The figurative faucet for lead generation and networking at in-person events was in danger of running dry this year. With the events space far from returning to “normal” in the foreseeable future, Clarity Experiences CEO Brian Lagestee and his leadership team asked two questions many entrepreneurs are facing: How can we avoid layoffs? And, what can we do for our industry, right now? Listen to our latest podcast to find out how a people-first mentality can help you ask the right questions and allow your clients to take the (virtual) center stage.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:00:04] This is the 19. In 19 minutes or less game-changing insights from Orange Level, the leading response marketing agency for established brands that are driven by a fearless entrepreneurial mindset.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:00:23] Hello and welcome to the 19 Entrepreneur Edition. I’m Rochelle Reiter, President of Orange Label. We’ve seen a lot of changes this year, to say the least.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:00:32] Brands and marketers have had to adapt and pivot to remain relevant to their audiences. One industry that has been hit really hard is the world of live events. Any brand that relied on attending trade shows for leads and networking was immediately faced with the figurative faucet running dry. If you know people in the live event industry, many have been laid off or furloughed. However, 60 percent of people in the event planning industry have actually transitioned to virtual events. One of these companies that has not only weathered the storm but has also thrived in this environment is clarity experiences. Today we have Brian Lagestee, CEO of Clarity Experiences. Welcome to The 19. We’re so excited to have you here.
Brian Lagestee: [00:01:14] Thanks, Rochelle! So great to be with you today and we’re looking forward to really talking about the business and how everything’s been going for us. So, thanks for having me.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:01:25] Well, tell me a little bit about Clarity Experiences and what you do.
Brian Lagestee: [00:01:29] Yeah so Clarity Experiences is a live event production company, and we’ve been doing events for many, many years all over North America, some overseas as well. Our primary customer is really live events where we do events and convention centers, hotels and different venues across all the major cities in the U.S. and Canada.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:01:47] As a leader in your organization, describe how Clarity Experiences has tangibly and emotionally adjusted to your business model in 2020.
Brian Lagestee: [00:01:55] Well, that’s an amazing situation that happened across the world in a lot of ways. You know, very difficult to get through. However, we had an amazing beginning of the year. January and February were just record months for us and our teams were doing such a fantastic job. And everything literally stopped for us on one day where we shut everything down.
Rochelle Reiter : Sure.
Brian Lagestee: And we had teams in all different cities doing all different kinds of work. And we just stopped. And it was it was a big challenge for us emotionally and everyone was like, “What’s going on?”
Rochelle Reiter : Right.
Brian Lagestee: Most of our, you know, executives and our team members felt like, OK, this is you know, we can do this a couple of weeks, couple months and no problem. We’re going to be good.
Rochelle Reiter : Right.
Brian Lagestee: So that was our general attitude in the beginning. And then when we realized it was going to be a more of a major hit to our industry and to our company, you know, we really had to go through some emotional changes and actually structural changes and we had to change our entire business model pretty much overnight. And it was a big struggle for us. But we learned a lot about ourselves, you know,