Events build business by connecting people in a splendidly rich communication context in which they freely express and bond over nuances, ideas, and subtleties that other forms of communication simply do not afford. Faith Moore, CEO of Faith Moore and Associates, Ltd, Special Events, Tours, and Destination Management is a leader in the industry and honors w2wlink.com by accepting our invitation to be a C-Link Suite Sunday Interview guest.

w2wlink.com: What about events do you believe has such a tremendous business building quality or benefit?

Faith Moore: The face to face contact supports the achievement of business goals such as networking, marketing, incentive, acknowledgement of people’s performance. Events are a $103.2 billion dollar industry.

w2wlink.com: What kinds of face to face business goals are supported at the annual WPO conference here in Boston?

Faith Moore: At the WPO conference, networking is an enormous component. The importance of it is to provide the opportunity for members to meet with counterparts from around the country, and the world. It enables enormous learning, synergy and executive education. They share resources and best practices with each other.

Acknowledgement and incentive are also important. We have some awards that reward and build role models for excellence in not only building business but building good, sustainable business models that strengthen the community economically as well as empower employees to be more skilled and more capable.

w2wlink.com: What do you think makes the face to face contact in particular a business building benefit?

Faith Moore: We are more comfortable with that which we are more familiar with or know better. The face to face contact in meetings and events is another way for people to know each other better.

At the WPO conference, members are able to socialize, share their business news and excitement, and participate in activities that connect them in ways that are fun and more personal such as exercising together for example, or enjoying stimulating speakers and asking questions such as best selling author, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point (2003) and Blink (2005), who is coming out with a new book.

w2wlink.com: What are the main components of an excellent networking event?

Faith Moore: There are so many components of an excellent networking event. The three main ones are:

1. Creating plentiful opportunities for people to change environments and mix and move into various different spaces in order to keep momentum and a fresh feeling in interactions and connections.

2. Interactive activities that allow people to smoothly exchange information and present themselves and connect.

3. Time to get to know each other. The event organizer needs to arrange enough time for the guests to network.

w2wlink.com: What examples can you tell us about from the WPO annual conference of the three main components of an excellent event?

Faith Moore: There has been a comfortable pace of changing environments to keep mixing fresh between different workshop and activity rooms in the hotel to going off site to elegant and prestigious locations for dinner and entertainment such as the Harvard Club. Interactive activities have ranged from exercising together to participating in question answer periods of leading speakers such as the General Manager of IBM to participating in team building activities to sitting with pre-assigned, different people with pre-assigned hostesses in dining circles and more.

w2wlink.com: Is an event only a business building advantage for a particular size business or association?

Faith Moore: No matter what size business or association, events build business because the most important advantage one can develop is their personal database. Throwing events builds that database and strengthens the personal connections that make the difference that allows your business excel. As the WPO consistently holds events both small facilitator lead at the local levels, to large annual conferences at the international level, and the WPO’s growth has continued to increase, and accelerate.