Tuesday night, I’m running the biggest event I’ve ever put together.
It’s not a PPI event. It’s an Advocis Ottawa event. Three course meal, cocktails, wine tastings, a really good speaker named Dennis Mosley-Williams who wasn’t cheap to book but is one of those guys people genuinely want to see. We’re basically sold out. About 60 people in the room.
And here’s the thing. This event isn’t about me. But it’s also kind of about me. I’ll explain what I mean.
Why this event exists
I’ve been thinking a lot about what in-person actually does that nothing else can.
There are a lot of people in this industry, especially on the carrier side, who want to get in front of advisors. There are a lot of advisors who want to get in front of clients. There are a lot of new associates trying to figure out who’s who and where they fit. And there’s a ton of noise.
So I asked myself a simple question. What’s the actual purpose of an in-person event?
My answer: connection and community. That’s it. Everything else is window dressing.
If you accept that, then the format follows. You don’t do it at a conference center. You don’t do it in a hotel ballroom with bad lighting and rubber chicken. You do it at a really nice restaurant. You bring in a speaker people actually want to hear. You add wine tastings. You hire someone to take photos so the night feels like something. You invite people from every distribution channel in the area, not just your own corner of the world. And you let the room do what rooms do when you put the right people in them.
That’s the event I’m running on Tuesday.
This is the first one, not the only one
Here’s what most people don’t see yet. This isn’t a one-off.
This is the first in a series. The fall event is already in my head. I want a hundred people in the room. I want to do two of these per year as marquee events. Great venue, great speaker, great room. Built around community, not pitching.
Imagine that for a second. Two marquee events per year, run by Advocis Ottawa, that people sign up for the moment they hit the inbox. Not because they have to be there. Because they want to be there.
That’s the flywheel. More people show up. More partners want to be involved. More money comes in. Bigger venues, better speakers, more people, better partners. The room gets stronger every time. And every single person who walks in benefits from the room getting stronger.
That’s the whole game.
What’s actually happening in that room
Think about who’s in the room on Tuesday.
New associates who are trying to figure out the industry are sitting next to advisors who’ve been doing it for 25 years. Wholesalers are next to accountants. Lawyers are next to MGA folks. People who are building books are next to people who are selling books. People building their own little communities in their own little corners are meeting people doing the same thing across town.
That’s where the connections happen. The introductions. The deals. The hires. The mentors. The “hey, you should meet this person” moments.
I’m not standing at the front of the room selling anyone anything. I’m the guy who built the room.
Did it go perfectly? Of course not
I’ll be honest with you. The last few weeks have been stressful.
We launched this whole thing on a compressed timeline. There were contracts to sign. Partners to bring in. Concerns to assuage. Audio and visual to figure out. A speaker to book and pay. Tables to sell. People to invite. People to chase down. Decisions about who can come and who can’t. The whole logistics machine.
Some of it went smoothly. Some of it didn’t.
Here’s what I keep telling people, and what I write about in the book. You’re not going to do it perfectly. And who cares.
You’re going to make mistakes. The audio is going to be slightly off. Someone you really wanted there isn’t going to make it. The timing of the speaker is going to be tight. Something is going to go sideways the day of. That’s fine. That’s part of the deal.
The version of you that waits to run the perfect event never runs the event.
Why I’m telling you this
Here’s the part I want to be really clear about.
I’m not writing this email to say “look at me, look at what I’m doing.” I’m writing it because everything I talk about in my newsletters, everything I teach, everything in my book, this is me doing the thing.
I tell you to run events. I’m running events.
I tell you to build communities around yourself. I’m building one.
I tell you that the gravity comes from being the person who brings people together. I’m being that person.
I’m not standing on a stage telling you about some theory I read in an article. I’m doing the work in real time, and I’m letting you see it. The wins, the stress, the mistakes, the wine tastings, the moments when the room comes together. All of it.
That’s the only kind of teaching I trust. People who are still in it. People who are still building. People who are doing the thing they’re telling you to do.
You’re going to see all of it on LinkedIn
We hired a photographer for Tuesday night.
So over the next week or two, you’re going to see this event everywhere on LinkedIn. The room. The speaker. The conversations. The candid shots. The whole feel of the night.
And the reason I’m telling you that isn’t to flex. It’s because I want you to see what this kind of event actually looks like when you do it right. The atmosphere. The energy. The way people lean in. The way the room hums when you’ve got the right people in it.
That’s the gravity I keep writing about. You can’t fake it. You can’t manufacture it. You build it by being the person who builds the room.
Here’s the part about the book
In The Advisor Event Engine, I walk through exactly how to do this.
How to pick the venue. How to choose the speaker. How to structure the night. How to get partners involved without making it feel like a trade show. How to invite people in a way that gets them to actually show up. How to do the follow-up so the event keeps paying you back for months. How to build a recurring rhythm of events that compounds over time.
Everything you’re going to see on LinkedIn next week from this Advocis event, the logistics behind it, the strategy behind it, the philosophy behind it, all of it is in the book.
If you’re serious about growing your presence in your market through events, go buy it. Open your wallet. Spend a little money.
And I’ll be honest about why I price it the way I do. If you don’t spend any money on it, it’s not worth anything to you. That’s just how people work. If you pay 12 bucks for a book, you read the first chapter and put it on the shelf. If you spend a few hundred dollars on it, you actually implement it. You actually do the thing. You actually run the event.
That’s the whole point.
Where I’m headed with all of this
This event on Tuesday is the proof of concept.
The fall event will be bigger. The one after that will be bigger still. The flywheel gets faster. The partners get better. The room gets stronger. The people who come keep coming. The new people who hear about it want in.
And the advisors who are part of this community, the ones who show up, the ones who sponsor, the ones who bring their teams, they get a level of access and connection that you literally cannot buy any other way.
That’s what events do when you do them right.
You’ll see how Tuesday goes next week. Stay tuned.
Talk soon,
Andrew
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