B. Listening: Creating Your Own Industry Event Series

Events can be a powerful tool to foster connections, facilitate the exchange of ideas and find inspiration in your niche. Often there is a gap in an industry where professionals have a need to connect and learn from others. This is what Kim identified when setting up the Legal BD Futures Forum. She joins us on our podcast to share how she founded her own industry event series and grew it from a post on LinkedIn to a network of over 100 members.

In this episode she shares the ins and outs of planning the event and building a positive community such as marketing an event using LinkedIn, working with a limited budget, putting yourself out there and overcoming the fear of nobody showing up, finding speakers for your industry event, and utilising attendee feedback.

Hope you enjoy this episode!

B.listening is a podcast series created by the event professionals at Broadsword to share our insight and experience with individuals across or interested in the events industry. Follow us for more advice for event profs.

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Transcript

Christine: Hello and welcome to our podcast series created by us here at Broadsword called Be Listening. Today we're talking about all the ins and outs of starting your own event series - the challenges and every small detail that comes with it - with someone who has started their very own event series. Please welcome to the podcast, Kim Tolkien. 

Kim: Hi, thanks for having me. 

Christine: What can you tell us about the event series you produce for legal business development and marketing professionals? And what inspired you to start your own event series?

Kim: So I'm Kim, I'm a business development manager at Magic Circle law firm in London. So I work with a global IP team on winning new work, promoting themselves in the market and developing client relationships. 

But in my free time in the last year, I've also founded a professional network which organises free events for people in my industry. I run a network called LegalBD Futures Forum. So the aim is to foster connections among people in the industry, facilitate the exchange of ideas and help people to learn from each other through the events that we run.

I moved to London from Bristol in 2022 for a new job and I started attending different events to meet new people and young professionals and that sort of thing. But I didn't really meet anyone who did my job or anyone that really understood it and I'd only ever worked for one of the law firm previously. So I started thinking that I'd really like to build up my wider network and talk to some people that have similar challenges to me.

And I quickly realized the benefit of knowing people in the corporate world, especially in London. And in legal BD, as people tend to be around firms and get to know each other, there's a real benefit to knowing people in your industry and learning from them. And there are also a lot of networking initiatives that are set up at like the senior level, but nothing on the more junior end. And also as someone from a state school background with parents not in city jobs I also felt that having a ready-made professional network was a huge privilege that some people had and other people found it really inaccessible to build and it's not really easy to know where to start. 

So I started talking to a friend about this and I was a little bit frustrated about it and they suggested that I post on LinkedIn and just see if anyone in our industry would be really interested in meeting up and yeah, just was completely blown away by the response that it got. And we've now been going for a year and we've held many events and have over 100 members that regularly come to them. And it just massively took off. And now, yeah, the last year they've been running the different events. 

Christine: How do you identify the target audience and ensure that your events meet their needs? 

Kim: So I knew I wanted to target marketing and BD professionals. That's what I do. It's what I know.

And I knew there wasn't that much available in the market catering to our industry. And as a non -lawyer at a law firm, you can sometimes a little bit overlooked within the legal industry in terms of the opportunities that you have for professional development and meeting new people that do what you do that aren't in your firm. So I wanted to put LegalBD front and center of this initiative. And I initially talked to those at below manager level as I felt like this was the demographic that was most in need of creating those connections.

And as more senior people have had the opportunity to move around a little bit more. And I've since been promoted, so our audience has widened and we're now targeting a range of different levels as well. And at the start, our events were initially just networking focus. So I'd hold them in a bar or an interested business would host them. But after some feedback from attendees, these have recently become more content led. So we've introduced panels and topics with the aim of adding further value to attendees.

We've had one of these events so far and we were lucky enough that a law firm offered to sponsor them and host us. And the network is free. So the plan going forward is to look for more law firms who'd like to host an event as a way to upscale their BG and marketing colleagues and also have the opportunity to really show the market what their firm is about. 

Christine: What were the biggest challenges you faced when organising your first event and how did you overcome them? 

Kim: So the biggest challenge for me was really not knowing if anyone was going to turn up. So all of the outreach I did was through my own personal LinkedIn. I took confirmation from people over email and I kept track on a spreadsheet, but I didn't actually know people were going to find the time to come after work and really put themselves out there. And the other challenge we had was finding a venue. So with no budget, it's been really hard to places to hold the events that don't ask for a minimum spend or a deposit. And luckily, we found somewhere good for the first one and it went well.

And we've had a number of this or more networking focus events at that same venue, just because they they're quite set up for that sort of thing. And there's also been the issue of balancing my time spent on this alongside my work. And it's quite a demanding job, and I need to be available at short notice. But I am really passionate about both my career and developing the network. So I've managed to make it work. And my firm have been really supportive as well, which has been really helpful. 

Christine: That's incredible. Like, it's always difficult - You have your work, something you're passionate about, and then family and friends as well. Just a rumble of everything. 

Kim: Luckily, both for the network and my day job are very aligned. So they do overlap sometimes. So it's not clear cut to keep them too separate. 

Christine: What strategies do you use to market your events and attract attendees? 

Kim: So most of our marketing is through LinkedIn and through word of mouth in our industry.

And so once I had the first event in the diary, I messaged all of my previous colleagues who moved to other firms and current colleagues, anyone I thought would be interested and asking them to pass on to their teams. And I also set up a page where people could sign up to our mailing list so I can email them and promote all of our events through that and then also through LinkedIn posts. And I recently set up a company page for the network on LinkedIn. So posts can be a bit more about the wider group and less about just me posting personally.

And from the beginning, I quickly realized there was a huge interest in the market for these sorts of events. And it's been really great that we've really not had that many issues. been trying to fill spaces at our different events that we do, just because it is quite new and people are very interested. You mentioned that it kind of started as networking and moved into having speakers and panelists.

Christine:  How do you select and attract those speakers and panelists for your events?

Kim: So to find speakers, I started to reach out to people that I've worked with and know that they'd have something interesting to say, both previous and current colleagues. So I just reached out to people on LinkedIn, put myself out there and sort of reminded myself the worst they could say was no. And my first ever manager at a law firm agreed to be one of the speakers at the most recent event, which was just brilliant. And I'm just really grateful to him and the other speakers for sharing their experiences and really trusting us with their time. And I also got some input from our committee on their connections and who they know and who would provide some interesting insights that they think that they've come across. And the success of the group on LinkedIn, I think, has really helped with this, as it's helped reassure the speakers that this is a worthwhile thing to be involved with. And it's quite a positive network. And there's no sort of downsides to being involved, rather than just getting to share their experiences with an interested group of people.

Christine: Can you describe the process you followed to ensure the content at your events is relevant and valuable to the participants? 

Kim: So I mentioned we have a committee. So when we decided we were going to do more content at events, I was approached by some really interested members who wanted to put together a committee for the group. I then reached out to the wider membership and see if anyone else was interested. And we've now got a really amazing collection of people from across a number of different firms.

And we get together and they provide insights and give their opinions on what we think we should cover. And we stay connected over email quite a lot and also meet up in person when we can to discuss future events and decide on topics and share any ideas we've seen from our own networks and from our own firms. And we really tried to make sure this covered a wide variety of firms, from the massive Magic Circle multinationals to smaller IP boutiques as well. And we just wanted to get a more of a difference in types of firms is to try and make sure that it covers more of the network that we were trying to target. And I think the way that we try to ensure our content and our events are relevant is just listening to attendees and just being really open to feedback. So this network is meant to add value to them and the industry. So we're always looking to incorporate their opinions on how to do that.

Christine: How do you measure the success of your events and what feedback mechanisms do you have in place to gather insights from attendees and improve future events?

Kim: So during the events, I'm often going around asking people their thoughts and the things they like, what they'd like to see and so on. At the most recent event, we also have feedback forms, although not many of these were actually filled out because people were too busy talking. But we're looking at maybe introducing a follow -up digital survey to kind of help with this so they're not having to think about it at the time and maybe they can send some thoughts afterwards.

I think the main metric success for me is people attending and continuing to attend as we grow. And thinking that coming to these events is worth their time. And then what they feedback when I'm going around the room or speaking to them afterwards. We've also had some really helpful constructive feedback from people, which I really appreciate as we want the events to be the very best that they can be. 

Christine: Can you share any memorable experiences or success stories from your events that highlight their impact?

Kim: I think the highlights for me personally have been our first event. So I was just walking around just thanking everyone profusely for turning up. I was just completely blown away that people were there and that it went so well. And I had a huge smile on my face for a long time after that. And a lot of the people that came to that first event are still coming now. And some have been to every single one, which I see as a massive success because they've stayed interested as we've grown, as we've developed.

Also our most recent event I have to mention, which is the one that was hosted by a law firm for the first time. We had over 50 people from a wide range of firms turn up in their free time after work. It was an event that we'd put together to learn from each other and meet new people. It was our first panel event, so it was very much a test of concept, see if anyone would be interested in that format. And it turned out, thankfully, that they were. And it was also hugely humbling that a firm was willing to fund the event and invest in our network.

And we received so much positive feedback afterwards. And people telling me about all the different connections they've made, which is very much the fundamental purpose of the network. 

Christine: It's really just heartwarming to see that people do actually want to meet in person and meet people who do similar things to them. 

Kim: Yeah, definitely. think especially after COVID and the conversation around hybrid events and doing events online, I know the firm that I worked at previously during COVID, there was a lot of webinars going on and there was a lot of discussion afterwards about whether or not we'd actually go back to in -person events. And I personally really enjoy them. I think they work a lot better for some different formats for particular things like this where you want to actually meet new people and make those connections. 

Christine: Since we're coming to the end of this podcast, what advice would you give to someone looking to start their own event series in the legal field or another professional domain? 

Kim: So I'd just say Go for it. Just don't hesitate to put yourself out there. You'll be really surprised the amount of people you were looking to connect in your industry, like no matter what you do. Some people say to me that legal BD is quite niche and it probably is for people who are outside the industry, but you can see that so many people are interested even though that's the case. And I'd say start with people that you know, so people at work, see if you can leverage their connections. Other people may have worked at different places to you and most of you really happen to open doors for you if you ask them. Also, it can really benefit your career if you do it in the right way. So check in with your work when you need to, just have some common sense about it, do a sense check when you're unsure about something around maybe there's social media policy at work or something like that. And hopefully they'll be just as supportive as my firm has been. And they'll also be able to see the benefits that this has for them. And also finally, just have fun with it. I've met so many amazing people through this network and it's been a real positive thing over the last year. So just enjoy it. And if you're having fun with it, the most likely your attendees will do too. 

Christine: Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast today and sharing your thoughts and expertise with us. 

Kim: This has been great. Thank you very much for having me.