The Influential Advisor

086: The Book-Launch Party Playbook for Financial Advisor Authors with Elyse Stoner & Angela York

• Paul G. McManus

Share episode

Episode Summary:
Ever hosted a client event and wondered if it truly moved the needle for your business? In this episode, we’re joined by Elyse Stoner and Angela York—co-founders of Event Advisors—who share the secret sauce behind turning events like book launches into powerful referral and relationship-building tools.

Unlike traditional advisor events that focus on entertainment, Elyse and Angela dive into the art and science of designing strategic events that align with business goals and client journeys. They reveal how financial advisors can host meaningful book parties that not only celebrate a milestone but also deepen client connections, enhance their personal brand, and spark warm introductions.

Whether you’re planning your first book launch or want to rethink your approach to events altogether, this conversation is packed with actionable insights that can help elevate your next client gathering from "just another party" to a scalable growth lever.

Meet the Guests:

  • Elyse Stoner: Veteran of the sports, entertainment, and higher education event world; now specializes in event strategy for advisors.
  • Angela York: Former in-house marketing expert for advisory firms; now consults on event marketing and implementation across the financial services industry.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Why most advisor events fall flat—and how to fix them
  • The core difference between a strategic event and a traditional one
  • How to use your book launch as a client journey milestone, not just a party
  • What ROM (Return on the Moment) means—and why it's more useful than ROI
  • The ideal invite list: who should be there (and who shouldn’t)
  • Clever ways to boost attendance and event engagement
  • How to use photography to empower clients to refer others post-event
  • When and how to include press, prospects, and COIs

Key Takeaways:

  • Strategic Planning Starts Early: Begin conceptualizing your book party during the writing phase. Pull themes and quotes from your manuscript to shape the tone of the event.
  • Measure ROM, Not ROI: Forget trying to track revenue from a single night—instead, focus on how the event strengthens relationships and supports your client experience stream.
  • Curate the Guest List Carefully: Invite your A, B, and even C clients—plus COIs and warm prospects who align with your goals. Make it feel exclusive.
  • Infuse Personality & Branding: From pink-themed dress codes to framed book quotes, details matter. Let your personality and book branding show.
  • Photographs as Referral Tools: Use event photography for more than just memories—turn photos into custom follow-up cards that help clients introduce you to their networks.
  • Personal Invitations = More Yeses: Encourage top clients to bring a guest—not for sales, but to make them more comfortable and increase attendance.
  • Events Don't Have to Be Expensive: Community centers, home venues, or office spaces can all work with the right vibe and planning.

Pro Tip:
Want your book party to leave a lasting impression? Plan a heartfelt toast, set up a “step and repeat” for photos, and think beyond the event night—your follow-up is where the real referrals begin.

Resources & Contact Info:

  • Visit event-advisors.net for strategy guides, services, and their bi-weekly newsletter "Valuable Views."
  • Want support for your next event? Elyse and Angela offer both consulting and full-service event planning tailored to financial advisors


Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com

Support the show

Speaker 1:

If you're like most financial advisors, you know this feeling. The event is over, guests have gone home and you're left staring at a $5,000 bill wondering what did I actually accomplish? Tonight you hosted another wine tasting, holiday party or educational workshop. Your clients seem to enjoy themselves, but can you point to a single new relationship, meaningful referral or deepened connection? Or was this just another expensive tradition? According to our guests, today, the financial services industry has been doing events backwards for decades. While tech companies use events to close million-dollar deals and luxury brands create experiences that mint evangelists, most advisors follow the same tired playbook from 20 years ago. But what if your next event could transform top clients into active advocates who naturally introduce you to their successful friends? Elise Stoner and Angela York are here to reveal what separates a strategic event from an expensive party.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the podcast. I've been looking forward to this discussion for the last several weeks. I know we've been working together with multiple clients in helping them to prepare for their book parties. We've already got feedback from one that the event was amazing. We have another common client that's gonna be doing one tonight and then one next week, and fingers crossed that all these events are executed flawlessly. But with that being said, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you and just to get started, I'd love to have our listeners have a chance to get to know who you are. So what's your background story? How did you get to doing what you do today? And since there's two of you, I will ask Elise to start out so good to see you, as always.

Speaker 3:

My background comes from the sports, entertainment and even higher education event world. None of those worlds do events without reason, without purpose, without marketing value. As I grew up in my career, I thought that's how everybody did it. In 2016, I started a business to help people outside of those fields be more strategic in their events, their event strategy and even the marketing of their events. And then, during the pandemic, Angela and I met and shared this idea of event strategy. Where she came from, that didn't exist. So we've married sort of our two views of the world to be able to help financial advisors and folks in the financial services space really have strategic events that help drive business.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic Angela. What is your background?

Speaker 4:

My background is actually in the advisor, marketing and event space Pretty much my entire career. I spent almost a decade in-house in an advisory firm, managing their marketing plans, implementing them, executing their events, developing those relationships with COIs, prospects and clients. In 2008, I branched off and started consulting in that same area for local advisory firms and some wholesaler firms doing exactly that implementing their marketing, creating and or implementing their marketing plans and executing their events. And when Elise and I met and she was talking about strategic events, it was like nothing in the financial services industry for events is strategic. It was a light bulb, aha moment being able to integrate strategic event planning into the financial services industry. It really makes a difference on the success of the event, the relationship you build with your client and the success of your firm, the increase in the AUM long-term.

Speaker 2:

Help me understand better just that difference between strategic and non-strategic. I'd love to maybe to the extent possible kind of contrast that what is in a strategic advisor event versus what many most advisors are doing. What are they getting wrong?

Speaker 3:

As Angela talked about. What we were finding is and we are finding that advisors host events because of any number of reasons. I saw somebody else do it, somebody told me I should do it, and then they do it and literally it's on my checklist. I check it off, I move forward. A strategic event is not unlike these pictures that you see over our shoulders with the rocks in the stream. A strategic event is that rock the stream is either your marketing or your client experience journey and by having that rock in the stream you can direct the flow of where that experience is going to go. It's a strategy. It's based on information. We like to say a good strategic event is based on your business goals and has event goals of its own to be able to determine success. How many times have you talked to people and you go?

Speaker 2:

hey, how was your event? And that's the question, right, I literally was at an event recently for a client of mine. It was a book launch party, and I asked that proverbial question what'd you think, Was it successful? And the immediate response and this was at the same night of the event, because from my vantage point it was successful, meaning that there was a room filled with his ideal existing clients, it was a book party, Everyone was having fun, we had a photographer. They're taking pictures To me by all markers. It's like this was a successful event. What he's really saying is that, is this going to drive revenue? And there's, I think, a gap where there's a you're not going to drive revenue that night, and so it's hard to measure from that perspective. And so what is the proper frame for an advisor to look at that? Are they measuring? How should they measure return on investment?

Speaker 3:

Or is there a better way to measure the event? We always say, if you're trying to measure ROI of an event, you will always lose. Our philosophy is measuring what we call ROM. Return on the moment, that event. What are the goals that you have for that event as it pertains to the stream? And that's how you measure success. Did I have my top clients in the room? We talk a lot about what we call event personality. We want this to be a fun, celebratory event. Okay, were people having a good time? Did you feel celebrated? Did they feel celebrated? Did you have five fun, interesting activities that people could do? That would be how you would measure success. Not people came. They ate my food. Nobody got food poisoning. They all left. They all made it home safely.

Speaker 2:

Those could be goals too, but Not the reason to put the vent on.

Speaker 4:

It's a mindset that is developed while you're planning the event. So the example you just gave, paul, it was clear that advisor didn't have goals because they couldn't speak to if it was successful or not From your vantage point you look at. What we look at is okay, clients were in the room, food was good, it was full room, there were conversations. You had goals in your head. So that's one of the first places we start is looking at the business objectives and, in this case, the book objectives and long term planning, as well as the book launch party objectives, and then that all funnels into the event logistics and the clients that we've worked on with you.

Speaker 4:

Again, that was our first question and they had that mindset shift that, okay, I want to have a fun event and that is a great goal, and so let's build in a few logistics that amplify fun. So at the end of the event, which is in the next week or two, that's going to be the question Did everybody have fun and was it a success? Their response should be yes, everybody had fun, the goal was achieved and, of course, the other goals, but it really along with several other things that have to be planned in the event. That's where you start, and then you have a benchmark to measure the success of the event.

Speaker 3:

Part of that too is the event marketing Big proponent of having the goals setting into your logistics. But if that is also when you know what your event goals are, you can communicate those in the event marketing, in your invitations, in your save the date. We highly recommend again. The difference between a strategic event and a event is that there is a marketing cadence, there's a communication cadence that happens between the time that somebody says yes, I'm going to come and that actual event and it's everything from. Again, logistics this is where you should park, this is what you should wear. This is the vibe. Here's a sample of the playlist Get people primed and excited and ready. So when they get there they're ready to hit the ground and have fun or do the thing that you have set them up to do.

Speaker 4:

There's a good example from one of our mutual clients that we worked with a couple of weeks ago couple of weeks ago, and we had this exact conversation with them to integrate some of the tone, the theme, the fun, the celebratory feel that she wanted from the event and in her confirmation email. The book itself has a unique branding color. There was pink on the back of the book because that ties into her branding. She put in the confirmation email if you're so inclined, wear your favorite color of pink. And they did. Women and men both showed up in pink and it was a very pink affair and it just tied it all together and that, from the attendee standpoint, it just makes it fun and memorable. Oh my gosh, everybody was in pink. Oh my gosh, that was cool. And then there was photos. So all of that and it was a little shift, just a little one, and it just made a big impact.

Speaker 2:

Just before we started recording, you were sharing a common, a shared client that we have, and you shared something that would be fascinating, which was that he had I believe it was 44 people attend his event and only one person was a no-show. I think that's phenomenal If you can achieve that somewhat consistently when you put an event, because I think that's probably one of the biggest fears. I don't want to go and put all this time and energy and effort into something and then, well, they show up or not. One question is when should you start planning this? How far out and let's maybe use a book party for the example and how do you maximize attendance? Because that's probably one of the biggest worries that people have.

Speaker 4:

For a typical event, an in-person event we recommend For book launch. I actually like to recommend a little bit longer and almost think of it while you're developing the book, while it's in, while it's being published. And again, you don't have to be sending save the dates out six months in advance, but those little nuances that are in the book, while you're writing them, that you want to convey to the readers and your clients, jot them down. Certain, saying there's one of the launch parties, there were certain quotes on being intentional and those quotes ended up showing up at the party in frames. The more time the better. Eight weeks definitely. But if for the book launch, you have that flexibility to start planning it and formulating some of the details, you can do that while you're publishing it and writing it. Then, once we do the getting the venue and starting to send save the dates, at least eight weeks.

Speaker 2:

Say, in this example, person has 100 plus 200 clients per se and it's a book party. What's the goal? How would you advise, what would you suggest the goal would be and, of course, the advisor has their opinion but what would be the outcome that you would want in terms of how many people am I inviting? Am I inviting A-level clients? Am I inviting A, bs and Cs? Am I looking to get prospects to attend? From your experience, what do you see as the most successful when it comes to a book party?

Speaker 3:

I think for the book launch party. I don't love prospects there because if the goal again is celebrating this moment of I've published this book, like my heart, blood, sweat, tears, everything I've gone into this I want to celebrate it with you, my clients. It raises that selectivity bar. If you will, I'll let Angela in a second talk about the ABC part of it, but I think the idea of who do you want in that room and when you're qualifying them, is it people I want to celebrate with? Is it people I know who are connected, so it could be A's and B's and COIs, so that it again the idea of they're going to talk about. I went to this cool book party and then we also have some follow-up tips on how you can help those people not only get the word out but actually get your book out as an event follow-up.

Speaker 4:

You want to look at the goals and we talked about that a little while ago. I agree that you really want to celebrate this with your clients and I would open it up to your A's, your B's and your C's, because your C's very well could become B's and A's, depending on their situation down the road family, inheritance, whatever it might be. So don't exclude them. They're clients and you want them to feel loved and part of the celebration. I would put an asterisk on the prospects. If there are prospects that are very warm and very likely to turn into clients, the positioning could be they may know about the book writing, because if you're doing this well enough in advance, there might be a coming soon website or coming soon on your signature. So people should know about the book. You could personally invite them because you know that they are progressing towards becoming a client.

Speaker 4:

Having a book launch party for our clients and we would love we're celebrating the launch of the book and we would love for you to attend. That actually could be a very strong moment in that relationship. Just prospects that you really haven't had, those continuous conversations no, I would not. That's a whole nother campaign on the book launch and the discussion. But for the book launch party clients, abcs, definitely COIs that you have those strong relationships with, because again your vision could be the CLI has a client. You've just given them five books and they're handing it out to their clients, so it becomes a very natural referring tool. So definitely keep all those in mind. Of course, every advisor is different, so perhaps it is a very small, intimate event with only A clients. But for to really answer that question, globally A's, b's, c's, top prospects and CLIs- this is clarifying for me because it's.

Speaker 2:

I guess where I started thinking about this is that what's the purpose of a book and all the marketing that extends from it was to get new clients, and so I guess, in my own thinking, if a person can bring a prospect, that's the good goal to have, but I guess when I'm listening to you talk, it's actually that's for being clear about your goals up front is important, because maybe that's not the goal and I like how you define that is that it is that I call this the inner circle soft launch in my book Bookmarking for Financial Advisors and so this really aligns with that, which is you want to engage those top people, the people that are already your best clients or advocates, and you want to really use this as a means to really turn them into what I describe as active advocates, and so the messaging I think needs to be as you're saying, needs to be consistent hey, this is an event for my clients, or this is an event for my top clients.

Speaker 2:

Of course, cois can naturally fit in there, but then I'd like what you said If it is a prospect, it's not that you can't say no, you can't attend, but you still want to maintain that this is an exclusive event for my best clients.

Speaker 2:

So I think that just the messaging is very congruent. I would add to that and this might be an opportunity to expand upon that Because I remember one of the consulting calls that you guys did with a client of mine is that in this case, like I'm going to be going to another book party and of a client of mine, I support them. Obviously, I have to travel to get there. So it's a question okay, do I want to jump on the plane and go or not? And as I was thinking about that, part of my own reasoning was well, I don't want to go alone, right, because if I go alone I'm going to be uncomfortable. And then somebody really enjoy it Probably not. And then say I don't want to go. But then my brother, who also knows this client, I asked him it's like, would you go with me? And he's like yeah, I'll go.

Speaker 2:

So it's like great, Now we're going to go, we're going to have fun, I don't need to worry about is this worth my time, Am I going to have fun, et cetera. Would that be an exception? Would it be like my best clients and someone that you want to bring with you and have fun, not for the purpose of selling them per se, but just to? That could almost happen organically.

Speaker 4:

And that's exactly where I was when you were talking. I had that aha moment and I let you continue on and that's exactly it. So you have what I had mentioned before the asterisk of your prospects, the ones that you're that are very warm and likely to become clients, and you want to invite them to this exclusive event. Then you have the flip side, which is what you just said your top clients that you know might be coming by themselves. You can personally extend hey, paul, we really would love you to come, and if there's anybody you'd love to bring with you, they are more than welcome. So that needs to be very strategic and very well thought out and a personal invitation. It's not on the main invitation. You know, everybody's welcome, everybody can bring a friend. Put it up in your HOA bulletin board, all can come.

Speaker 4:

It's not like that, it's very select, because then that made you, the client or the COI, feel, okay, I'm going to come, I want to support them. And you can do that again individually when you see they have an RSVP, when you know that they are single, when you just even want to extend an invitation. So let's say about top client and they have adult children and maybe you've met them once or twice before. Where you want to meet them, it could be a phone call going Mary and Joe, I'm really glad you're attending the book launch. Would you like to bring Kathy and her husband? They are more than welcome. It will be a really fun event and we'd love to have you all celebrate with us.

Speaker 2:

I really like where this conversation is going and I think that anyone listening should really make notes of this. It's your best clients, it's the COIs, it's maybe some very warm prospects that you want to selectively invite, and it's also making the guest feel comfortable and more wanting to come by saying, hey, if there's someone that you want to bring with you because we're going to have fun here this isn't a sales thing, this is to have fun Then they're more likely to come. This leads naturally into, okay, the content of the event, and let's try to keep it around the frame of the book party, because it's like part of the decision is I guess if it's an existing client, you're not too worried about getting sold to. If I'm going to invite someone, then it's like I don't want them to get sold to. So what should the content be for a book party? Is someone talking? Are they mingling? Are they having fun? What are some of the key things that a book launch party event should be focused in on? In terms of the event itself?

Speaker 3:

We love the idea again of that event, personality, of being celebration and whatever and this is where we work with our clients, right, it's a pretty big word. So we dig into what does that mean, what does that mean to them, what does that mean to their clients? And also intertwining concepts or design of the book into that celebration. It's almost going to have a I'm going to send the book out ahead of time and we're going to book club it. It doesn't necessarily need to be a totally structured at 8.05, we're doing this and at 8.10, we're doing this. We do like to have a celebratory moment, a toast, a heartfelt welcome from the author and what it means for you to have written this book, what it means to you to have these people here to celebrate with you, some sort of thank you moment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's a moment. That's five minutes, 10 minutes. That's not like a 30 minute, 60 minute speech, it's a moment.

Speaker 3:

Exactly you. Again, we can help people think about what's in your book and how do you extrapolate themes into that one of the other things, it doesn't need to be expensive event personality, and how do you wind all of that together?

Speaker 2:

When you say expensive, so is that by say, for example, having it at your office versus having it at a restaurant? What are your thoughts in terms of venue?

Speaker 3:

It's different for everybody. If it's a small intimate group that you want to have and you've got a really cool atrium space at your office, great. We had a client. It wasn't a book launch, but she hosted an event at the community center in her apartment complex. So it doesn't have to be restaurant, hotel, it doesn't have to be office. There's a lot kind of going on in the middle. That's where we help people really think through what that looks like, not only from a budget point of view. What's the message that you're trying to convey with this event that you're hosting?

Speaker 4:

I think that's a really important statement. What's the message you're trying to convey with the event and the book itself? And we like to take a step back and get to know the advisor's personality as well, because the advisor's personality fueled the content of the book and not every advisor or person has that very let's have fun, let's be celebratory, and we want it to be comfortable for the advisor. And then that will naturally open up the ideas for where to have it, and then cost will fall into that. If it does work and you do want to have it at a restaurant, maybe it's not full dinner, maybe it's light appetizers.

Speaker 4:

If you're doing it at the office or community center or I think one of them was at a wine tasting, maybe then have it catered or have it a bartender, because you're not spending the room rental fees or some of those extra fees. And just as a side note for all events in general the wedding venues, the hotels, the country clubs they tend to be on the higher side because they have the room fee and the AV fee and the it's like the airline tiers. You need to have an extra fee to restroom or breathe. There are tips in general for event planning on where you can plan, keep the cost down, and then it also depends on are you doing a small intimate event and then you can splurge a little bit? We also like to. This is a whole separate conversation. But if you involve your wholesalers, they tend to have marketing support budgets and that can offset some of your costs as well.

Speaker 2:

So in one of the events that I recently attended, again, I thought from my perspective. I thought it was great To me what the goals, at least in my own mind, were, which was 50 plus people. It was at a restaurant. The whole thing was busy the whole time for two hours, from beginning to end. People were having fun. There was, people were standing, they were mingling, there was food being catered, there was alcohol being served.

Speaker 2:

We brought in a photographer and for an hour of the event and the whole time, the photographer is following around the advisor taking photos and so you just observing that as well, you're like a celebrity and which is it's not just an ego thing, but it's like it's. That's how you would ideally want your best clients and COIs and prospects to see you as you actually are an important person. So it just really captured that moment and as I was thinking about it, I was thinking okay, what would be the next level of this? How can you take that concept and this event and this opportunity to then extend it out to what might be some other goals, which, of course, are how does this maybe empower my best clients to bring in more introductions and referrals?

Speaker 2:

Not necessarily at the point of the event. But downstream down the road and in one of our recent calls with another client, you had some really, I thought, clever ideas about how to take advantage of a photographer in the event setting and the book setting. Could you share I think it was probably with Laura who was the person we were talking to but can you share some of those ideas about what are some of those really smart, clever ways to maximize the event when it comes from whether it's photography, and then that could also lead into what's the follow-up right Is the event, is it done and we're like go home with it and hopefully not too much of a hangover or what are the next steps.

Speaker 4:

A photographer can really add different levels of celebration to the event if you plan it ahead of time. So a couple of examples would be you hire a photographer, you have what they call a step and repeat those big banners behind you and you can put a copy of the book and the logo that's the common one we like and it repeats on this banner and you have an area where photos are taken and to make it exclusive, we recommended you'd have it roped off almost like a red carpet feel. So the author is there taking photos with guests and then we like to recommend having a list in your head, or even on a little piece of paper, of your top clients or COIs that you know are going to be there and make sure you get those shots and create a shot list for the photographer ahead of time. So it's a really good strategic way to integrate a photographer and then you take those photos and you can repurpose them in, of course, your follow-up emails. But you can also do down the road after the event. You can create a program where the photo of you, the author, the advisor and the client are on a card and then that message on the inside of the card is directed towards a friend of the client or attendee, and that will accompany a copy of the book.

Speaker 4:

I had the privilege of meeting the author or being with the author at their book launch party. This book talks about X, y, z. I'd love for you to have a copy and read it again a very non-salesy way to get the book into more hands.

Speaker 2:

So then, going back to the logistics of a photographer, let me just underscore that for a second because I want to make sure that's fully fleshed out. You have a shot list you said of the maybe not everybody, but at least some of the key people that you want to make sure you capture a photograph in a very specific spot of them and you, together maybe with the book, but something that is intentional and the idea there is that down the road you now turn that into some sort of card or some sort of marketing collateral that's elegant that you can then give to that client and ask, encourage, whatever the word is them to be able to then use that as well as your book, as a tool to then make introductions. And what I love about that from a psychological standpoint. So I love the psychology of persuasion and influence and marketing and it's the person's becoming that much more invested without realizing it. Maybe they realize it, but it's not go share my book with your top five friends. No, this is a very elegant way to bring them naturally into your world and, I would say, create some intrinsic motivation on their behalf where they actually want to do it or, at the minimum, they feel comfortable doing it.

Speaker 2:

Because I use this, I say this about writing a book. It's like nobody wants to be sold to and nobody wants to say, hey, you should go work with my advisors. I didn't ask you, I don't, what do you want? But it's a different thing. We say, hey, my, my advisor just wrote a book. It's actually really compelling, you should read it, you should listen to it. That's a much different thing, because when you're an author, you have elevated status, or at least elevated perceived status, and so now it's different when you're introducing someone who has that elevated status. Oh, friends with this person, oh, wow, you're special too. So there's this transfer of being feeling special, and so the photography there just really naturally falls into that psychology.

Speaker 3:

Exactly, and a spin on that, because I do love that, and the fact that it's a good quality photograph versus hey, it's selfie time. But there is some value in that and one of our favorite things to do is so. Where that step and repeat is when the author is not hanging out there for the shot list is encouraging people to take pictures in front of that, and one of the tips that we love is to have somebody standing there. I find anybody a 12 to 15 year old is usually pretty good, and what is going to happen is Angela and I walk up to that step and repeat and maybe aren't so good at selfies, but there's this person who's standing there who says, hey, give me your camera and I'll take your picture for you, and then they have it on it's on their phone and you could get into hashtags if you're so inclined, or just simply a hey, here we are at this event. How fun was this? It's that subliminal piece, but it's actually a decent picture.

Speaker 4:

And we say we have the recommendation of a 12 to 15 year old. It can certainly be a staff member as well. We want every team member to have a role, but usually they are doing other roles and if there happens to be a family member of in the team that is 12 to 15 or college age, they're great and they're very inexpensive or sometimes free, and so they can, and literally they're so great on their phones it's just in their nature. They can help people take that photo and they're usually pretty good at it and that's a pretty low cost way to get extra photos. You can have a poster or sign with hashtags. You can have a QR code that they can upload it into a collective site where you can access them. There's lots of different ways to utilize those photos. I know some people might be thinking photographer, that's expensive, a regular photographer that's taking pictures. There are ways to get around that expense. Student photographers are great. Home-based mompreneurs they're great. Again, they're charging the fee, but they're not charging the wedding fees.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm going to object, because if you're doing a book party and you're fretting about the cost of photographer, we need to talk Just in the time that we have. I've gained from this conversation. I've gained clarity, especially around goals, so this has been just helpful. I've enjoyed the conversation. It's been helpful for me. I can imagine someone listening to this who's writing their book and about thinking about okay, what do I do with this book and how do I make a big splash. I believe that this conversation so far has been helpful.

Speaker 2:

One of the things I'd like to say is that we've created I would say essentially a strategic relationship where we're going to be for our clients that are looking to do book party launch. We're going to be encouraging them to work with you guys to help make sure that it's a success and so just help our audience understand. What is it that you do, from whether it's a consulting side to a full boots on the ground type thing. What's that range? What do you typically do? Because I can imagine a lot of people that we work with. They have people on their team, they have a marketing director. They might have someone on the team that handles events. How do you add on to that, from a consulting role to how do you potentially do the full thing?

Speaker 3:

So the consulting role is a lot like this conversation. We have certain questions that we ask when we're on the line. Again, it doesn't have to all be in person. We can obviously do this virtually the whole idea of we know the questions to ask, to take this in a strategic manner. So we work with people as consultants. That's the top level, the first foremost. If they have a team, we can consult with that team in the logistics space so that the author comes for the big conversations and then we're working on logistics and messaging and all of those sorts of things with the team. If they don't have a full-time dedicated team, we can also help venue ideas, copywriting, those pieces of the puzzle. So there's lots of different ways that we can work with authors, advisors on making those events strategic and a stepping stone in the client journey.

Speaker 2:

Very cool and, for the record, you also work with events more broadly. I know that I know the focus of our conversation has been around a book launch, but you do for someone listening to this and they have like other events in mind. You do and can work with people more broadly. Angela, just in the time we have any final words of wisdom in terms of book events or book parties.

Speaker 4:

I think if there's one takeaway from this is look at the book launch as a stepping stone to the relationships with your clients and your COIs and even your top-level prospects. It's not just a check off the box. I wrote a book, I had a party, you use it. As for those that can see our backgrounds or rock in that string that really can help control your client's journey. So look at that as really opening up the conversations with your clients, the next steps to being a thought leader and using the book to do that. So don't just think of it as a one and done.

Speaker 2:

Question came to my mind and I do give her encourage people to invite media to the events, or is that separate for the book party?

Speaker 4:

They can, absolutely. It really depends, though, going back to the goals of the advisor. So you have one shot at a book launch party and you've got goals for that party. If the goal is to also have reach into the community, it wouldn't hurt to invite select press. Here it's the Orange County Business Journal, and again, you can use that down the road in your follow-up and in your marketing. Be very strategic about it. You're not going to go inviting the national news.

Speaker 3:

Yes, but I think there's other ways to engage. Whether it's the Orange County Business Journal or the Wall Street Journal, Photos or videos from your launch party could be a great tool in trying to engage those media sources.

Speaker 2:

Just to wrap things up, I hope a listener who's with us at this point really got value from this. I do this for a living and I've been on multiple calls with you guys and I'm still getting value. Imagine where you are today in terms of your thoughts about this is the event and this is what I'm gonna do, which we'll say is good, and then let's imagine how much better and excellent it can be for all the effort and time that you put into writing the book, publishing the book and going forward all the goals that you have in mind in terms of leveraging it. So just, I've found a lot of value in working with you guys as a sounding board.

Speaker 4:

I know I've brought you in for a couple clients. You said six to eight weeks.

Speaker 2:

I brought you in a week or two to go, but you provided excellent value. I got feedback from my clients. They really appreciated and got value from the calls. The results that we're seeing as these events unfold are amazing and if you're looking to do a book launch party, I think it's definitely worth having a conversation with Elise and Angela just to see how they can help you make sure it's not just a good event, but it's an excellent event. Any final words about where the people can find you or any other thoughts that are on your mind before we wrap up?

Speaker 3:

People can find us. Our website is event-advisorsnet and you can find our services. You can find some articles that we've written. We do a biweekly newsletter called Valuable Views. That not only talks about a lot of the things we've talked about today. What should your email subject look like? Everything that's related to making your event strategic.

Speaker 2:

All right, thank you very much. I've enjoyed the conversation, I've gotten value from it and I believe that if our audience is with us at this point, they're like taking notes and ready to reach out to you guys. Bye for now.

Speaker 4:

Thank you. Thank you, Paul.