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The stories from the places where people gather.
Dana Kadwell (01:28)
And today we are talking with Adrienne Gardner. Adrienne Gardner is a sales strategist, venue expert, and event industry consultant known for blending real world experience with a tactical step-by-step approach. After more than a decade leading sales and operations for event venues, rental companies, and high volume event teams, she now runs her own consulting business, helping event pros elevate their customer experience. Adrienne is a national speaker who talks on buyer behavior, lead movement, and sales psychology. She offers private sales bootcamps, virtual
coaching programs and customized training for venues, planners and creative event companies. Welcome to the show.
Adrienne Gardner (02:05)
Thank you for having me, Dana. Appreciate that so much. Happy to be here.
Dana Kadwell (02:08)
Yeah, I'm so
excited to have you. I know that we typically have a lot of venue owners on here, but I think it's really fun getting consultants in here because you are exposed to so many venues and that kind of expertise and ⁓ conversations are, I think, just so fun to have.
Adrienne Gardner (02:25)
Yeah, so much diversity. feel like from a lot of the venue consultants, know, my background before I got into consulting, you know, kind of pre and then through COVID, I had a venue management company here in Denver and we managed five different properties ⁓ from, you know, something that looked very much like a farm to things that were smack dab in the middle of downtown Denver. So you got to see a lot of different, different things, different operational challenges, different, you know, target markets,
So yeah, happy to be here to chat.
Dana Kadwell (02:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Well,
why don't you start off telling us a little bit about how you got to where you are today? I'm sure it was a very long, twisty, windy road. Yeah. Always.
Adrienne Gardner (03:06)
Ha ha ha.
Like I feel like a lot of event professionals, ⁓
yeah, right? ⁓ I actually, you know, I grew up in a small town, Carson City, Nevada. Grew up doing theater and dance like a lot of other event pro people, you know, doing ⁓ entertainment. And I went to the University of Central Florida, got a degree in pre-law, decided not to be a lawyer like many other people I know as well. We could write a book about this. And then,
Dana Kadwell (03:36)
Yes.
Adrienne Gardner (03:37)
Really started in events from the jump. I you know planned events for my college I worked for various nonprofits and then I jumped into sales I worked for a DJ photo and video company doing cold calls, which was as fun as it sounds Honestly, but it was great training learned so much and then I moved to Denver and then
Dana Kadwell (03:51)
⁓ That sounds terrible.
for
Adrienne Gardner (04:03)
I was working for a nonprofit and my position was eliminated. So I was like, heck, I might as well go ahead and start a business. So started doing wedding planning and like that got a jump there and then pivoted more into the additional corporate events and then the venue management side. And then yeah, I worked full time for a regional rental company as well in there. So my background is very ⁓
Dana Kadwell (04:31)
Very diverse.
Adrienne Gardner (04:31)
I guess, yeah, very diverse to kind of get
Dana Kadwell (04:31)
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (04:34)
to where I've landed, I guess.
Dana Kadwell (04:38)
Yeah,
I love that though. think especially if you're walking into what you do now, like it's nice, you know, like the different, all the way from DJ and video, like that's like crazy. I don't think I could like consult a DJ company. I'd be like, I don't know. You have equipment and you put it in a truck.
Adrienne Gardner (04:47)
Yeah.
You know, service-based businesses, right? You know, they are very similar. ⁓ So it is just kind of figuring out what works for them ⁓ and, you know, adapting it and making it their own. it's, I'm sure you could actually do it. I bet you could.
Dana Kadwell (04:57)
I guess that's true. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you. So
what like, so the management company, let's talk a little bit about that. So what were the different properties and that management company you said you did five? Um, like tell me a little bit about those.
Adrienne Gardner (05:16)
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we had a varying
level of services. you know, what we would do is for some facilities, we would do everything. So meaning we would sell the property we all the way through the customer journey to event management to closing it out. And we would report directly to CEOs and owners like we had a partnership with Hudson Gardens at the time. Here in Denver, and we did kind of everything. So I had multiple team members that worked those properties. ⁓ And then we
We had some other properties that we did kind of similar levels, kind of full service. And then we had other properties where maybe we just did consulting and then we did event management. So it really depended on.
what systems they had in place and in-house, and then ⁓ what we could really kind of bring to the table to help them. And sometimes we started off just with event management and then they were like, hey, can you help us with more stuff? And we were able to kind of explore and more opportunities from there. but yeah, I liked when we were able to kind of do the whole thing, of course. So then, you know, we could kind of plan the customer journey from start to finish. It was always a lot smoother versus, you know, doing a pass. know lots of people, ⁓
Dana Kadwell (06:10)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (06:32)
managers you you have that pass from sales to event management which can be a little squeaky at times so I felt like when we were able to put our hands on that it was much more that the clients noticed less of the bumps
Dana Kadwell (06:42)
Yeah.
for sure.
is there anything you saw that was like just kind like a universal problem or issue that you saw?
Adrienne Gardner (06:50)
⁓ man.
Kind of across the board. ⁓ Sure. I always found an interesting sort of, how do I say, misconception between maybe owners or senior leaders of I think this lack of
Dana Kadwell (06:55)
Across the board, yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (07:16)
wanting to diverse Their marketing or their target markets in their pool You know we worked at lot of facilities that were so like my gosh. We got to book more weddings We got to more weddings weddings are where it's at ⁓ And I found that we were really not in general
putting in enough effort into things like celebrations of life, proms, nonprofit events, all this other revenue that we were just leaving to the side because we were just so focused on the wedding business. And really when we started to work on that, we saw a huge improvement. You get more daily revenue, which is of course fantastic, off season stuff. Colorado, we are so spiked because of our weather. And then we're just feast or famine.
And then we're just bottomed out for six months. that was definitely something I saw. And when we saw a little bit of effort and a shift there, that seemed to make a big improvement. But I think that that's a lot of seasonal venues struggles is that they just, I for one, don't want to ⁓ work extremely, extremely hard half the year and almost die and then just take a nap. Like that's not also what the lifestyle I personally want.
Dana Kadwell (08:03)
Mm.
What?
Adrienne Gardner (08:33)
So I think when I worked with these venues, I'm like wait, so we gotta work 80 hours this week and then we're gonna work like 20? No, like that's just that like how are we gonna maintain staff? How are we gonna decrease burnout from our event teams? ⁓ So yeah, so I would say that you know this peak that I would say this seasonal peak is a common problem. Try to flatten it a little bit.
Dana Kadwell (08:40)
Yep.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-mm.
Yeah, yeah, that's
so such a good point. And it is really hard. And we have, ⁓ we don't ever really have a true true down season. I mean, obviously, January, February is slower, but like our weather here isn't bad. So like, you could still have like an indoor event or whatever, and it's fine. ⁓ And we have like two peaks. So we have spring peak and fall peak are the two big things that we have. But it's so interesting, you're literally probably
Adrienne Gardner (09:10)
sure.
Dana Kadwell (09:22)
like the third person in the last two weeks that has talked about celebrations of life and venues.
Adrienne Gardner (09:27)
Mm.
Dana Kadwell (09:28)
But why do think people struggle with what diversifying? Like, what's their mental block with it?
Adrienne Gardner (09:29)
yeah, I.
Well,
I think, well number one, I think there's a misconception that there's no money in these other events. So yeah, a few things to kind of hit on. I think number one, people kind of need to get a handle on that events are a celebration of milestones in people's lives.
Dana Kadwell (09:38)
Mm, okay.
Adrienne Gardner (09:50)
So sweet 16s, proms, weddings, anniversaries, retirement parties, and yes, celebrations of life. know, we as humans gather together at these pivotal moments. So if you run an event venue, you know, I urge you to think about it in that way, that you are in the celebration business.
So I want to celebrate all of these milestones in your life. And yes, one of them does happen to be death. I know when we had a lot of celebrations of life at Hudson Gardens, I took a lot of pride in the fact that people chose our venue to have those events. And we tried to create offers that were super easy. We had an all-inclusive package for celebrations of life. We tried to make it like my goal was, hey, if somebody calls up, they're planning a celebration of life, how can
Dana Kadwell (10:30)
Yeah, sure.
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne Gardner (10:43)
we have a 20 minute conversation with them over the phone and they're done. I don't want to give them a bunch of questions. I don't want to stress them out. Let's make this beyond simple. What was that person's favorite color? Great, we're going to order linens in that color. Right? Like what can we do to like align?
Dana Kadwell (10:47)
Yeah, I love that.
Adrienne Gardner (11:03)
with that customer, right? So that's kind of one thing about Celebrations of Life. But yeah, I think there again, there's this misconception about like this price point, you know, because yes, a Celebration of Life on a Tuesday, sure, that's not gonna get you as much money as a Saturday afternoon, like a 10, 12 hour buyout for sure, obviously. I was like, but you're probably gonna get a lot more regular business from some of these opportunities and some of these partnerships. And for me, it is about again, trying to create some stability,
Dana Kadwell (11:22)
Obviously.
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne Gardner (11:33)
being able to sales forecast a little bit more accurately, ⁓ you know, that's obviously helpful. And then of course your staffing, being able to supply people with a little bit more of a consistent schedule just retains your employees. So I think again, there's that little bit of that misconception that also some of these groups can be more difficult. So I'll give you an example of that would be ⁓ proms. I feel like for years, proms got bad wraps and you know,
Dana Kadwell (11:46)
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (12:01)
I was even like, ⁓ no problems at my venues, get out of here. And then I was like, why am I assuming that? Like, I don't have a negative experience of prompts. Like, where am I getting this? I'm just getting this from stories from other people. So then, you know, we started getting some prompts and I was like, let's do some prompts. I got some openings in April, let's do it. So, you know, we would solicit the schools, we would email them, we would send them flyers, like we would do direct reach out.
Dana Kadwell (12:07)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (12:30)
to
them and you know they had so many chaperones and you know they were on it like if some kids were often like doing stuff and you just were like hey chaperone go get them they would go take care of it like they were on it you know and if there was issues like the teachers stepped in again it was great so it was definitely again I almost like I said I almost had a bias in my own head that this was gonna be a pain or they were gonna ruin my venue and that wasn't necessarily the case so I
Dana Kadwell (12:42)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (13:00)
yeah, biased as well as just not being aware, I guess, of the revenue potential of those different types of events.
Dana Kadwell (13:05)
Yeah.
It's so interesting too, because I was talking to somebody about this, I guess I was on a webinar panel or whatever, and they were talking about how often do you, ⁓ like donate your space and why would you do that? What's the purpose for it? And was like, you know, part of, for me, like we're in a very, the venue is a very low income area. And so I've always like these kids have only ever had a dance in their cafeteria. And so for them to come to this beautiful venue and have a dance, you know, like there's something like meaningful to me about that.
Adrienne Gardner (13:19)
Mmm.
huh.
Dana Kadwell (13:36)
But altruistically, yes, that is my heart. But the other part of it, it is a business move. And I remember we offered the very, the first year we were there, we did the daddy daughter dance at the Bradford. This was like a K-8 school. And I looked over at my husband, I was like, one day, one of these kids is gonna get married here. And sure enough, it happened. This is like eight years ago, this first dance happened. And they, we had booked our client and we asked, how did you, how did you find out about it? And she's like, I came here.
Adrienne Gardner (13:45)
⁓ cute.
Yeah. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (14:04)
when I was seven years old, I guess it wasn't seven, she was in seventh grade, sorry. And ⁓ for the daddy daughter dance. And I was like, my gosh, that's so cool. And yeah, finally seeing that return. But.
Adrienne Gardner (14:15)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. there is so much of that in these smaller, donated different types of events that it's just like, who's in that room and what sort of potential is there in there?
Dana Kadwell (14:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. And it's also helpful to know like, what is your, what is your daily rate, meaning how much does it cost you to operate every day? And for us, it costs us close to $3,500 to operate every single day. And so if I'm booking something, even if I'm just bringing in $3,500, that's great. Like, cause I, that's a net negative of the day I don't do something. And it was really,
Adrienne Gardner (14:38)
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (14:53)
hard for the team, I think, to recognize that because they're seeing this small number and they're like, well, it's not worth it. It's not worth our time. And like, it is worth our time because you don't book it on a Monday, we've lost this money. You know what I mean? Consistently over and over again. But yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (15:05)
Yep, yeah, yeah.
definitely should always know, of course, make it worth your time, know your expenses, have that drilled in so that you know what's worth it and what's not. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (15:18)
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (15:19)
And then I always suggest, obviously ⁓ in the event industry, there's lots of sponsor this, can I use this for this networking event? I highly suggest people have sponsorship budgets set up for the year. So you know what you're willing to do and then just say no the rest of the time.
Dana Kadwell (15:32)
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Yeah.
And tracking it, I think too, I remember I had this conference, it's such a huge, this was like a huge turning point for us, is we would, we would donate the space and then be like, we don't have any ROI for it. There was no ROI. And then it's the question of, were you even set up to have an ROI? So like we would do these big events, like these like fundraisers, right? And then we're like, we've got no business from it. I was like, well, when they go to their website, do they see anything corporate or do they just see two couples getting married? There's no,
we were not set up to even get ROI from that event. We weren't even ready for the business that could have come to us because we weren't set up for it. so there was this like kind of light bulb moment of like, okay, when you're donating a space, like what are you hoping to get out of it? I'm hoping to get X amount of inquiries and sell a corporate whatever. Do you have the packages together? Do you know what you're going to charge? Like,
Adrienne Gardner (16:13)
Sure.
Mm-hmm.
Sure, Yeah. Yeah. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (16:33)
And it felt a lot like we were
like building this ship while flying it. And the people wouldn't book us because they were like, the event was amazing, but obviously you all don't know what you're doing. Like at end of the day. Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (16:42)
Right, yeah,
you do have to be ready and you do have to make it simple, right? So yeah, if somebody's in your space, they should be able to know what's included, how much does it cost, how do I book it? Like it shouldn't be, you know, a difficult process or else they're just gonna stop. They're just gonna be like, just kidding. Yeah, exactly, you're like, that was fun, I'm gonna go over here now.
Dana Kadwell (16:47)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, This, yeah, next one. Yeah.
Yeah,
right.
Dana Kadwell (17:12)
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Dana Kadwell (18:31)
Well, okay, so you consult with lot of businesses, you obviously had your venue management company or whatnot. I think that there is also this misconception that to be successful in the industry or ⁓ to have made it or whatever, you have to be like this top wedding venue in your market. And obviously not everyone can be at the top, right? So how do you like, what do you tell these people that are feeling maybe a little bit
Adrienne Gardner (18:49)
Sure. Sure.
Sure, no. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (18:58)
discouraged or I don't know if they're feeling that way.
Adrienne Gardner (19:02)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's tough. I would say, you know, normally, and I'm sure you've had sort of similar conversations in the past where you do have to have kind of a tough kind of check it sort of moment as in, are you here to, you know, make a business, make revenue, or are you here for your ego? Like, what exactly are you trying to feed? ⁓
Because, know, yeah, to be like a top wedding venue, right? I like to make a not necessarily a joke about it, but it's like, you know, dirty baseboards. It's always one of my jokes is just like, you know, you, I understand that you might want this type of clientele, but what are you presenting? And are you willing to spend the money and the energy to get that deal? Because yes, if you want to get that top percent of really
Dana Kadwell (19:53)
Mmm.
Adrienne Gardner (19:58)
end weddings you have to have everything that they need and it has to present unbelievably well because yes that high-end wedding planner is going to notice your dirty baseboards. if but on the other hand a nonprofit probably won't.
Dana Kadwell (20:09)
Yeah, stay well.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (20:15)
⁓
So again, like you just kind of got to pick your pick your poison Are you willing to put in all that time energy and honestly money to make your space? Hit that mark and if you're not honestly, that's okay and I think that's part of that conversation with some of these owners and these managers and these CEOs and whatnot that like hey like we can go over here
Dana Kadwell (20:21)
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne Gardner (20:41)
The property is great, it functions well, the inclusions are good. ⁓ Let's do some more marketing and some more spend over here and I promise you and then maybe you build up a little bit more revenue, maybe we can renovate this space. Maybe the getting ready rooms are not up to par. Okay, great, let's get some more cash coming in and then let's work on that. So it's not necessarily has to be a no never but maybe it's just not a, it's not right now.
Dana Kadwell (20:58)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (21:09)
So I think that yeah, that's that conversation of expense and energy and the product that you're delivering and just having honest conversation with yourself or about your space. I'm sure because a lot of these are privately owned and I'm sure people love them.
And so I'm sure that that can be hard for someone to kind of pick it apart a little bit and just be like, this works really well for this, but it's not going to work that great over there. So.
Dana Kadwell (21:33)
Mmm. Yeah.
Yeah, it's so interesting
because like, I don't know, like the, obviously your, your venue is very personal, right? But like, I don't get overly offended when somebody doesn't like it or is like, you should do X or you should do Y or whatever. But there are some times when someone will say something and I'm just like, well, I mean, yeah, that'd be nice, but I can't like, it's like, like I legally can't.
Adrienne Gardner (22:02)
Sure, yeah, I can't afford
that. Or I can't afford it, yeah.
Dana Kadwell (22:04)
or I can't afford it, like, I
just don't, I don't have the infrastructure or I don't have the permitting for whatever the, whatever the reasoning is. And it's those things that are like totally out of your control that are more frustrating than things that are actually in my control because there is definitely this understanding of this is the maximum that I can do. Like this is, you know, and you know, for the Bradford story, like it was totally not top of the line or top like
Adrienne Gardner (22:13)
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (22:32)
up to par when we opened. took a good five or six years to get even to be in the running to, to house these amazing like events. but even still, like we have conversations all the time, like we're charging this are with, are they getting this product? Like, or are we kind of resting on our laurels a little bit here?
And to your point, like everyone notices dirty baseboards. Like they do.
Adrienne Gardner (22:57)
Yeah, yeah. Or the state of your bathroom. Does it need a solid reno? Is it from the 90s? And again, I think that it just, again, to that point, think that there's just, if you want these high-end projects, I would, number one, be analyzing why you want them.
Dana Kadwell (23:01)
Yeah.
Why? Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (23:19)
you
know is again an understanding really how much how much money is that really going to be making you and then what is it costing you and you know i'm a huge fan again of having a nice diverse pool i don't think you can sleep on that regular business like having a regular monthly chamber of commerce group in your space like those are the same 30 people that show up all the time and i guarantee you their kids are going to get married eventually and
Dana Kadwell (23:41)
you
Yeah,
Adrienne Gardner (23:48)
and they're going to call you. So yeah, those groups.
Dana Kadwell (23:49)
yep.
Adrienne Gardner (23:52)
I had one group that booked a consistent church group every Sunday, which at first we were like, OK, do we want to lose that Sunday wedding revenue? But the return of selling every Sunday for a year was a massive right. And I'm just like, come on. yeah.
Dana Kadwell (24:01)
great.
That's totally worth it. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it.
Yeah. No, that's so true. And I think it's, and you know, going back what you were talking about, like, what are you feeding? Is it your ego? Is it the fact you want to do your business? I think that's like such a really important question to ask, like truly. And it's hard to answer it sometimes and it's hard to answer it honestly. And you're like, what am I feeding? Like, why do I want this? But it's so like, I obviously have, you know, venue friends and you know, I
consult other venues or whatnot. And they'll always say like, like, you know, the Brad for this, the Brad for that. I'm like, but we're not the same. Like we're, just not the same. And there is no there. And I can, I'll pull out our P and L and I'll say, look, here's our profit at the end of the year. Yeah, we make a lot of revenue, but it takes a lot of money to get that revenue. At the end of the day, your venue is honestly doing just as well because that bottom number isn't so far off from my bottom number.
Adrienne Gardner (24:50)
Yeah.
Sure.
Dana Kadwell (25:11)
at the end of the day. And, to people's minds, they look at it they're like, Oh my God, they have to be, you know, it's amazing doing all these amazing events. And like, yes, it is true. And, and you know, we've, there's that period of time when you're building and to create the scalability, but like, it's, it's not like at the end of the day, all you're looking at is the bottom line, right? That's the number that matters at the end of the day. Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (25:12)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Absolutely, absolutely.
So however you get there, you know, like one of my favorite things to do was to like, you know, take our venues and like look at, you know, a target market for each kind of bucket, right? So if it's like weddings, like this is the average budget, you know, that we normally kind of, you know, look at, ⁓ you know, these are referral streams to support that same thing for celebrations of life. We get these partnerships from funeral homes, from caterers, we get referrals from there. How do I support there? And then I would go through
Dana Kadwell (25:37)
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (26:03)
that then at the end of the year I would drop in how many I had in each bucket so then I had a full kind of picture it's like okay great so you know we were 40 % weddings we were 20 % here and then 10 % here and then going into the next year we could make goals on what we felt like we could beef up you're like we could really do more here with just like a little bit more outreach a little bit more aggression I bet we could get this 10 up to 15
Dana Kadwell (26:09)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Right.
Adrienne Gardner (26:33)
So, know, I enjoyed doing that. I always thought that was a lot of fun. And then you're like, yeah, like that's not hard. That's not that bad when you're looking at just these small jumps. And like, I don't know, my team, we were always kind of excited to kind of dial down the weddings a little bit.
Dana Kadwell (26:38)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (26:49)
Like my team, my event managers were all about it. They're like, yeah, let's get more corporate, more nonprofit. Like, what do we do to get more of these other projects?
Dana Kadwell (26:50)
Weddings are stressful. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah,
no, I think it's such a smart move. And I think too, it creates like a mental break. think, I mean, events are events and they're stressful. No event is free from stress, but there is something about a wedding and recognizing that like, this is never going to happen again. This is like a one-shot deal that that pressure that your staff feels is very real. And I mean, I feel it as the owner, like when something goes wrong, like I recently, something went wrong and I had to...
Adrienne Gardner (27:18)
Mm-hmm. yeah.
Dana Kadwell (27:23)
you know, talk to the mom and I was like, I literally could not sleep last night because all I could think about was we can't do this again. Like I can't fix this. I can't go back in time and I hate that this was an experience that you had. Like, you know I mean? But it's different when it's a corporate, it's a Christmas party every year. Like, ⁓ now that didn't go well, but no, next year we'll change it. You know, like it's very, very different.
Adrienne Gardner (27:35)
Sure. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and you brought up the reoccurring income just right there with the repeat business. Like something else that we would do that I would suggest as well, just popped into my head as a suggestion is like I would go after nonprofits in like three year deals. ⁓ Because they're all about lock and rates. So, you know, if I could get the same gala for three years, like look at it in its totality. Like what am I willing to do for that? Yeah, are you willing to lock a rate for three years for a guaranteed, you
Dana Kadwell (27:59)
I love that.
Adrienne Gardner (28:15)
I 8,500 for three years, maybe you are. It's something that you can kind of approach with versus like, hey, don't you want to throw your party here? Okay. Versus like,
Dana Kadwell (28:18)
Yeah. Especially if it's in January or February or like
Yeah.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (28:28)
hey, let's build a partnership. This is things that we would be willing to do for you.
Dana Kadwell (28:30)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
So how do you feel like creating a more balanced schedule creates less burnout when it maybe feels like they're still working a lot? That makes sense.
Adrienne Gardner (28:41)
Yeah.
So, you know, I always thought of, like, as I was, you know, in my 30s, and I sometimes would jump into event management, like, okay, so if I'm gonna do, you know, if I gotta work till closing it down at 11 p.m., 12 a.m.,
some of those obviously super super late nights. Like how many of those in a week is feasible? Normally I would say like two and then from there I'm like okay what other events would be great to kind of fill out that person's week?
Dana Kadwell (29:02)
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (29:09)
and then what days during that week would they wanna take off. So I would almost kind of make like these little scenarios for my staff. would write them out, maybe like, okay, this would be an ideal week, this would be a great week. ⁓ I would ask them for their feedback, be like, how was that? ⁓
And then again just trying to make sure that yeah because we do have nights, we do have weekends, it's just the nature of what we do. But trying to keep protecting two days off.
Dana Kadwell (29:36)
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Adrienne Gardner (29:39)
right?
You know and hopefully back to back. I think sometimes in venues when people get like a rogue Sunday and a rogue Wednesday like that's hard versus you know a normal you know even if you're you know we were like a Sunday Monday we would try to have those off and we would rotate those if not a Monday Tuesday. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (29:44)
Yes.
That's hard, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne Gardner (30:00)
So yeah, trying to create that consistency is difficult and you have to think about it in what you're selling and honestly how you build everything if that's the type of environment that you want. Because yes, I think that you can hire younger event managers that you can have them do Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday from 2 p.m. to 12 a.m. and if they still work for you after a couple years, I would be
shocked. I know a few of them and I am in I don't know. They're total freaks, but I just think like that, you know, eventually that person even if they're wonderful and you rely on them so much, they're going to be like, I can't do this. Like I'm exhausted. I don't see my family. I can't pursue the career that I want with this as well. So
Dana Kadwell (30:31)
Yeah
WELL
Yeah.
My issue has been with my employees, we tend to hire them younger and they stay with us for very long time. And what happens is after two years of that schedule that you just talked about, they want to work on Monday through Friday. They don't want to work weekends anymore because they got married and their spouse has the weekends off or they're starting to have kids or whatever. while I understand that, I had that same exact desire at some point, I'm like, need to get my weekends back. I'm missing my entire life, whatever.
Adrienne Gardner (31:06)
Sure. Yeah.
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (31:24)
It's hard because they can only go so far up. You can't have five managers for a six person team and somebody has to actually work the events. They have to be there. We are in the business of events. And there was this really, and so for many years I tried to create a schedule that made a lot of sense for them. They wanted Monday through Friday, let's make it happen, so on so forth in it.
Adrienne Gardner (31:30)
No. Yeah.
Be there. Yeah, somebody has to be there. Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (31:48)
And it worked, but it really backfired because we weren't having high quality people executing the events. They were part-time staff and we were starting to see more issues. Like the client journey was so great from sales to planning. And it was like, then we fumbled the ball at like the end, right? Yeah. And, but when you come to the team, they're like, I don't want to give up my weekends. And so then there's this really hard conversation of...
Adrienne Gardner (32:04)
event, Yeah. ⁓
Mmm. Mmm.
Dana Kadwell (32:16)
this might not be the right industry for you then. Like this might be your end of the road of like, okay, like if you're not willing to work the events, not every event, I'm not saying you have to work 40, I'm not saying you have to work 30, I'm saying there's these gaps that we have to fill and that we need you to step into and if that's not what you want to do, then events aren't your jam.
Adrienne Gardner (32:19)
Yeah. Yeah.
Events are
not your jam. Yeah, and I would say I totally agree with that. think from your hire you like this is these are the hours we work and we grind and like this is this is difficult manual work. But yeah, like if you can get him into like a rotation of like a shared pain, right? So I think
Dana Kadwell (32:48)
Yep. Yes.
Rotation of Shar-Pain.
Adrienne Gardner (32:59)
So, you know, we had this thing and I think some ⁓ of my ex-employees that would listen to this, like we called it schedule palooza, where we would like look at all of our venues and we were like assigning shifts and stuff like that. And one of the things that we definitely tried to do was if like definitely number one, diversify the weddings. Like if we had, you know, 30 weddings in a month or something like that at all of our properties, if, you know, how are we dividing those sort of things up in a system that's fair, right?
Dana Kadwell (33:07)
⁓
Right.
Adrienne Gardner (33:29)
So it just doesn't feel like because I think if like one person's like dude We had 30 weddings this month, and I had 20 like what the hell? ⁓ You know that of course that that's a difficult position, but you know a little bit of yeah that that shared pain Yeah, goes a long way Rotation of shared pain, it's a new blog
Dana Kadwell (33:35)
Hmm, yeah.
I love that a rotation of shared pain. just, I think, yeah, I just think it's, it
is a new saying. No, I just think it's so hard because there it's hard being a boss to being a human and also a boss and a business owner because I see them as we have always believed people first. Like you're a person first. You're not just my employee and granted what I want for myself, right.
Adrienne Gardner (33:53)
Yeah. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (34:15)
Like I, it's, this weird, I've always been somebody that's wanted to be in the trenches with them, right? So I'm like, I I will never ask you to do something that I have not done and I have not sacrificed for, and I would never do, right? Which is a hundred percent the truth. And for, you know, 15 years of our business, I was in the trenches and I, I missed all the things. I actually give a keynote about how like, disproportionate my life was to business and my family and how much I sacrifice and how much I miss and how much regret that I have.
Adrienne Gardner (34:23)
that I would never, yeah.
Dana Kadwell (34:42)
and I never want them to have that. But at the same time, this is your job. Like, so it's creating this balance and it is really hard. You have these highly qualified people that then also like, well, I've been with you for nine years and I wanna make X amount of dollars. And I was like, I get that. But like, we're at a cap here. Like, because you don't wanna do this job, I have to hire this person, which means you can't make as much money because I had to hire this person. You know what I mean?
Adrienne Gardner (34:45)
Totally.
Sure.
Mm-hmm.
Totally.
Dana Kadwell (35:12)
Such a total, honestly, like a mindfuck half the time.
Adrienne Gardner (35:14)
Yeah, it's tough.
It's tough. think that, yeah, that, you know, the reason why they joke about like, this is such a young person's job, right, is, you know, it's physical. It's, it's a, you know, lots of late nights. It's weekend work. It's, you know, not some of those, some of these jobs not super supportive of family and balance. And, you know, and maybe we all just kind of need to understand too, that there's a little bit of...
You know, you're just not gonna have those people around forever. And maybe you're just a part of their employee journey. And they were great and they were wonderful and they worked for you for three years and now you're a reference for them. And maybe they're a manager at a hotel and congratulations, you know what I mean? So maybe it's like there's nothing wrong, I think, with just being a part of it for a little while. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (35:44)
Mm-hmm.
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (36:07)
And you know, especially if it was positive, then maybe that's okay.
Dana Kadwell (36:10)
Yeah,
I know. And that's what I people all the time. was like, end positively. Do not let this get to the point where I could not give you a good recommendation, where I could have six months prior because you were busting it out and you were doing a great job and you were an amazing employee and then you were disgruntled for six months and made it so I can't even like, I can't in good conscience say this is a great employee. You know, I say it's a great employee until XYZ happens, you know.
Adrienne Gardner (36:34)
Sure, sure.
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (36:43)
Okay, we have heard about so many different CRMs and so many different tech platforms. Well, BrightBiz is a little bit different because BrightBiz was built by Event Pros and it is powered by you,
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The other cool thing about it is you can access it anywhere, anytime, and on any device. It has everything you need to run exceptional events. So if you want to learn more and book a demo, head over to brightbiz.com slash gathered to learn more.
Dana Kadwell (37:30)
Yeah, it is really tough. But it's interesting because I do think that like the model you're talking, because we're talking really about how not every venue is a wedding venue, right? That is, it does not have to be for weddings. Like obviously weddings are a great source of income, but you know, all this conversation has been, there's so many other avenues to go down. But it's a really big conversation to ask yourself and your staff,
Adrienne Gardner (37:43)
Sure. Yeah.
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (37:56)
what are the goals for it, right? And if your goal is to turn and burn weddings all day, every day, and is what it is. It is what it is known for and your staff has to match that. So how do you, how do you like, how do you talk to, and to venues that have maybe made this realization say, Hey, you know what? Like, we're not going to be the top wedding venue, but we want to be the venue that has corporate and is booked out. Maybe we're the top Monday through Friday venue or whatever the case may be. How do you,
Adrienne Gardner (37:58)
Hmm?
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (38:23)
how do you have them like not maybe change their mindset, but also change the way that they operate because it's a different operation at the end of the day.
Adrienne Gardner (38:27)
Yeah, sure. ⁓
yeah, it totally is. So I would say that, you know, normally like the changing of the mindset and something like that is a little bit of them just being able to kind of self reflect and understand, you know, maybe the condition of their property, the goals that they have for their own business. ⁓ And then, you know, from there, like just having that conversation of like, hey, like, I understand that you're concerned probably about, you know, revenue and what is what's going to happen. And then, you know, maybe modeling it for them, like, hey, like if we book X amount of this and X
amount of this, you know, I need X amount of leads in each one of these sort of funnels in order to support these goals. And so I think with any anybody, if you show them a plan, and you show that the feasibility of it is not just a pipe dream, then it's much easier for them to get on board.
going back to your initial question and reflection, I think that can be a little bit of a deterrent too. You do have to be a little bit more outbound sales focus in order to get some of these other projects. ⁓ Because maybe these groups already have partnerships with other facilities, so they're not actively hunting. So you have to disrupt them with an outbound approach, which for some people and some salespeople, they're predominantly, they're order takers, they're inbound.
Dana Kadwell (39:39)
Right. Right.
Adrienne Gardner (39:49)
you know, the outbound stuff is terrifying. But to get to go back to answer your question, I think giving them a plan, showing them the opportunity ⁓ and you know, how that is actually feasible, I think can go a long way. Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (40:02)
Yeah. Do you,
when you are with venues, do you have like a guttural reaction of like this venue needs to pivot and change and like, like, can you see it?
Adrienne Gardner (40:14)
feel like I...
Yeah, normally I can. you know, from the first like, hey, ⁓ Adrian, like I'm opening up this space, come tour it, come meet me, like, or hey, I bought this building, let's go walk through it, right? So then, you know, while I'm there, I'm already kind of visualizing, of course, what sort of events will take place there, you know, ⁓ what sort of marketing would support those sort of events. And then, yeah, sometimes they're like, I remember one person I was meeting with, he's like, yeah, and you know, here, you know, I'm gonna build this back
area for catering, this is where the kitchen's gonna go. I'm like, okay, great, that's gonna eat up a lot of the space, like how much square footage are we gonna have left? And he's like telling me and I'm like, okay, I'm doing some math in my head. And he's like, I still think I can get 300 people seated in here for a seated dinner. I'm like, no, you can't.
Dana Kadwell (41:03)
Like that's not gonna happen.
Adrienne Gardner (41:04)
He's like, wait,
he's like, wait, what? I'm like, no, you can't. was like, he's like, well, the fire department said, ⁓ I'm like, that's it. There's a difference between how many people you can legally have here safe and how a layout is actually going to function and work. So yeah, I think that a lot of times when I'm having conversations with people, you know, and especially if like a venue, you know, decides to hire a consultant, that's all that's time, energy, money that they're putting into this person. Obviously, I'd much rather have a nice, honest conversation
Dana Kadwell (41:19)
Great.
Adrienne Gardner (41:33)
about ⁓ realism and the trajectory of your facility ⁓ and you know realistic goals as well too I think that can be overly inflated people are like year one I'm gonna look like 80 days and I'm like cool it's November how many leads do you have
Dana Kadwell (41:37)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah,
right, right.
Adrienne Gardner (41:55)
They're like, none.
I don't even have a website. I'm like, ha ha, okay. And I'm like, let's discuss that. So yeah, so I think that, yeah, when I'm definitely in a space of thinking about, you know, who would be in it, ⁓ you know, from like the parking to how people enter the building ⁓ to, obviously the stat, you know, how it aesthetically looks, of course, I'm sure you, we all do the same, I think, we're walking through something.
Dana Kadwell (42:00)
Yeah. Yeah. Let's have a conversation, yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (42:25)
you're like, this would be cool, you know? And then
Dana Kadwell (42:27)
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (42:27)
sometimes you're like, and sometimes you're in a space, you're like, wow, yeah, this is it. Let's go.
Dana Kadwell (42:32)
Yeah, well, I think what's
been like super interesting since it's kind of been a little bit like a little bit mind blowing for me in some ways, because I'm so entrenched in like the wedding space. it's what's what what sucks about I should say sucks. What's hard about selling weddings is you aren't you the marketing has to be there obviously, you have to the reach of the awareness, all that. But what you are also also selling to them is an experience and you're selling them.
a client journey and at any point in that client journey, this client could feel a certain type of way and it's going to negatively affect like the event. Now I'm not saying that isn't true for other things, but it feels like for other events that are not weddings, your biggest primary focus is marketing and awareness. It's letting people know that you exist, you can have this event here and while you don't want to be an asshole to people and you want to be a good business person, that client journey isn't nearly as important.
Adrienne Gardner (43:10)
Sure. ⁓
Or as long, you know, yes. Yes, yeah, yeah, like a gala, know, unless you have that, you know, those multi-year deals, like that's six months, you know, maybe a year. You know, some of these weddings can be two years. Yes, there's a lot of touch points to your saying. There's a lot of communication. There's a lot of time.
Dana Kadwell (43:30)
Yes, right, because it's only like a month or two a week, even for celebrations of life, you're talking about a week, you to two weeks for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne Gardner (43:57)
where yes a lot of things could go wrong to your point as well too ⁓ versus yes having that shorter cycle absolutely yeah.
Dana Kadwell (43:59)
Yeah.
Well, it's just very encouraging
because you come across these venues that like are killing it in the marketing. I mean, they're just, they're, they have tons of leads and they're, they're, and they're doing so well. And you know, if you just were, you were saying earlier, if you just kind of pivot to this market, you know that they're going to get the leads and they're going to get the clients. And maybe where their struggle is, the fact that they can't handle a hundred brides. They can't handle a hundred brides in a year, but they certainly, they're going to be amazing. And they have a staff dedicated to handle the 50.
Adrienne Gardner (44:24)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (44:35)
and they're gonna do it so well and that's where they're gonna shine. And then the other 50 events they're gonna fill in the year is things that they can do well. And ⁓ it's such an interesting way to really think about it that I haven't truly thought about before. So I love that, yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (44:35)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah,
I think that that's a, you know, I'm a huge fan of like blueprinting out like your venue for a year. And you know, and yeah, you could call them goals. You call them whatever you want. But it's like, yeah, if you only want to have 50 weddings because in your experience, they're a pain and they're rough. can drain you. Then what other what other stuff can you do so that you can make money?
Dana Kadwell (44:57)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Or you just don't even have,
Adrienne Gardner (45:18)
Yeah!
Dana Kadwell (45:18)
yeah, or you just don't have the staff for it. A staff member to handle weddings is very different for a staff member to handle a corporate event. Like, it's so different, right? And like the expertise, the communication style, the promptness, like you have to answer emails within 24 hours. Like all of this stuff, it's just very different. And the way you structure your company is it's just, so maybe you just don't even have the infrastructure to handle it. But you're like, I have one solid employee
Adrienne Gardner (45:27)
yeah, for sure. Yep. Definitely.
Dana Kadwell (45:46)
that can handle these events, that can work these events, that can do this thing, and this is my max number that we can do. And that's great, you know, until you kind of figure out scale and grow. But yeah, I love that. That's so cool. Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (45:50)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sure, yeah,
Yeah, plan it out and then do what you need to do to support those sort of numbers. So, yeah.
Dana Kadwell (46:04)
Yeah, yeah, ⁓ you got my mind,
my mind thinking about all these things.
wrapping this up, we always love to ask what a question. And this is the craziest wedding story or event story. event story, craziest event story. And that you've mostly told nobody. It's okay if you have told people, but like, you know.
Adrienne Gardner (46:11)
okay. Alright.
Okay, I'll give it a fair-
I'll give
a very venue related one, okay? So ⁓ I have lots of wedding ones, but this is a prom one, but it's not like a client one. So, okay, so the owner of this venue, love him dearly. He was going on a month long vacation. Congratulations. We had plenty of time to prep. We were ready. Like we had all the facility, you know, maintenance contacts that we needed, et cetera. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (46:31)
Okay, I love it.
Okay. Okay.
Love it.
Adrienne Gardner (46:56)
you know, from HVAC to plumbing, like we were pretty well situated. And it was April or May, because my daughter was maybe three or four months old, because she is a part of this story. So, ⁓ you know, and there's a problem happening. And one of my event managers, we had a manager on duty, she calls her manager on duty, can't get her, can't get the heaters to fire.
Dana Kadwell (47:23)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Adrienne Gardner (47:24)
or they're blowing cold. So you're
like, okay, not great. April in Denver, older building. This is not great. okay, so she, you know, tried to troubleshoot over the phone. She calls me. We can't troubleshoot it. We call the HVAC guy or the heater guy. And he doesn't answer his phone. So we're like, okay, great. This is going really well, right? Clients are starting to show up. You know, principal of the school is like, it's a little cold in here. And my vet manager is like,
Dana Kadwell (47:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (47:54)
We're working on it. ⁓ I am married to an extremely handy gentleman. So he's like, let's just go check it out. So, and my daughter is three months old. So meanwhile, like I'm at this event, my husband's trying to fix this heater. I have my baby in like my little carrier, right? And ⁓ we can not get it to work. And the heater guy's like, ⁓ he finally calls back. He's like, I will come tomorrow. And we're like.
Dana Kadwell (47:55)
Yeah.
That's
Adrienne Gardner (48:23)
Okay, so
Dana Kadwell (48:23)
not helpful.
Adrienne Gardner (48:24)
we call like and we call around we can't get anybody to come we can't get anybody to come right so then ⁓ I just remember going up to my vet manager and like you know it's cold in that building 50 degrees it is cold it is cold it was definitely a 20 degree day outside so the weather was also not in our favor ⁓ but anyways the story ends really funny like so I'll get there but so we go up to the principal and we're like hey I know
Dana Kadwell (48:28)
Mm.
Oof.
Adrienne Gardner (48:53)
I was cold, we're definitely doing our best. I was like, but you know, to be frank, like it's just not gonna happen. I was like, so. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (48:58)
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (49:01)
Here, you some options you have of course, you know I'll be looking at what I'm refund to you I will 100 % will reach out with you on Monday and I'll talk to you about that I was like but on the meantime, you know If you want me to call other venues and try to get you guys relocated let me know I'm happy to do that and she just starts laughing She just starts laughing and she's just like ladies. It's gonna be fine. And we're like, what do you mean? It's gonna be fine It's like 50 degrees and so like the kids start showing up and because they just danced for four hours
Dana Kadwell (49:06)
Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (49:31)
straight, that's all they did, it basically a big cardio party. They were totally fine. They were in their little strappy dresses. They danced all night long. It was totally fine, but just the whole situation was just nuts. Like down in this little heater room with my little baby. And my husband's trying to fix stuff. But meanwhile, because the teenagers wanted to grind on each other for four hours.
Dana Kadwell (49:33)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
That creates some body heat, right? Yeah.
Adrienne Gardner (49:57)
It was a non-issue. They created some body heat.
It was totally fine. Little bit of a refund, but nothing crazy. And we all moved on and they rebooked it the next year. So go figure.
Dana Kadwell (50:05)
Yeah.
I love that. That's
Now I think that that's every, every person who's ever worked at a venue. is something maintenance-wise that the story happens. It's like toilets, septics, all, all, always. Ugh. Okay. Okay.
Adrienne Gardner (50:17)
Always, always. yeah, I have a toilet story, but it's disgusting, so I won't go there. Yeah, no.
Awesome.
Dana Kadwell (50:23)
Nice. Well, thank you so much
for your time today. I appreciate it. Yeah, so much fun. Yeah, of course. I know. Yes.
Adrienne Gardner (50:27)
Yeah, this was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me on. was a lot of fun. yeah, happy venue selling everybody. Go book some celebrations of life and some galas,
some chambers of commerce. Now on weddings, diversify.
Dana Kadwell (50:39)
some non-wedding events. I love it.