Season 1, Episode 5: Association and Events Management.

Tune in as we pour a cup of conversation with the Executive Director, Christine Ulatoski and Director, Laura Abal, of our Association and Event Management division!

Transcript

Tom Marguccio 0:00

Welcome to Coffee and Tea with SCG, a podcast from the industry experts at SCG Advertising and PR. We are a full-service woman-owned agency that offers advertising, public relations, recruitment, marketing, and association management. In this season, we'll be chatting with some members of our team about their specialties. So grab your coffee and your tea, and let's brew up a good conversation.

Lupe Dragon 0:25

Welcome back to the Coffee and Tea with SCG podcast. I'm Lupe Dragon, and we are back today with two people from our association management department. Christine Yuletowski, the executive director, and Laura Abal, the director of the department. Welcome, guys. Hi, Lupe. Thanks for having us on. Thank you for being here. Hi. So first question, of course. Coffee or tea? For me, Christine's definitely coffee and I take it black.

Laura Abal 0:55

For me, Laura, coffee and I take it cream, no sugar. Awesome.

Lupe Dragon 0:59

Christine, what are we drinking today?

Christine Yuletowski 1:02

Yeah, I thought it would be fun to bring in a little tea and coffee sampling to this episode. So, like I shared, I'm from the Boston area. So I brought down coffee. It's called the Space Cadet blend. It's kind of like a medium blend from atomic coffee roasters based in the Peabody, Massachusetts area. They're one of my favorites. We drink it in my house almost every day, I would say. But knowing Lupe is a tea drinker, I brought her it's called Last Mango in Paris and from the Wisteria Tea Room in Fort Myers, Florida. So we're a little all over the country today. And she also has some honey for her tea from Savannah B Company. So Georgia, Florida, and Massachusetts all represented today. It is delicious.

Lupe Dragon 1:48

Thank you so much. You're welcome. How did you both get started in association management and what drew you to this field?

Christine Yuletowski 1:54

So for me, it was probably 20, so 2016, I started working for the American Diabetes Association. And that was my first hands-on direct opportunity to work with an association. A lot of it was events management. So I like to really say that my experience is in events overall. And through the years, I've worked for a number of different associations. And then I joined Success Communications Group just last year.

Laura Abal 2:18

Well, for me, I started as an assistant to the person who brought association management onto SCG, Linda Bartolo. And unfortunately, she passed away. So I had to assume her position.

Lupe Dragon 2:29

Awesome. And what exactly is association management? What are things you have to deal with day-to-day?

Christine Yuletowski 2:36

Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, it's a great question, especially at a PR and marketing firm. I don't think the first thing that people think is association management. But association management for us really is we are outsourced to manage societies and associations right now within the state of New Jersey, but we do want to grow out and branch out a little bit more. Personally, I'm based in Massachusetts, just north of Boston. So we're hoping to just expand a little bit further. But our day-to-day is really managing events, managing meetings, board of directors. So all the things that go along with that, which include elections, and a lot of people don't realize that a lot of the boards rotate and you're managing different leaders all the time, year over year. So it's elections, managing events, and that can be anything from food and beverage orders, A V orders, working with the venues to secure floor plans and yes, great, uh great ad, Laura. Securing speakers is another one. So I think overall it's really a lot of events management, like I said, but also administrative work as well.

Laura Abal 3:34

We also have to get, you know, the topics, you know, build an agenda with uh the directors, board of directors.

Lupe Dragon 3:40

Awesome. And what do you think are the biggest challenges uh facing uh associations today?

Christine Yuletowski 3:47

I think some of the biggest challenges right now, the younger generations don't see a lot of value in joining societies and associations. And it could be a number of factors, but I think the times are just changing. Our younger crowds are having families, they want to go home after work, they don't necessarily want to go to a social event or maybe an education event. Most younger groups, if they attend, they are interested in continuing education in their field. And for us, we work with a lot of medical societies. So continuing education is required. And that's a big draw, but we do see that that's happening really across the nation where younger crowds aren't as interested or don't really know what a society or an association can do for them.

Laura Abal 4:24

No, and more now, that everything is, you know, on the internet. So they can actually obtain, you know, credits, medical credits online now. So why have to show up when you can be in your house? You know, in the comfort of your home. So that's another thing.

Lupe Dragon 4:37

I think that's something that we face a lot going through the pandemic is isolating ourselves more. And I think that's part of the problem is people are like, oh, I don't want to do something after. I just want to go home. I want to go to bed, I want to go on Netflix. So how how do you combat that then?

Christine Yuletowski 4:54

Well, to to combat it, I think really connecting with members and the board of directors on each society that we manage is crucial because if we don't have that connection, it's hard for us to therefore come back and sell the product to someone that's a new member. So building those relationships and wanting and creating a desire to be in person is crucial. Absolutely.

Lupe Dragon 5:12

I mean, I think besides getting the credits for what you need in school or whatnot, I think it's important to have a community space. And it's really not the same thing when you're doing stuff over Zoom and Teams. And I think a lot of people forget that we are human. We need to like be speaking to humans, we need to be human. Following up on that, how can associations effectively engage their members, especially in the digital age?

Christine Yuletowski 5:36

Yeah, I think there's a number of things that our our groups are doing in particular. And one of the things that you actually are raising is we have a a couple of job boards that we've just started. Like we know that younger crowds are jumping from job to job more frequently than you know our parents did when they they were working and had careers. It was long-term, 10 plus years. And that's not the case for a lot of the younger people. They go to a place, they want to move on after a couple of years. So our job boards is actually a really interesting way that some of our societies have connected digitally all the time, especially with that. We have a one group in particular that's really large, they'll email us and they'll say, Hey, I'm looking for someone that has experience in X, or I'm looking for someone that has more knowledge on Y. And then we can directly connect them with whoever that contact might be. Another way to further connect digitally in between the times that we don't have those in-person meetings. So, job board, I think, is a really interesting way that society seems to be connecting. And anywhere that they can post, you know, to a forum or just connect generally with someone that might have a common interest or a similar role is a really, really interesting way that we're seeing them connect year-round.

Lupe Dragon 6:40

Absolutely. Following up on that as well, what strategies can be used to improve the retention rates for the members of the associations?

Christine Yuletowski 6:49

Again, I think it's crucial that the board of directors needs to be involved and we need to be involved and really get to know the board of directors in particular. If it's just, you know, show up, do your job, don't engage much more than that, it can be really, really challenging and it's hard to grow a society or an association or even a company with that mindset. We really want people that are engaged, that care, and that want to make the environment even better for the next generation. So it's a crucial part of the overall network for the success of the for us, the medical fields that we work with, the doctors that we work with. It creates a streamlined effort to grow their society and the careers that the younger crowds have into an even more, you know, blossomed opportunity to create more things for them to do, more ways for them to interact, more education. So it's really crucial to have people that really care.

Lupe Dragon 7:36

With that being said, are there particular events that you attend or put on to then grow the members? Do you do webinars? Do you do in-person meetings? Tell us a little bit about that.

Laura Abal 7:46

Yes, we do webinars for the associations. What uh well, in-person meetings, obviously. Then we also do fellow nights as well to engage, you know, the younger generation. But yes.

Christine Yuletowski 7:57

And I'll add to it really depends on the group that we have. We have seven different societies and we have two political action committees that we manage. So it really depends on what their schedule looks like. And some of these groups have been around for 60 plus years, and they've been doing a lot of the same things over those 60 years. So it's a lot of annual meetings, semi-annual meetings. One of our groups meets quarterly and they have an annual meeting. So it really just depends on what the group is, how big they are, how often they want to meet.

Lupe Dragon 8:22

Is there a moment in either of your careers that was challenging to you and why?

Christine Yuletowski 8:28

I personally think that becoming a mom and balancing a career was super, super challenging. And I didn't really expect that going in. I mean, no one knows when you when you go into motherhood, you have no idea what to expect. But in particular, just going having my I had my son in February of 2021. It was I was pregnant during the pandemic. It was insane, an insane experience. And then to go back to a work environment that was like still pretty much remote, but starting to come back and be in person, especially working in events at that time. And people were hesitant and didn't didn't really want to come to events. They called us out for make not success communications group in particular, but anybody that was hosting events was being challenged, really challenged to make sure that you were doing it the right way. And then having a little one at home while also balancing all of that was very, very wild. So I think for me that whole transition was tough. And now I like to say that I definitely feel like I have a handle on it, although my son now is almost four. And I don't know what to expect tomorrow. You know, it's every every day is different with little ones.

Laura Abal 9:26

Oh, it's so cute. For me particularly, it was challenging the pandemic because when, you know, Linda passed away, it was, you know, when the pandemic started in 2020, you know. So everything went Zoom. I didn't know anything about Zoom, you know, and you know, having to do all these meetings, start everything with Zoom, even the vendors that we have at the events. You know, how do you get the vendors to come in and participate through Zoom? Because we are a nonprofit organization. So we actually do our meetings with, you know, the help of our vendors. So that was very challenging for me. So yeah.

Lupe Dragon 10:02

Yeah. I mean, I went to school during the pandemic, and my college experience was not what I thought it was going to be. I think all of us were trying to navigate how to go through that. I mean, I I think especially in the workplace where nothing stops, like for us, like like going to school, it kind of felt like I had a pause. You guys didn't really have a pause. You guys had to still like find a way to keep going. Right. So I I I think that's great that even with Zoom and you know it's not the same thing, but you were still able to accomplish a lot because of that. So I'm I'm really glad to hear that. One more question for both of you. What advice would you give to anyone who's interested in this field?

Christine Yuletowski 10:45

I would say be ready to hustle and have long hours. There's a lot of events in particular that are in the evenings or on the weekends. So it's not by any means like a regular nine to five job. It's often you're you're coming to an event and you're you gotta put a face on, right? You have to be like you're you're on camera all the time, basically. And then you shut down and you pack up, and it's a lot of you know, lifting heavy boxes, loading trucks, all that kind of stuff. And then you get in your car and you're like, I finally did it.

Laura Abal 11:15

And it's not only during the events, too, then after the events, because you have to follow up. You know, if it's a border meeting, you have to follow up. If you know, then you have to do all these other things that people don't know, you know, send out to the vendors and this and that, you know, you have to do payments. And you know, it's a lot. It's a lot. So it just doesn't end once the meeting ends. There's more to it, too. So yeah, hustle definitely hustle.

Lupe Dragon 11:37

I think that's a wrap. I I want to thank you guys for coming on the podcast, especially because this department doesn't really get a lot of like shining glory. And I think it's just so important because we have the nonprofits, we have the medical groups, and they benefit so much for from you guys just doing what you're doing every day. So again, thank you for being on the podcast, and uh, we'll see you guys next time. Thank you for having us. Thanks, Lupe.

Tom Marguccio 12:06

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