Ep 168: From Boring To Buzzing: The 20-Minute Event Rule | Expert Guest Kelley Troia

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We dig into how to keep people engaged from invite to closing song by changing the energy every 20 minutes, setting the tone early, and building memory anchors that stick. Kelly shares creative examples from retreats and executive dinners plus a lightweight way to tap her team’s strategy.

• 20-minute rule to prevent attention decay
• simple swaps from panels to hot seats
• pre-event cadence and first-timer check-ins
• curated intros and executive guest dossiers
• orchestration of energy across long agendas
• team-building that blends constraint and play
• memory anchors tied to venue and audience
• scalable support via the Little Black Book
• links to Kelly’s site and LinkedIn

Make sure to follow Kelly on LinkedIn. Visit clandestine-events.com.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Show Focus
• 1:37 Meet Kelly And Event Goals
• 3:04 The 20-Minute Rule Explained
• 4:47 Applying The Rule To Webinars
• 5:29 Set The Tone Before Day One
• 6:53 Pre-Event Reminders That Help
• 8:29 First-Timer Intros And Belonging
• 10:01 Curated Intros And Guest Dossiers
• 12:22 Engineering Energy Over Long Agendas
• 14:05 Retreats, Team-Building, And Balance
• 15:19 Creative Activities That Bond Teams
• 16:48 Memory Anchors That Actually Stick
• 19:07 The Little Black Book Offering
• 20:17 Where To Find Kelly And Bonus Link
• 21:17 Host CTA And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

Podcast that helps B2B service businesses do more with less. Learn lean, actionable, organic marketing strategies you can implement today. No fluff, just powerful growth tactics at work. Ready to scale smarter? Hit that subscribe button and start growing your business with Tiny Marketing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10

I'm Kelly Troya, Chief Astonishment Officer at Clandestine Events and Experiences. We design high trust experiences for teams who can't afford another forgettable offsite or dinner.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27

Today we are going to talk about how to make your events more memorable and keep people engaged. And what we're talking about can apply to virtual events if you're hosting even a relatively short webinar all the way to in-person off-sites with your team. But I want to keep it relatively high level so anybody who's listening to this today can apply what we're talking about. And the reason that I connected with you in the first place for this specific conversation was you posted on LinkedIn about this 20-minute rule that it was the easiest way to keep people engaged in your event. Cause you know how people go to an event and then eventually they're like looking at their watches, they're ready to go home. So can you explain your 20-minute rule?

SPEAKER_00: 2:24

So the idea of the 20-minute rule is basically to mix things up every 20 minutes. And it doesn't necessarily have to be something huge. Uh, it just needs to uh have some sort of, you know, change in the energy a little bit. Um, so it can be moving from cocktails to appetizers, it can be switching the entertainment up, it can be switching up a little bit of the content, it can be moving from um a panel discussion to some sort of networking. It's the idea is to make a change every 20 minutes because you really want to keep them hooked and have them wondering uh what's next. Like you said, I mean, my um the way that I judge a lot of my the success of my events is really how many people are left at the end of it.

SPEAKER_01: 3:21

Yeah, that's I mean, that's the most that's kind of how I do it too. Cause if I'm hosting a mastermind or a workshop or something, how many people stayed to the end where I had to like literally kick them off? Like, we're done now. For real. You can go on that great. I love that. Like that's a route, the that tells me it was successful.

SPEAKER_00: 3:42

Yeah, that's a perfect example. I will say there's been a couple of events that we've done where the client will come up to us and ask us for an additional hour. And I think that's like, you know, that's like the very dust that I'm like, okay, we we knocked this one out of the park.

SPEAKER_01: 3:58

Yes, for real. So I'm just gonna apply that 20-minute rule real quick to like a way you could do it for a virtual workshop as an example. So if you were to apply it to that, it could be like 20 minutes of content and then like 10 minutes of a hot seat where you pull people in from the audience and you can work through exactly what you just taught them for their specific situation before you switch to the next topic. But that'll keep people engaged and things have shimmied a little bit because now they're no longer sitting as a passive audience. They're invited to get on the stage.

SPEAKER_00: 4:38

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great example.

SPEAKER_01: 4:42

Okay, so now that we know this 20-minute rule, let's talk about how you can set the tone early for an event.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

So for me, um I like I consider setting the tone as soon as somebody accepts the invitation. So that's even before they show up. Um and and then as you lead up to it, I think it's really helpful to remind people. I've noticed that the events that I am attending, the ones that I appreciate the most are the ones that are like, hey, by the way, this is coming up. Um, there's one in particular that I'm thinking of where they asked me to speak at the conference. And what I loved was that they would send a reminder to me every, you know, couple of weeks. And they also reminded me of the location, the date, the time, and the topic. Um, because I'm sure, Sarah, in particular, I know you speak quite a bit. It's always nice to be like, oh, that's right. I have that's the topic that I'm covering on this one, because it might be different on a different one.

SPEAKER_01: 5:54

So um that happens to me all the time because I have a few different topics that I run through. And I'm like, which one was this one?

SPEAKER_00: 6:04

Yes, yeah, yeah. So I think um, in terms of setting the tone early, it's that, and then maintaining uh uh some level of a cadence of communication um until you know it's actual showtime and all the way up and through, like that one that I gave as an example was the first time that I had been to that particular conference, and they actually had like a newbies check-in where all the newbies got together, and I just thought that was a really great approach.

SPEAKER_01: 6:36

I went to a conference, it was two years ago now. Um, but it was the first time I was going to that event. I knew no one. I was going solo, and they had a an event for all first timers that and I ended up meeting some good friends. We hung out all weekend and went like party hot to all the little ancillary events together. But I was yeah, I think that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 7:02

That's such a great example, and I think that's really helpful for um for introverts too. You know, it gets them into a smaller little community that they're able to connect with. And in a lot of cases, just to your point, they end up kind of um surfing the show together.

SPEAKER_01: 7:21

Yeah, yeah. I definitely like tow the line on extrovert and introvert. But when I'm in a like a giant conference like that, it pulls the introvert out of me for sure, because it's just overwhelming. So so grateful to have that. Um I'm I'm in the same boat, yeah, right there. Um, that reminded me though. So one of my friends, Eric Melkor, he runs a lot of like local networking events. Yeah. I think he calls them like cocktail parties, but he's inviting people that he he's never met before to them. But something that he does that I really liked is he sends out emails like once a week introducing people who will be there, just like the guests that will be there to the rest of the room. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So you get a little taste of who you're gonna be meeting, and you can almost make a list like, all right, I want to connect with this person and this person. Yeah. That's the point of a networking event.

SPEAKER_00: 8:25

Yeah, that's that's great. One of the other things that I've been working on is executive dinners. And we actually have um a guest dossier. It's almost like an executive briefing that we put together for individual attendee. And it has this is for corporate clients. We'll actually have like a write-up about each individual that's attending in order for the host to have some um context. So smart. Right. It's it's sort of like a cheat sheet for each guest that's attending. And in the perfect world, we'll have some information that's relative to them personally, where they went to school, um, obviously where they work, maybe where they live, even a little bit of information about whether they have kids or not. Um, and then stuff related to the business and how the business connects to um the host. Like, are there pressure points or triggers that can help you basically close a deal or something like that?

SPEAKER_01: 9:27

That's so smart. So, everybody who's listening, Kelly is honestly this the perfect storm. Like, she's so creative. If you don't follow her on LinkedIn yet, follow her on LinkedIn because you can get a taste of how she makes these events full-on experiences that you won't forget. But then she thinks of shit like this. It's diabolical, it's so stricting Jack mixed in with the creativity. She just blows my mind. Thank you. Okay, so we're setting the tone. And then the next thing we have on our list is to engineer the energy. So, how do we do that?

SPEAKER_00: 10:08

Yeah, so it in terms of engineering the energy, uh, this is in particular for events that are uh fairly long. A three-hour event, I think, you know, you you're you've got a good good um flow going. But for something that is throughout the course of the day, you've got a lot of stuff that's happening. And you really want to, I I look at myself almost as like a um a conductor of an orchestra where you you can't have it, you just can't slam a ton of content in there the entire time. You know, you really need to give people moments to reflect, internalize, use the restroom, things like that. Because I think, you know, we try to tell people we we have this entire day managed for you. Some of the moments we really want you to be paying attention. So if you would, you know, keep your phone down, keep your laptop closed, focus on the information because we are going to give you some time to yourself where you can think about what you've learned and also catch up on emails, as I mentioned, use the restroom and things like that. So we really try to manage that flow throughout the course of the day.

SPEAKER_01: 11:21

Yeah. So uh Kelly also manages off sites, which that's so helpful because they're so long and having that cadence. And I don't know if you do this already, but retreats could use that Kelly treatment also because they are intense. They could, they're like three days at a time, and sometimes they just can be overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00: 11:46

Yeah. That was we just did one in um Oregon last month, and um, and that was for the tech company that I mentioned to you. And, you know, we tried to manage the entire day so that there were some moments where they obviously were um altogether in session, and then other moments where they were team building and doing some like fun experiences that were very unusual, particularly because this team is international. So there were people from the Philippines there and Spain. So in a lot of cases, these they hadn't even like spent any time in a room together. So it was really great. It was almost like they were uh on vacation but also working.

SPEAKER_01: 12:26

Yeah. Yeah, that's can you give us any examples of the that you did or are you not allowed?

SPEAKER_00: 12:32

Yeah, of course. So um one of the things that they did together was they were given a um a uh gosh, what is it? Uh like box, um a roll of tape, um, a a uh like scissor, and I'm trying to think of the others, like a tube. And the tube was also made out of paper. So those were all that they were given, and they had to basically create a boat that went from one end of the pool to the other end, and somebody had to get in the boat. It sounds fun, actually. So they had to think about okay, how are we gonna get from point A to point B as quickly as possible? Because obviously anything made of paper is going to sink eventually. Yeah. Um, so they used a lot of the tape to wrap it around, and and then they had to like get down from point A to point B the fastest. So it was fun to see, you know, there were eight teams and they all kind of uh collaborated with each other in order to figure out how they would put that, um, put that together. So that was one thing that we did with them, which was really fun. They went horseback riding, and then the other thing that we did that was awesome was they did um glow in the dark pickleball at night with a DJ, which was really super fun.

SPEAKER_01: 14:01

They had so much fun.

SPEAKER_00: 14:02

Yeah, it was it was it was great. It looked so cool.

SPEAKER_01: 14:06

Uh yeah, I bet the photos and videos were awesome. Yeah, it really was.

SPEAKER_00: 14:11

I got some high fives for that one, so I bet.

SPEAKER_01: 14:14

See, she comes up with the most creative thing. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Okay. The last thing we're talking about is creating memory anchors. So tell me all about that.

SPEAKER_00: 14:27

Yeah, well, I think the pickleball is a great example of a memory anchor. You want something that people are going to, you know, like something that's going to stick with them. And I really do think that the uh both of those examples were great. The pickleball, they just it was perfect for that group. And I think that's that's everything that we think about a lot. It it's a younger team. Uh, I am not sure the plumbing supply people would appreciate glow in the dark pickleball as much as, which nothing wrong, you know, just two totally different um demographics, right? Yeah. So you really have to kind of think about your audience um and not expect one thing to work for every group, essentially. Um, the other thing that we've done in the past that worked really well with the memory anchor was um we for our medical device company, they were doing their event at a uh place called the music box in San Diego. And the music box also functions as a recording studio. So our concept for them was to buy a bunch of old used records and um get custom labels made with a description of the medical device, and we put those labels onto the record so it actually looked like it was part of the record, and we put one in every seat so it was like a charger at the table. Yes, I remember seeing those photos, and I thought that is being brilliant. And the CEO absolutely loved the concept. He grabbed one of them, jumped up on stage, and was like uh connecting the the creativity back to their medical device, which had just recently gotten approved. Um, so I mean, you know, like talk about talk about a perfect memory anchor for us. And he was able to basically connect the dots for us and you know explain to people because not everyone gets it, you know. Some people will be like, okay, whatever. But um, but for folks who do get it, it, you know, like really packs a punch. And that was great because at the end there were a number of people that were asking us if they could take the record home with them.

SPEAKER_01: 16:43

So yeah, yeah. That one, that one really stood out to me as a music lover. I was like, that's so, that's so I would take it home. I would take it home for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 16:55

Yeah, it was it was pretty cool. And the the uh we didn't put the label on both sides, so people were able to look at the the B side and see um what the record actually was. I I wonder because they were used and they were super cheap too, which was also awesome. I love using like old um stuff that most people wouldn't even think of because I think they were like a dollar a a record.

SPEAKER_01: 17:19

That is good. Records are so expensive.

SPEAKER_00: 17:22

We have a record player at my house, and it's like nowadays they are, but these were like these were like these literally were like you know, trash records, really.

SPEAKER_01: 17:32

Yeah. Decoration. Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to touch on before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00: 17:44

Well, um, I mentioned to you before we started recording that I am also working on something called the Little Black Book. And um, the little black book is actually uh almost like clandestine events in microversion, and it's intended for individuals, really tiny teams. And the concept is you don't necessarily need clandestine on site, but you kind of want to tap into our brain power and our strategic thinking. So with the Little Black Book, you basically get a certain level of access to clandestine, whether it's destination-based or itinerary-based or concierge-based. Um, and you can uh basically reach out to us and we will help you plan your next um excursion, basically.

SPEAKER_01: 18:45

Yes. So you can use the little black book, but if they wanted more support, is that an option for them?

SPEAKER_00: 18:54

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's essentially like an on-ramp. So um the lowest version is more DIY, do it yourself, and then it just kind of step ladders up. Um, you know, so it's really intended to be pretty approachable at a variety of price points.

SPEAKER_01: 19:13

Excellent. Thank you so much for joining me today. Um wait, before before we wrap up, make sure to follow Kelly on LinkedIn. I think that's where you're most active, right? Yes, yeah. And you'll get a taste of all of her events. She shares the coolest photos. Yeah. And um, is there anywhere else that they should go to find out more about you?

SPEAKER_00: 19:42

Yeah. So if you visit clandestine-events.com slash tiny T-I-N-Y, you'll get a little um taste. And uh I'll have some, you know, pixie dust in there just for the tiny marketing podcast listeners. Awesome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 20:03

Of course. All right, I'm gonna have that link in the show notes so you can grab it, um, along with Kelly's LinkedIn profile. So go follow her there. Thank you for joining me. I'm gonna steal all this and make it apply for virtual events. Thanks, Sarah. It's good to see you too. You too. Bye, hun. You love all things tiny marketing. Head down to the show notes page and sign up for the wait list to join the tiny marketing club, where you get to work one on one with me with trainings, feedback, and pop up coaching that will help you scale your marketing. as a B2B service business. So I'll see you over in the club.