4:3 Creating year-round community

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Lee:
Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today's show, we have the one, the only the slightly voice-tired because he's been talking all morning. It's Neil Thompson from Delegate Wranglers. How are.

Neil Thompson:
You, mate? Hello, Lee. I am really good, thank you. Tip-top champion. Yeah, delighted to be here.

Lee:
I'm delighted to have you on, mate. I'd really love to just explore the world of Delegate Wranglers, which is a great example of community. You started back in 2019, I think, from memory and have 21,000 members?

Neil Thompson:
Earlier than that. We started in 2014. We are 10 next year.

Lee:
10 years old. Why did I think 2019? Actually, your Facebook group was it?

Neil Thompson:
The Facebook group started in 2014. But I know don't look old enough to be... I have a company 10 Years old.

Lee:
Happy birthday, 10 years old. Well, I'd like to explore it because we've been interviewing people here in the event about building community, say, off the back of events. You guys have created a wonderful community of at least 21,000 event professionals, I believe nowadays. Could you just take us well back into that time machine back 10 years ago as to how and why you started Delegate Wranglers?

Neil Thompson:
Okay, yeah. First of all, I'm an event organiser myself, so I've been in the industry since about 1999. Don't look old enough, but yeah, I know you can come again. I was a freelance event manager doing a lot of pharmaceutical events. That meant a lot of travelling all over the world, different types, big, small, you name it, I did it. I did that for 15, 20 years. So in 2014, in the middle of all that, in 2014, I started the Facebook group because I thought Facebook groups had just launched and I thought, well, this would be a good way to connect with other people like the other freelancers and people I work with regularly to share information. And if we had a difficult brief, we could ask each other, we could give each other work, all the things, rather than a phone, ringing somebody up or sending them a text, we could just have this place. And it started like that. I invited half a dozen people and then we grew and grew, and then the number of questions on there grew and grew. But at that time, it was still, I think until we got to about 500, we were only event managers, so no suppliers at all.

Neil Thompson:
Then suppliers started to get tagged in and they were like, Can we join... This group. It sounds amazing.They sound amazing. An amazing opportunity. We then started to let suppliers in. But then we've always been really careful about who we let in. They have to be in the industry. They're not just in there to mine information from people or to spam them or anything like that. Yeah, so we're really... I mean, to the point of now, we're now nearly 22,000. We could be 40,000 because we've rejected a lot of people who haven't hit the criteria. And I think it's that quality which has made the group what it is. And then just to explain to anybody who doesn't know what the Delegate Wranglers is, it's a community for the event industry where you'll either learn something, you'll get some business or you'll make a connexion. One of them, three things will happen every single day. Event managers will put on their inquiries and it can range from anything like, I'm looking for a venue for 500 people for an event, or down to, I'm looking for a singer, it's for tomorrow, somebody's let me down.

Neil Thompson:
Then the community will spring into action. You'll get some people, some events organisers will say, Oh, I've worked with Dave, speak to him at the Hilton. He'll help you out. It's brilliant. It's a bonus ID recommendation. Or you'll get the actual venues themselves or the suppliers themselves saying, We could do it. We could do it. Here's all our information. What we do is we connect people into getting solutions and getting business. We have millions of pounds of business every month is traded on there, on the group. Amazing. We've just grown and grown, but we've always made it a really inclusive, friendly, warm place to be. There's no negative on there, no negative posts. We get to vet all the posts so there's no negativity on there. We don't allow it. It's self policing. I know that sounds like a big task, but now everybody knows the vibe. If anybody... Well, first of all, they won't get to post something up because we'll get to it first. But if somebody replies, other people will step in and say, Hang on a minute, that's not the vibe. Or they'll report it. You hardly get any because that's the vibe.

Neil Thompson:
If that's not your vibe, don't join. There's been some people who that's not the vibe and that's fine. That's life, isn't it? But 99.9% of the people who join really enjoy the experience, really find it useful. There's no such thing as a stupid question on there. You could ask for a hotel in London for 10 people. If you want a recommendation or somewhere hot or somewhere new, there's no such thing. Yeah, it's become a beast that's spread out into many other things, and I know we're going to talk about some of.

Lee:
Those things in a bit. Well, let's talk about that. At what point did this become way bigger than you ever expected?

Neil Thompson:
I'd say about 2017, we then got to about 8,000 members. It's like putting a snowball up a mountain, I think. It's like you're pushing and it's really difficult and you're working on it and you're working on it. And suddenly when you get to the top of that mountain, it goes over the other side and it just builds up momentum and the snowball just got bigger and bigger. And then it became almost like, not what is the Delegate Wranglers, but are you in the Delegate Wranglers? That's how people would say it to people. So suddenly it became a thing that everybody had to be in because it filled a void that people needed. Everything on our group, on our community is because of a need, a requirement from the industry and from what people tell us. We're all ears. We're really open. We listen to everything that people say. Then obviously we became, I think around that time as well, 2019, I went to a meeting with Facebook. I got invited to a community social event. And then suddenly, I had a chat, I had a conversation with them. There wasn't a picture or anything. I was just talking with them, telling them about it.

Neil Thompson:
And then I got a call out the blue to say, Will you become one of our community partners? We're an official Facebook community partner. We go into their offices about once a month, go and see them. We do lots of trials for them. I've been on boards for them. That's amazing. I've been on conferences where Mark Zuckerberg's spoken. Honestly, I've been on with the VP of Europe on a panel with her. It's like crazy.

Lee:
From starting a Facebook group.

Neil Thompson:
Yeah, and even for other people. One of my most proud things is one of the things they... They introduced this test about archiving a group. You could have a group and you could archive it for a bit and then come back to it. Even to the point of when you were on holiday, you could just park it for two weeks and then come back. One of the suggestions I made is actually on the community now. One of the suggestions or feedback that I said, Why don't you change the wording of that to that? And now that's on there now and I'm like, Yes, my little bit of Facebook.

Lee:
That's amazing. Like you said, this 2017-ish has just started to get bigger than you anticipated. Initially, this started off as a community for you to find other like-minded people. It wasn't anything you were ever really planning on monetizing or anything like that. How did things have to change? Because I presume as you got that many people involved, you were going to have to find a way to keep this going. Otherwise, you were going to be.

Neil Thompson:
Frazzled on your own. Yeah, great question, because I was trying to be an event manager as well and trying to do this as well, and then suddenly my passion was all for the Delegate Wranglers and less for my event, because I felt like I've done 20 odd years. I was quite burnt out by it as well. But I still love the industry. I always say that the Delegate Wranglers is... You know the film Field of Dreams, and the tagline is, if you build it, they.

Lee:
Will come. I'm going to Pretend to do.

Neil Thompson:
Yeah, but that's the tagline. If you build it, they will come. We're the other way around. We're reversed that. Everybody came to the Delegate Wranglers because it was such a useful tool, and then we built a business out of it because of a need for it. We started off with, honestly, just a news letter. We started off, Can I chart? That was the dilemma. Suddenly, I've done all this thing for free, and I'm a pleaser type person. I always want to give everything for nothing and help people out. Relatable. Yeah, you know how it is then. I was like, Oh, we can't charge them. But anyway, we started charging people for newsletters. Then all the suppliers and big brands in the industry wanted to work to us because we had this massive positive community of like-minded people that was right on the audience that they wanted to hit. So suddenly we're doing campaigns for all the biggest companies in the world, like countries like France with the France tourist board and Great Britain tourist board, and you name it, we've done it and we're still doing it. We've got to...

Neil Thompson:
And then we grew and grew. I said to Diane, I'm going to have to stop being an event manager and do this. It was a big decision to take. But unless I could give it the full... Which is always that tipping point of when you start a business. That's a hobby. Suddenly you've got to say, Right, now it's going to be a business. We just went all in. We just went all in for it and we haven't looked back. We've just grown organically, slowly. The things we offered for suppliers are we always deliver on them. We always try to... Well, we do, we deliver on them all. We've just grown and grown and we've got a commercial team now who work for us and the social media team. We're just growing and growing.

Lee:
Really exciting. With such a big community, how do you guys manage to foster that feeling of belonging when there are so many people involved?

Neil Thompson:
Yeah, great question. I got asked this a few times. It's all about the vibe. What we say is three little, it's a bit punchy, but vibe, tribe, subscribe. If you create the vibe, you'll create the tribe, and then they'll subscribe to you, and then they'll really get what you're all about. We've created this really super safe space. I don't mean in that sense of it, over the top, but I mean a really inclusive place where it's really friendly and we're all about the vibe. We're completely about the vibe. We just don't do if... If you don't get the vibe, it's not for you and we're not for you.

Lee:
You're not for us. If you're Negative Nelly. You're not going to feel it anyway.

Neil Thompson:
We've got another word, but I don't swear it's for God. But it's not forever. It's for most people, but it's all about the vibe. So if you create a positive environment, and this is quite an important point, rules, you have to have rules. People enjoy rules. I know as long as they're with the reasonable rules, they enjoy them and they know where they are. There's nothing worse than when you don't... I'm going to say if you're at an airport, check it. If you're at an airport just about to board a plane and it's a free-for-all, it's shocking. But if there's a tensor barrier and you know that that's where you queue up, you're fine with that. In your head, you're not anxious, you're fine. But when it's just like whoever can get to the desk first, you get this big... We're great believers in. You set fairly robust rules out, stick by them. We are so fair, we stick by. We don't do any favours for friends or anything. We stick by them. We can just hide behind, Well, this is what- This is our policies. This is our policy. These are the policies. I'm so sorry.

Neil Thompson:
And it's hard sometimes. Sometimes we get dilemmas and like, Oh, should we let this up? And so we're really strict about it. But friendly and fair. We're not fun sponge.

Lee:
As my wife. No, I get you. And then again, with such a large community, how do you listen to them? Because there must be a lot of voices maybe... Are they tagging you in posts or your team? Or how do you listen and get a general feel for what people want so that you can respond to that?

Neil Thompson:
Yeah, again, that's a great question. Initially, when we were developing it, we would get a lot of suggestions, and I still do get people will come up to me and tap me on the shoulder and say, You know what you should do on the Delegate wranglers? I've always wondered why you haven't... We will always listen to them. We'll always listen to them. Everything that's on the group is born out of a need from a request or something we've thought of, something we've watched and think, Oh, we need to do this. We're still always evolving. But it used to happen a lot more. It's less now because people understand it. I think that comes with understanding. When it's developing, people don't quite understand it, but we're so well established that we know... It's like if you're going on Instagram, you know the rules of Instagram. You're not constantly send and think that you know how it is. I think that comes with time, but we still welcome people come... I'm going to regret saying this, aren't I? We still welcome people coming up to us with ideas and suggestions as well. Particularly, though, with clients, we love them when they come to us and say, Right, I've thought of a great idea.

Neil Thompson:
Somebody came to me and said, I thought of a great idea. I'd like you to come and do a thing on our destination, on the city. I wanted to be a bit like, you might not know this, I'm going to show my age here, challenge Anika, which used to be a team. I remember challenge Anika. Where we're going to have you doing things all around the city. I'm like, I'm like, reported on social media. We love things like that. It seems like good fun and a different way to... We're all about pushing the needle and trying to do different things rather than just the same old, same old. We're always looking for new ideas. We do welcome them, but the ideas about how to run the group are less so now. But we used to get them a lot.

Lee:
I can imagine. Then how do you get an understanding? Obviously, when COVID and everything happened, how did Delegate Wranglers? Well, how were you able to support the community during that time?

Neil Thompson:
Yeah, you know what? I'd say that's the time when we... I mean, we were absolutely cemented into the industry, I would say so. But that really solidified us because we were able to help the industry with communication about what was going on. One thing that Delegate Wrangler is, we're not a discussion forum. Everything on there is a post, a need for information about something. So although we never became that, even during COVID, we never just suddenly became a discussion forum. But we came a tool for getting access to a lot of this information from governments and from people who were far more informed than us, who would relay it to us, and then we could put it out to a large community of people who were asking these questions. But one thing it did for me was it allowed... We started a thing called the DW Live Show, which was on YouTube. It was on all the platforms, but we filmed it on YouTube and we would upskill, we'd give people the chance to upskill and learn, use the time that we all suddenly had. We would have a LinkedIn expert or a Canva expert or a marketing expert.

Neil Thompson:
We did about 70 of them on the run every week. Me and Dominic from a company called Stream. That was amazing for us because still now, nearly every event I go to, I'll get somebody coming up to me saying, Those DW Live shows really kept us going because we made them fun. We have a laugh. We'd have a laugh and talk about serious things as well. Do both. So they were really good for not only for everybody in the industry, but good for me as well because it gave me a purpose to get up for and do even though there wasn't... We went from having, I don't know, 40, 50 inquiries on there a day to like two a week on the group. So it went quiet in that front, but we were still managed to be able to engage with people and really be there for people as well. They come up to us and tell us that they felt like we really kept them going. We knew there were other people in the same boat and we were still there. We were the constant for them. So yeah, it was a tough time, but a really good time and time for us to prove our worth as well.

Lee:
But a good example there, isn't it, of how you have created a community. It's not just a place where people can post jobs and opportunities, find supplies, etc, but in that time, you showed as the leader and your team, you showed we are a community. You created content for them during that... It felt like a year, almost two years, it felt like. I can't even remember. On and off. On and off for two years.

Neil Thompson:
Wasn't it? 2022 is a blur to me now. I don't know what happened. '21, sorry. '21, I don't know why. 2019. Did they have?

Lee:
2021, that was it. But as a community leader, you were able to establish something that has captured people, I think, there in their hearts. I've heard many people extolling the virtues of the Delegate Wrangler community. Now, this isn't an advertorial. It sounds like it.

Neil Thompson:
But other communities are available.

Lee:
Yeah, other communities are available. This is not a paid placement. But how could people get involved if they were interested?

Neil Thompson:
Sure, yeah. Just search on the Delegate Wranglers on any of the platforms. We normally ask people to go to our website first. You just search on the Delegate Wranglers. You'll find our website. You can just register there. We got options. You can join for free. You can be a free member or you can... We've got various paid memberships as well, which give you a bit more access and a bit more visibility as a supplier. But yeah, go to there and then it gives you all the information about how to join a Facebook group, etc, etc. But we welcome all aspects of the industry. We're ever growing. We've got a big waiting list already at the moment that we're working our way through. It's become a resource thing now. But we are getting there and we're really privileged to have our place in the industry and long may continue, long may we provide useful opportunities for people because that's what I'm all about. I want to sleep at night and when we're getting told these things like your company, the Delegate Wranglers saved our company because we got this piece of business or we met this new client or we found this new hire or whatever it is, that's what we go to bed for because that's really...

Neil Thompson:
That makes me sleep at night well rather than any business success. That being useful to a community is such an amazing and inspiring thing that you can see I walk around with a smile on my face because I love what I do and I love what we are to people as well. We're really privileged.

Lee:
Well, mate, thank you so much for your time. That's wonderful. Folks, you can check out the show notes. There will be a link to Delegate Wranglers and do get involved. Neil, mate, thank you so.

Neil Thompson:
Much for your time. Thanks, Lee. Great job.

Lee:
Take care, buddy.

Neil Thompson:
Thank you. Thank you.