Jay Menashe: Most events are forgettable, not because the people running them don't care, but because they're optimizing for logistics instead of memory. I'm Jay Menashe Senior Director of Strategy and Growth at Exhibitus, and this is Event Experience Experts. Every episode I sit down with the creatives, strategists, and senior leaders who are raising the bar on what live brand experiences can actually do. If you're done accepting forgettable, you're in the right place. My guest today has spent 20 years answering a question most of our industry would rather not. Ask out loud. Did that event actually work? Or did it just feel like it did? Joe Federbush is president and chief strategist of Evolio Marketing, an agency with an unusual pitch. They don't build exhibits. They don't produce events. They measure them. Before founding Evolio in 2016, Joe ran measurement programs at exhibit surveys for brands like Intel, Microsoft, and American Express. And today he's one of the most consistently cited voices on event ROI. If ever walked off a show floor certain it was a win and had no numbers to back that up, this conversation is for you. I've known Joe forever, or at least known of Joe forever, but we finally met at Exhibitor Live twenty twenty five at dinner and you know I haven't been able to get enough of him since then. And just know there's never enough Joe. Welcome to the show, buddy.
Joe Federbush: Yeah, good great to see you, man. That was a good intro, I appreciate it.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, listen, I take these seriously. I have heard enough intros from podcasts that I love them. Like I gotta come out with the good stuff and say the good things and pump them up a little and get excited. You know, I gotta also get myself excited because yeah obviously me and you, we need more energy. That's something that just wrapped through our veins.
Joe Federbush: Yeah.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. So I guess I'm gonna jump right in. one of my favorite questions to ask actually, you know, what's a belief you hold about live experiences and that could be whether events, treachers, whatever you want, that most people in this industry would push back.
Joe Federbush: They're worth the money when done right, even though we know budgets are getting a little out of hand. But when done right, they're worth every penny.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, I mean I know, obviously I agree with that. And w how do you make sure, you know, with what you're doing in the event measurement, like how are you supporting clients? Like how does that conversation start with you to make sure that they know that they're spending money in the right
Joe Federbush: Yeah, I mean understanding what are their challenges, how they define success, what are their KPIs, their key performance indicators, and using that as the foundation for moving forward. So rather than just saying, you know, we were busy, we had a lot of leads, gave away a lot of stuff, which is like indicators I guess of success, but it's really not true measures of success. you know, we kind of reverse engineer it, break it down, understand, you know, really what are the metrics that will help Help be successful so that you can justify your investment in the shows, and then we work from there to establish what those are.
Jay Menashe: And do you do that for them or are they more come to you with like, hey, here's our objectives, this is what we're we want to measure, or is it more like you're coaching them to like, okay, that's a good general, but like let's like, you know, narrow this down a little bit.
Joe Federbush: Yes and yes. It's a combination of both for sure. You know, I mean hopefully businesses do have set objectives and know their ICPs and all that kind of stuff. But you know, when clients do come to us with like, well, you know, our ICP are decision makers and it's like, Yeah, well, you and everyone else, but let's dig a little deeper into what that means, like job roles, industries, company size, geos, you know, maybe ages, whatever, you know. But that's just the demographic side of it. But then there's the other side of it like customers, non-customers, what's their sentiment, what are their issues, challenges, what type of solutions are they interested in? All of those things coming together, then we can start having that like real meaty conversation about success.
Jay Menashe: I was talking about this earlier and I think it's interesting because everyone's like, I wanna talk to the C suite, I wanna talk to the decision makers and like listen, they might come to your space on the floor, they might just walk randomly in, very unlikely. The reality is you were talking to influencers, you were talking to the people that are gonna bring the information to their boss to get them to your space. So let's think about it that way. Yes, of course, I would like to talk to the CEO and CMO of every company there is. I just know that's not especially not happening at the beginning. it will eventually happen, hopefully sooner than later, because then you know how bought in they are into the conversation, but it's like yeah, narrowing down that universe.
Joe Federbush: Yeah. I mean and you're right though, because you know, if you're ICP and you're seriously just targeting that C suite, those executives, then maybe the booth isn't the way to do it. You know, have a you know, a showcase or a meeting suite or something because you know if on average what, less than about thirty for most events, less than thirty five percent of the attendees are decision makers on the show floor. You know, except for healthcare with H C Ps, they can obviously prescribe what they want to prescribe. but so yeah if you know that okay well we want to reach 60% executives, all right well then have a meeting suite, you know, invitation only, make it special, VIP, a lot of work being put into scheduling those meetings in advance, not those serendipitous walking into your booth moments, and then fine, you'll be successful, but it's a different strategy and a different approach.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. No, and I've noticed with our clients, especially it's like there's more and more of these ancillary events where it's like, hey, we have our booth, but we also have this, you know, we bought out this space for the next three days. RSA in San Francisco is a huge, huge one for that. It's like you literally there's like a four block radius around the convention center. It's like it's all owned by RSA too, which at least they're smart about it because it's like, hey, we're gonna find a space. You might as well book them all and pay these people ahead of time and just put it as part of the sponsorship package.
Joe Federbush: There you go. Right. Look at CES, look at AWS reInvent. You know, so many shows now that were traditional, you know, exhibit space and conference space are now, to your point, kind of expanding out and exhibitors are getting creative because of the challenges with the costs of, you know, general contractors, I and D, shipping, drayage, everything else. So now it's like, well, let's own our space and cut the costs significantly. With trade off
Jay Menashe: Yeah, those rates. I think I've quoted your session from HCA last week like 15 times. I'm like, you don't understand how much electrical rates have gone up. Cause it really, it's like this is I mean, we all know it, we all feel it. Like I used I talk about like the breakdown of like, you know, it used to be like 60-40, 70-30, 50-50 with like production to show services, and now it it's completely flipped where it's 30-70 or 40-60, if you're lucky. It's wild. And I'm curious, it's like They got they they're starting to eat their own. Like you can't continue at this pace of increases and think your customers are not gonna start doing their own thing, getting you out of the way. And it's you know, it's not even just one of these G Cs that is like has these crazy rates. They're all like that. And I'm honestly the smaller ones are I think actually have even higher rates than the big boys that we usually encounter.
Joe Federbush: Yeah, I mean it's it's one of those things like, you know I always use the analogy literally of like healthcare when you leave a hospital and you get a hospital bill and you have no way to make sense of it and there's a lack of transparency and if you do have the time to really dig into it, which most of us don't have, you have to then like kind of make calls and send emails and wait for responses and deal with challenges and you know, and it becomes to the point of like, Well is it worth it for me to just fight the bill or just suck it up and pay the bill? And I feel like that's what's happening in our industry, right? Like fight And and then you know the flip side in defense of like, you know, union labor and general contractors and show organizers and everyone else, I think you know, we we have to come together because I mean you've seen it, I've seen it, I'm sure, like some companies exhibitors are just like overspending and being very inefficient with their budgets. I'm not saying all by any means. But I'm just saying it's not like finger pointing that one party is screwed up in this equation. I think we all have to like come together and look at Okay, how can our booth be lighter to ship with you know the materials our booth is made of? You know, are we meeting the early bird deadlines or are we doing everything last minute? You know, are we leaning on our exhibit house and agencies to do everything for us, and rightfully so, they should mark it up if so. You know, but is there transparency in what those markups is? So I think there's just like every part of this ecosystem we're in that has fingers in it, you know, I think really needs to kind of reevaluate the costs.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, I think that's definitely true. on one side of it's like, Hey, you can still collect all this money from us? Can you just like allocate it to it? Take your el electrical rates that have got forty percent overtime. It's like, hey, can that be turned into some kind of sponsorship give back where it's like, you know we're spending the money anyway, get the unions paid. They deserve the money, they work hard too. I'm not saying even take it away. I believe in capitalism very much so. That's why I do the job I'm in. but there's no value in so much of that to the exhibitors, and I think that's where the real pain comes in. It's like you can make all the money, let's let's just change how it's framed
Joe Federbush: Absolutely. I mean, look, we know costs have gone up everywhere, personally, professionally, everything's gone up. But yeah, the cost of exhibiting has gone up exponentially compared to inflationary rates over the last few years. I mean, we've got the data to support that, but this is the reality. So what are we gonna do to work around it, work with it? and you know, I think the game of who's the biggest booth that's just not the playbook anymore. It's who's doing the best, you know, it delivering the best experiences within the space they have, bringing the right mix of products and solutions, bringing the right type of staff, and doing the legwork of promoting the fact that you're gonna be there pre-show, during the show, nurturing those leads, post-show. I know it's like basic preaching to the choir here, but these basic principles apply more now than they ever have before.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. And they're ignored more often than they ever have been before. I've long said that it's like you have an integrated marketing program within itself when you're talking about events. Like you have to take all of these steps and you have to do you know, retargeting, geofencing, the pre-show, at show, post show, all of it is so important and if you skip a step, you're being in the finish unit with that budget. And that was actually you didn't know this, but you'd had a perfect segue to my next question. You talk about event budgets being wasted and or people being inefficient, you know, where would you say you see that most consistently and what would you do with that money instead?
Joe Federbush: That's a great question. so a couple of areas. One which is a huge cost is we have seen in some companies, depending upon how their structure is, Sending so many people to the show that are not accountable for being at the show. So T and E sometimes falls under like the event manager's budget, sometimes it's not, it's sales, whatever. If T and E is falling under your budget as an event person, you better have accountability, and those staffers that are on your budget better have accountability for where they are and when. Now we get it, not everyone has to be working the booth for eight hours because they could be off in meetings and Everything, which is fine, but then have accountability for how many meetings did you have? Who was it with? What was the pipeline? And how much did it move the needle, right? Basic stuff. I mean, those salespeople would be doing that to their sales boss anyway if it wasn't in a trade show. So why does that go away when it does become a trade show? Makes no sense to me. you know, we still see things like over this is stupid stuff, but it happens and it's so tactical and can easily be fixed. Over sending things. like print like print literature and catalogs and giveaways and all these these things that shipping is expensive and it doesn't sound like a lot, but you know, the multiplier effect of it, like fix it. It's easy stuff. And then the other thing is just looking at what you did like through measurement, like so it's not just my feelings or your feelings, but through measurement, understand what worked and what could be improved and what didn't work. And stop the things that are not working, don't repeat them, and that'll save you a lot of money.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, I think one of the points you made about like the staff of the show and who you're sending really there was a conversation at HCEA about one of the exhibitors, she's like, I actually don't bring anybody from the company to these shows because I'm not their boss and they don't have to listen to me and how can I enforce them listening to me? Because if their boss isn't enforcing it, how can I possibly do it? So she's like, I bring an event staff for every show because I am their boss and we get amazing results and I don't know if you know specifically who I'm talking about, but I was like Why doesn't every company do this? But I also understand the clout but it's like, you if you think about it, it's like, well, you don't have the travel. You have minimal expenses 'cause they just get a pre which, you know, with salespeople For DMs are often ignored. Not me, obviously. I listen to those things. But yeah, you have a lot more control over the conversation about how they're transferring people. And then it's like you have a solutions engineer or you have, you know, medical affairs in the booth if we're talking healthcare. It's like now you're talking to someone that's not trying to sell you. You're talking to someone that's just giving you the cold hard facts. They're giving you the proof of like what you need to sell this internally with your company. And yes, again, it comes down to control. Yeah. And for your when you reallocate that money, you're talking about measurement, which you gave me a stat, I wanna say this was two years ago, maybe it was last year. Is it typically like five to seven percent of the budget that you'd recommend to spend on like whether it's surveying or measurement, is that still accurate?
Joe Federbush: Dude, good memory. yeah. it's literally we say if it's a huge investment, like you know, you're like in the, you know, top ten exhibits in a show, it's probably gonna be like one percent of your budget. But if you're 'cause you know, if you're spending a million, you know, to be in one show, you know, Like measuring truly effectively shouldn't be like fifteen to thirty thousand dollars for a huge investment like that. But if you're a mid size exhibit, yeah, five percent, six percent max. So if you're spending, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand in a show, you know, that fifteen thousand for measurement, which is five percent literally, yeah, that's you're good. You're really you're good, you know. So the problem is, you know, and as we were talking, you know, with all this industry data stuff, data. Yeah. So number one pain point is obviously bud costs budget. Pain point number two is measurement in ROI, but yet so many companies will not allocate that five percent to measurement. So it's like they're saying it's their number two issue and challenge, but they won't allocate the resources to it. And I get it why, unfortunately, I get it, because like you know, in the past measurement was like ranked fifth or sixth as like the most important or biggest challenge or whatever. And the fact that it's bubbled up to number two post COVID, there's a Mindset that you know the budget isn't allocated to it even though it's a pain point much greater than it was in the past. So that'll catch up to itself over time and conversations like this, you know, will hopefully educate people. But yeah, it's crazy. Well
Jay Menashe: And it's very cyclical because I remember and I was this was this was pretty early in my career when the financial crisis happened in eight and it's like guys we need to focus on measurement, we need to prove the value of events, we need to and it's like, yeah, I've been talking literally, I've been talking about this for 18 years at this point, and it still gets the same level of investment. It's like, yeah, yeah, we want to measure the results and talk about the results. It's like, well, it'll be twelve thousand dollars. no. We need that extra TV over there, or we need this little graphics like, but do you do you need that little extra thing? Or can we pull back in one area? Maybe it's less giveaways. I think that is a perfect trade off. it quoted from I want to say Liz Latham, but said, swag is stuff we all get and nobody keeps it. It gets thrown in the trash 95% of the time. And you know, sometimes it's great and sometimes it's memorable. Most of the time that money should be reallocated somewhere else. I'm a big believer of like the high end giveaway versus the everybody giveaway, and maybe that's that trade off. But yeah, it's like let's reallocate that money. Please. Please start insuring. Please talk to Joe. Joe will help you.
Joe Federbush: Talk to Jay. Well, and then like the thing is back when we were talking about like your ICP and your target audience, who says, it's trick-or-treaters? No one. You know what I mean? Like so if you're oversending or using giveaways as a KPI or some kind of metric of measurement, you're totally missing the game. Yeah.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. Unless you do have a smaller number. It's like, no, we gave these to these thirty-five leads that are so highly qualified, they're ready to buy right now. It's like, yeah, you can do the giveaways, and I don't want to say get rid of them altogether, because I know that's never gonna happen, especially in the industries I work with the most. they're gonna have it. But yeah, it's like let's be purposeful with what we do and make sure it has the impact you want it to have, rather than Let me give you this half broken pen that has my name on it that barely works, and maybe it'll work the first time, but definitely not the third time.
Joe Federbush: Yeah, exactly. Like that's real good brand recognition for your company too.
Jay Menashe: Exactly. So there's one question I've asked everybody I've had well, maybe not everybody. I'll go with everybody. This is only the you know thirteenth recording. But I always want to know, and it always goes the total opposite way, but I always ask, like, how do you know an event is working, not just now, but in six months from now? And everybody goes, It's the feeling, it's the feeling. And to a point, it's always the feeling. You have to feel the event went well before you know the event went well. But what's the gap you see most often between how a team feels an event went and what the data is saying happens?
Joe Federbush: What a great question. So you I forget if you remember this or not, but our our literally Evolio's tagline is feelings aren't facts. That's our that's literally our company tagline, trademark, registered, all that. Feelings aren't facts. Now it's a fact we have feelings, and feelings are important, but do you want to make a a million dollar, half million dollar, whatever dollar decision on feelings? and then the flip side of that is even worse. why this became our tagline is you know so many you've been there with your clients yourself you know you bust your butt you make everything happen and then some executive comes in and says I feel like dot dot dot and you just want to be like So we what we like to do is put data behind the feelings and you can quantify if when asked correctly, you can quantify sentiment and questions around feelings to bring data to them. So long answer to your question is when you measure sentiment, you know, whether it's like through social media or PR analysis or even just simply asking questions around like agreement statements, rate your level of agreement with Company X is the lead.
Jay Menashe: What's the best way to measure that sentiment? Do you feel surveys work best? Do you think it's social media like kind of seeing who's posting what? I mean, in certain fields you're not gonna see a lot of social media posts about it, but like what would you recommend baselines like, hey, even if you're doing this yourself, do this first thing.
Joe Federbush: you know, honestly, and I don't think surveys are an answer to everything, but when you want truly quantifiable data around feelings, you simply do exit surveys as people leave your exhibit, you know, politely, professionally intercept them and say, Hey, would you mind doing an anonymous survey? Hand them a tablet or do as an interview. and then you have those consistent statements that really align with your brand, with the experiences you're delivering, so that when you're reporting back to executives or making those decisions six months after the show to say how'd we do, you actually have quantifiable data. Is it like what one person felt or is it what, you know, 150 people felt? And then, you know, when you analyze it, you know, let's you use like a simple five point Likert rating scale, right? So you have your two bottoms, your two tops, and your neutral in the middle. And then not to geek out, but then you start looking at this, okay, what's our top two box? Or like the people who didn't rate us highly or think of us positively. Let's now analyze that by like what's their job roles, what was their net promoter score? Are they customers, non-customers? What was their age group? So you start segmenting the data among your promoters as well as your detractors who feel positively neutral or negative about you to then get a better sense of like, we're killing it with the boomers, but our targets are really Gen Zs and you know millennials and they don't even know who we are yet. So that's where you can start really using the data combined with feelings along with segmentation to say six months after the show, here's what we need to improve upon for next year's show.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, and the segmentation piece is so important. I was at South by Southwest last year, twenty twenty five, whatever. and I listened to there were two different sessions I listened to where senior marketers, big companies, you know, think the biggest in the world, and they both focuses one was all about like how do you turn fans into maniacs for your brand, and the other one was just all about literally personalization and the both of them are like it's all about segmentation. And they broke it down into much greater detail, but even to what you're saying, it's like, Yeah, you can survey the whole audience, but you have to get the demographic data to actually know is it going the way you want? Separate question, which I wasn't on the list, but what's your favorite question to include in a survey that you know I was saying gives you the most meaningful results, but that's gonna be different every time. Do you personally have a favorite question that you're like, hey, just include this?
Joe Federbush: Yes, I do. so you know, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, it was Net Promoter Score. How likely would you be to recommend da da da? that is definitely not my answer to that question today or for the last several years. Some people still swear by NPS or Net Promoter Score. I think it's a little old and outdated. I think it's good. I'm not saying it's a bad metric at all. But I think what's more interesting is focusing on a specific metric or metrics around the experience. So What drove that net promoter score? You know, so it's more like even just simply like What was your level of engagement with the booth staff? Not did you engage with the booth staff, or not how helpful were the booth staff, but specifically around like, I was ignored, I was greeted, I was actually qualified, they actually asked me my interests, my issues and challenges. They actually told me about other demos in the booth that I should probably go visit. That's the one new metric that I think is most powerful because back to segmentation, Jay, when you look at like the results of NPS or you look at the results of overall value or satisfaction or whatever and you segment it by that level of engagement, that's where the numbers pop.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. How do you measure that though, a level of engagement? 'Cause I really like that question. It's like was were you qualified? Were you well serviced? Did were you asked your problem? Like how do you 'cause that's not really quantifiable, that's more qualitative data and that I guess that's
Joe Federbush: We quantify it, yeah. We literally so and we've literally even built benchmarks around it because it's a question we've been asking so often for the last year. where we actually put it on our exit surveys. 'Cause post show you know, if you do a post show survey, you're not gonna remember that level of detail like a week after the show. But when you do it's an on site exit survey, you know, at the booth as they're exiting, standard question around the level of engagement you had with the booth staff, So it is actually quantifiable. Now, we also do it through mystery shopping and observations. That's more qualitative to your point. But when you actually then marry the qualitative and quantitative, then you got a pretty powerful story. And the whole reason was actually Nancy Flora, our VP over at Evolio, she developed that question probably about a year and a half ago because we were always getting such positive feedback on surveys about boothstaff but we're observing like the booth staff sucks. Like they're not paying attention, they're not engaging, but yet the like helpfulness of booth staff was still coming out like four point two, four point three on a five point scale. We're like we have to go deeper and that's how that question got made.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. I like that. No, I like that a lot. And yeah, it's like I'm not gonna walk every booth like that booth they have sucked. Like but I'll tell you, you know, the amount of booths I walk into and it's like maybe they can sniff me out, they're like, stay away from that guy. He's obviously trying to you know meet the person that makes this thing. not scary, but he's gonna sell something to somebody. but yeah, they I can stand in the dead center of a booth for five minutes and literally like start stopwatch and be like, let's see the first person to talk to me and sometimes I literally just leave a booth and not a single person look at me, acknowledge me, and then the better booths are The ones that's like you can't even be there for three seconds before someone starts talking to you. Right. So I will say, contrary to that question, what's your least favorite question?
Joe Federbush: My least favorite question, I hate to say this, it's kinda NPS, but but it's still important. But my other least favorite question is not so much the question itself, but the style of questions where it's rate this, rate this, rate this, rate this, rate this, rate this, like and it's just like, my god, like this is the worst survey, you know what I mean? Like 'cause then you just get lazy, you're like five, five, five, five, five.
Jay Menashe: Five five
Joe Federbush: So I think yeah, it's not so much the survey question, but the construct. 'Cause like if you have me rate ten things Twenty things, like what are you really gonna do with it? You're probably getting so granular that it's not even like it doesn't even matter anymore. Yeah. So
Jay Menashe: Yeah, like responding to an RFP that has 150 questions of like how many of these are you reading? Like, give me a break. if I could talk to every company after it doesn't even matter if I'm involved in the RFP. I'm like, hey, did you read this whole thing? Like just tell me. Real quick. Like honest. nobody will know except for everybody, all seven people that listen to my podcast.
Joe Federbush: Come on, man. We're gonna make it ten.
Jay Menashe: That's right, that's right. Not including family members. They are forced to at least pretend they listen. Market, market is played, that's all I'm asking you.
Joe Federbush: Yeah.
Jay Menashe: No, I think the construct makes sense. But it that's kind of the same thing with like anything. It's like you can't do so much of one thing that people are like, god, when am I done with this? And it goes with like reading people's social media. It's like You can't always have a written post. Sometimes you need videos. Sometimes you need images. Well now get ready people. Every post I put up is gonna be full of videos because this is I would say eighty percent of the reason I have a podcast is just for the content.
Joe Federbush: There you go, exactly. Jay, one more question though that does get on my nerves. like the specific question itself is like rate the food at an event. Now, unless it's a food event for a food company, then who cares? Like you know what I mean? Like I
Jay Menashe: Joe. I'm gonna push back on this one. I think both you and I care about the food no matter where we are, and that is not entirely true. Cause you know if the food's not good, you're gonna hear it. So maybe it's not a super helpful question for lots of things, but it's like, hey, should we do this different next year? I mean I think it can be helpful, but listen, I didn't get to this size 'cause I don't like food.
Joe Federbush: Right. Well, no, I mean let's say you're at a convention center, you don't control the convention center food. Now if it's food that you can control, absolutely right. Yeah. Make sure it's good because you're paying a lot of money for it. So you know, when you're paying like four hundred dollars for, you know, a thing of coffee like that big, it better be good coffee. But yeah, like sometimes we can't control the food 'cause it's just the convention center. That that's what I meant, yeah.
Jay Menashe: I'll let it go. All right. So God, I'm getting ahead of myself in these questions and I guess kind of jump myself, but I'm gonna go with it anyway. what's a question a brand should be asking their measurement partner before they sign? And basically if they're signing with you, What should they be asking you ahead of time? You know, how do they get the best advice out of you?
Joe Federbush: Yeah, I mean I think it's that they have to just be open to like have an honest conversation about what their challenges, issues, weaknesses are. So rather than being like, we're the best brand and we only want to hear good news out of our measurement, it's like, you know, we can design the survey that way, of course, but we're not going to like ethically. Yeah, we wanna use the research that it's for continuous improvement, help you out, help you be better. And maybe you're ninety percent amazing, but that ten percent. Like we all have room for improvement except you, Jay. You're awesome. But like Love you,
Jay Menashe: Stephanie Menashe I hope you hear that one when you listen to this podcast, because you are legally obligated as my wife to watch it, but Joe said it. Yeah, it's fact now.
Joe Federbush: It's a fact. Feelings aren't facts. so yeah, like you know it's you know, be honest with your issues and challenges and then also what are you gonna do with this information? That's to me like one of the biggest things because is it going to the boardroom? Is it going to you know, like anyone beyond the events team? Does it go into your CMO? Is it going to your sales team? Maybe procurement? Like that's what we really want to know because that's how we're gonna frame the research. Now, if you just want to know how good your booth was, fine. But I wouldn't recommend investing all that money in measurement just to find out something that you could step outside your booth and look and say, it's good. Yeah, go beyond that. Yeah.
Jay Menashe: And that kind of goes to like, hey, you need to think through your pre-show, at show, post-show. It's like you also have same thing with the data. It's like how are you collecting it? What are you doing with it? I think no, that's really good advice to think through your plan. Don't just pay someone to measure it unless you have a a real idea of what you want to do with it and how it's going to affect change. Or say, You're amazing. total side question here. was Family Feud like your favorite show growing up that you decide to get into surveying and measuring?
Joe Federbush: Yeah, absolutely. No. But is Steve Harvey still do that show? Because he makes it funnier than I remember it being, like as a kid.
Jay Menashe: So I only get the I only see the clips on Instagram at this point, so I don't know if I don't even know if it's still on the air, but if it is, I love I yeah. That's one of those shows that Wheel of Fortune, Price is Right, Occasionally Jeopardy. I always feel a little dumb watching that show though. but yeah, no, I like
Joe Federbush: Yeah.
Jay Menashe: There's there's some real ridiculous ones. It's like why would you say that on national TV? I guess maybe it's not national anymore. Who knows?
Joe Federbush: Who knows it's it's global. It's amazing. All right.
Jay Menashe: I'm closing you out with a tough question. I'm just kidding, none of these are that tough. where would you say experiential marketing is in five years? Who's gonna be left behind without the data to prove their program worked? And just in general, like where do you think it's going?
Joe Federbush: You know, it's funny that you asked that question. I was literally just having a conversation about this with someone the other day about where is it going. I don't think it's going anywhere. Like honestly, I think it's like building a better mousetrap kind of thing. Like the mousetrap is built. I mean, you know, for years we've been saying, like, okay, what do we do with events to make them different, to save costs here, to remove drayage Like it's just it is what it is. Now, I think we have to be better and smarter at making them more effective and efficient, but and you know, so many people Are Joe, that's the lamest answer because the world is changing so much and with AI and this and that. Look, remember like five or six years, not even five years ago, when everyone's like, meta, meta, meta and everything, like everything's gonna be these like these experiences in our headsets, and we don't have to go to shows anymore. Like, where did that go? Nowhere. yeah, virtual events, we know they're not necessarily that great. so I just think it's and when you look back at shows from ten years ago, other than like LED walls and some. technology nothing's changed.
Jay Menashe: Yeah.
Joe Federbush: Hope I'm wrong to be honest. I would love for things to change, but I just think they're going to be cooler because there's more technology. That's it.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, you know, somebody right before this asked me the exact same question. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I think about AI a lot. I use AI a lot. I think humans being at the center of events that's my prediction. I think my Obsession is unreasonable hospitality. I love the book. I read it multiple times. And it's like if you think about your attendees as guests and treat them that way, you know, something I lean into. It's like, hey, if you can build trust and they like you and you're transparent with them, they're most likely gonna want to work with you as a partner. How can you work that into your event experience? And I think I'm hoping that is where honestly, I hope that's where the whole world goes in just being putting humans at the center of it, not being so mean to each other. We're all so similar, it's kind of laughable. But yeah, no, that I'm super curious where it's going. I think AI, and I can say it a million times, but it's like I love using it as a tool, but I think it actually makes events more impactful because you can't fake the human nature of an event. We're standing in front of each other, we're talking to each other. You'll know real quickly if I'm full of it or not. Well yeah at least I hope that.
Joe Federbush: Yeah, well if you're a really good liar. But what's funny, Jay, too, is I know we gotta wrap it up, but and I'm not self-promoting by any means. This is just very coincidental. I've got a blog coming out that's all about EI, emotional intelligence and empathy. Because you know, we talk about all the AI and like we still need the HI, the human intelligence, but you know what? Where AI is not yet at, thank God, and hopefully it will not get there too soon in our lifetime is the EI, that emotional intelligence that we get from human interaction. So be on the lookout for that.
Jay Menashe: I will read anything that you put out there first of all. No, but I think that's a really great point. And one of the message I gave, I was talking to somebody who's just finishing up their NBA, and he's like, where do you think I should put my attention? And I was like, psychology, understanding human beings, communication. Understand how to talk to people. And I made a recommendation of a book I read 18, 20 years ago by a woman named Sue Hershkowitz-Coore called Say It to Sell It. And one of the most important messages I got of that book, it's like every line of an email you send, read it to yourself and say, why does this matter to the person I'm sending it to? And that has to do with Everything. Whatever you're saying to anybody, no matter what field you're in, you're selling it. You're selling what you're saying to them and hoping they're buying in. And to your point, the emotional intelligence, understanding people, understanding how to communicate, making eye contact, these are things that the more and more we become digital are falling to the wayside. You know, when we go out to dinner with our kids, it's like, hey, look at the waitress or waiter in their eyes, tell them what you want to eat. You're nine or twelve or however old my kids are. Yeah. Do the thing. Like, learn how to handle people. It is, it'll get you for I was never that smart. I was never a great student. student, but you know, my emotional intelligence has always been strong and I use my smile and my charm and my wonderful sense of humor to win people.
Joe Federbush: you're killing it, man. Not
Jay Menashe: Listen, I learned from that.
Joe Federbush: weird and awkward. Your EI is on point.
Jay Menashe: I can be weird and awkward if you ask my children. Sometimes I enjoy that though. That's the best part about being a parent. It's like, you embarrassed me when I had to carry you out sideways from a store screaming, so now it's my turn.
Joe Federbush: Touche yes.
Jay Menashe: Well, Mr. Joe, I very much appreciate you coming on and doing the pod with me. You know, if I could walk away with three things, I would say, first of all, everybody spend on measurement. It is worth it. Whether it's five to seven percent of your budget or one percent. It is worth even trying out, even if you want to try it at a smaller scale. Like do something. Make sure you're getting the impact of what you want to do. And if you are measuring, segment your audiences. Not one big group of people. Think about who you're talking to, what demographic, what role they fill. I think. And I'll stop. Those are going to be my two takeaways, because I don't remember what the third one I was going to say is. And there we have it.
Joe Federbush: Feelings aren't facts was the third one. Yes.
Jay Menashe: There it is. Number three, feelings are not facts. Although sometimes feelings are more important than facts, you need the facts to back up the feelings.
Joe Federbush: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean go with your gut. We're humans. We want feelings, but don't make a million dollar decision on one person's annoying feeling.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. I mean I do lean on my gut a lot, but you know, let's get the facts to back it up and make yourself feel better with a logical decision to go with your unreasonable gut I won't say unreasonable. It's not it's very reasonable. All right, yeah. Fair. All right. You've said it. Thank you very much, sir.
Joe Federbush: Thank you for having me. I'll see you soon.
Jay Menashe: If you walked away with one thing you'll use, we did our job today. Event Experience Experts drops every week. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and check us out on YouTube if you want to watch. I'm Jay Menashe see you next time.
Joe Federbush: Yeah, good great to see you, man. That was a good intro, I appreciate it.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, listen, I take these seriously. I have heard enough intros from podcasts that I love them. Like I gotta come out with the good stuff and say the good things and pump them up a little and get excited. You know, I gotta also get myself excited because yeah obviously me and you, we need more energy. That's something that just wrapped through our veins.
Joe Federbush: Yeah.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. So I guess I'm gonna jump right in. one of my favorite questions to ask actually, you know, what's a belief you hold about live experiences and that could be whether events, treachers, whatever you want, that most people in this industry would push back.
Joe Federbush: They're worth the money when done right, even though we know budgets are getting a little out of hand. But when done right, they're worth every penny.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, I mean I know, obviously I agree with that. And w how do you make sure, you know, with what you're doing in the event measurement, like how are you supporting clients? Like how does that conversation start with you to make sure that they know that they're spending money in the right
Joe Federbush: Yeah, I mean understanding what are their challenges, how they define success, what are their KPIs, their key performance indicators, and using that as the foundation for moving forward. So rather than just saying, you know, we were busy, we had a lot of leads, gave away a lot of stuff, which is like indicators I guess of success, but it's really not true measures of success. you know, we kind of reverse engineer it, break it down, understand, you know, really what are the metrics that will help Help be successful so that you can justify your investment in the shows, and then we work from there to establish what those are.
Jay Menashe: And do you do that for them or are they more come to you with like, hey, here's our objectives, this is what we're we want to measure, or is it more like you're coaching them to like, okay, that's a good general, but like let's like, you know, narrow this down a little bit.
Joe Federbush: Yes and yes. It's a combination of both for sure. You know, I mean hopefully businesses do have set objectives and know their ICPs and all that kind of stuff. But you know, when clients do come to us with like, well, you know, our ICP are decision makers and it's like, Yeah, well, you and everyone else, but let's dig a little deeper into what that means, like job roles, industries, company size, geos, you know, maybe ages, whatever, you know. But that's just the demographic side of it. But then there's the other side of it like customers, non-customers, what's their sentiment, what are their issues, challenges, what type of solutions are they interested in? All of those things coming together, then we can start having that like real meaty conversation about success.
Jay Menashe: I was talking about this earlier and I think it's interesting because everyone's like, I wanna talk to the C suite, I wanna talk to the decision makers and like listen, they might come to your space on the floor, they might just walk randomly in, very unlikely. The reality is you were talking to influencers, you were talking to the people that are gonna bring the information to their boss to get them to your space. So let's think about it that way. Yes, of course, I would like to talk to the CEO and CMO of every company there is. I just know that's not especially not happening at the beginning. it will eventually happen, hopefully sooner than later, because then you know how bought in they are into the conversation, but it's like yeah, narrowing down that universe.
Joe Federbush: Yeah. I mean and you're right though, because you know, if you're ICP and you're seriously just targeting that C suite, those executives, then maybe the booth isn't the way to do it. You know, have a you know, a showcase or a meeting suite or something because you know if on average what, less than about thirty for most events, less than thirty five percent of the attendees are decision makers on the show floor. You know, except for healthcare with H C Ps, they can obviously prescribe what they want to prescribe. but so yeah if you know that okay well we want to reach 60% executives, all right well then have a meeting suite, you know, invitation only, make it special, VIP, a lot of work being put into scheduling those meetings in advance, not those serendipitous walking into your booth moments, and then fine, you'll be successful, but it's a different strategy and a different approach.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. No, and I've noticed with our clients, especially it's like there's more and more of these ancillary events where it's like, hey, we have our booth, but we also have this, you know, we bought out this space for the next three days. RSA in San Francisco is a huge, huge one for that. It's like you literally there's like a four block radius around the convention center. It's like it's all owned by RSA too, which at least they're smart about it because it's like, hey, we're gonna find a space. You might as well book them all and pay these people ahead of time and just put it as part of the sponsorship package.
Joe Federbush: There you go. Right. Look at CES, look at AWS reInvent. You know, so many shows now that were traditional, you know, exhibit space and conference space are now, to your point, kind of expanding out and exhibitors are getting creative because of the challenges with the costs of, you know, general contractors, I and D, shipping, drayage, everything else. So now it's like, well, let's own our space and cut the costs significantly. With trade off
Jay Menashe: Yeah, those rates. I think I've quoted your session from HCA last week like 15 times. I'm like, you don't understand how much electrical rates have gone up. Cause it really, it's like this is I mean, we all know it, we all feel it. Like I used I talk about like the breakdown of like, you know, it used to be like 60-40, 70-30, 50-50 with like production to show services, and now it it's completely flipped where it's 30-70 or 40-60, if you're lucky. It's wild. And I'm curious, it's like They got they they're starting to eat their own. Like you can't continue at this pace of increases and think your customers are not gonna start doing their own thing, getting you out of the way. And it's you know, it's not even just one of these G Cs that is like has these crazy rates. They're all like that. And I'm honestly the smaller ones are I think actually have even higher rates than the big boys that we usually encounter.
Joe Federbush: Yeah, I mean it's it's one of those things like, you know I always use the analogy literally of like healthcare when you leave a hospital and you get a hospital bill and you have no way to make sense of it and there's a lack of transparency and if you do have the time to really dig into it, which most of us don't have, you have to then like kind of make calls and send emails and wait for responses and deal with challenges and you know, and it becomes to the point of like, Well is it worth it for me to just fight the bill or just suck it up and pay the bill? And I feel like that's what's happening in our industry, right? Like fight And and then you know the flip side in defense of like, you know, union labor and general contractors and show organizers and everyone else, I think you know, we we have to come together because I mean you've seen it, I've seen it, I'm sure, like some companies exhibitors are just like overspending and being very inefficient with their budgets. I'm not saying all by any means. But I'm just saying it's not like finger pointing that one party is screwed up in this equation. I think we all have to like come together and look at Okay, how can our booth be lighter to ship with you know the materials our booth is made of? You know, are we meeting the early bird deadlines or are we doing everything last minute? You know, are we leaning on our exhibit house and agencies to do everything for us, and rightfully so, they should mark it up if so. You know, but is there transparency in what those markups is? So I think there's just like every part of this ecosystem we're in that has fingers in it, you know, I think really needs to kind of reevaluate the costs.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, I think that's definitely true. on one side of it's like, Hey, you can still collect all this money from us? Can you just like allocate it to it? Take your el electrical rates that have got forty percent overtime. It's like, hey, can that be turned into some kind of sponsorship give back where it's like, you know we're spending the money anyway, get the unions paid. They deserve the money, they work hard too. I'm not saying even take it away. I believe in capitalism very much so. That's why I do the job I'm in. but there's no value in so much of that to the exhibitors, and I think that's where the real pain comes in. It's like you can make all the money, let's let's just change how it's framed
Joe Federbush: Absolutely. I mean, look, we know costs have gone up everywhere, personally, professionally, everything's gone up. But yeah, the cost of exhibiting has gone up exponentially compared to inflationary rates over the last few years. I mean, we've got the data to support that, but this is the reality. So what are we gonna do to work around it, work with it? and you know, I think the game of who's the biggest booth that's just not the playbook anymore. It's who's doing the best, you know, it delivering the best experiences within the space they have, bringing the right mix of products and solutions, bringing the right type of staff, and doing the legwork of promoting the fact that you're gonna be there pre-show, during the show, nurturing those leads, post-show. I know it's like basic preaching to the choir here, but these basic principles apply more now than they ever have before.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. And they're ignored more often than they ever have been before. I've long said that it's like you have an integrated marketing program within itself when you're talking about events. Like you have to take all of these steps and you have to do you know, retargeting, geofencing, the pre-show, at show, post show, all of it is so important and if you skip a step, you're being in the finish unit with that budget. And that was actually you didn't know this, but you'd had a perfect segue to my next question. You talk about event budgets being wasted and or people being inefficient, you know, where would you say you see that most consistently and what would you do with that money instead?
Joe Federbush: That's a great question. so a couple of areas. One which is a huge cost is we have seen in some companies, depending upon how their structure is, Sending so many people to the show that are not accountable for being at the show. So T and E sometimes falls under like the event manager's budget, sometimes it's not, it's sales, whatever. If T and E is falling under your budget as an event person, you better have accountability, and those staffers that are on your budget better have accountability for where they are and when. Now we get it, not everyone has to be working the booth for eight hours because they could be off in meetings and Everything, which is fine, but then have accountability for how many meetings did you have? Who was it with? What was the pipeline? And how much did it move the needle, right? Basic stuff. I mean, those salespeople would be doing that to their sales boss anyway if it wasn't in a trade show. So why does that go away when it does become a trade show? Makes no sense to me. you know, we still see things like over this is stupid stuff, but it happens and it's so tactical and can easily be fixed. Over sending things. like print like print literature and catalogs and giveaways and all these these things that shipping is expensive and it doesn't sound like a lot, but you know, the multiplier effect of it, like fix it. It's easy stuff. And then the other thing is just looking at what you did like through measurement, like so it's not just my feelings or your feelings, but through measurement, understand what worked and what could be improved and what didn't work. And stop the things that are not working, don't repeat them, and that'll save you a lot of money.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, I think one of the points you made about like the staff of the show and who you're sending really there was a conversation at HCEA about one of the exhibitors, she's like, I actually don't bring anybody from the company to these shows because I'm not their boss and they don't have to listen to me and how can I enforce them listening to me? Because if their boss isn't enforcing it, how can I possibly do it? So she's like, I bring an event staff for every show because I am their boss and we get amazing results and I don't know if you know specifically who I'm talking about, but I was like Why doesn't every company do this? But I also understand the clout but it's like, you if you think about it, it's like, well, you don't have the travel. You have minimal expenses 'cause they just get a pre which, you know, with salespeople For DMs are often ignored. Not me, obviously. I listen to those things. But yeah, you have a lot more control over the conversation about how they're transferring people. And then it's like you have a solutions engineer or you have, you know, medical affairs in the booth if we're talking healthcare. It's like now you're talking to someone that's not trying to sell you. You're talking to someone that's just giving you the cold hard facts. They're giving you the proof of like what you need to sell this internally with your company. And yes, again, it comes down to control. Yeah. And for your when you reallocate that money, you're talking about measurement, which you gave me a stat, I wanna say this was two years ago, maybe it was last year. Is it typically like five to seven percent of the budget that you'd recommend to spend on like whether it's surveying or measurement, is that still accurate?
Joe Federbush: Dude, good memory. yeah. it's literally we say if it's a huge investment, like you know, you're like in the, you know, top ten exhibits in a show, it's probably gonna be like one percent of your budget. But if you're 'cause you know, if you're spending a million, you know, to be in one show, you know, Like measuring truly effectively shouldn't be like fifteen to thirty thousand dollars for a huge investment like that. But if you're a mid size exhibit, yeah, five percent, six percent max. So if you're spending, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand in a show, you know, that fifteen thousand for measurement, which is five percent literally, yeah, that's you're good. You're really you're good, you know. So the problem is, you know, and as we were talking, you know, with all this industry data stuff, data. Yeah. So number one pain point is obviously bud costs budget. Pain point number two is measurement in ROI, but yet so many companies will not allocate that five percent to measurement. So it's like they're saying it's their number two issue and challenge, but they won't allocate the resources to it. And I get it why, unfortunately, I get it, because like you know, in the past measurement was like ranked fifth or sixth as like the most important or biggest challenge or whatever. And the fact that it's bubbled up to number two post COVID, there's a Mindset that you know the budget isn't allocated to it even though it's a pain point much greater than it was in the past. So that'll catch up to itself over time and conversations like this, you know, will hopefully educate people. But yeah, it's crazy. Well
Jay Menashe: And it's very cyclical because I remember and I was this was this was pretty early in my career when the financial crisis happened in eight and it's like guys we need to focus on measurement, we need to prove the value of events, we need to and it's like, yeah, I've been talking literally, I've been talking about this for 18 years at this point, and it still gets the same level of investment. It's like, yeah, yeah, we want to measure the results and talk about the results. It's like, well, it'll be twelve thousand dollars. no. We need that extra TV over there, or we need this little graphics like, but do you do you need that little extra thing? Or can we pull back in one area? Maybe it's less giveaways. I think that is a perfect trade off. it quoted from I want to say Liz Latham, but said, swag is stuff we all get and nobody keeps it. It gets thrown in the trash 95% of the time. And you know, sometimes it's great and sometimes it's memorable. Most of the time that money should be reallocated somewhere else. I'm a big believer of like the high end giveaway versus the everybody giveaway, and maybe that's that trade off. But yeah, it's like let's reallocate that money. Please. Please start insuring. Please talk to Joe. Joe will help you.
Joe Federbush: Talk to Jay. Well, and then like the thing is back when we were talking about like your ICP and your target audience, who says, it's trick-or-treaters? No one. You know what I mean? Like so if you're oversending or using giveaways as a KPI or some kind of metric of measurement, you're totally missing the game. Yeah.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. Unless you do have a smaller number. It's like, no, we gave these to these thirty-five leads that are so highly qualified, they're ready to buy right now. It's like, yeah, you can do the giveaways, and I don't want to say get rid of them altogether, because I know that's never gonna happen, especially in the industries I work with the most. they're gonna have it. But yeah, it's like let's be purposeful with what we do and make sure it has the impact you want it to have, rather than Let me give you this half broken pen that has my name on it that barely works, and maybe it'll work the first time, but definitely not the third time.
Joe Federbush: Yeah, exactly. Like that's real good brand recognition for your company too.
Jay Menashe: Exactly. So there's one question I've asked everybody I've had well, maybe not everybody. I'll go with everybody. This is only the you know thirteenth recording. But I always want to know, and it always goes the total opposite way, but I always ask, like, how do you know an event is working, not just now, but in six months from now? And everybody goes, It's the feeling, it's the feeling. And to a point, it's always the feeling. You have to feel the event went well before you know the event went well. But what's the gap you see most often between how a team feels an event went and what the data is saying happens?
Joe Federbush: What a great question. So you I forget if you remember this or not, but our our literally Evolio's tagline is feelings aren't facts. That's our that's literally our company tagline, trademark, registered, all that. Feelings aren't facts. Now it's a fact we have feelings, and feelings are important, but do you want to make a a million dollar, half million dollar, whatever dollar decision on feelings? and then the flip side of that is even worse. why this became our tagline is you know so many you've been there with your clients yourself you know you bust your butt you make everything happen and then some executive comes in and says I feel like dot dot dot and you just want to be like So we what we like to do is put data behind the feelings and you can quantify if when asked correctly, you can quantify sentiment and questions around feelings to bring data to them. So long answer to your question is when you measure sentiment, you know, whether it's like through social media or PR analysis or even just simply asking questions around like agreement statements, rate your level of agreement with Company X is the lead.
Jay Menashe: What's the best way to measure that sentiment? Do you feel surveys work best? Do you think it's social media like kind of seeing who's posting what? I mean, in certain fields you're not gonna see a lot of social media posts about it, but like what would you recommend baselines like, hey, even if you're doing this yourself, do this first thing.
Joe Federbush: you know, honestly, and I don't think surveys are an answer to everything, but when you want truly quantifiable data around feelings, you simply do exit surveys as people leave your exhibit, you know, politely, professionally intercept them and say, Hey, would you mind doing an anonymous survey? Hand them a tablet or do as an interview. and then you have those consistent statements that really align with your brand, with the experiences you're delivering, so that when you're reporting back to executives or making those decisions six months after the show to say how'd we do, you actually have quantifiable data. Is it like what one person felt or is it what, you know, 150 people felt? And then, you know, when you analyze it, you know, let's you use like a simple five point Likert rating scale, right? So you have your two bottoms, your two tops, and your neutral in the middle. And then not to geek out, but then you start looking at this, okay, what's our top two box? Or like the people who didn't rate us highly or think of us positively. Let's now analyze that by like what's their job roles, what was their net promoter score? Are they customers, non-customers? What was their age group? So you start segmenting the data among your promoters as well as your detractors who feel positively neutral or negative about you to then get a better sense of like, we're killing it with the boomers, but our targets are really Gen Zs and you know millennials and they don't even know who we are yet. So that's where you can start really using the data combined with feelings along with segmentation to say six months after the show, here's what we need to improve upon for next year's show.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, and the segmentation piece is so important. I was at South by Southwest last year, twenty twenty five, whatever. and I listened to there were two different sessions I listened to where senior marketers, big companies, you know, think the biggest in the world, and they both focuses one was all about like how do you turn fans into maniacs for your brand, and the other one was just all about literally personalization and the both of them are like it's all about segmentation. And they broke it down into much greater detail, but even to what you're saying, it's like, Yeah, you can survey the whole audience, but you have to get the demographic data to actually know is it going the way you want? Separate question, which I wasn't on the list, but what's your favorite question to include in a survey that you know I was saying gives you the most meaningful results, but that's gonna be different every time. Do you personally have a favorite question that you're like, hey, just include this?
Joe Federbush: Yes, I do. so you know, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, it was Net Promoter Score. How likely would you be to recommend da da da? that is definitely not my answer to that question today or for the last several years. Some people still swear by NPS or Net Promoter Score. I think it's a little old and outdated. I think it's good. I'm not saying it's a bad metric at all. But I think what's more interesting is focusing on a specific metric or metrics around the experience. So What drove that net promoter score? You know, so it's more like even just simply like What was your level of engagement with the booth staff? Not did you engage with the booth staff, or not how helpful were the booth staff, but specifically around like, I was ignored, I was greeted, I was actually qualified, they actually asked me my interests, my issues and challenges. They actually told me about other demos in the booth that I should probably go visit. That's the one new metric that I think is most powerful because back to segmentation, Jay, when you look at like the results of NPS or you look at the results of overall value or satisfaction or whatever and you segment it by that level of engagement, that's where the numbers pop.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. How do you measure that though, a level of engagement? 'Cause I really like that question. It's like was were you qualified? Were you well serviced? Did were you asked your problem? Like how do you 'cause that's not really quantifiable, that's more qualitative data and that I guess that's
Joe Federbush: We quantify it, yeah. We literally so and we've literally even built benchmarks around it because it's a question we've been asking so often for the last year. where we actually put it on our exit surveys. 'Cause post show you know, if you do a post show survey, you're not gonna remember that level of detail like a week after the show. But when you do it's an on site exit survey, you know, at the booth as they're exiting, standard question around the level of engagement you had with the booth staff, So it is actually quantifiable. Now, we also do it through mystery shopping and observations. That's more qualitative to your point. But when you actually then marry the qualitative and quantitative, then you got a pretty powerful story. And the whole reason was actually Nancy Flora, our VP over at Evolio, she developed that question probably about a year and a half ago because we were always getting such positive feedback on surveys about boothstaff but we're observing like the booth staff sucks. Like they're not paying attention, they're not engaging, but yet the like helpfulness of booth staff was still coming out like four point two, four point three on a five point scale. We're like we have to go deeper and that's how that question got made.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. I like that. No, I like that a lot. And yeah, it's like I'm not gonna walk every booth like that booth they have sucked. Like but I'll tell you, you know, the amount of booths I walk into and it's like maybe they can sniff me out, they're like, stay away from that guy. He's obviously trying to you know meet the person that makes this thing. not scary, but he's gonna sell something to somebody. but yeah, they I can stand in the dead center of a booth for five minutes and literally like start stopwatch and be like, let's see the first person to talk to me and sometimes I literally just leave a booth and not a single person look at me, acknowledge me, and then the better booths are The ones that's like you can't even be there for three seconds before someone starts talking to you. Right. So I will say, contrary to that question, what's your least favorite question?
Joe Federbush: My least favorite question, I hate to say this, it's kinda NPS, but but it's still important. But my other least favorite question is not so much the question itself, but the style of questions where it's rate this, rate this, rate this, rate this, rate this, rate this, like and it's just like, my god, like this is the worst survey, you know what I mean? Like 'cause then you just get lazy, you're like five, five, five, five, five.
Jay Menashe: Five five
Joe Federbush: So I think yeah, it's not so much the survey question, but the construct. 'Cause like if you have me rate ten things Twenty things, like what are you really gonna do with it? You're probably getting so granular that it's not even like it doesn't even matter anymore. Yeah. So
Jay Menashe: Yeah, like responding to an RFP that has 150 questions of like how many of these are you reading? Like, give me a break. if I could talk to every company after it doesn't even matter if I'm involved in the RFP. I'm like, hey, did you read this whole thing? Like just tell me. Real quick. Like honest. nobody will know except for everybody, all seven people that listen to my podcast.
Joe Federbush: Come on, man. We're gonna make it ten.
Jay Menashe: That's right, that's right. Not including family members. They are forced to at least pretend they listen. Market, market is played, that's all I'm asking you.
Joe Federbush: Yeah.
Jay Menashe: No, I think the construct makes sense. But it that's kind of the same thing with like anything. It's like you can't do so much of one thing that people are like, god, when am I done with this? And it goes with like reading people's social media. It's like You can't always have a written post. Sometimes you need videos. Sometimes you need images. Well now get ready people. Every post I put up is gonna be full of videos because this is I would say eighty percent of the reason I have a podcast is just for the content.
Joe Federbush: There you go, exactly. Jay, one more question though that does get on my nerves. like the specific question itself is like rate the food at an event. Now, unless it's a food event for a food company, then who cares? Like you know what I mean? Like I
Jay Menashe: Joe. I'm gonna push back on this one. I think both you and I care about the food no matter where we are, and that is not entirely true. Cause you know if the food's not good, you're gonna hear it. So maybe it's not a super helpful question for lots of things, but it's like, hey, should we do this different next year? I mean I think it can be helpful, but listen, I didn't get to this size 'cause I don't like food.
Joe Federbush: Right. Well, no, I mean let's say you're at a convention center, you don't control the convention center food. Now if it's food that you can control, absolutely right. Yeah. Make sure it's good because you're paying a lot of money for it. So you know, when you're paying like four hundred dollars for, you know, a thing of coffee like that big, it better be good coffee. But yeah, like sometimes we can't control the food 'cause it's just the convention center. That that's what I meant, yeah.
Jay Menashe: I'll let it go. All right. So God, I'm getting ahead of myself in these questions and I guess kind of jump myself, but I'm gonna go with it anyway. what's a question a brand should be asking their measurement partner before they sign? And basically if they're signing with you, What should they be asking you ahead of time? You know, how do they get the best advice out of you?
Joe Federbush: Yeah, I mean I think it's that they have to just be open to like have an honest conversation about what their challenges, issues, weaknesses are. So rather than being like, we're the best brand and we only want to hear good news out of our measurement, it's like, you know, we can design the survey that way, of course, but we're not going to like ethically. Yeah, we wanna use the research that it's for continuous improvement, help you out, help you be better. And maybe you're ninety percent amazing, but that ten percent. Like we all have room for improvement except you, Jay. You're awesome. But like Love you,
Jay Menashe: Stephanie Menashe I hope you hear that one when you listen to this podcast, because you are legally obligated as my wife to watch it, but Joe said it. Yeah, it's fact now.
Joe Federbush: It's a fact. Feelings aren't facts. so yeah, like you know it's you know, be honest with your issues and challenges and then also what are you gonna do with this information? That's to me like one of the biggest things because is it going to the boardroom? Is it going to you know, like anyone beyond the events team? Does it go into your CMO? Is it going to your sales team? Maybe procurement? Like that's what we really want to know because that's how we're gonna frame the research. Now, if you just want to know how good your booth was, fine. But I wouldn't recommend investing all that money in measurement just to find out something that you could step outside your booth and look and say, it's good. Yeah, go beyond that. Yeah.
Jay Menashe: And that kind of goes to like, hey, you need to think through your pre-show, at show, post-show. It's like you also have same thing with the data. It's like how are you collecting it? What are you doing with it? I think no, that's really good advice to think through your plan. Don't just pay someone to measure it unless you have a a real idea of what you want to do with it and how it's going to affect change. Or say, You're amazing. total side question here. was Family Feud like your favorite show growing up that you decide to get into surveying and measuring?
Joe Federbush: Yeah, absolutely. No. But is Steve Harvey still do that show? Because he makes it funnier than I remember it being, like as a kid.
Jay Menashe: So I only get the I only see the clips on Instagram at this point, so I don't know if I don't even know if it's still on the air, but if it is, I love I yeah. That's one of those shows that Wheel of Fortune, Price is Right, Occasionally Jeopardy. I always feel a little dumb watching that show though. but yeah, no, I like
Joe Federbush: Yeah.
Jay Menashe: There's there's some real ridiculous ones. It's like why would you say that on national TV? I guess maybe it's not national anymore. Who knows?
Joe Federbush: Who knows it's it's global. It's amazing. All right.
Jay Menashe: I'm closing you out with a tough question. I'm just kidding, none of these are that tough. where would you say experiential marketing is in five years? Who's gonna be left behind without the data to prove their program worked? And just in general, like where do you think it's going?
Joe Federbush: You know, it's funny that you asked that question. I was literally just having a conversation about this with someone the other day about where is it going. I don't think it's going anywhere. Like honestly, I think it's like building a better mousetrap kind of thing. Like the mousetrap is built. I mean, you know, for years we've been saying, like, okay, what do we do with events to make them different, to save costs here, to remove drayage Like it's just it is what it is. Now, I think we have to be better and smarter at making them more effective and efficient, but and you know, so many people Are Joe, that's the lamest answer because the world is changing so much and with AI and this and that. Look, remember like five or six years, not even five years ago, when everyone's like, meta, meta, meta and everything, like everything's gonna be these like these experiences in our headsets, and we don't have to go to shows anymore. Like, where did that go? Nowhere. yeah, virtual events, we know they're not necessarily that great. so I just think it's and when you look back at shows from ten years ago, other than like LED walls and some. technology nothing's changed.
Jay Menashe: Yeah.
Joe Federbush: Hope I'm wrong to be honest. I would love for things to change, but I just think they're going to be cooler because there's more technology. That's it.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, you know, somebody right before this asked me the exact same question. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I think about AI a lot. I use AI a lot. I think humans being at the center of events that's my prediction. I think my Obsession is unreasonable hospitality. I love the book. I read it multiple times. And it's like if you think about your attendees as guests and treat them that way, you know, something I lean into. It's like, hey, if you can build trust and they like you and you're transparent with them, they're most likely gonna want to work with you as a partner. How can you work that into your event experience? And I think I'm hoping that is where honestly, I hope that's where the whole world goes in just being putting humans at the center of it, not being so mean to each other. We're all so similar, it's kind of laughable. But yeah, no, that I'm super curious where it's going. I think AI, and I can say it a million times, but it's like I love using it as a tool, but I think it actually makes events more impactful because you can't fake the human nature of an event. We're standing in front of each other, we're talking to each other. You'll know real quickly if I'm full of it or not. Well yeah at least I hope that.
Joe Federbush: Yeah, well if you're a really good liar. But what's funny, Jay, too, is I know we gotta wrap it up, but and I'm not self-promoting by any means. This is just very coincidental. I've got a blog coming out that's all about EI, emotional intelligence and empathy. Because you know, we talk about all the AI and like we still need the HI, the human intelligence, but you know what? Where AI is not yet at, thank God, and hopefully it will not get there too soon in our lifetime is the EI, that emotional intelligence that we get from human interaction. So be on the lookout for that.
Jay Menashe: I will read anything that you put out there first of all. No, but I think that's a really great point. And one of the message I gave, I was talking to somebody who's just finishing up their NBA, and he's like, where do you think I should put my attention? And I was like, psychology, understanding human beings, communication. Understand how to talk to people. And I made a recommendation of a book I read 18, 20 years ago by a woman named Sue Hershkowitz-Coore called Say It to Sell It. And one of the most important messages I got of that book, it's like every line of an email you send, read it to yourself and say, why does this matter to the person I'm sending it to? And that has to do with Everything. Whatever you're saying to anybody, no matter what field you're in, you're selling it. You're selling what you're saying to them and hoping they're buying in. And to your point, the emotional intelligence, understanding people, understanding how to communicate, making eye contact, these are things that the more and more we become digital are falling to the wayside. You know, when we go out to dinner with our kids, it's like, hey, look at the waitress or waiter in their eyes, tell them what you want to eat. You're nine or twelve or however old my kids are. Yeah. Do the thing. Like, learn how to handle people. It is, it'll get you for I was never that smart. I was never a great student. student, but you know, my emotional intelligence has always been strong and I use my smile and my charm and my wonderful sense of humor to win people.
Joe Federbush: you're killing it, man. Not
Jay Menashe: Listen, I learned from that.
Joe Federbush: weird and awkward. Your EI is on point.
Jay Menashe: I can be weird and awkward if you ask my children. Sometimes I enjoy that though. That's the best part about being a parent. It's like, you embarrassed me when I had to carry you out sideways from a store screaming, so now it's my turn.
Joe Federbush: Touche yes.
Jay Menashe: Well, Mr. Joe, I very much appreciate you coming on and doing the pod with me. You know, if I could walk away with three things, I would say, first of all, everybody spend on measurement. It is worth it. Whether it's five to seven percent of your budget or one percent. It is worth even trying out, even if you want to try it at a smaller scale. Like do something. Make sure you're getting the impact of what you want to do. And if you are measuring, segment your audiences. Not one big group of people. Think about who you're talking to, what demographic, what role they fill. I think. And I'll stop. Those are going to be my two takeaways, because I don't remember what the third one I was going to say is. And there we have it.
Joe Federbush: Feelings aren't facts was the third one. Yes.
Jay Menashe: There it is. Number three, feelings are not facts. Although sometimes feelings are more important than facts, you need the facts to back up the feelings.
Joe Federbush: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean go with your gut. We're humans. We want feelings, but don't make a million dollar decision on one person's annoying feeling.
Jay Menashe: Yeah. I mean I do lean on my gut a lot, but you know, let's get the facts to back it up and make yourself feel better with a logical decision to go with your unreasonable gut I won't say unreasonable. It's not it's very reasonable. All right, yeah. Fair. All right. You've said it. Thank you very much, sir.
Joe Federbush: Thank you for having me. I'll see you soon.
Jay Menashe: If you walked away with one thing you'll use, we did our job today. Event Experience Experts drops every week. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and check us out on YouTube if you want to watch. I'm Jay Menashe see you next time.
