Meetingmax Spreads the Holiday Spirit

Jeff Duncan, C.O.O. of Meetingmax and Education and Learning chair of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Vancouver Chapter, is coordinating this years “Give Back Event” which provides care packages to residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.  

Meetingmax staff along with Vancouver entrepreneurs and their families will be fanning out across the Downtown Eastside to distribute specially prepared care packages to residents.

For the past few months the group has raised funds and collected items to create more than 1,500 care packages. The packages include simple items such as socks, holiday treats, and spare clothes.  The group hopes to provide some tangible help during what is a difficult season for many.

The MMX office was packing head quarters for the annual event. Thanks staff and friends for pitching in and building 1500 care packages this year!

This is the seventh year that the organization has created and distributed the packages.

Meetingmax staff looks forward to handing these out tonight at 6PM together with the EO Vancouver Chapter. 

The Future of Housing: Meetingmax 2.0 Webinar

Big things were happening at Meetingmax last week! In case you missed it we hosted The Future of Housing: Meetingmax 2.0 webinar last Wednesday. 

The hour long session consisted of two parts. Part one was a panel discussion featuring individuals from destinations and corporations that provide successful housing management or have unique insight into the industry. Part two consisted of the unveiling of the company’s newest online reservation system.

Expert panel members included:

1. Bill Geist, Chief Instigator at Zeitgeist Consulting
2. Ryan George, CEO at simpleview
3. Spero Batistatos, President and CEO at the South Shore CVA
4. Dan O’Neill, Vice President at the Bloomington MN CVB
5. Janine Wachter, Director of Housing at the Greater Madison CVB
6. Ann Gillespie, Sales Assistant at the Spokane Regional CVB  

Guests tuned in for a variety of reasons, such as:

• To familiarize themselves with Meetingmax
• To keep up to date on the latest industry trends
• To find out what other bureaus and organizations are doing and why
• To learn new best practices
• To get a sneak peak at MMX 2.0 

One attendee found the most beneficial portion was “hearing from highly respected individuals in the industry doing the work of promoting online housing and talking about online housing and its importance. It makes it all worthwhile because I feel they "know" because they live it each day in their jobs and it would be easy for our hotels to relate to for our destination.”

Please email webinar@meetingmax.cc if you would like access to a recording of this webinar. 

Meetingmax Gives Back

This morning members of the Meetingmax team started their day early, dropping off toys at the 24th annual Pan Pacific Christmas Wish event.

As stated on Room with a View, “back for the 24th straight year, is the Pan Pacific Vancouver’s Annual Christmas Wish Breakfast. The Hotel, alongside partners Global BC and JackFM are back for another epic toy drive benefiting the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau on Wednesday, December 7, from 6am-9am.

Each year the Hotel hosts one of Canada’s largest toy drives where the public is asked to bring down a toy to donate to needy children around the Christmas Holiday season. As a thank you to everyone who makes a donation, the hotel will offer a hot buffet breakfast from the Cafe Pacifica Restaurant.

Last year the hotel saw over 5,000 visitors come through the hotel and received 27,000 toys and over $25,000 in cash donations. As for our hungry visitors, the Hotel served over 25,000 eggs, 20,000 sausages, 3,000 kilograms of potatoes and 5,000 croissants!”

While Meetingmax staff didn’t have a chance to sample the delicious breakfast we did take the time to listen to a few tunes from the multi-talented fire fighters on hand!

Feeling festive? You can help too! Drop off unwrapped toys in donation bins found at Oakridge Shopping Center and many Vancouver fire halls or make a cash donation directly to the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau. 

Marketing Mastery Summit

This past weekend Meetingmax’s Client Services Manager, Sureena Parmar, attended the highly anticipated Marketing Mastery Summit and brought a ton a great new concepts into our workplace.

The event, held at the stunning Vancouver Convention Center, taught attendees how to position themselves as the “Go To Expert” in their given fields. Marketing Mastery Summit states “In today’s competitive market, in order to be successful, you need to stand out from the crowd. One sure fire way to achieve that is by positioning yourself as the “Go To Expert” in your industry.”

Notable speakers included:

• Stephan Stavrakis: Perceptual Positioning
• Iman Aghay: Success Road
• Mike Schell: Thought Leader Inc
• Sandy Chernoff: Soft Skills for Success
• Robin Elliot: Dollar Makers
• John Chow: John Chow Blog
• Bob Burnham: Expert Author Publishing
• Katherine Lazaruk: ICU Image
• Jason Bax: Pitch Masters

Follow these 3 tips from Sureena to position yourself as the Go To Expert:

1. Sell Yourself Effectively: Know how to answer ‘What do you do?” Sandy Chernoff suggests this question should be answered in 3 phrases or 1 sentence. Take the time tonight to polish your answer to this frequent question.

2. Dedicate 15 Minutes Everyday to Building Your Social Presence: A great way to build a brand for yourself is to begin online. Create profiles on all the social media sites you wish to be active on (the more the better) and dedicate a minimum of 15 minutes per day to grow your online presence.

3. Quality over Quantity: When building your business keep in mind that it is more valuable to have fewer clients who generate more revenue versus an unmanageable vault of clients who don’t generate much revenue. Rather than 100 clients, focus on 5-10 clients that will make you as much money as the 100 would. 

Book Review: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Meetingmax’s book of the month for November was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This is one of the most renowned motivational books in history and has sold over 15 million copies since its release in 1936. We chose to listen to the most recent version which is more applicable to today’s society.

As stated on Amazon.com “Carnegie’s first book is timeless and appeals equally to business audiences, self-help audiences, and general readers alike. Proven advice for success in life: Carnegie believed that most successes come from an ability to communicate effectively rather than from brilliant insights. His book teaches these skills by showing readers how to value others and make them feel appreciated rather than manipulated.”

The Meetingmax team found a lot of value in this book. It’s common sense, but often overlooked, techniques are easy to implement into your every day live.

Eight Things This Book Will Help You Achieve:

1. Get out of a mental rut, think new thoughts, acquire new visions, discover new ambitions. 
2. Make friends quickly and easily. 
3. Increase your popularity. 
4. Win people to your way of thinking. 
5. Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done. 
6. Handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant. 
7. Become a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist. 
8. Arouse enthusiasm among your associates

Overall the Meetingmax team gave How to Win Friends and Influence People a score of 9.5/10 on a scale where 1 equals a book with little value one would not wish to read again and 10 equals a fantastic book with the ability to grow an individual personally, professionally or both.

If you haven’t read this book yet go pick it up today!