money not RI because value can be measured in different ways it could re branding or whatever it may be and obvious one intention to return they're the three biggest bits of importance so for me value is something we as an industry not just going in gaming have to start focusing on because for far too long we're like oh it's really hard to measure events carry on coming and that's tend on exhibitor so but we're sitting on so much data now and we previously weren't so some of the data we've got coming out of ice this time we've got if

you've got the app we can see dwell time on stands now because we can as long as you're on the Wi-Fi now so we can see dwell times we can do all your clip data or your search data on exhibitors we can see what meetings you ask to create we can see if they happened or if that person accept your meeting we see what you said in registration post registration can cross that all with the data from our websites and exist so we can start to build a picture of what a good event looks like not just for the whole group actually down to an

individual level and for me if we could start to bring in Ai and a kind of almost like a co-pilot that's where I think we can deliver the best of the best event we know what people like you do at the event and what they want to achieve and that co-pilot will then work with you to design the best event possible for you as well as creating meetings look that is blue sky but it's not it's not that impossible and having a company like claria makes it possible but a good event could be a dinner yeah right for me some of the best moments of

my life have been um a dinner where I've sat beside someone that's inspired me or by accidentally met someone at one of the event bars I think it's so depends what you're going to achieve and actually yeah I guess that's what part of our role is to start to understand that an individual and see if we can deliver those personalized experiences and that's where we want to bring an AI to do that yeah I love it I love I love what you did as well with the chat bot really cool the thing about that chat bot it's brilliant it's reactive but it's not proactive it's

not able to go do you know what Leo these are three people you should meet and I've already spoken to them they want to meet you this is where I'm going to and this is a dinal you used to go to and like do you know what you shouldn't stay an extra day I mean I don't want to say that but uh no but it should be yeah it should be like that right it should be like a CRM CRM setup right exactly I love that reason why we can't do that no I no I bet it's just yes you got to have the data

and then the triggers for it so Carl is the co-founder of a marketing agency he was there with his team and he was asking what are some of the patterns that you see for people that really win at these events what separates the most successful attendees from the rest and I guess that's that depends on your goals of course but what are some you know what what are some some of the things that you've seen that make people feel that they've had a real good success at an event yeah I think if look at it from two sides one from an attd perspective I think

both are very similar and it's so a lot of this stuff's obvious but planning but being really clear about what your objectives are what are what are you there for I think like something I do when we go when we go to GTE for example when you add it all up expenses hotels flights are stand it cost us a fortune so we have to be really clear about what objectives are there and is it new business is it retention and that should feed into all of your plans and then utilize utilize everything the the event company or organizer has so whether it's the app whether

it's material that you can use look at the sessions look at the speakers can you think outside the box of like I don't know events when I was a little scrappy Challenger brand I'd be running and drinks outside the venue me as an exhibitor might get annoyed about that but actually I sorry exh exp I actually love it because it adds to all the experience and value so I just think a lot of it's about clear objectives planning I think from an exhibitor perspective I think same thing but then you really need to think about and especially if you're a small to medium business is

where you're spending your money and being really clever about that before I was by clar and I used to take a stand at ice and I spend quite a lot of money but I'd really think about what that what the objective of that stand is and in an offline environment I see tons of mistakes of whether where you put the text where people are going to stand like what are people doing on the thing I've seen some really good companies I know that will literally run an entire day of like role plays people coming on like casting the net uh in a generalist way but

as English people I tend to find they're not very good at running an exhibition St we're not going to walk into the aisle and grab people and not saying there somewhere in between Americans are brilliant at it they're confident I think you need to think about who you're putting on the stand if that's your goal is actually new business you need to think about who's managing it and then I think you need to think about how you're going to measure those results and there's lots of different way so we will work with customers like say it's branding we can do work with the people registering

as they come in as they come out and we can do that over years to see actually how are we increasing or changing brand perception um and we can utilize our online and things like this if it's leads it's much easier but actually really think about I talk to you about and reach out to Adam aor SP radar i' parade him out all the time I've had him speak at a conference me for gaming marketers he measures everything he measures dwell time he measures leads he measures lead to conversion even if that takes a year and a half he makes all his decisions based on

that data plus if they're looking to get to New marks and branding but I think don't expect the event to pay your money and expect you've got to spend more and it's same as I used to run a business we we split them and only sold half it together we used to run a business called sport business which just B2B sport sport back before we sold igb and we had a big spip product and what you'd say generally in sport spons ship is whatever you spend on sport on the spons you have to spend again to activate it just because you've got a giant stand

doesn't mean it's going to work or double deck or flashy or you bring a football there it's a bloody expensive Channel and you've just got to think about how you're going to utilize it because it is s effective and Brilliant if you do it well yeah and I suppose there's a lot of opportunity there as well for you as an event organizer to help people with that right because the value that people will get out of that not just out of that event but in the followup and your education on how to actually monetize the the value and being there we talk about selling campaigns

to customers and actually we talk about the event is a Thunderclap moment of the campaign and it doesn't have to be RM we'll do it for SBC we do it for Sigma or g2e and for us that's the conversion part of the funnel like that's where and we don't really have that many conversion products really the events are our conversion products so everything we do before that whether it's PR content marketing webinars display advertising retargeting it's all about driving your target audience onto your stand for all pre-show creating those meetings so it's you got to think about how are you going to drive that awareness

and down that funnel to have that meeting on site if that's your aim and then also what are you going to do after to continue that conversation because actually look rarely is the conversation doesn't start at the event it doesn't end at the event so it's just part of that marketing Journey and it's just thinking smart about it and I think there's some really clever Marcus in gaming I think there's also some really good marketers but could do a little bit better um who sometimes have got a little bit too much money and actually if they thought about where they spent and that will happen

as we start to see budgets tight and they will one day so I've got a question from Luke cousins Shan brazon and finson cell they're asking about work life balance you do a lot of travel right you run international events a lot of pressure for kids how do you how do you maintain your energy and what does your kind of your strategy look like post event to make sure that you're you actually are able to just be there again because the work doesn't stop right when you're away it's it usually piles up so so what's your strategy there have you found something that works yeah

loads and to be honest my work life balance is actually pretty good these days I makes far more intelligent decisions and actually the team's much bigger so there's less pressure and I feel bad for my other three kids cuz I probably was traveling far too much in a way a lot a lot a lot now I don't go to every event anymore I don't accept every meeting or dinner and to be honest I can't just don't have the time I choose to spend time with my family and friends like on purpose and actually if I'm going to not it's got to be for a reason

I think I work a lot smarter these days like I really I kind of grid my days up and I really focus on making sure I prioritize those big rocks cuz they're the things that stress me cuz I never get round them so try to I tackle email in a way that I start the top and I'm and I build that into a time so it doesn't drag me constantly throughout the day so I start at the top and I delegate it deal with it delete it all these different tats you get taught over time I'm obsessed with having nothing in rainb it stresses me

if I don't and then I block out I block out every single and I should say this because it looks like I'm busy in my diary and now people will probably abuse it but from like 9 till 10:30 I block that every single day for just catching up on on stuff Elisha I blocked it for I think for 45 minutes I remember my coach say what would happen if you doubled it and so I did and nothing it just and I can use it out again if there's meetings or things to do but it really just gives me permission to yeah to use that time

effectively and more recently actually i' started to think about a different time I had a really good sash with a guy recently that talked about thinking time and actually quite often I was using that thinking time to carry on doing projects and ongoing big big de things and actually that's not strategic thinking time like solving the questions like how do we create more value at an event like bigger and actually I'm one to one of my next things is to build a bit bigger chunk every week and he had some good suggestions like name that time cuz actually he said your calendar is the best

marketing device for you and so actually call if you want to grow a $5 million marketing agency call it the $5 million idea time or whatever it is and so yeah there's lots of lots of things like I I still probably work late sometimes but actually I will finish at four because I've got to pick up the kids sometimes and I think having a really good boss that allows me to work flexibly contractually I'm supposed to do x and x and I try to behave in the same way down downwards so it's about trust and I say to people look if you're not doing the

job you're going to get fired anyway so work the hours you need and take the days it's food if you can fit it into your and I think it's really important that the world is really different now and whether you're remote work got kids not got kids got whatever is important to you you've just got to prioritize what's important for you and then as a leader as a worker you'll just be so much better you'll have more loyalty to that company and I've seen it all the way through I'd say yeah brilliant I love my work life balance and sometimes it goes crazy and busy

and Mondays kill me and then I have just remember actually I always feel like this on a Monday once I I've got on top of the first four hours I better again it's at the moment yeah I feel horrendous after ice but had a good day yesterday and hopefully better day today and slide into the weekend but what I love about what you're saying is is really that time blocking right taking charge of your time and then actually being disciplined about your boundaries around it on how you use that time being intentional about I think you're you're absolutely right your calendar FL you know follows

your priorities uh you know you should literally be able to open somebody's calendar and that tells you their priorities and if it doesn't then you're living on everybody else's timeline instead of on your own and I still have that happen all the time of course yeah but I think I look a big thing for me is like when I have to have Shar custody with my partner like life changed at that point like before I took advantage of having you didn't work that much so I could do whatever I like be wherever I like work as L as I like and actually the kids got

be biged up and give food and so that means I've got to work my bloody ass off for six hours yeah and probably put 10 hours work in there in order to be able to then deliver that and actually that that is e might it feels like you're working hard and it's brilliant I love it yeah it works really well for me at the moment thank you very much Alex amazing uh amazing interview I really love talking to you thank you no I've had such a pleasure really really different really like inspiring thank you for joining me on the igaming leader podcast if you enjoyed

today's episode head over to igaming leer.com for more conversations and insights don't forget to subscribe to this podcast I'm your host Leo Judkins and hope to see you next week [Music]

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