Sharing a Win: Barbara Corcoran Event Success and Takeaways

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So, the first and second quarter of 2016 were almost entirely devoted to the planning and execution of Champions School of Real Estate’s Keynote 2016 Events in Dallas and Houston. I’m proud to share that the back-to-back events were a complete success for our team!

As Champions School of Real Estate’s current communications director, I co-chaired the event together with the president of our company, Kim. Champions School of Real Estate was thrilled to bring in Barbara Corcoran (you know her from ABC’s Shark Tank!) and it was an absolute dream to work with her. Here is a brief summary of the event:

“Champions School of Real Estate was proud to present Barbara Corcoran, star of the ABC hit show Shark Tank, as the featured speaker for the Keynote 2016 events in Dallas and Houston.

Corcoran motivated her attentive audiences with her “Rags to Riches” address in which she shared how she turned a $1,000 loan into a thriving $6 billion dollar business empire.

Champions School of Real Estate keynote events are an important part of a commitment to providing students with enriching educational opportunities in and out of the classroom. With nearly 3,000 attendees, the Keynote 2016 events brought together two of the largest audiences of influential real estate professionals in the Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas.”

Identifying passion really goes back to three basics: who you are at your core, what you love to do, and how you do it. I have a passion for the whole gamut of communications: events, branding, marketing, public relations, press operations and this opportunity was a perfect fit for all of that. My involvement and portion of my role within the context of putting on an event of this scale, simply put, felt right. I was able to fully flex my communications muscles and years of experience resulted in something absolutely unforgettable.

Three of the biggest things I took away from putting on this event were the following:

1. Plan every.single.detail – and then ask to see if you missed anything. Humility is important and staying humble during event planning it is crucial. Remembering that there is always room for feedback from others is a great way to expand the horizons of one’s perception/possibilities/ideas. Takeaway for my friends planning wvents: Be open to ideas, feedback and constructive criticism during the planning stages. I am extremely detail and logistics-oriented, but several suggestions did make me think, “Oh! What a great idea!”

2. A good team is indispensable. I firmly believe that one is only as good as the people one is surrounded with. We were able to put on this event nearly entirely in-house because the company has invested in quality team members – working with spectacular professionals made putting on this event seamless. There was no greater pleasure than seeing everything we planned in the months prior come to life and it happened because everyone involved rolled up their shirts, and made sure that this event went on without a hitch. This was an extensive multi-year effort and it’s just amazing what this company was able to pull off! It wouldn’t have been possible at all without so many people getting together to make it happen.

3. My background in press operations helped me tremendously. There have been so many basic, fundamental skills ingrained in me by my mentors that I take for granted. Some of these include thinking about the event from the attendees, sponsors, volunteers and the speakers perspective to make key decisions. Making sure that there is a hierarchy in event day messaging, that timelines are concise and include everyone’s roles, that all questions are answered and that everyone knows what they need to be doing, where they need to go, and what they need to do if there are any questions.

Here is a little bit of the media coverage secured: