A (2:37)

Yeah, sometimes. And I feel like you do. Yeah.

B (2:40)

Yeah. I really like Diary of a CEO.

A (2:42)

You know that I do.

B (2:44)

Yeah, phrases too. But I have this one that I really like where this guy sits down with a bunch of really famous people and just talks about nothing. So I wouldn't say they're all educational.

A (2:55)

Yeah, I saw something about Diary of a CEO, actually, and somebody was writing about how. And this is one of the challenges with, like, creating content at all. But all of his stuff has now completely gone to what the YouTube, like, algorithm wants. And so now it's, it's all about, you know, health and wellness or like the COVID vaccine. I don't know. It's. It's like all of that to the whole feed is just like. Okay, that I agree. It's interesting to see a creator take off. Like, I used to listen to his show two years ago and he would have more authored. Now it's like it's everything about, you know, health, science, kind of all of the, you know what I'm trying to articulate.

B (3:30)

Like, it's all about health. I used to listen to it a lot more a year ago, and I love the one that he did with the body language expert. Do you know who I'm talking about? Her name's Vanessa something she's actually based on.

A (3:40)

Yes, I have. I've seen her. Yeah.

B (3:42)

But she's, she's been on the show a couple times and she's amazing.

A (3:45)

Yeah. Anyway, okay, so. So Allison and Anna are here. We're going to talk about. So I'll introduce you both for everybody else. So we have Allison over here and we have Anna over here, and they are two of our awesome teammates at exit 5. You know, I, I don't like everybody, but you both are awesome and I'm so lucky to work with you. And we've had a lot of fun working together already, and I, I, I hope that continues. And we wanted to do a podcast about doing events, because events have become a super hot topic in business and in marketing in general. I think there's a couple of trends that have led to the rise of events. One of them, even though we're going on, you know, this being 5.75 almost six years ago now with COVID and, you know, March of 2020, I think in our industry, like my previous two jobs prior to starting exit 5. I was a CMO and I was VP of marketing. I was traveling all the time, at least oftentimes once a month, at least once a quarter, traveling to big events and then eventually got so burnt out on doing events, it was kind of awesome when everything shut down because I didn't have to go anywhere. And I think a lot of people felt that. And then four or five years later you have so many people who now couldn't wait to get out of their house and needed an excuse to go travel and get out there for work. And so I think that was, that's one big trend. And then I think the other one is everything that's happening with AI. I think we are all having this kind of existential crisis about life. And you know, I spent, gosh, I spent so much time talking to my stupid phone, talking to my AI assistant on my phone and where, wherever, wherever I'm at. And so I think we're, we're putting a lot of emphasis in our personal lives on like getting out there and connecting with humans and connecting with real people. And so we've net we're going on now, I would say this is year three of kind of taking Exit 5 seriously as a business. And this year we're doing three significant in person events. We have a ton of virtual events. We're doing smaller ones. Like we're, we're all going to New York next week to do a meetup there. And so events have become a huge part of our business. And this is the masterminds, these are, this is the crew behind our events at Exit 5. And so we want to talk about everything we did and learned at drive, which is our, our big annual event. And then we'll just talk about events in general. So I'm going to kick it to Anna first. So talk about, can you explain to people what DRIVE is? We did it last year, we did it this year. Maybe just try to, try to fill everybody in. Pretend like they might not know some of the details about the event.

B (6:20)

Yeah. So for context, I came in last year, in June of 2024. We had an idea, we had a venue and we had no idea really what the event was going to be. I think, I think Dan was like, we should make it a meetup. At least that's what I've heard from your end. No idea what this event was going to be, but we found this beautiful venue at a co working space in Vermont. 200 tickets were sold before I even got to Exit 5, I think. So all the, all that hard work was already done. Basically we were just trying to plan this event and kind of what it became is this annual event for the Exit 5 community. And it's not your typical, you know, B2B conference. It's not very buttoned up. People aren't using corporate jargon and trying to impress each other and wearing button up shirts. It's really just a place for people to come connect, meet each other offline. I think so many people are stuck in these like little corners of the Internet, like LinkedIn and in the community, maybe even trading emails between each other. They've never met each other in person, never sat across the table from each other, drank a beer together, shared a laugh together. And Drive has kind of become this like learning environment, but it's also become this like third space where people get to be human together and talk about this world that we're all in. We all speak the same language, come together and kind of meet as friends and get to spend a week together in a beautiful place in Vermont.

A (7:33)

It's pretty good. Allison, how would you, how would you. Now that you've done Year two, how would you add to. Let's explain what Drive is.

C (7:39)

It's also a good place for people to come and just learn different things about B2B marketing. So while it is a place for everyone to come hang out and everything and have a good time and make friends with their Internet friends in real life, it's still a place where you can learn like tactical things and take back to your work team like on the next Monday when you get back from Drive. So along with like having a good place for people to hang out and just creating a community for people to get together, it's still a place that you can come and learn and grab great lessons to like use later on and stuff like that.

A (8:09)

I think that's gotta be the hook. And I think Sylvia, who's one of our CMO members, said this. You have to come for the. In our case it's marketing, which is the thing we're helping educate people on. You have to come for like the work thing. And then the reason you stay and enjoy it and want to come back is because of the, the people, connections and the personal thing. I've seen there was a trend in the last probably two to four years in, in events in the B2B space. Everyone wanted to position their event. It's like a festival, it's like a party. And it's like, okay, that's cool. I understand what you're trying to do because you want people to be like, this is not like your traditional event at a, you know, at the, you know, Hilton Union Square or whatever. But I think if you, if you're pitching this in a work context, people often have to justify that expense. The company has to pay for it or they have to pay for it out of their pocket. And so you do need to lead, you need to lead with, with education. So my perspective on on Drive is one of the things that makes it special. And this is why I think, I think it's hard to just kind of cold start and do an event. But one of the things that makes this event or that made this event special is that we had this online community. So people now like, how did you, what, how did you do drive? How did it become so successful? And Anna kind of hit on some of this. But the reason we, we didn't just start this event because we wanted to like do an event and make a bunch of money on, on an event. Because that, that, that's not how this works, right? We did this because we had this online community now dating back three, four, five years. If you go all the way back to me starting this thing on Patreon. And so literally at least once a year there'd be someone in our community who said, like, hey, can we do a meetup? When, when is everyone to hang out? Can we do an event? And so finally last year now with a real company, a real team, we said, okay, let's do an event. I was willing to, I was willing to do it, but I said, I don't want to go anywhere, I don't want to travel for this event. Let's prove that it works. And so let's do the event here in Vermont, where I live. It can be a home game. I drove, I drove 10 minutes down the road to this co working space called Hula. I think I put a fifteen hundred dollar depot, maybe two thousand five hundred dollars deposit down on my credit card and we made it real. I think one of the lessons in that was dates and deadlines are amazing forcing functions. And so like this going from we talked about this event and wanting to do it to like actually going there and putting a deposit down, even if it was a dollar or $2,000 or whatever, that made it real. That was in March of 2024. We had to pick a date and now we said, okay, this is happening September 10th. I mean, you two see it in your work, right? Like when we have specific deadlines, things can happen. And so we did this event. And then it turned out it wasn't just me being lazy and not wanting to travel, but there's a whole story behind starting exit 5 and the connection to Vermont. And I think what we learned is that the Vermont piece of this actually became an interesting part of the brand, and it became part of the product. And so having the event in Vermont was not just about me not wanting to travel, but it has become such a part of this thing. And now we've made the decision to continue to continue doing it in Vermont. So let's talk about this year. If you could rewind back into this year, like, where does the process start? So we have the venue, but then how do we go from. If we rewind back from September back into the spring? Allison, when do you feel like we started working on this? What are kind of the first steps to start to plan an event?

C (11:28)

Building the landing page so we can sell tickets to the event. I think that's the first thing that I hopped on whenever I started. It was like a month after I started. I had just done the Boston event, and then I think the first thing I started on was building out the landing page so we could get tickets going. And then after that, I think we moved on to catering and then coordinating with Hula. So first step is definitely just build the landing page so you can get tickets out so you can start planning the other stuff.

A (11:52)

So the starting with the landing page that does kind of seem counterintuitive to people. I think it. It very. It's very easy to, like, when you're going to go do an event, you want to just jump into the weeds of catering and badges and banners and everything. But is there a lesson almost in, like, starting with the landing page?

C (12:08)

I feel like, yeah, because you kind of have to think about what you want the event to be, how you want it to go, and the landing page is going to tell the whole story of the event. So it kind of gives you a way to kind of map out everything before you really get into the weeds of banners and things like that. We didn't even get to banners until, like, a month before the event. I feel like. So it's not something that is, like, super important. You just need to figure out the baseline for the story. And I feel like that's where the lesson is, is building out the landing page makes it more clear what you're looking for when you need to get into the weeds of planning for catering and things like that.

A (12:38)

It's an amazing forcing function when you start with the marketing piece of this, and we see this. That comes up. It comes up all the time in our community. How do. How do. I'm doing webinars, but I can't get people to go to them. I'm doing events, but nobody showed up. I think one thing we've learned is, like, it's. It's the business lesson of, like, begin with the end in mind. It's like, who's. Like, why go to this event? Who's speaking at this event? What's the hook? What's the pitch? What's the offer? What's the content? All that stuff matters. I think when we think about events, it's very. You jump almost too far into the logistics of it. When it's like, we're doing this with our event that we're doing in March now. It's like, we need to start. Start with the offer, start with the landing page. Where is the event? When is it happening? Why should someone go, who's going? What are you going to learn? That is the thing that. And then when you announce it, you don't have to have all of the logistics figured out yet. So we announce it, you start selling tickets. Now it's like, okay, we've made a nice little bump in selling tickets here. Now it's time to actually go and, like, make sure we can deliver on this by. By working on the logistics. I think you always have to start with the marketing piece of this first.

C (13:41)

I agree 100%.

A (13:43)

Okay. What else, Anna, do you have anything to add to that?

B (13:45)

I mean, I feel like this year was different, too, because we already kind of knew what we wanted. Like, especially last year, we got an NPS score of 88, and there was a ton of really great feedback. But I think the biggest piece of feedback was that people were like, don't change anything. This was perfect. And so we were like, okay, how do we make this better without changing too much? So we already had a really good baseline, and I think, like, a lot of the little details and the stuff that we added came later. And so it was a lot easier, at least this year, to start with the landing page because, like, we already knew what we kind of wanted there. We already had pictures. We already knew what the vibe wanted to feel like. Yeah. And so I don't know. And we gave ourselves a lot more time, too. Like last year, I. Like I said before I joined in June. Yeah, you started. That was like, three months before the event, and we had to do everything. So that also gave me a lot of good Perspective. Because I was like, okay, I don't need to be sweating about these details until later.

A (14:40)

There's a couple lessons in there. And I've learned this the hard way a bunch. Basically any time in my career that I have tried to hire someone before having done the job first, it doesn't work. And so I think what we did perfectly this time around was like, you started in June, your full time job became. Actually, there's a bunch of lessons here. Your full time. You start in June, your full time job became working on this event that was happening in September. Right? So, number one, I could get on my high horse and talk about this all the time. I think that that ended up being like, an amazing way to, to effectively onboard you into the team because it forced you to, like, do work right away, I think. So often you join a company and you have a new employee and Allison, like, same thing with you. You joined in February and it was like, okay, great, go do the March event. And I'm just a huge believer now. And I think you two would agree with this. Not to like, gaslight you into. Into saying my. My answer, but like, I think there's something to like, I think the whole, like, team bonding and building team chemistry. I think it's overrated to be like, Alison, super fun. She's great to hang out with. She's so funny. It's like, no, fuck that. We build team chemistry by, like, doing the work. And you learn how to work. You learn all of us, our systems. Oh, we use HubSpot for this. We use ZL for this. Okay, here's our designer. Here's how we do it in Slack. Here's how you send invoices. Like, that was you being. Each of you had to basically be forced on the job to like, learn how to use all the tools instead of like, no. No one sat down with you and was like, here's how to do this and here's how to do that. It's like, you got to go figure this stuff out. Do you think that that had an impact in, like, your ability to, like, get up to speed on, on, you know, working on this company?

B (16:17)

100%. Like, I feel like you have to, you have to just figure it out. And especially going into an event, I never even really thought about all the, like, moving parts that would be a part of it. Like, honestly, one of the hardest parts about planning an event is like wrangling all the external things like the vendors, AV catering, all the managers of the different venues. And so you're Basically depending on a dozen different people to move things forward for this event. And so, like, the second that one person doesn't respond or you don't really know what you're doing, like, everything kind of stalls, and you're sitting there, like, waiting on one of these external vendors to answer you, and nothing else can really move forward. And I think, like, getting kind of thrown into that, where it's like, not only am I learning how to work with this team, but I'm also learning to work with people outside of this team, like, these vendors. Also, like the sponsors that we had at the event. It was like, the perfect immersion into Exit five.

A (17:05)

Yeah. Allison, what about you? Do you feel like you. You kind of, like, got your. Got your stripes, you got your muscles kind of post. Post drive?

C (17:13)

Yeah, I think so. I think also, whenever I first joined, I went straight into Boston planning, and I remember Anna had a place locked in, and then they just completely ghosted her. And so we were both, like, on my first week, scrambling to plan, find a backup venue for it. And then, like, having to do that with her really immersed me into working with you guys and everything. So I definitely agree that being thrown into it and kind of being forced into doing all of that has made one. It made drive planning easier for me because I kind of already knew how to work with other people, like, outside vendors, like Anna was talking about, and then also just the logistics of everything. So, yeah, I definitely agree.

A (17:47)

Yeah, I. I took a. I got a job once when I was maybe 27, and it was a big company. And no joke, like, I didn't do for the first 90, 30, like, three months, 90 days at the company, and. And I'm such, like, a type A. Like, I gotta be doing something. You know how I am. Like, I gotta do something. It was like, week one, you go to the. All these onboarding classes, and then, like, you get a tour of the building, and then you, like, you. Literally, I'd be messaging my boss, like, what can I do? What can I do in time? In time? And it's like, I just. I think that's what's cool about having this small, small team and small company. And, man, even if I was at a bigger company, I'd want to know how you can create that, because I think there's just something so valuable, getting valuable about getting in there and being able to do the work together and figure that stuff out. And so then the other lesson was because Anna joined last year and did the event, you know, from June to September. Now we'd basically proven that out. Okay, this is definitely needs to be somebody's full time job. Then when we hire Allison, we can feel more confident about like what does this job looks like. Anna can now kind of run in parallel with you and you both kind of tackled this event together because we have knowledge. I've made the mistake before in being like, we need an SEO person, hire an SEO person. Then we hire an SEO person and we fail. Then it's like, well, why do we fail? It's because we should have just found a way to do that in house first for three months. Then we can find somebody to do that full time and then scale up. The other thing about the. A couple other details on the event that I think are worth mentioning. I think that we now live in a world where like the venue, the whole, the whole vibe, the venue, the why for going really matters. And if I were you listening to this, thinking about planning an event, like I would over index on that because it happened literally unintentionally. I was like, I want to. I don't want to travel. I don't want to do an event far away. I think we could sell 200 tickets. I think people would come up and go. And now can you believe like we were actually having a conversation this summer? We were like, we, we are probably going to move the event to Boston because we need more space. Can you imagine what a mistake that would have been, by the way, if we, if we had done that? Because don't you feel like this event being in Vermont is such a part of the brand of drive now? Right?

B (19:55)

Yes.

C (19:55)

Yeah.

A (19:55)

The more you can build that in like, I don't know. Yeah, we're going to do a sales retreat in Tulum. I don't like you. You have to find ways. I think that the packaging that you have to really think of this thing as a product and I think that is one thing we've learned from these last two years. And now we're making an incredible investment in this. We're going to spend more on this event in 2026 than we spent on the entire company payroll and everybody's stuff included in the prior year just to do this event this year. But that's because we feel really good about like doubling down on this place in Vermont, trying to make it really special. I think that's a, that's a huge learning. Another learning was people don't want to have really long sessions where they're sitting in their seats for a long time. And so we want to have but one unintentional thing that we learned was, like, these kind of. We had this idea of doing breakout groups where we paired everybody, basically everyone that bought a ticket. You then fill out a form, you fill out some questions, and we match you with people. And those breakout groups become amazing because we don't need speakers for that. We don't need stage space for that. We do. You know, we block off an hour and we say, okay, group one, if you have this, you know, red sticker, you're all going to go over here and you're going to hang out. And it's an amazing way to, like, mix and mingle and get people to hang out. And. And I learned. I used to think that so much of the event, you know, from the hours of nine to five, needed to be programming, programming, programming. But we learned that these breakouts became such a part of the event. And this year we decided to double down. We read the feedback. We decided to double down on that and do more. Alison, when you talk about, like, the decision to do excursions into the event this year, let's talk a little bit. Like, just how light. How light the programming was. There wasn't so many speakers, but so much of the event was these breakouts and excursions.

C (21:40)

Yeah, I feel like I wasn't. I kind of came on, and you guys had the idea already of doing excursions. And then we were kind of like, what excursions would we do? I think the excursions were a great addition. I didn't go to Drive last year, so I'm not sure.

A (21:52)

Hannah, do you remember how that came up? Did we just have that? How did.

B (21:55)

Kind of like. I feel like one. We did an MPS survey at the end of Drive last year, and everyone was like, we want to get out of the conference room, even though it's beautiful. But, like, the biggest piece of feedback was, it sounds dumb, but, like, the vibe. Like, people loved it because of the vibe. And I think the vibe was because we were in this beautiful venue and we were giving people these spaces to connect as humans and, like, give them a space where they actually feel like they belonged. And a lot of those moments happen outside of the conference room. And so that's why we wanted to continue to interest this idea of, like, the third space. And that's kind of what these excursions are like, these spaces that are not the conference room where, like, you're learning and not work, but these spaces where you can connect with these people in your world outside of that.

A (22:37)

And that's why we added the the third space. Did you come up with that? Is that a thing? The third space?

B (22:42)

I did not come up with it. I've seen it online because I feel like a lot of people talk about wanting more of that. Like, I see it all the time online. Especially, like, with Gen Z. People want a space that's not work or school or home. They want somewhere where they can go and connect with people and just vibe.

A (22:55)

This might, like, run club.

B (22:58)

Yeah, it is kind of like, it's exactly like that. And that's what people wanted more of. And so that's what led us to go play pickleball together. It's what led us to go on a boat together. At sunset.

A (23:07)

We'll list out the excursions that we did.

B (23:09)

Yeah, we did pickleball, a hike, which actually was just a casual walk along the water.

A (23:16)

It's a walk.

B (23:17)

Some people were a little disappointed that I wasn't a hike, but it's okay.

A (23:20)

Were they, was that, was that in the feedback there?

B (23:22)

There were a couple people that were like, I brought my hiking shoes. Like, I thought we were going to go up a mountain.

A (23:26)

So I, I, that was, that was my excursion. I led the, I led that group. And we were standing in the, in the hotel lobby, and you should have seen some of the gear and the way people were dressed and the layers and everything that they had. And I was like, oh, man, I got to tell these people, like, go back. So I was like, all right, everybody, listen up. This is not a hike. It's a nice walk. All that gear you have, like, this one lady had, like a full camel back. I'm like, you don't need any of that. Go put it back in your room and then come back. They did pickleball, this nice walk. There was a bike ride, right? Yoga. Did you do yoga?

C (24:05)

I did yoga. Yeah. We did it on the waterfront. It was beautiful.

A (24:09)

That's lovely. I also found that that was a great way to start, start the day. Like, on the day that we did the excursion, we did them in the morning, and we started the event at, at noon so everybody had time to hang out. And I think one of the most unexpected and awesome parts was that morning, not just the excursions, but just all these people were around Burlington, where we were doing this event in Vermont. And, like, I did this walk with people, and then I'm walking back to my car, and I see a group of four guys, and I'm like, where are you guys going? They're like, oh, we're going to breakfast. I'm like, come on, get in. I took them in my car, you know, complete strangers, obviously. We knew them through Exit five. I'm like, I got a spot for you. I live here. I'll take you. We. I took them down to this place called August 1st. We had breakfast there, and that turned into, like, this amazing little bond. And I'm driving back on the way back, and I saw Tas and Sahil. And I think what I'm excited about next year is we're doing this event at this resort in Stowe, Vermont, and everyone's going to be staying on site. And I think that's going to do it. That's going to have a huge boost in just, like, the ability to connect people at all. It doesn't have to just be like, in a breakout group. You know, people can be hanging out by the pool in the lobby, getting a coffee, having time for this, These. These spontaneous connections. Because Anna mentioned this third space. And I think there's something really important here from a business standpoint, if you can think about it, which is our identities as humans are tied so much into what we do for work. Right? You meet somebody, you go to a party. The very first thing, oh, hey, I'm Alison. Very first thing they ask you is like, oh, what do you do for work? And I think what we've learned with Exit 5 is, like, people who work in marketing, that is a huge part of their identity. And so all of our programming doesn't always have to be about making you a smarter marketer. That's maybe what gets you in the room. But then after that, you connect and I see someone, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, we saw somebody posted this. This. This woman, Lindsay. She posted like, I met so and so through exit 5. Turns out we live in the same town in Pennsylvania. Our kids are the same age, and we now go to soccer together. And they went for a walk in their hometown. That's the power of community, and that's what makes events really cool. And I'm saying this because, yes, our world is marketing, but why couldn't you do this in hr, in finance, in cybersecurity, in plumbing? I don't know. I think you could apply this model to every single industry. I think that's what made this really cool. This episode is brought to you by a team that I've personally hired twice. Compound Growth Marketing. And they're smart enough to sign up as a sponsor for us here at Exit 5. I work with John and the team at CGM, both at privy and drift. And if you're trying to figure out demand gen, they're the team you should call. Especially in a world where so much is changing. With AI, they know what they're doing, they're grounded in first principles. But they're also fast and adapting to what's changing with technology. Today They've managed over 50 million in ad spend for fast growing startups and public companies. But here's what really sets them apart. They don't just run campaigns, they build systems that scale. Compound Growth Marketing has leaders and consultants who've been in the trenches at companies like hunt club, goto, workable monster.com and IBM. So they show up like true operators, not vendors. They understand what it's like to have the pressure to hit pipeline targets and to be accountable to the sales team inside of your company. And the biggest unlock, they blend demand gen with something that they call GTM engineering. It's a mix of low code automation, AI workflows and systems thinking that helps drive more revenue. It's not just about leads, it's about building smarter, more efficient go to market machines. Most agencies are still stuck on cost per lead models. But Compound focuses on full funnel roi, pipeline creation and long term growth. If you want a partner that understands your goals, moves fast and can actually help you win, go to compound growth marketing. Com. That's compound growth marketing.com and make sure you tell them that I sent you there.

B (28:04)

I agree. Yeah, for me, like I feel like that's huge too because I don't really have any friends outside of work who really understand what I do. And whenever I try to explain, explain, it's like there's just so much to explain. Like I'll say what a CRM is or like what HubSpot is and it just like goes completely over their heads. But in this room, I feel like in this room at Drive, you don't really have to explain all that. Everyone like really gets it. And whether you're like a CMO or you're someone like me who's very early on in your career, it doesn't really matter because you belong because everyone speaks the same language.

C (28:38)

Yeah.

B (28:38)

And that's why people keep coming back.

C (28:41)

Going off of like what a CRM is and stuff like that. It's just nice to be able to have a conversation without having to take five minutes to explain what a CRM is.

B (28:47)

Explain the backstory. Yeah.

A (28:50)

Why is that the thing? Why is that the thing? Like we're bo. We're all bonded because we're like cool people and we know what a CRM is. Like, I'm not going to ask you what a CRM. I'm not going to ask you what a CRM is. No. And. And then my favorite thing was, like, people that didn't come last year because obviously V1, like, not everyone's gonna take the V1, right? So people that didn't come last year, but that had FOMO from all the pictures and everything being posted online, who came this year and then had an amazing time like, that filled my bucket in the best way I can think of. I can think of a bunch of people, but I'll think of Eddie, because he's a kind person. And Eddie, this guy Eddie, he's like, gave me a big hug on the boat. He's like, this is so amazing.

C (29:33)

This is.

A (29:34)

I had so much fun. Like, I'm gonna come back next year. I didn't come last year because of whatever. That's the stuff that, you know, it's just like, I think. I think we were sitting on at dinner on the boat that night, and I. I said this all to you, and I was just on an unbelievable high. But I was like, it just. The event was a reminder that, like, for all the marketing tricks and tactics and things you can do in the world, like, do you want to know what actually the best marketing thing is? It's like, I have a damn good product. Because if you obsess over the product and you have an awesome experience, whether you sell, you know, seltzer or you go to an event, like, that is the best thing. People are going to take pictures, they're going to tell your friends, we're going to have an easier time selling tickets in year three because people that went in year two and we sold tickets in year two because of the people that went in year one. And so it makes that stuff worth obsessing over. And I think something that you two are great at is sweating that stuff, like, what's on the cocktail napkins? Like, I was talking to Dan. I was like, man, some guy came up to me and told me that, like, he was pumped because we had iced coffee. And, like, most conferences didn't have iced coffee. And then I. It turned out like that was a specific thing that we asked for because we knew that there was one lady who was upset about the oat milk, which is a. That's a whole other situation. We'll save that for the after hours, after hours podcast. But all those things matter and how the sandwiches matters. Like, all those details add up to have an awesome time. It helped that the weather was amazing, but if you're listening to this, like, I would push you to try to step outside of the box of doing a traditional conference. I think you need some hook to get people there to learn. Because a lot of the people in our audience and in your audience are going to justify this ticket. They're going to need to ask their boss to pay for this ticket. The average person is not going to spend a thousand dollars or whatever the cost is just, you know, on their own to go to this event. They're going to have to pitch it to their boss and say, hey, I'm going to learn. I'm going to make all these connections. So how can you work backwards from that? And then I think just, we all have this, this lens. I don't know if this is for me being like scarred from just traveling for work and being so miserable all the time, but I think just really making it, being conscious of, like, it's not, it's a big ask for me in my mind to ask somebody to buy a ticket to our event and then spend two and a half, three or even four days there, leaving their home and traveling and leaving their family and getting out of their routine. And so, damn, if someone's going to give you that level of commitment, like, you got to deliver for them. And I think it's good to have those expectations for yourself. And I think one of the number one marketing things I've learned is I try to never do things that I wouldn't want. It's like I'm teaching my kids. Was the golden rule like, treat others how you want to be treated? It's like, would I go to this webinar? Would I listen to this podcast if I got this email from Allison, would I open it or would I instantly delete it? And how do we put that in your brain for, like this event experience? Like, if I, if this was my first time here, would this be awesome? I think that's for all of the growth hacks in the world. That's such an important. Okay, I have, I have a bunch of like, rapid fire questions on this and, and then we'll wrap up. Let's go, Allison. We'll, we'll just go. We'll start out. We'll start with Allison. We'll, we'll go to Anna. We'll alternate couple sentence answers on each of those things. Each of these things. You don't have to spend a lot of time on it. What was your biggest Learning from Drive 2025.

C (32:45)

Document everything.

A (32:46)

What does that mean?

C (32:48)

In writing?

A (32:50)

Say more. You can say, you can. You can share. This is a safe space. Only a couple thousand people are going to listen to this. It's okay.

C (32:56)

Talking with vendors and things. Just if you ever have phone calls with them, make sure that you have it in writing after you talk with them. And document everything in writing is basically the. The main learning that I have.

A (33:06)

Because what happened, you can tell a story.

C (33:08)

Okay. The boat. We had the contract set for the day that the wrong day and over.

A (33:17)

The phone set the stage. Like, explain this for someone who doesn't know that we had this plan. We. We wanted to do a boat cruise. Like one of the nights there was an after party and it was a boat cruise, right?

C (33:26)

Yeah. So we had an after party set up and it was going to be on Wednesday, which technically that's the first day. So it wasn't like an after party. It was like a mid party, I guess you could say. And we were going to go on this boat on Lake Champlain and have drinks, music, food, all of that good stuff. And when we originally booked, we had it set for Thursday because we thought we were going to do it that day. And then we decided to move it back one day so we could have more people join us because a lot of people might be leaving on Thursday at some point during the planning process. So we told them that we wanted to change it to Wednesday and it got lost in translation and they. It never got switched over. And we had the contract set for Thursday still. And we're on the phone with the people in charge of the boat two hours before we're supposed to be on the boat and they're talking to Anna and they said that they are like ready to see us tomorrow or something like that. And Anna was like, it's supposed to be tonight. And then that's how we figured out that we had the wrong date and we had to do a full 180 and do basically as Anna said, like six months of planning and like less than an hour, basically. So we had to scramble. Anna was on the phone, I was on the phone and everything.

A (34:33)

In a small city with like not. Not the most options in the world.

C (34:37)

Yeah, it worked out great, though. I literally, yeah, we ended up at a brewery instead. And then we just did the boat cruise the next day and everything turned out completely fine. People really enjoyed the brewery, I think too. It was still just as Anna said before, it was a third space for people to go and hang out and have a good Time after they've been in sessions all day.

A (34:54)

So this was the big kind of fuck up. Right? And I, I wouldn't even say it's like we something up. I just think it's, I think what we've learned now and something will go wrong. It's a fact. It's just you don't know what it's going to be. And I remember, I remember saying this like when, when Lee and I were getting married, someone told us like you do all this planning, like something's going to go wrong. It could be a small thing, it could be a big thing. And it was like our, the DJ totaled his car on the way up and so we had no DJ and he called her while she was getting her hair done. Luckily, luckily her husband is just a phenomenal, phenomenal music knower. And you know I'm the guy you want. No. And, and so, so I, I just. Okay, I taken that now. This is essentially like planning a wedding, the same thing. So there is going to some be something that goes wrong. What contingencies do you have? How is your team handle it? I think that was an awesome. I'm, I'm so glad that happened because I think we learned a lot about each other. The way you all handled that was amazing. So that was the big, the big fuck up. But your lesson from that is like everything needs to be in writing and everything needs to be double, triple confirmed.

C (35:59)

Yes.

A (35:59)

Good one. Anna. You got a lesson.

B (36:02)

Yeah, I think for me it's. The event isn't over whenever it ends. Like I think one thing that we maybe neglect sometimes is like oh wait, even though it's over on Thursday, we actually have so much left to do. Like just the post event distribution. Like we have all this content, people are waiting on the slides, people are waiting on notes, the recordings, sponsors are waiting on recaps from the event. And I think like especially last year we were like, oh my gosh, this is like we did this event. Yay. Like we're done now. And this year we didn't really totally think all of that through. And so I think for me that's a big learning. Like going into it is. That's a whole nother thing in itself is just the strategy following the event.

A (36:41)

Or like when we got off the boat I was so ready to go home and you guys were like we have to go, we have to go clean up right now. I was like, are you kidding me? So, so that's a really good one. And I'm sharing this because the audience for this is all people who work in marketing. And so you'll, you'll appreciate this, but like, that's a huge lesson. Is that the follow up, whether it's your own webinar or you're doing something with sponsors or you're doing an event that matters so much. I just talked to last week and I shared these, these notes with. I did a podcast with Sydney Sloan, who's a CMO G2, and she has a background in events. And she's like, oh yeah, I learned she's a gangster. She's like, no, I learned the hard way. She's like, we need to list. Like, if we sponsor an event, like, I need to list that night and the emails are going out that night. And I'm like, whoa, that's, that's next level. And so there are all these things that like the, the long tail of an event is like, there's probably a couple days after that where there's, there's lots of deliverables. But it's not even just a lesson in the deliverables. I think it's like back to like begin with the end in mind. Right? Especially if you have sponsors, you have follow up. Like those are all key steps into, into doing this thing. You gotta have that, have that stuff planned out. And you know, we learn every year. Like last year we had the emails and everything scheduled. That's great. And we're just learning there's more. One of the good things that we do though, that we learned immediately is to send out the. We ask, we measure NPS and we send out the feedback. We send out a feedback survey immediately after every event. And I think that that feedback is amazing. It gives you some way to quantify the event. I learned this from Mike Volpe, who was a CMO at HubSpot. And he's like, yeah, we measure events not just on tickets sold, but on nps. Like the quality of the product. The same way you'd measure your employee NPS or your product's nps. Like, how was the product? And we have a really amazing product based on the two NPS scores from this year. But just it gives us some benchmark. We do it on our smaller events too, because we want to know. The feedback thing is kind of tough because what's so funny is we compared all the feedback from last year, this year. And like humans, we just contradict ourselves all the time. Like we made changes that people asked for last year in this year. And then people, some people left feedback that they wanted, like the opposite of what they said the year before. And so I think we're just. That's how humans are. And I think it's on you, as the creators of the. Of a product or event to just kind of find. Find what you want to do and have a strong opinion on that and not take everybody's feedback as, like, inputs, but just be able to use it as. As data to help you guide and adjust things. It's like, yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things that I appreciate about you both is like, yep, you have strong opinions. You're like, no, that's how it is. Sorry. You know, that, that, that's how we're doing it. Somebody has to. Somebody has to decide, okay, how would you. You can only pick one. Or I'll give you. I'll give you one or two. But someone out here who is doing events, but audience in marketing doing events. Give me one or two unexpected lessons or something. You. You feel like, you know, now, other than, you know, double check all the contracts or whatever. What. What's a lesson you'd share with someone that wants to go and. And do an event if you could provide any wisdom? You got two?

B (39:40)

I have two.

A (39:41)

Okay.

B (39:42)

One, stay ridiculously organized. Like, going back to what Allison said, like, literally write everything down. Have a master spreadsheet with everything.

A (39:48)

Yeah.

B (39:49)

One big thing that we did is we had weekly meetings, was actually. Actually ended up being two meetings a week. We had one meeting about drive and one about events, and we just needed that checkpoint every week. And I think that really helped us level up this year because we were able to literally just go through each line item and see what needed to get done and delegate those tasks. So staying ridiculously organized and on top of that, delegating super important. And then I think the second learning is like, whenever you go into an event, don't be afraid to be ridiculously annoying as well, because you're working with so many vendors and you're kind of depending on so many people to get this event right for you. We're also paying them, so I think you have every right to follow up.

A (40:31)

You need to be bright. You need to be Bridezilla. Like, it's like Bridezilla. Like, you're not being a jerk, but, like, this is part of the game and you need to be like, super. You need, like, super alpha energy during those two days.

B (40:43)

Yeah. Yep.

A (40:44)

Allison, what do you got?

C (40:47)

This is kind of a small one, but no matter how many emails you send and how many times you communicate with people, people are still going to ask questions all the time, so.

A (40:54)

Oh, really? What. What a surprise. What a surprise for all of the people out there, man. We get so much criticism and feedback sometimes. Like, you all don't read the damn email. You don't read it.

C (41:06)

So have a good plan for your emails. I think that, like I said, this is kind of a niche one, but whenever I was in the beginning parts of planning for Drive, I sat down and I thought about every email that we needed to send. And I started from the back and then I worked to the front. So what was the very last email that we needed to send? And what was the very first email and everything in between. And I think about it from an attendee perspective. So, like, if you're going to this event, what are the questions that you are going to ask? And I'm like, I'm an anxious traveler. I'm an anxious person. So thinking about all of the things that would make me anxious and like, what I would want to know were things that I would put into the email so then someone don't have to think about, oh, what time do I need to be at this place? They already had it. So that was a really good thing too. I think that you should think about is just one. No matter how many times you communicate, people are still gonna ask questions, but just try to have it all ready to go for them. And then another thing that I did that Dave, you actually suggested was just making a big doc that we were able to give to everyone that had every bit of information that we had for like, shuttle times and the agenda and everything. So that way if people do ask questions, you can say, hey, everything is in this doc. Just go read through it really quick.

A (42:10)

Yeah, yeah. Heck yeah, man. That's one of the hardest things about doing these events is just like, there's no way everyone's going to know. And then you have. This is no joke. I was. I was emceeing the event, hosting the event, right? And I would get off the stage and I'm like, sneak. I go in the bathroom. Like, I had to pee real quick. And I sneak into the bathroom and like, I'm washing my hands and some guy's like, hey, do you know. Do you know where the forks are? I'm like, I don't know, dude. Am I the guy you got to ask for this, you know? Or like, what's the WI FI password? Or just. There's just so many things and. And I don't know how to solve that other than, like, I'D love. We just build a custom app, and it's just an AI and it just answers all the questions. But, yeah, that. That's a great marketing skill, honestly, is to just think about the questions people are going to have. And. And I think. Is that empathy? Is that the right way to use that word? Empathy? Like, you. You. Is it? No. Like, you. You think about the things you would want and. Or the things that make you anxious, you know, like, even just the date, like, yeah, it's gonna be 40 degrees in the morning. Like, you should bring a jacket.

C (43:12)

Just little things like that. But also, Anna said, too, because, I mean, both of hers were good, too.

A (43:17)

They were good. Yeah. Favorite moment, do you have Favorite moment?

C (43:22)

Going to the dumpsters at the end?

A (43:24)

Yeah, that was it at the end.

C (43:25)

Yeah.

A (43:27)

Just hucking all that shit in the trash.

C (43:29)

Yeah.

A (43:30)

Did that feel like a moment? Like we should have all, like, smoked a cigarette or something?

C (43:35)

And then when we were trying to throw things into the dumpster and everything was just flying back on us off the ground and stuff like that?

B (43:42)

So done.

A (43:43)

I got home. I got home that night. You. You all, like, I lived here, right? You. You guys are in your hotel rooms. And I got home that night, it was like 10:30 at night, and the dog comes running downstairs, and Leah's like, hello. I'm like, I just need a minute. And I just laid on my living room floor for just an hour. I didn't go to sleep. I just laid there in complete silence. And my dog just cuddled up next to me. And then I washed my hands for, like, 30 minutes.

C (44:12)

Yeah.

A (44:14)

Anna, do you have a favorite moment?

B (44:16)

Honestly, I liked going to the brewery, even though it was a curveball. I think we felt, like, so good about it because we had that, like, hour where the three of us were all huddled up in the corner. We're like, okay, what are we gonna do? Yeah, we figured it out. We all walked over to the brewery. It was like a perfect sunset. Everyone was there getting food, getting drinks, and it just ended up being, like, a perfect night. And everyone came up and complimented us. Like, you handled that so well. We were like, thank God.

A (44:43)

I know. So great.

B (44:44)

Might have been. That might have been the tequila shot that we took whenever we got there.

A (44:47)

Great brand play, actually, to. That was great. That was team bonding to see you all take a tequila shot together. Do you have a funniest moment? Like, that's a favorite moment. Can you think of something that, like, genuinely made you laugh about how ridiculous or silly something was?

C (45:05)

Yes.

A (45:06)

What?

B (45:06)

Well, One thing, I don't even know if I told you guys about this, but whenever we were at the brewery that night, Vector was doing a dinner, and so I was wandering around the brewery like a crazy person trying to find all these people, right? And I was looking down at my phone while I was walking, and there was, like, a glass door that I was supposed to be walking out of, and it was halfway closed, and I completely ran into it. And, like, everyone looked at me and started laughing. But I think it was only, like 10 people. But it was really embarrassing.

A (45:34)

But it was amazing.

B (45:35)

Very, very good representation of the day.

A (45:38)

You know what? Things like that, like the. The brewery. The brewery and breakfast and lunch. There's something about everybody kind of mingling together, like, just sitting with random people and, like, you know, having a burger or having lunch and just being. Being there together, I think, was an amazing, amazing part of that. And I, you know, that's the hard part. One of the nice things about doing this event in Vermont, like, we. We had this whole bar. We. We maybe spent like 4,600 bucks. I got the bit, you know, like, on the credit card to, like, host that. And this was like, oh, that was kind of a. That was a win.

B (46:11)

Yeah.

A (46:11)

I'm trying to think funny. Any funny moments we were when we.

C (46:16)

Went back on the last day to go stack all of the chairs on the lawn, I was laughing really hard at how we were all competing to see how many people could actually. Could carry as many chairs as possible.

A (46:24)

Yeah, Just a bunch of super type A people ready to the hell out of there. If I could have carried a hundred chairs at once, I would have done it that night. Yeah.

B (46:32)

So delusional at that point.

A (46:34)

Delusional. Yeah.

C (46:36)

Yeah.

A (46:37)

I like the little improv moments, too. Like, I think not being so damn serious, maybe that's part of our brand. I don't know how other people. Companies in this. In this world are, but I think it's just a very. Part of our brand is to be very real and authentic about things. And so I think, like, that started organically, like, in year one. Like, I wasn't supposed to have the mic and, like, make jokes, but I just. Just did. And then we have the crowd interaction and, like, I think that plays out. And then, like, when something goes wrong, everyone's not like, boo. Because it doesn't feel like this, like, super highly polished, scripted thing. It's like, I want our. I think I like our brand. It's like this balance between, like, we have our shit together and things are really professional. But there's also this level of like, approachability and authenticity. So, like, if something goes wrong, you know, we're like, yeah, we're going to, we're working on it. We're going to go over here and everything's going to kind of work out just fine.

B (47:27)

Yeah. I think a big part of that, like, just to go on a tangent, it comes from like, you're welcome, you get up on stage instead of this, like stiff buttoned up welcome. You get up there, you tell some Vermont facts.

A (47:37)

Yeah.

B (47:37)

You show a couple pictures of the team and your family and like share the story of Exit 5. And I think it immediately sets this, like, very real, genuine tone. And people like see us as people and not just the brand.

C (47:47)

Yeah.

B (47:48)

Which I like.

C (47:49)

Yeah, I agree.

A (47:50)

I was debating on giving a talk on the state of B2B marketing, but I decided to not do it. Okay, random, random shout out time. Do you want to give a shout out to 1, 2, 3, 7 people that you randomly met for the first time and like, enjoyed hanging out with that drive? I feel like that's always a part for me. I have people in my head that I, that I can remember. But do you. I'll kick us off. I think a couple of them for me were. Number one is Diane Weirdo. She came in from Barcelona. Amazing energy. She was like a big energy. Part of our event from like the first night at dinner. Harry Dry being there, getting to hang out with him. We had no idea if Harry was going to show up. I messaged him on Twitter over the summer, asked him to speak. He messaged us like he ghosted us for like six months. Saturday morning before the event, like DM'd me to tell me that he sent Allison his slides, bought his ticket. That was, that was amazing. And then my shout out was to all you. I think we all get to hang out in a more like intimate and authentic way. Like behind the scenes in the room. You know, it's. It's really fun to sometimes, you know, we're humans too. We gossip and we just like the same way people gossip and talk about us. We gossip and we talk about you and we do it. We do it backstage at the events. Do you have. You have a couple people you want. You want to shout out first?

C (49:04)

I want to shout out Anna because I wouldn't have been able to do any of the stuff that I did without her paving freely from year one.

A (49:09)

That's nice.

C (49:10)

And then obviously E5 team. Love you guys. And then just like random people That I met Rachel Weeks. I met her. She was super sweet. I met her at the.

A (49:17)

Yeah, she's super nice. Yeah, she's so funny. She came up to me and she's like, do you know Sarah? And I'm like, no. Sarah who? She's like, I met her last year. We bonded, but I haven't seen her yet. Can you find her for me? And like, all the rest, I was. Did you find her? She's amazing. She's a really nice.

C (49:30)

Yeah. And then Shelby from Hawaii. I can't remember her last name, but she was awesome to talk to. The fact that she came all the way from Hawaii was insane.

A (49:37)

Hawaii.

C (49:37)

Who else did I meet? Harry Dry was super nice. Jen Allen, New was super nice. All of our speakers, I loved. They were all great.

A (49:44)

That's a big thing for me. Like, when speakers are actually nice. People, like, I. I don't like when people, like, big time you for. For some reason. Like, I think it's really cool when. When they become part of the event.

C (49:58)

Yeah. And then I think my last person was Jess Cook from Vector. I talked to her for a while on.

A (50:04)

Yeah, she's super sweet.

C (50:05)

We went out for a little bit and she's super sweet. Yeah.

A (50:08)

Yeah. I'll shout out Chelsea too. Chelsea's my girl now. I appreciate that.

B (50:12)

I know. I was gonna say Chelsea.

A (50:13)

I like all her photos on it. She's. I like all her stories and all her photos on Instagram now because I feel like she's a good person. I like that.

C (50:20)

I need to go have dinner with her. I haven't seen her since Drive, which is so funny because we live in the same place, like 10 minutes away from each other.

A (50:26)

Yeah. Go hang out, Anna. You got somebody, you shout them out.

B (50:30)

Yes, obviously. Exit 5 team. I won't repeat everyone. Allison, MVP of all customer IO team. Molly and Naomi are both awesome. Molly lives near Austin, so it's always fun to see her again. And Naomi and I played a really great game of pickleball together. So shout out.

A (50:45)

Yeah, is Naomi. Is Naomi have red hair?

B (50:47)

Yes.

A (50:48)

I stole her code for Sora, too. Shout out to you, Naomi. Thank you for that. That's cool. That's good. You need outside of work interactions like that to, like, really feel like you get to know somebody. Okay. Who else?

B (50:59)

Okay, last shout out. This girl, I can't remember what her company was called, but she works for this, like, church software. Her name was Emily. She was just super interested and she let me ramble about the event for a long time. And I Appreciate her for that.

A (51:13)

I like that.

B (51:14)

I like that she was a really good listener.

A (51:17)

Not like that. Okay. Shout out. I wanted to give people shout outs. Somebody that I also always enjoy seeing around is Natalie Taylor. Good energy, good vibes. She's a good person.

C (51:27)

Yeah.

A (51:27)

Sylvia Lapoitevin. She. She was on our panel. I had a great conversation with her, eating a burger and she. I was like, I'm sorry, this is. I'm so hungry right now. I literally have not eaten in 12 hours. Like, I want to talk to you, but I also like. And you. I feel so awkward. Like I'm the only person eating and I'm just like devouring this burger, like right in front of her. The sauce is like dripping down my face. She's great. Trinity. Everybody was great, man. It every. Shout out to everybody. Shout out. Shout out to everyone. Okay. Yeah, that's it. So look, this was a Exit 5 hangout hang out with the Exit 5 events team. I'm Dave. That's Anna, that's Allison. I wanted to just record a fun, like, no agenda, candid conversation with them behind the scenes because I want you to hear their voices more and just a little bit behind the scenes on Drive. So if you listen to this episode, I want you to email us hixit5.com I would love to do or be happy to do more like behind the scenes type of stuff, not just doing interviews with people. I'm actually going to put this on. I need to make an effort. I need to make more of an effort. I'm going to put this video on my. My YouTube channel and we're going to start to like, really invest and try to make something happen there. I don't know what's going to happen, but I would love to do more behind the scenes stuff. We can talk more about what's upcoming with our events. If you listen this episode, we do need to shout out. You know, we've. We're also going to run this on the CMO podcast to get the audience over there. But YouTube, there's a lot of people who listen to our podcast. Like, it seems like we're just talking right now, but in a couple weeks, hopefully not sooner than that. This is my recency bias. Anytime I'm a recorded podcast, I'm like, we need to move the. We need to jump the queue. This one needs to go out now. A lot of people that listen to this. Maybe you didn't get a ticket already, but we are doing Drive again. Can you. It's September 9th. Correct me. September 9th through 11th, Stowe, Vermont. Is that correct?

C (53:19)

14Th through 16th, Stove, Vermont.

A (53:21)

Totally. I was close. September 14th through 16th, Stowe, Vermont. Can we sell tickets right now?

B (53:27)

Wait, I thought it was September 8th through 10th. We move it back. Stay tuned.

A (53:37)

We got work to do. September we are. We're going to run it back. So you don't know. You don't know when the date is? We don't know when the. We do know when the date is. We just don't have it right here. But we, we have put a deposit on the venue. We've already spent a. A bunch. A bunch of money. I have the amex credit card bill to show it to you. We are bringing this event back to Vermont, Stowe, Vermont, at Spruce Peak, which is an amazing resort. Noah Kahn, my guy Noah Kahn, just played there a couple of weeks ago. They have a mountain there. The mountain is there. There's a golf course there. There's a spa, there's a pool, there's a weight room. We can go hiking. We're all doing it on site. We'll have a real hike. You actually can bring your camel back this year. We're going to have 400 people there. It's going to be amazing. My blood pressure is going up already thinking about it. I haven't thought about it. Events in like a week or two, and we got to get our shit together and start moving. But I think it's good. And like I shared in a video a couple weeks ago, pressure is a privilege. It's like we've done this event twice in a row now. People expect it to be great. And I think that's great pressure to have to go out and do it again. Maybe we'll film. We should film a bunch of content when I think everybody's going to come up here in the spring and we're going to do a site visit and so we can, we can do more stuff like that. But thanks for listening to this. Go, go find Allison and Anna on LinkedIn. Connect with them, send them a message. If you try to poach them, I will know. They will send me a screenshot and I will know. So just beware of that. But that's all good. It's a compliment to the work that they do and the type of people that they are. So thanks for listening. Send us a note if you want us to do more of this and we'll. We'll catch you on another episode. 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