Hortz: How did you bring in so many industry leaders and solutions providers so quickly? 

Kramer: This was actually one of the easier parts of planning Virtual Host U, believe it or not. Between my network comprised of many movers and shakers I was able to introduce to White Glove after joining the company, and the network White Glove had already established over the years, it was not difficult to recruit our panel of speakers. So, it was really not so much about looking at the relationships but determining which of those people are evolving with relevant virtual experiences that would best suit the Virtual Host U agenda.

When it boils down to it, it is ultimately about surrounding yourself with the right people, both as a company and as an individual professional. No one can predict what changes life will bring, so establishing yourself and your company, and partnering with others, to proactively navigate times of change is huge. Virtual Host U was definitely a testament to how the law of attraction comes into play in business.

Hortz: How exactly did you work together with your strategic partners to design the educational content and a digital approach to stay relevant?

Galloway: This was a pretty natural process. Once the pandemic hit, White Glove and the folks who helped us deliver Virtual Host University hit the ground running with finding out how to effectively reach across the digital divide and truly connect without physical human interaction. By the time to plan for  Virtual Host U rolled around, it was a matter of taking stock of the data and the most effective approaches we have all taken over the previous few months and compiling it into a digestible format for our audience – the advisors who would be taking this info away and applying it to their own businesses.

Ultimately, there really are so many good things that a virtual conference can do. For instance, virtual is so efficient at the transmission of knowledge and information. With Virtual Host U, the format was simple: we had a speaker, then a five-minute break and then a giveaway. Then the next speaker came on and we had that same groove. We were able to compress time and deliver Virtual Host U in four hours, whereas normally, this event takes a couple days.

Having to give up post-event dinners, multiple days of networking and back-of-the-room conversations that helped us build rapport was tough. Some things will never be able to be made virtual, but we are all at a point where we cannot focus on that right now. It’s challenging, be we must focus on all that virtual can do.

Hortz: What were the major obstacles and how did you solve for them?

Galloway: Number one challenge was technology. But I want to stress this: when dealing with technology or events, there are always going to be challenges and setbacks, so it is really a helpful mindset to just look at them as inevitable logistics rather than as challenges.

When we first started offering White Glove webinars, we were literally beta testing and learning how to operate the virtual platform ourselves. We did not have the luxury of time to test multiple providers and learn to become subject matter experts to make sure we could optimize the experience. Quite honestly, there were some very, very rough starts. We had some challenging events that did not go as well due to technical glitches driven by user error.

I thank goodness for our clients and those who tuned into our first few B2B virtual events, because we had a fair share of tech issues, yet our attendees had so much grace. They were very forgiving. For example, there was one webinar where attendees were stuck in the virtual waiting room for almost 20 minutes because of a tech issue, but they all stuck around! That’s A LOT of grace. This is one of those times in history when so many people, across various generations, can truly say, “we’re all in this together,” and this is so true on so many different levels, but especially, technologically. Everyone kind of gets it.