Accentuate the Positive
“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” – Zig Ziglar
Things are different for meeting planners in 2009 than 2007 or even 2008. Attendance is down, there are fewer events to handle, and that’s just work. No doubt, everyone’s personal lives have had a few setbacks or downright tragedies as well.
Welcome to life. Accentuating the positive side of a situation simply means focusing on what you can do now instead of mourning what you could have done a year or two ago.
Clients may come armed with negative thoughts and anxiety levels through the roof. You can feed into that or offer positive solutions to meeting planning. Meeting planners have always had challenges to overcome; the speaker didn’t show, the audio visual system went haywire, it rained every day of the event and no one was able to use the gorgeous golf course close to the convention center. It wasn’t the end of the world then and it isn’t now.
Tough times have valuable lessons to teach. Meeting planners are more creative, inventive, and hard working than ever before. Be proud of every successful meeting you host and give yourself permission to learn from mistakes. You have probably discovered suppliers and host sites that you never heard of before the recession kicked in. You stayed the course and you’re better for it.
