the industry exec

Trey Feiler
Meetings Mean Business!
Spring 2009

Trey Feiler is Chief Operating Officer of Dallas-based Meeting Professionals International.

MPG:  There is a perception that holding off-site meetings may not be a prudent business decision for U.S. corporations, particularly those receiving government assistance.  MPI is part of an industry consortium, led by the U.S. Travel Association, that has developed a website and campaign to address this issue.  According to the consortium’s website, “’Meetings Mean Business’ is a campaign working to protect the millions of American jobs that depend on business travel and events.  Meetings Mean Business supports a robust travel industry that employs millions of hardworking Americans in hotels, restaurants and conference centers across the country.”

In addition to this important campaign, how is MPI responding to this industry crisis?

Trey:  We are trying to provide our members with the tools they need - sample letters that they can write or the phone numbers to call - to make their voices heard and help to quell the initial political rhetoric.  Fortunately, that hurtful rhetoric has tightened back down a bit.

MPI has always been about the success of meetings.  We are trying to make sure that our members understand the true value, the return-on-investment, of their meetings and are comfortable going to their bosses and saying, “Not only do we need to hold this meeting for your stated business objectives, here is a list of the additional benefits that this meeting will provide our organization.”

Take AIG as an example.  If they had presented the ROI that they received from their meeting and said, “These top sales people represent 75% of the annual sales of our company.  If we don’t provide them with the proper training and recognize them for their achievements, we add risk and exposure to our business going forward.”

At the end of the day, the USTA has paraphrased it well, “Meetings Mean Business.”  Phone calls are important but getting out with your clients, meeting with your associates, driving business results comes through face-to-face interaction.  Events are the best way to do that.

Our President used that example with his town hall meeting approach unifying the nation around his mission, his vision.  He’s flying around to different places in the U.S. to do that.  Being there, feeling the energy and the passion – it’s critical.

Are face-to-face meetings vulnerable to technology?

I don’t think face-to-face meetings will ever be replaced.  Technology is becoming an integral part of the fabric of how we do business, particularly as we globalize.  The logistics of international travel come into play – the challenges with languages, customs, and cultures.  Ironically, face-to-face helps with that.  Reading someone’s body language can help break down barriers that you could never see on a video conference.  I don’t think technology will ever, or should ever replace face-to-face, but as companies continue to look for ways to be fiscally prudent, it may help reduce costs.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, things like this weren’t in peoples vocabulary a few years ago.  Twitter, for example, has become the way that many young people communicate, but they’re still getting together.  It’s not becoming a replacement, it’s supporting and enabling their conversations.  There will be a continued progression of that.

Our challenge at MPI is to make sure that we empower our members to keep pace, to keep that integral into what they are doing, to drive the business results that they are expecting, and provide them with the resources and understanding from our perspective of how they can stay current.

You could argue that joining an association in the past, in theory, would be “linked in.”  People with common interests getting in touch with each other is the association model of the past.  On the flip side, our position is that LinkedIN empowers people to extend their reach to additional groups that they may not have had an awareness or knowledge of.  Our responsibility is to make sure that the members have what they may need to be successful, know how to use it and how to apply it to being a good meeting planner.

What does the future hold for this industry and for MPI?

MPI is on the leading edge of future meetings.  Our opening general session (OGS) at MeetDifferent in Atlanta was webcast so that those worldwide members who were unable to attend could view the event.  We had a portal open that, as the OGS started, people could send in their feedback and Terry Savage could answer some of the questions that the audience had just asked online.  We had real-time feedback through Twitter.

Our members’ feedback to the use of this technology at MeetDifferent was very positive.  The news nature of the way we did it - in this case about the meeting industry crisis and the rhetoric – was well received.  It wasn’t an MPI or venue advertisement, it was geared to the content that our members, and the participants at that meeting, need to do their job.  We will continue to evolve especially as we look at the challenges in the economy.

We’re working on several webinar series.  We’ve integrated LinkedIN, Twitter and Facebook into some of our platforms.  We continue to develop our website so that it can be much more live and robust - not a static document.

On an individual basis, what advice would you give to someone who feels challenged or has just lost a position?

It is definitely not the time to put your head down.  You have to keep your head up and make your voice heard.

If you are at all worried, give another 10% on top of whatever you are doing to make sure that your company understands your value and why they would want you as part of their team.

Be proactive.  Particularly in challenging times, something is not going to land in your lap - you need to go out and find it.  This is the time to leverage your network.  It all goes back to the value of face-to-face meetings. 

Archived Articles >