How to Actually Get ROI From Events w/ Lauren Najar

You can spend thousands of dollars attending events and still walk away wondering if any of it actually helped your business.

In this episode, Lauren breaks down how to actually get ROI from events, whether that’s networking dinners, workshops, conferences, or retreats. She shares how constantly saying yes to events started impacting her time, energy, work schedule, and family life, forcing her to become far more intentional about where she invests her money and attention.

Lauren talks about the difference between going to events because of FOMO versus going with a clear reason for being there. She shares why relationships are often the biggest return on investment, why some opportunities take months to pay off, and how meeting people in person completely changes the depth of connection and collaboration. She also opens up about navigating events as an introvert and the questions she now asks herself before saying yes to any room she walks into. 

So, if you’ve been questioning whether events are really worth the investment, this episode will help you think about ROI in a completely different way.

Upcoming Events:

Chicago Retreat - July 14-16, 2026 - https://laurennajar.myflodesk.com/iid9wbr2yc

Napa Retreat - October 5-8, 2026 - https://laurennajar.myflodesk.com/cetj223rsr

Growth & Connect Events - https://laurennajar.myflodesk.com/hb2a0mwbqw

Chapters:

00:25 Why events take more than money 

02:05 The hidden cost of saying yes too often

03:25 What ROI actually looks like from small events

04:20 How hosts create meaningful connections

05:25 Going to events as an introvert

06:35 How to intentionally create ROI at events

07:25 The long-term payoff from bigger investments

08:25 Choosing events for the people in the room 

09:25 Why in-person connections change everything

10:05 How to stop making event decisions from FOMO

11:10 Questions to ask before investing in an event

12:20 Why intentionality creates better ROI

13:00 Lauren’s upcoming retreats and events 

Let’s Stay Connected:
→ Follow Lauren on Instagram: www.instagram.com/laurennajar
→ Learn more or work with me: www.laurennajar.com
→ Follow Business Over Cocktails on IG: www.instagram.com/businessovercocktails
→ Attend Growth & Connect retreats & events: www.instagram.com/growthandconnect

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Business Chaser, your quick pour of strategy, clarity, and momentum. We skip the small talk and get straight to the strategy here in these bite-sized episodes. We're here to help you grow smarter, market better, and chase what matters all in 15 minutes or less. I'm your host, Lauren Najar. Tune in and let's chat. Hello, hello. I am coming to you from a completely different place in some unusual background. So I wanted to come on here and talk to you about the ROI of events. You're probably listening to this on audio, so you're like, what are you talking about? I do record video on these, by the way. And eventually they will all be on YouTube, but we have a lot of episodes to upload in that case, five videos of every single episode. So get ready for that. Hopefully that will come soon. So I want to talk today about ROI on events. And it's a big consideration of your time and your money and your energy to go to events, right? A lot of times it could just be a whole day thing. Sometimes you might have to drive a couple hours. Sometimes it's right after work. Sometimes it's right after your work day, or it's in the middle of your day where then you only have a lot of time. And then, you know, you miss calls or after reschedule calls, things like that. It's like your morning's gone. It's a lot of investment. Like let's just, let's just like say this for a second, right? It's so easy to say yes and have FOMO to events, any kind of event, coffee chats, like half day things, workshops after like after your full day of work, some workshops in the evening, dinners, retreats, conferences. And then like, then it's okay, well, I'd drive a couple hours. Then I have to fly. And then it's a whole weekend and you're away from your family, and it could be upwards of a couple thousand dollars. Like there's so much time, energy, and money that goes into these decisions. And if you're like, well, no, it doesn't, but it does, if you actually think about it, because there's definitely always like a payoff or like give and take relationship with a lot of things, at least in my case. So, you know, when I started going to events about a year and a half, almost two years ago now, I was saying yes to a lot. And I noticed that I was staying up working later because I didn't get work done during the day when I have time. And then, you know, I had to be mom from like five to nine and see my husband. And then after everyone went to bed, I would stay up and work. And I noticed that like saying yes to like two and three events a week was just like so much for me. And that's why not only do I, when I host events, like they're definitely few and far between. You know, we'll do dinners on a quarterly basis and then we're doing retreats a few times a year. But for me and my business, and then my, you know, just how I operate, having a weekly event is a lot of work, especially if it's in person. And teach their own. And if you want, if that's your business, you want to run it like that, that's great. But I want to kind of talk about the ROI. So, yes, there's a lot that goes into it, and it's a lot for you to say yes to. So, how do we, how do we actually get the ROI or understand what the ROI is from these events? For me, in my experience, the ROI has paid off over the course of multiple months. And, you know, you can go to, I think, like smaller events, especially local events, and they could pay off instantly, right? You have really great conversations, relationships, you meet people, and you either are someone that they want to hire immediately, or you can forge a collaboration, or you want to hire them because that's what you're looking for, or it's just someone that you can be friendly with and have coffee chats, because I think sometimes we definitely need that in our business journey. So going and meeting people is probably the best thing, and it's going to immediately pay off for you. Now, I am on both sides of this. Because I host events, I have a different perspective. The host is responsible for fostering the connections to an extent, right? You can't make people meet each other. You can't make people talk to each other, but you can introduce, right? And I guess that in a way it's a little bit like making them. But you can foster the connection, you can foster a meaningful connection. So, what do I mean by that? I like to know who's coming to my events. And I get really excited of like who I can introduce people to right out of the gate. So, especially if they're newer, I feel like, okay, yeah, like you can meet these people, like you can immediately meet them. And so I feel like you can do that. And then you can make people feel welcomed. You can make people feel like this is an environment where you can open up, you can definitely make them feel you can make them definitely feel like welcomed and warmed up, right? And then I would say, like, when it comes to like smaller events, cheaper events, you know, not I'm not talking about like conferences where you have to travel and retreats just yet. But what would you hope to get the ROI out of those smaller events, right? That's the most important thing. So the ROI on events is hopefully you make connections, yes. But what would those connections mean for you? And going into an event, who are you hoping to meet? I got better at this as I continued to go on to events, right? At first, it really was just visibility for myself. I really, really, really needed to get visibility out there because I wasn't being seen locally and I'm only online. And just meeting people was something I needed to do. And let me just say, let me preface this. I am an introvert. It is very draining for me to go up to people and introduce myself a million times. Yes, I host my own events, but I feel comfortable hosting versus going into a room where I don't know anyone and needing to say, hi, I'm Lauren 500 times. And I do feel like I really have to psych myself up and tell myself of, hey, I need to meet one new person today. Because even if I do go into rooms, I might know some people, I will stay by them a lot of times. And I really have to challenge myself to not do that because otherwise, why did I come to this event? I didn't come here to hang out with my friends. It's nice to see my friends. At the same time, I'm coming and investing money to be in the room at the event. I need to meet other people as well. And sometimes that could be hard, but we figure it out. So I feel like that is one thing that you can control the ROI with, is that you can deliberately go and meet people. The next thing I will share is I definitely feel that when you go to the bigger events, truly understand what that ROI is going to be. And I think like this comes down to like maybe when you hire a coach or mentor is you're not just gonna say, okay, I'm gonna throw money at this person, they're gonna fix all my problems. That's not the case. It's what am I going to do to ensure that I have a good time and that my money is invested? I'm gonna meet new people, I'm gonna learn something. What am I gonna take away? What are my lessons? For me, I invested in a big event last fall and I went to New York and I met a bunch of people, and just being in proximity of people who are more successful than I am really helped me in that something like that pays off and it will continue to pay off in months to come. I mean, I still feel like to this day it's still paying off. I feel that when you do make investments to that extent, that's the ROI that I focus on. It's like, who am I going to meet and what am I going to take away from this room? Because, you know, I am a small fish in a big pond in this room. And what can I add? Yes. And how can I make a name for myself? But who can I meet is going to also help me and inspire me too? So then the next thing is when I think about considering an event. So there was an event that I was considering a while ago, and the event itself, the programming wasn't for me. I feel like that was at like maybe like a beginner level kind of situation. But going to the event, I would have met a handful of people that I knew from the online space. I would have met them in person. And I know full well building in-person relationships just exacerbates the relationship and exacerbates like the results and the collaboration and the conversation. And your relationship gets so much stronger in that way. So that was my reasoning of like, do I really need to go to this event for the programming and seeing the speakers? No, because I'm past that. But going to the event would have meant for me that I would have met so many wonderful people that I already know in the online space. I would have met them in person, which would have been so cool. And I know that that would have been good for me. I didn't go and speak at an event, and that also happened to me where I met a handful of people that I knew in the online space. And again, like that just like immediately matches up to like, ooh, like let's collaborate. Let's do this together, let's have a call and let's talk more. Like that's easier to happen when you're face to face versus like talking in a room, right? And so the ROI can happen if you go into it feeling like, yes, I want to get this specific ROI from it, but then also simultaneously being open to possibilities. That's how I do every event is like I expect, like, I think about first, like, why am I going to this event? Is it just FOMO? It should not just be FOMO. It should be a reason. Why am I investing time, money, and energy into this? And I'm sacrificing a lot, right? I'm sacrificing time with my family, I'm sacrificing money, investing, whatever it is. And why am I going to this event? Regardless if it's a multi-day event, regardless if it's a dinner event, regardless if it's a morning workshop. Why am I going? How is this going to improve me and my business? And what is the ROI I expect? These are the questions I ask myself first, going into it with full intention. The next step of this is being open to other possibilities. Because again, we don't know who all is coming for the most part. You don't know who you're going to meet or who you're going to talk to. You don't know how the event's going to go for the most part, because you're you're not hosting it, so you don't know. But still being open to other possibilities and challenging yourself to put yourself out there just a little bit more, whether that is meeting a new person or just having more conversations or inviting someone to a coffee chat, just being open to other possibilities. So this is how you can actually control the ROI of the investments of the events that you go to. So if you're scared, right? Because a lot of times these events can cost money. And like $100 might be expensive for you, $1,000 might be expensive for you. Flying somewhere and paying $3,000 is really a very high-ticket thing. What is going to matter at the end of the day? What is going to change you at the end of the day? And why are you going to invest in those things? Because if we're just saying yes to investing in those things, and we're just like, yeah, I want to go. It's going to be so cool. And then you go and then it's not what you thought it was going to be. I do think that in those moments, you probably could have thought through it just a little bit more and thought about how what would this do for me and be in control of not only why you're saying yes, but then controlling the ROI or the lesson that you're going to have as you leave that event, regardless of which one it is. So go into it with full intention. That's when you're going to get the full, full, full ROI. And again, it can potentially keep paying off time and time again. So I hope that was helpful for you. And I hope that you maybe are inspired to go to more events. At the time of this recording, we have two spots left for our July Growth and Connect retreat. I'm actually recording in the co-working space right before we're going to kick off for the May Chicago retreat. It's been sold out for a year. We have two spots left for July, and we have three spots left for Napa. And we actually have a Dallas retreat happening again next April, April 2027. So if you want to come to a retreat, you want to come to an event, I encourage you to think about what the ROI would mean for you. And I know that for me as a retreat host, I am very transparent and I don't want anyone leaving without having some sort of transformation or without having some sort of ROI. So I really put my blood, sweat, and tears and full intention into everyone's experience. So if you're questioning whether this is right for you or not, I'm an open book and I would love to talk to you about it. So everything is linked in the show notes below for all of the retreats. If you're wanting to come, reach out to me via Instagram, email, or you can go to my website to contact me. And then all of those links will be in the show notes for all of the upcoming retreats. That's your quick hit of clarity and momentum for the week. If it sparks something, share it with a friend or tag us in your stories at Business Over Cocktails and or at Lauren Najar. We love seeing what resonates. Don't forget, Mondays are for full-length episodes with rich conversations, and Fridays are the Business Chaser episodes. These are bite sized insights pulled from our guests to keep you inspired and aligned throughout the week. Do you have a question or takeaway? DM us at Business Over Cocktails. We just might feature it in a future episode. Cheers.