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Cvent Head of Global Events: PTO Matters! Embrace Career Turns!🔥w/Rachel Andrews | Ep. 451
00:22:05
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for do this, not that, presented by Marigold. And we have an amazing human being here. We have a friend here. She's a big deal. So we got Rachel Andrews, who is Cvent's global head of Events. Now, first of all, if you don't know Cvent, I don't know what rock you're under, but C Event's a beast, okay? They have almost 5,000 employees, almost 21,000 customers, and they're one of the largest, the largest event technology companies in the world. They are the platform that everybody uses to plan, to manage, to optimize their events. Virtual, in person, you name it. It's wild. And it's all Rachel's fault. She has this massive team that, that's overseeing, delivering on, like, over a thousand events a year, okay? She's won all these awards. She sits on all these boards. If there's anything about the event world that she doesn't know, then it doesn't exist. And I'm excited to talk with her. Rachel, welcome to the show.
- [01:09]
B
What an intro. Almost up there with the Kelsey intro.
- [01:14]
A
Yes, well, Rachel was nice enough to have me on her podcast earlier today, and we wore costumes. I was a banana. She was Wonder Woman, and you are Wonder Woman. So let me. What, What a cheesy segue. Let me ask you a question before get into all this. How did Rachel become Rachel?
- [01:29]
B
God, I don't even know. I, I, I'm just like this weird thing that exists in the world, right? I didn't see. I've been me for as long as I've known, right? I, you mean, like, how did I become the head of events at C?
- [01:42]
A
Or just like, what is your path?
- [01:45]
B
You know, I've always been an oldest child, so I feel like because of that, I have loved organizing and making sure that I was the peacekeeper and organizational person in my family. And I always love gathering. I've always loved bringing people together. I always like to make sure this person's okay and this person's okay and they've connected. I'm, like, known in my life, in my circle of friends, for being the friend that has introduced people, like, 85 times. One of my best friends is like, I've met your brother, like, 10 times. You don't have to introduce him to Us every single time we hang out. And I just do that because it's just, like, inherently my nature. So I think that that has, like, translated into my love for bringing people together, which is also then translated into planning events. I, you know, started my love of kind of the event side of things in college, which most people, most people do. But even before that, I was planning just like, I know, like back then I was doing more social things. And then I gravitated towards corporate events because I was like, screw the social events. I don't want to be in charge of someone's happiest day of their life. I want to, I want to, like, drive. I want to drive results in business. Boring, right? But I, I started with, like, things like our high school fashion show. I, I, I orchestrated a lot of events in college. Fundraisers, the silent auction. I planned our, like, 25th anniversary of our, at Virginia Tech, like our, our comm school. So just like, I just loved it. And then I moved to New York. I got a random, random job. So funny. One of the alumni of Virginia Tech work for. Do you remember the show on MTV called Yo Mama?
- [03:21]
A
Of course.
- [03:23]
B
I met the producer of that show because he was a Virginia Tech alumni. And he introduced me to a company in New York that was looking. At the time I thought I wanted to be in pr. And at the time, he introduced me to an events PR company and I interned for them. And I just realized, doing pr, that I really wanted to do the events side. I wanted to get into the nuts and bolts and the logistics and see something come, build something with my own hands and see it come to fruition. So I left that company and got a job, job at Morgan Stanley in New York and doing their financial events, which during the 2008 time frame. So as you can imagine, it was wild.
- [04:01]
A
Like, good timing.
- [04:02]
B
Yeah, really great, you know, nailed it. But it was a true, like, chest of fire, fake it till you make it situation when the whole department changed and I was basically handed some of these bigger events, did those for a while, and then ended up getting a job at Cvent. Um, I've been there for 15 years, but we had like four or five planners at the time. Very disjointed team. And I grew that into a team of 40. So, you know, we're, we're just like completely, you know, every year has changed to be like a different, A different team, a different company, different goals. So I feel like even though I've been here 15 years, I have, I have kind of like, expanded what We've done changed it at 18 different times, so it's been great.
- [04:52]
A
Well, you know, it's amazing. And before we get into, like, I want your perspective on the event world, because you have the perspective, but for people listening out there, maybe you're a marketing manager, maybe you started your job or maybe you're in a role that you're like, this sucks. I'm never going to get to the next level. Whatever. I went deep on Rachel's LinkedIn, and when I did that, she's been @ cvent now 15 years. And at the very beginning, the first thing that she lists is that she worked on cvent's holiday party at the lowest possible level. Right. And now here you are, the vice president of what, our director, or whatever the hell you are. You're a really important person.
- [05:26]
B
It's like, I think, global head of world domination.
- [05:30]
A
Yeah. Yeah. You are it. Okay. You're like the Yoda of events. Okay. But you started. And the reason I say people listening, you know, are maybe frustrating their role. It feels like what you did was every little thing a little, little door they open the opportunity. You didn't just laugh at me like, oh, it's a holiday party. I can't believe this is what I'm doing. You took it seriously and that's how you grew in your career. Is that what you did? Were you intentionally, like, oh, my God, they give me.
- [05:57]
B
You know what? I was always very, like, hungry to do more and more and more. What else, what else, what else, what else? You know, I don't. I don't know if that's just like, me or I'm insane. Maybe I'm a sociopath. I have a psychopath. I don't. I actually don't know. Like, I think all people in events are.
- [06:10]
A
I'm staying quiet on all of that.
- [06:12]
B
No, I think to do what we do takes a type of hunger and passion and a little insanity in the best way possible. Right. Like, so I think that that's part of it. I also think just, I. I think I'm a different beast of. Of person because I work for an event. It's very meta. Like, I work for an event tech company as the event person, planning events for event technologists and event planners. So, like, the people that come to my events are me at other companies.
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A
Right.
- [06:40]
B
And so no pressure, right? Planning events for your own peers. I think that that has also motivated me because, like, I can't fail. I can't look bad in front of people. Not that that's the Only motivation, but, like, that's part of it, right? It's like, you want to make sure that you're doing the right thing. And then early on, I. This is really. If you Google my name, it's kind of embarrassing. You Google my name. I think it's like the 10th article that comes up, it says, embrace the suck.
- [07:05]
A
Oh, it's the. It's.
- [07:07]
B
It's the military, like, motto of embrace the sucker. I think it's the Navy seals, but they say embrace the suck, meaning just, like, get through it, do it, learn it, move on to the next thing and just keep reinventing. You're reinventing what you want to do. Because if you're just like, okay, I've done the same every single year. I have kind of. Right. We. We haven't changed our events program all that drastically, but the company shifted, growth targets have changed. And, like, we. We try to always level up. Even though we're doing relatively the same events every year, we. We. We also try to infuse it with new things. So I just give. We give ourselves that challenge on the team to. To have that kind of service mindset of, like, what can we do better? What can we do better? And sometimes to a fault, right? Like, sometimes we're like, maybe that's a little bit too much of what we can do better. We're, like, pretty close to perfect on this thing.
- [07:57]
A
So. All right, but I want to. I want to dig into a little bit. Okay, so you. You're putting on a ton of events. You're helping a lot of events. You're doing all this stuff. What really has changed? Because everyone's listening, like, okay, I go into this event this year. I went to it last year. What, they're going to have a new sandwich that they're handing out. Like, what is. Things that are actually changing at events that people are like, wow, I didn't even realize that that's a big thing about everybody's doing.
- [08:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, the best. The best thing I think that people can do is, I mean, I just told you on our other podcast that we did, is everybody wants more networking. More networking, More networking. More networking is, like, the number one thing that people want. And so what we try to do every year is do more of that, but try to invent it in better ways. Like, also, when you have an event for 5,000 people, which is our, you know, one of our bigger conferences, gets up to that. Some years, when you have event for over. Let's just call it over a thousand people, you. You need to be able to go dig into those Personas and help those people connect with each other. Otherwise you're walking into this like, convention center wherever the hell you're doing the event, and you're like, who the hell do I talk to? And, and so it's up event profs or event marketers to create that community for them. That's not new, that's just not well done. Right. And so that's always in people's minds. We're creating communities for people. But are they really throwing people into a room, a keynote room or a panel room and saying meet each other or it's not great. Like, even if you have the color coded things on the badges, you need to almost force people to meet up in these smaller formats because not everybody is a big extrovert. So one of my like, focuses right now is figuring out, okay, for this event, who's an introvert. Most people in the events industry are introverts. And, or, or ambiverts is what I call myself is like, I'm very, I'm. I'm very much both. And so how do you plan for that and, and force people together? So like, I don't know if that exactly answers your question, but I think one other. Sorry. I'll just say one more thing about trying to invent the event. The invent. Invent the events is by thinking through all the trends and seeing which ones are BS and which ones are. Which ones are actually valuable to people. Like, you know, these discussions, peer to peer discussions are really valuable. I think doing these fun, silly activations are valuable because it does give something, does give people something to do and bond over. I think like this trend of the pickleball tournaments popping up at events is awesome. Like, it's just bonding in a better way versus like, hello, we are at a roundtable and we are going to talk about AI. Like, I just don't think that that that's good. But not enough.
- [10:39]
A
I have a question about the roundtable thing because I see that now at a lot of events, small events, big events, where they'll say, okay, there's a room over here and there's 10 tables and every table is a little sign on the table. And I'll have a topic. You know, this topic over here is health care and this one's nonprofit, whatever, and now go and find your tribe, find your table. And then I always try to do that. And it's the most uncomfortable, awkward, horrendous experience ever. And I wind up just looking at my phone Are those obviously how I feel about them? But are those motions? Do they work? Because I see them at all the events now. Maybe I'm a loser.
- [11:14]
B
Maybe when they're, when I will say, you know, and I hate to hate on other conferences, but when you just put signs on a table and say, good luck, have at it, like, that sucks, that really sucks. And, and I think that most people would agree with me. And again, like, most people are introverts walking up to a table and just saying, I'm here to talk about healthcare. And then like there's a sheet on the table that tells you what to do. It's like, how lame is that? I think if you, if you, if you have facilitators or what I've seen now, or like influencer facilitators that really know their craft and like really help the conversation, those work. I, I will say that those work and those do help the table. But I, it, it's, it's tough, like, especially with people that don't have budgets. That's a very cheap way to bring people together. I'm just going to be honest.
- [12:02]
A
I mean, you have to have the right person working the table. And I think that people aren't thinking like that. And so. All right, I want to pivot here. And I have something super random to ask you about life in general because you have a lot going on. You're traveling. I don't know if I know a person that goes to more events than you do. Okay, you're all over the place. And the thing that I want to dig into is I go on LinkedIn, I'll message you. You're one of the few people that'll message me back relatively quickly. And I see you online commenting on things. I want to know, are you the most efficient human being? How does Rachel manage her time? Do you get up at 4 in the morning? I want to know your everyday because everyone's about to get inspired. Because I don't know how the hell you're doing it.
- [12:43]
B
I don't either. You know what my superpower would be if I had one to buy Locate? Like, I think that it would be great if I could buy locate, but I haven't figured that out yet. No, I just think, you know, LinkedIn's my, my favorite platform I use and, and I love engaging with people. The thing I love the most is there's a lot of people that are looking for mentors out there and reach out and want to just chat about something. Sometimes the best messages are just people Being like, hey, I have this problem. What do you think? I love that. And so I, that's why I like continuously am on it. I, I, I probably went to a little bit too many events this year, but part of that is just the fact that I have to produce events and bring the latest and greatest to the events industry. As a person that plans an event for the events industry, I felt the need that I needed to go and see what was going on because for a while there when I was, when I was, you know, grinding, I wasn't going to anything. And then we were expected to bring all the latest and greatest trends, all the latest and greatest activations. And I'm like, Pinterest or Reddit, please tell me what, or like, please fill out this survey on LinkedIn. Like the, like trying to get crowdsource some stuff was not enough. Like going to events is, is, is in there, but I don't know if I have tips and tricks. I, I try to sleep a full eight hours. It's just, it's, it's pretty tough. But it's a good question, but do.
- [14:02]
A
You, do you, like, are you intentional about your time? Like, I'm trying to. My 2026 mantra is to come from a place of no, because I always come from a place of yes. Like, oh, you want to be a part of this? I say yes and then I wind up, why is this on my calendar? It's a waste of my time and I have no time for myself and whatever. Like, are you, do you have it set up where you know your day is? Every 30 minute block is something really, really important or are you more fluid than that? Like, how can you get it all done?
- [14:28]
B
I was telling someone I think I had 18 meetings yesterday and at the end of the day I was like, I don't know the hell I'm going to do all my work. So I had to, you know, reprioritize and shift some things. I also am like a very strong, strong supporter of, of pto. If you take pto, take the damn pto. And I try to tell my team that too. Try not to bother them when they're on pto. I think it's just so important to get a mental health break and not shame people for it because we have it for a reason. And mental health is serious crisis in the events industry. People are burning out at crazy speeds just because this. Do more with less. My least favor saying in the freaking world, do more with less. Like, what the hell does that mean? That's the mantra of most corporations and most profs or especially heads of events are feeling that really deeply. So anyway, I'm, I, I, I don't think I have the right answer for you. I think that like I'm doing, I'm doing the best that I can with what I got, like most of us. But I'm just really trying to be present when I'm present with my family. However, I am present with my family. Like I, I have made that like line very clear. Like when I'm off, I try to really be off.
- [15:38]
A
Yeah, I think that's good. I think, you know, I'm not a, I hate the phrase work life balance because I don't, I think that you need to have balance in your life. But I'm not one of these people that believe you're just shutting off at 5:00pm on, you know, on a Friday and not thinking about it until Monday morning. But that being said, whatever you are doing, I think you need to be present doing what you're doing or else you're a big, big loser and you're accomplishing nothing. So I love the prioritization of PTO. I need to more PTO. So give me the outlook as we're heading into 2026. I think one of the biggest issues when I talk to event people in the industry, they're always, I think, too optimistic. They're like, oh, our numbers will kick in the last three weeks. We need a lot of registration. The walk up in person is going to be great. That, that's going to make our numbers or some other horse crap when you know this year is tough. I mean international travel coming in for any events is like tough. Right. And people don't have the budgets for stuff. Is 2026 going to be a year where things kind of get back on track a little bit or are we still going to be in kind of an unknown chapter here?
- [16:43]
B
I'm, I'm still in limbo about that if I'm being honest. Like I, I, I want to be positive and say it's going to be, it's going to be great. But we're still in a lot of socioeconomic like crises with certain industries like the association, government education spaces are feeling the, the heat. And I think that then also corporate corporations are also feeling the heat of things like tariffs and other factors hitting their budgets like the do more, do more with less stuff. Also there's a big, there's a big turning of heads to what can we use AI to, to increase efficiency, not that that reduces headcount but maybe that helps us get more efficient so we can do more with less. Yeah. And there's a big focus on that. So I think that that's going to be the case. I mean my, the, the, your original point of just like this last minute registration thing, it's real. Like that happened to us. We got last, it was last year. I think it was both years. We had almost a thousand people register in like the last six weeks.
- [17:46]
A
Wow.
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B
It's just like, I mean, but I think about my own behavior. I know that I'm going to go to that event, but sometimes I don't register for it until a month out. Like sometimes I just don't have the mental capacity to think what I'm doing in that month. I know it's on my calendar. I know I'm doing it. But I'm like, okay, now I will do it. I'll book it. I'll, I'll focus on it. And then I'm, I'm, I'm, that's just my behavior. So other attendees are behaving that way too on site registration? Me, not so much. Like, especially when you're flying somewhere, maybe the local component comes in. But if you're flying somewhere, nobody's like walking up to that unless it's like a, a local London event. They can just pop out of their office and come in. But I just, I don't know what, I don't know what the 2026 will have in store. I, I kind of feel like in my gut it's going to continue to, to, to grow and then there's going to be like a flat line at some point.
- [18:35]
A
That's super interesting that there's like a hockey stick the last few weeks like you just talked about. Because I, I, I wouldn't expect it. I would just think that people are trying to grab whatever the deal is, the best deal. But I love hearing it. I love hearing our last big, most important question. You fly a lot because you travel a lot. What is the TV and movies that you are downloading that are like, Rachel Andrews is like, this is what you need to be watching.
- [19:00]
B
Because this is the best stuff I just watched. So I use, I use the apps, I use Netflix and Amazon prime apps to watch because I, I feel like I get on these move. The, the screens on the TVs are just, I don't, I can't deal with them. And the sound never works. I don't even know.
- [19:16]
A
Yeah.
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B
So I download all my apps, but I just watch Black Rabbit on Netflix.
- [19:20]
A
Oh, I'm in the middle of it. If you screw me up on that, I'm you.
- [19:23]
B
I. Yeah. And then I usually download, you know, like, like every basic woman. I love some true crime, so I'll download some true crime stuff, but that. And then what did I watch on Amazon? I'm like a sucker for the summer I turned pretty. I know. It's for, like, you know, I think millennials were, were, were targeted and attacked by that. Like, those guys are like, like what we grew up with, with the teenage heartthrobs. Yes. But totally, totally into that.
- [19:50]
A
That's a good choice. I, I, you know Jason Bateman, who's in Black Rabbit? We, we wanted to get him for our email event, our guru conference, but he was busy filming Black Rabbit. He said he was gonna be promoing or whatever. So that's how we wound up with.
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B
It's kind of like we got Nicole.
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A
Kidman instead, but whatever.
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B
What's the other show he did? It's kind of like Ozark Vibes.
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A
Vibes it is.
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B
Yeah. I really, I, I just, I'm obsessed. Anything Jason Bateman does, I'm in. Like, he's just so talented.
- [20:14]
A
Yeah, he cracks me up. He's a funny dude, for sure, but you're a funny dudette and I appreciate you being here. The clip that we're going to put all over social is when Rachel says she loves getting DMS on LinkedIn. And then we're going to put like a billion dollars boosting behind it, so that way she'll get 10 gazillion dms. But most importantly, we're putting her LinkedIn in the show notes. Everybody should reach out to her. She's actually an incredible follower, incredible person. Connect with Rachel. What else should we do to get involved with your world?
- [20:43]
B
Gotta do Shameless Plug for Steven Connect. We're coming to Nashville next year. It's gonna be awesome. We're gonna get Jay there. He's gonna do something crazy. He'll have his great hair on display for everyone to see. I think you know that that's what I would recommend to people. Check that out. It's not just a. It's an event tech conference, but it's not just all C band. It's an industry event as well. Big family reunion every time. Love it. But yeah, just thanks for having me on. I, I don't have anything else to plug other than like, Cvent Connect is the jam and I'm excited to participate in the, the conference you have coming up.
- [21:18]
A
Yes, we're getting you do air guitar. I cannot wait to go to Nashville. Do cvent Connect. Everyone connect with Rachel Andrews. She's incredible. Thanks for being here. You crushed it.
- [21:28]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [21:30]
A
You did it. You made it to the end. But wait, the part party is not over. Listen, I want to keep hanging out. Subscribe to this podcast and if it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to give it a five star review. Why not? But you know what? I want to do even more with you. Go to guru mediahub.com and we can partner there. You can find out about all of our free events, all of our stuff. And if you're epically bored, go to jwedelson.com and we could stay connected. You could find my newsletter and every everything else I got going on. Thanks for being here and hope you subscribe.