INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Laura:
Hi, this is Laura Bretz from Meeting Expectations and I’m here today with Jalene Bermudez who is the founder and president of our company. Hey, Jalene, how are you doing today?
Jalene:
I’m great, Laura. Thank you.
Laura:
So, you returned to Meeting Expectations as president last year and have since been working with our senior leadership to do “more than you ever thought possible.” Can you tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that?
Jalene:
Sure. We’re executing about 265 corporate events each year and we’re the internal business infrastructure for 16 smaller associations. While our senior leadership pushes collaboration and keeps us in sync internally on behalf of our clients, my goal is to encourage constant improvement with innovative thinking and that we share that knowledge with each other collectively to make a difference.
Laura:
I know that you’ve established some building blocks to make all of that happen. Can you talk a little bit more about those?
Jalene:
We have three core pillars: Invite innovation into our culture, adapt and evolve, and advance the story every day. Our future focus at ME is to be inspired as well as to inspire. We have a wonderful culture as our foundation. Now, I’m challenging our team members to bring an entrepreneurial spirit to our daily activities. I’m welcoming our team members to bring big ideas to invite the smallest of business practices. For example, internally, we have “Move the Needle” projects taking place. We have rolled out what we’re calling the InVEST FrameworkTM and we are the teaching that to our staff to roll that out to our current clients. Then, we’re also using that in our sales processes. I think it’s going to be really exciting because it gives us a lot of information to help our clients build their attendee journeys, their member journeys and so that really helps them improve where they’re spending their money, so they can have the most impact with their event dollars and membership dollars spent.
Our second core pillar that we are focused on, is adapting and evolving. We’re living in an industry that is moving at a very rapid pace. Technology is moving at a rapid pace. It’s our thinking and our involvement with our clients to really understand their industry. The goal is that every person at Meeting Expectations adapts faster and evolves to situations and helps our clients within their industries.
The third core pillar is advancing the story. The goal is to advance not only our story but our client stories– to really listen to them, to have empathy with them, to understand where they’re coming from so that we can provide the best solutions for them and support them so that they can achieve their strategic objectives. It’s a mindset that we lead with.
Laura:
Thank you so much for sitting down and walking me through this whole process in your thoughts. It’s definitely an exciting time here at Meeting Expectations and I think I can say we are all very much looking forward to the future. So thank you again.