We debuted our new live, call-in podcast, The Venue, last week. We had a blast interacting with members, and we’ve already upgraded our equipment (to get rid of those pesky echoes) for the next episode.

In case you missed the live version, you can listen to the recording above and hear what the Wolfe, myself, and members had to say about live-streaming, selfie-sticks, and comedians.

A shout out, also, to Chuck Tate—house manager and event supervisor at the Luther F. Carson Center for the Performing Arts in Paducah, Kentucky—for being our first call-in member. Thank you for participating.

We plan to have The Venue up on iTunes soon, and we’re looking at recording an episode at Venue Management School next week. Stay tuned!

I think I figured out why Millennials are being talked about again in such quantity—it’s because it’s graduation season. They’re entering the workforce. Or maybe they’re already a part of your organization. Nevertheless, you, as a venue manager, will be working with them, so it’s imperative you understand how to motivate and engage them.

However, it’s not just Millennials you have to consider. The Baby Boomers are still working, and more people from that generation are retiring later in life. Then you have the Gen X crowd to accommodate.

One of the ways we’re helping you manage different generations in your organization is through a training session at VenueConnect 2015 in Baltimore, Aug. 1-4. Jack Messenger, vice president of instruction and a certified trainer at Dale Carnegie Training, will lead a discussion on “Motivating and Engaging Different Generations.”

For example, Millennials want a workplace environment that offers flexible hours to allow a work-life balance, managers who trust them to do their work, and the availability of incentives for higher performance, according to a Dale Carnegie Training white paper.

And since more Millennials are in the workplace, that means more of them are in leadership roles. For young professionals, we’re offering a seminar called “From Friendship to Leadership,” led by Lindsay Adams, CSPGlobal, a principal at Teamocracy in Australia. Attendees will learn the essential traits of leadership, the must-do actions of leaders, and the critical items new leaders must avoid.

But wait, there’s more.

U.S. Navy SEAL Curt Cronin will present a session titled “Building Unstoppable Teams,” during which he’ll introduce to attendees an integrated leadership framework that identifies the key values, tasks, actions, disciplines, and attitudes required for success for any generation.

Then we’ll also offer more leadership training with the session, “You Can’t Make Omelettes Without Breaking Eggs: The Messy Work of Refining Your Leadership” Attendees at this session—led by Adams and Paul Bridle, CEO of Excellence Squared Limited—will learn how connecting people, processes, and performance creates profits and how identifying the right measurements and engaging people drives better results.

Whether you’re a current leader or a leader on the rise, VenueConnect offers several sessions to help you be successful. Register now, and we’ll see you in Baltimore!

Our latest recipient spotlight of the IAVM Foundation’s inaugural class of 30|UNDER|30 is Dani Cole, sales manager at the Tacoma Dome and the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center in Washington.

“We’re in an industry where there are always new trends, new technology, and new expectations that the clients are bringing us,” Cole said when asked what she feels is necessary for future success in the venue management industry. “It is imperative that we are continuing to educate ourselves, that we aren’t allowing ourselves to become complacent or stale, that we are always learning what all these new trends are so that we can create new and exciting experiences every time someone walks in our door. If we can do this, I know that we will stay relevant, we will be competitive, and that we will be remembered.”

One of the benefits of being named a 30|UNDER|30 recipient is a full complimentary registration to VenueConnect in Baltimore. However, Cole will not be able to attend because her two-year-old daughter, Emmy, was recently diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a form of cancer.

Cole created a CaringBridge page to help friends and family stay up-to-date on Emmy.

“If you would like to leave words of encouragement for Emmy or the family on social media please tag #TeamEmmyCole so that when she grows up and looks back at this time in her life she can easily find your messages online,” Cole wrote the page. “Many people have asked how they can help our family, here are two sites that that have been setup by loved ones. If you would like to make a monetary donation please visit http://www.gofundme.com/teamemmycole, or if you would like to provide a meal please visit http://www.takethemameal.com/meals.php?t=HSMZ2586.”

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Cole family and for Emmy’s health.

In accordance with IAVM policies and bylaws, the slate for the 2015-2016 Board of Directors is now available online. As in previous years, members will have an opportunity to cast their votes electronically in advance of VenueConnect in Baltimore, Maryland, Aug. 1-4, 2015.

“Members can read about the candidates online during their leisure and then cast their votes,” said Vicki Hawarden, CMP, IAVM president and CEO. “In addition, we will capture numerous more votes than would typically be counted onsite during a meeting.”

The ballot box will open soon, but in the interim take advantage of the opportunity to read all about those individuals slated to lead the Association during the next year.

I tell my management team and our part-time staff that the real purpose of my job is to help them be excellent in their jobs. Everything that we do as a management team is ultimately focused on ensuring that our front-line staff and their supervisors are put in a position to be successful. After all, the event day personnel are the ones that are face to face with our customers, our season ticket holders, our sponsors’ constituents. If they fail to execute, then the entire enterprise is a failure.

That mindset has always kept me interested and focused on staff training and development. I am in a constant search to find ways that we can better prepare our staff to meet the challenges and expectations that we have for them. They come to us with a variety of backgrounds and a spectrum of skills. And from this vast diversity, we seek to get uniform, high quality results. Then there is the other bit where we are limited on the amount of time and money we can spend on preparing them (training them) to do the job and the bit where they only do the job a few times a year (in my case the average staff member works about 17 events annually). Oh, and there is quite a lot of turnover. No matter how good you are, the event day personnel come and go (and go, and go).

So that’s the big puzzle. How do you take a transient labor force with a variety of skill and experience level, train them efficiently and then mobilize them periodically and expect them to deliver world-class service and experiences to your guests who have paid hundreds and thousands of dollars to attend the event? After more than 26 years of working at this, I have made some progress but I do not think I will ever figure it all out. But how I do love the challenge.

It is now June, and we at AT&T Stadium are preparing for the next season of events. We operate all year long, but the NFL season is the natural start of our event year. So the months of July and August are when we do a lot of event day staff training and ready for the coming 12 months of football, concerts, motor sports, corporate events, and everything else.

June is a chance for us to evaluate our training programs and make adjustments. This is our shot to again try and find that magic formula that will help us create that world-class service workforce. As I took inventory of our training programs, I came to realize that we had a big piece missing. And my guess is that most venue managers probably have the same piece missing from their trainings as well.

While we are diligent about teaching our staff the ins-and-outs of ushering, security, ticket taking, guest services, and the like, we have failed to teach them how to interact with our guests. Sure, we give them some guidelines—“Be helpful, smile, answer questions, be attentive.” But we don’t go much deeper. Why not? These staff members will spend almost 100 percent of their time interacting with our guests. Why don’t we spend more training time showing them what we want them to do and what we do not want them to do? Well, I intend on doing just that.

I have just finished creating a new training module entitled, “Communicating Effectively with Guests.” My academic background (albeit long, long ago) is in speech communication. So this topic is familiar waters for me. But the challenge was finding out what elements of communication skills training were best applicable in a venue setting, especially given the time constraints for the actual training session.

I arrived at a program that will take about 30 minutes to deliver. The communication training is built around the concepts of EMPATHY, EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES, and PHRASES THAT “WIN THE DAY.” The empathy component seeks to get the staff members to approach situations from the guest’s point of view. Far too often, we need to deal with staff who have been a little heavy handed or who have intervened in a situation only to inflame it. My hope is that we can stress the need to “put yourself in the guest’s shoes” and let that inform your interaction. The effective communication strategies component imparts some human psychology that affects communication. These are not haughty academic ideas. They are simple concepts like “Don’t tell people what to do; instead give them choices,” and “Don’t make threats; express appreciation and seek cooperation.” The last part, entitled Phrases that “Win the Day,” consists of carefully scripted responses to some typical guest interactions. The idea here is to arm the staff with some specific things to say that will get maximum results. The expectation is that the staff members will also use their experiences and this communications training to build their own phrases that “Win the Day.”

I’ve been in this business long enough to know that a training session will not ensure success. Training only becomes effective if there is systematic reinforcement of the training materials and active encouragement of the application of the training content. To that end, I have created a piece called the “Two Minute Drill” that serves as a training reminder/reinforce that we can implement on event day. Since we are an NFL stadium, we use a lot of football-themed things. Like the two-minute drill in football that is designed to elegantly use a limited amount of time to get the maximum yardage possible, the training version of the two-minute drill uses a couple of minutes from the supervisor’s crew briefing to refresh and reinforce the training content. The training program will be delivered as part of the staff training starting in July. Then at an event in October or November, we will roll out the “Two Minute Drill” piece on “Communicating Effectively with Guests.” We’ll see how it all goes.

If you are interested in receiving a copy of the “Communicating Effectively with Guests” training materials, I am willing to share. You can contact me at pturner@dallascowboys.net, and I will email it to you. I only ask for two things in return: No 1—If you have any feedback, corrections, or suggestions to my materials that I send you, then you are obligated to write or call me and share it with me. No. 2—If you have something that you have created and are willing to share, then send something to me. We must never take credit for someone else’s work, but we should be open to being inspired by it.

Be well.

(Image: Amy Wagliardo/Creative Commons)