5 Mistakes to avoid at your Executive Roundtable

3 minute read.

Executive Roundtables are one of the best ways to engage your target market.

They allow you to connect in a non-sales environment leading to better conversations. Which leads to more pipeline created off the back of the event.

Saying that many roundtables miss the mark. The content may be too product-centric, or your moderator doesn't realise their role. Below are the biggest mistakes to avoid when running your executive roundtables.

1. No Event Strategy

You must have a strategy built behind your executive roundtable. What are your key goals for the event? Who Do you want there? What product do we want the content to align too?

At the very start of your event organisation process, sit down and note down the following;

• Our Goal for the Event - Is this a Top Funnel Piece? Or about influencing your current pipeline?

• Your Target Audience - Who is this event for? What are the problems they face?

• KPIs for the event - Is this about MQLs? Or getting Target Accounts in the room?

• Content Goal - What messaging do we want to get out there? What product will this session align with? What information is vital for our sales team to get to move forward with deals?

By noting the above, you will ensure you have a clear vision for the event. Without it, you could run an event that fails to hit the mark.

2. Product-Centric Content

Your target audience and their problems should be the focus of every roundtable topic. Unfortunately, too many roundtables focus on products and features. This misses the big picture of why customers actually buy their product….to solve problems they are facing.

We recommend noting the top 10 problems your target audience has that you can solve. Next, align these problems with your product. Then choose the topic that relates to the problem with the most pain. This will lead to better content centred around your target audience's problems.

For a deep dive into our event content creation process, click here (insert link for building roundtable content). 

3. A Moderator who doesn't understand their role

There are 3 kinds of moderators you see at executive roundtables. The first is the salesman moderator. They see the roundtable as an opportunity to pitch. So they don't ask many questions and spend more than 50% of the time talking. 

You will alienate your audience going down this route. You also lose the value of the roundtable, which is to gain valuable insights from your audience. 

Don't worry! There will be plenty of time to pitch post-event. Once you have insights into their problems, you can create targeted approaches.

The second is the quiet, passive moderator. They do some things well, such as not talking too much. They often struggle to engage all audience members. They ask questions to awkward silences and lack the confidence to drive the discussion. 

This moderator isn't all bad, as they often have precious technical knowledge. Pair them up with a co-moderator who knows how to keep a discussion flowing, and it can be a great combination.

The final kind of moderator is the confident communicator. They understand their role. They facilitate instead of present, engage quiet audience members and ask good questions. They pair well with a technical type who can provide insight on any pointed questions. If you have a moderator like this, hold them tight, as they are a rarity.

4. The Invitation Process

You have a great venue, a brilliant discussion topic, and a confident moderator. So you put it all into a designed email and hit your whole database. This leads to you getting an audience, but the senior audience you desire….often not!

Senior executives get invited to 3 or 4 events a week and are picky with what events they attend. With a full inbox, they mark any designed email as spam and delete it before reading. As a result, your invitation will never even get read.

Instead, we recommend a personalised process made up of email and phone. First, an email is written to the executive using a layer of personalisation. This shows them this invite was meant for them. Following up on that email with a phone call to see if they are interested in attending. 99% of organisations will never make this effort, but it does pay massive dividends. 

People want to feel special and not a number. This extra effort will lead to a senior audience from your target accounts.

5. Follow up, Follow Up, Follow Up

The roundtable was a success. Conversations were vibrant, and attendees mentioned they could be interested in a follow-up meeting. So the next step I often see from here is to pass on the list of attendees to our SDRs and ask them to reach out with a generic message asking for a meeting. Then….crickets!

Your attendees don't want to feel like a number and instead feel like you heard them. Instead, I recommend that the moderator send an email thanking them for attending. Include a snippet from something they said at the event, so they feel like this email was for them. Provide a case study around what they spoke about and ask if they are interested in continuing the conversation. Make them feel special. 

Collecting these snippets can be tricky. We recommend having all reps at the event take notes of conversations to help with this process. It is worth it and will lead to a much higher post-event conversion rate.

By avoiding these major mistakes, you can be sure your roundtable event will succeed. Get the content right, moderate well and make your attendees feel special. This will build better relationships and generate new opportunities.

Looking to run a roundtable and want to make sure you avoid the above mistakes? We can help. Get in touch with Clutch today to see if we can help make your next roundtable an ROI-generating success.

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