The Art of Adaptability in Event Planning

Feb 1

Featuring carlin putman, owner of page-one meetings and events, llc

Carlin Putman spent most of her 23+ year career with AIG, a top Fortune 100 company as a Financial & Corporate Event Specialist, starting as a Junior Meeting Professional and working her way up to Director of Meetings and Events. Carlin founded Page-One Meetings and Events, LLC and brings her meeting and event expertise to non-profit work for special causes in the Houston area, as well as additional contract work and on-site support services.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

The intricacies of corporate event planning within a major financial company, including the negotiation and decision-making processes involved.
Insights into navigating the challenges of the AIG financial crisis and how the 'AIG effect' impacted event planning in a large corporation.
The often-forgotten aspects and detailed logistics of trip-directing in event management

In this episode…

In this episode of “Solution Seekers,” host Paige Buck sits down with guest Carlin Putman, owner and founder of Page-One Meetings and Events, LLC, to navigate the intricate world of event planning and the road to establishing a successful business. Carlin, with an extensive background of over two decades in the industry, shares how she kick-started her career straight out of college where she honed her event-organizing skills in various roles, before bravely navigating through the AIG financial crisis, which prompted her to lay the groundwork for her own enterprise.

Throughout the podcast, Carlin recounts her experiences with vibrancy and a deep understanding of the event landscape. Listeners will be entertained by her tales of near-disastrous last-minute challenges, and her candid recollections of the stresses and successes that come with leading an events team.

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Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events.

Kennedy Events creates stress-free conferences and events, providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs—from in-person to hybrid and virtual events.

To learn more about our services, visit our website at www.kennedyevents.com and schedule a consultation today to find out how we can guide you in making your event successful.

Transcript

Paige Buck [00:00:08]:

Welcome to the Solution Seekers podcast. I'm your host, Paige Buck. Past guests include Megan Hall of Technology Marketing Toolkit, Heather Mason, CEO and founder of Caspian Agency, and Meg Fasy, founder of EventsGIG and FazeFWD.

And today I am delighted to be speaking with Carlin Putman. Carlin has spent the majority of her 23-plus year career with AIG, a top Fortune 100 company, as a financial and corporate event specialist. Starting as a junior meeting professional and working her way up to director of meetings and events, Carlin founded Page One Meetings and Events, LLC and brings her meeting and event expertise to non-profit work for special causes in the Houston area, other project and contract work, and on-site support services.

And I'm sure that's not all and we'll learn about it today. Before we get started, today's episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events. Kennedy Events creates stress-free conferences and events, providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs, from in-person to hybrid and virtual. You can learn more about us at kennedyevents.com.

Hi Carlin, thank you for being here.

Carlin Putman [00:01:22]:

Well, thank you for having me.

Paige Buck [00:01:24]:

So people got a little taste of it when I was reading your bio. But how did you get started in events?

Carlin Putman [00:01:30]:

You know, I was fresh out of college at University of Texas, and someone took a chance on me. It was just somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody and heard that this position was opening. And I was looking for either a PR position out of college or a meetings and events position. I was currently working at Dell Computers. That lasted about six months. I was done, and so I transitioned into meetings and events at AIG. At the time, it was the American General Financial Group, and it obviously has transitioned over the past 23 years into many different forms and names. And I loved what I was doing.

I hit the ground running and I was doing admin kind of work, junior planning work, learning from the best of the best in the industry. And this is where I stayed, and I still am. So I like it.

Paige Buck [00:02:27]:

And what did that look like inside what I imagine has become if it wasn't always a massive company? Work inside a large company and inside a department and inside a team can look a lot different than agency work. And I know ultimately you were leading and managing a team. Tell us a little about what that looked like.

Carlin Putman [00:02:51]:

Well, managing a team, obviously I really enjoyed it. We became work family because you're on the road together, you're bleeding from the fingers stuffing name badges together and packets and incentive program packets and educational conferences. And sometimes you have a nice budget, sometimes you don't, and you have to kind of make it work. And so you come up with collaborative ideas and we will do holidays together, we would do birthdays together. And they really became like a part of my family. Not just the coworker, but people that I still talk to all the time that I haven't worked with for years. I still will pop open my phone and call and say, hey, how are you doing? What are you working on? And it's a friendship. So that was great because I never really felt that strain with a lot of people with regards to the friendship versus the coworker thing.

Carlin Putman [00:03:53]:

Now, as a manager, obviously you sometimes had to put your big girl pants on and bring them into the office just to talk about stuff. But overall, I think I had a really great group of people that worked for me and under me, and I'm still friends with them today, so it's great.

Paige Buck [00:04:15]:

You mentioned that sometimes you have a big budget and sometimes you don't. Were you called upon to advocate for or justify, like, we need this over here in order to be successful?

Carlin Putman [00:04:29]:

Yes, absolutely. I want to say that in the role that I had with the financial education sector, I had a direct line to the CEO. I know a lot of companies are built differently, and sometimes some planners never actually even get to meet the CEO until they're walking up on stage and they're micing them up, right? Yes. But luckily I had the executives in frontline. I was with them. I was called to the table, I got a seat at the table and I made that happen because I wanted to make sure that I had great relationships with all these people. They understood what I was bringing and they accepted my decision making versus me just being an order taker, which a lot of times this happens where people with the meeting planning becomes an order taker situation.

I was a decision maker and I would present to them, let's say, here are the two places we're going to go. Which one do you like better? I like this because of A, B and C. I like this one because of X, Y and Z. And they would be, what do you think, Carlin? And I said, well, I really think this is better. This fits our budget, be we're going to have more impact with this location or destination. And so that was great. It was thrilling. I love that part of my job. And that they had full trust in me to make those decisions.

Paige Buck [00:05:52]:

Nice. Yeah, that's probably a pretty rare thing.

Carlin Putman [00:05:57]:

I know, which is why I’m my own boss now.

Paige Buck [00:06:01]:

Yes. So let's talk about that. What led you to found Page One events and what are you embarking upon?

Carlin Putman [00:06:09]:

It was, I was kind of getting burnt out, probably in my like 18th year or something like that or so. And my kids were, I guess, like close to three and four at the time. And I was working 80 hours, 90 hours a week, traveling a whole lot, and I felt like I was missing out on a lot of their growing up. And so I founded this LLC just to have as if anything happened. I lived through this financial crisis with AIG, and we all know what happened with the AIG effect. I lived it. I lived the AIG effect in big ways. So, I know, Bob, Ben Moshe, very wonderful, wonderful guy, God rest his soul. I think I just wanted something that I could fall back on in the event something else happened or another straw fell.

So I did some stuff with charity work with it around the Houston area. I did some trip directing, some on-site meeting support for a couple other companies, and I really didn't use it until this year, where I'm kind of like coming out of my shell and presenting Page One as my company for contract work as needed and trip directing and onsite support and just kind of just leveraging my knowledge of 23 years of experience and my seasoned tenure. And hopefully that people understand that you put me on the desk, that I'm not going to disappoint you. I founded it because it was really just kind of a safety net. I had my cards all made up and then I just sat on them for so long. And then now that I'm away from the corporate world, I'm excited to be representing myself under my own umbrella.

Paige Buck [00:08:04]:

Well, congratulations. You said it's exciting. What else has it felt like over the last months as you've settled into this new–

Carlin Putman [00:08:11]:

What I'm doing right now is kind of planting. I'm going to some of these IMEX conferences and site conferences, and I'm kind of planting the seeds now before the holidays occur. And then I'm hoping that those germinate within the first or second quarter of next year, some leads. So really right now, I'm kind of in the networking position, doing some kind of like help assisting kind of back of the house kind of stuff. If they need help with a site program, like I did assist one of my friends who was chair of Site Southeastern. And he was like, I have all this stuff going on. I was like, hey, I'll come and help you. I'll be your onsite support system and your assistant.

Carlin Putman [00:08:53]:

And he's like, I can't afford you. And I went, my time, my dime, I'll help you at any time. And so he was like, what? And so I said, yeah. So I went up and I helped with the conference and just did some basic meeting planner stuff, walking people from here to there and advancing dinner locations there and there and getting some really great education and CE credits at the same time for my CMP.

Paige Buck [00:09:22]:

That's fantastic.

Carlin Putman [00:09:23]:

Yeah.

Paige Buck [00:09:25]:

So having just been to both of those events, what observations do you have about the horizon, the future of the industry overall? What's exciting you?

Carlin Putman [00:09:35]:

What's exciting me, I think, is that I see a lot of more people like me kind of coming out of the fold, where I think corporations, I think in the next year are going to take a turn. I think that a lot of people are going to start going contract to keep them off their PNR. And so I think there's going to be a lot more people like me out there coming out of the woodwork in the next probably I'm going to say take twelve to 24 months is my outlook because I can kind of see it happening with all the different, especially being in the financial sector, I can kind of see it happening in a lot of the different organizations. Being a member of FICP and being friends with a lot of these planners that are in the financial insurance sector, I see that. And I know in different markets that's happening as well. So I think that a lot of people, when they started decentralized and now I think now they're kind of like they're centralizing, but they're bringing in outside support and versus having an internal, actual employee department. So we'll see how that works. That's just my vision.

Carlin Putman [00:10:40]:

That’s just like my magic eight-ball situation. My magic eight ball right here.

Paige Buck [00:10:47]:

Let's see it. All right, let's ask the magic eight-ball a question. What should we ask it?

Carlin Putman [00:10:54]:

What should we ask? I don't know. What do you think?

Paige Buck [00:10:58]:

Will 2024 be a good one for Page-One Events?

Carlin Putman [00:11:02]:

Is 2024 going to be a great year? It is decidedly so.

Paige Buck [00:11:07]:

I like it.

Carlin Putman [00:11:08]:

I'll take it. I carry that with me everywhere.

Paige Buck [00:11:10]:

I want that for you. You're going to manifest amazing things. In all of the years that you've been doing this. I'm curious about like a big pitfall or mistake or a nightmare story, those ones that we like to tell ourselves over drinks.

Carlin Putman [00:11:25]:

This is the best one ever. So I had an incentive program for, I guess it was like 500 or so people. The advisors won the trip to Montreal and I planned it around the jazz festival that they have locally in Montreal every year. And there's, I want to say, like stages all over the city with different forms of entertainment everywhere. And it's free, so I didn't have to pay for any of that. Right. So people could go out at night. They could go out at night and it was great.

Carlin Putman [00:12:01]:

And obviously we had the fun tours and wine tours and the waterfall tours and the historical tours and the museums just are amazing there, right? I had this speaker and I can't believe I forgot his name though. It's the guy who stole all the money. He was the movie. I should have had this written down. He's the one that Leonardo DiCaprio.

Paige Buck [00:12:31]:

I was just going to say is that “Catch Me If You Can?”

Carlin Putman [00:12:33]:

Yes, Catch Me If You Can. So he was stopped at the border in Canada and not allowed access into the country even though my speaker bureau swore that he was all good. So for,I don't know how many hours. So we had our welcome reception going on at the time at this beautiful venue. And I was on the phone in the staff office with my speaker bureau. Just, I want to say we went through like 1000 different scenarios. I was calling people, he was calling people. We finally found a speaker who had his own private jet.

Paige Buck [00:13:20]:

Oh my gosh.

Carlin Putman [00:13:21]:

His own plane. He flew from, I think it was Virginia or something like that, up to Canada. Well, he flew somewhere else. He had to get his passport. His passport was somewhere else. And then he flew to Montreal. And he got there, I want to say he got there like an hour before my general session was about to start. And can I just tell you, I did not tell my CEO or my national sales manager until it was probably after the party was over. It was getting close to like eleven at night.

He's a nervous kind of guy. And I was just, okay, this is what's happening. I'm going to make it work. We're going to make this right. If it doesn't work, we're going to find something. We're going to find something. We're going to ask one of your top advisors to do like a panel or something. I had so many different sorts of things going on in my head.

So this guy comes out, and of course I didn't write the name down, but he talks about this Aztec sort of diet. He wrote multiple books, and it was the seeds or something like Chia seeds. And he was so dynamic. And he sat down. We moved him into, like, a little side room. He just like, okay, so tell me about your company. And I rolled down everything.

I met with the CEO, and he met with the national sales manager, and he went in there and he delivered one of the best.- it was amazing. People were just like. People were up and clapping, standing ovations for. And I want to say that my national sales manager, they would always be like, remember that time that Carlin’s speaker got stopped at the border at midnight the night before he was supposed to go on, and she got that other guy. Yes! But I was sweating. I don't think I slept all night long. I was at the front door greeting him at the Fairmont in Montreal, and he was just a godsend. And it went off without a hitch. He was wonderful. Everyone was so impressed by him.

Paige Buck [00:15:36]:

But I hope they were equally impressed by you pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Carlin Putman [00:15:41]:

Yes. They were like, how did you do that? I go, I don't know. I think I might have cried a little, just a little, and convinced the speaker bureau that if he didn't make this happen, that, I don't know, I was that desperate. I had that desperation in my voice. We were calling people in New York. The closest people, anyone in Canada, anyone. And we found this guy, and he was amazing. It was that Aztec diet. And actually, there's people who took the diet after the meeting and lost a lot of weight on it.

Paige Buck [00:16:17]:

So incredible. That's a great story. And it reminded me of the time, long, long time ago, when California Governor Newsom was still San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom.

Carlin Putman [00:16:29]:

Okay.

Paige Buck [00:16:30]:

And even then, he had quite a high profile. We took a group of business people from San Francisco to San Diego. We used to take an annual public policy trip and one of their tours and social things, not like the Business learning part of it was the San Diego Zoo is iconic. And we had an evening reception there that was preceded by a little open-air bus tour of the exhibits after closing. So there's no other guests in the zoo. And of course, the panda enclosure is famous. Well, we are hanging out at the panda enclosure forever because Mayor Newsom is our surprise guest, who's supposed to be flying down to meet us and is stalled somewhere, somewhere in traffic. The plane hasn't landed, whatever.

And I'm in the back of the bus on my cell phone trying to make it happen, but also trying not to let any of our guests know I'm talking to his people. And then everyone's like, okay, the pandas are nice, but I'm ready for a drink. Could we go to the reception? And we do. And he's just sitting there on the front porch like, hi, folks. Just in this outdoor area and people. And then they appreciated why we were stalled at the pandas for so long.

Carlin Putman [00:17:45]:

Right? Oh, goodness. I have one more good one, though.

Paige Buck [00:17:49]:

Oh, do give it to me.

Carlin Putman [00:17:50]:

Okay. You remember the financial crisis, right?

Paige Buck [00:17:55]:

Back in 08, 09. Enron.

Carlin Putman [00:17:57]:

AIG. Yeah. AIG. Yeah. So I'm in San Diego at the Grand del Mar, and I had another planner friend that was doing another program down at the famous Saturday Night Live comic. Remember how they made fun of us on Saturday Night Live at the St. Regis, Monarch Bay. Monarch beach.

And I'm at the Grand del Mar. She's over there doing this program. I'm doing mine. And this was the news was just starting to trickle out. It wasn't really, like, for sure, for sure yet. And I just decided that I was going to rename my entire conference. And I didn't put out any signage.

Carlin Putman [00:18:37]:

I just had the hotel do it. I was expecting something big was happening, and I was terrified that people were going to see us at this hotel. Right. And say something because I knew there was something going on. And so I pulled everything down, and I think there was a couple of banquet people who saw my stuff, and they're like, aren't they gone? Isn't that company gone now or something? And so we had our meeting, and lo and behold, the famous Monarch Beach St. Regis that happens down the street from my hotel happened. And I went under the radar.

But that was scary, man. That was, like, a really hard time when we're trying to plan meetings and you had to be so secretive.

Paige Buck [00:19:30]:

Most of the time. We really don't want our events to be making news in that way.

Carlin Putman [00:19:35]:

No, not good. No. We were completely under the radar. They had a good time, but it was a different kind of meetings and events company after that all happened. And we had to become pretty wise.

Paige Buck [00:19:50]:

Yes, you were wise. Just to see that coming and make a different choice. That's. That's a good one.

Carlin Putman [00:19:56]:

I like that. That and the toilet paper I bought on boxed.com before the COVID hit. I was like, my husband's in New York. He goes, something's happening. So I bought, like, two orders.

Paige Buck [00:20:10]:

You foresaw the—

Carlin Putman [00:20:11]:

I foresaw the toilet paper crisis

Paige Buck [00:20:16]:

Hilarious. You mentioned earlier the phrase and the whole field of trip directing. And this is where I always think people in this industry can work in it for decades and not realize all of the nuances and subcategories and sub-sub-subcategories you can make a living in in this industry. And that's just one. Tell me a little bit, or tell our audience a little bit about what trip directing looks like, what you like about it, and why it's critical to the success of some programs.

Carlin Putman [00:20:49]:

Well, I think, okay, so why I like trip directing is because I can show up and you can have your faith in me that you're going to give me, let's say, food and beverage and accounting, and that I can go through your banquet event orders, be on the precon, meet with your captains, make sure that every event is executed correctly, that the labels are correct, the food is all good to go, and any special needs are met. And it's just like, I like to be in touch with the audience and the people and the attendees that are there, and I can help those people that have special requests and all that stuff. But the accounting I love, and people think I'm a nerd, that I love accounting. So I take the banquet orders, and I make this whole spreadsheet, and it just, at the end of the day, at the meeting, I close out. I have all their checks stapled to every single banquet event order, and I email them the sheet, and it has all their food and beverage costs and in addition to all other fees in it. And then I go. I go home and I'm done.

Paige Buck [00:21:54]:

And you get to close the book on it. For those who are listening and not watching, I like the gesture you just made of -

Carlin Putman [00:22:01]:

It's like.

Paige Buck [00:22:02]:

And it's away.

Carlin Putman [00:22:03]:

I go away. So they reconcile back at their offices and do all that kind of stuff where I'm onto the next project. Whereas as a planner, being in the planner position for 23 years, it's like you're working on a project for years sometimes. Whereas trip directing, you show up, you get the po grid and you get the budgets and you get the BEOs and the flow and the flows of the general sessions and all the events. And to me, it's awesome because I get to see all these different types of events from all these different types of people and see all the creativity that they bring to the table and also maybe give them a little heads up or give them a little piece of information that maybe, hey, this would probably be a good thing for you to add to make this event work better. Or maybe we should set it up this way to make it run smoother, like the buffet set up and all that kind of stuff. When I'm doing the kind of walking through how everything's gone. And a lot of times a lot of these planners are short-staffed.

Very short-staffed. Let's say you have two planners and they have a 700-person conference and hiring trip directors who are seasoned and know like the back of your hand how to run these things. And it's helpful to them because they know that they can focus on their CEO, they can focus, let's say, on the general session and the content and all that kind of stuff. And know that all the registration desks, the food and beverage, transportation, offsite events venues, and activities, it’s all being taken care of. And they don't have to be in every single sector. They can stay in their lane. I will stay in my lane. This other trip director will stay in their lane.

And we make it happen and we make magic happen.

Paige Buck [00:23:59]:

I think it sounds really rewarding because you also get a chance to quickly prove and add value. You are their lifesaver through this whole event, very intense, final stages of this project.

Carlin Putman [00:24:13]:

Yes. I know a lot of players out there who just, they don't have the support that a lot of these big companies have. So having trip directors like me can support their onsite events and they'll know that nothing's going to be dropped or no ball is going to be dropped on my watch. That's why I really love it and I love helping people like I did at Site this past week. I was there just to kind of be an onsite support person with this and this and this.

Paige Buck [00:24:45]:

I love it. As we grow, we could probably use more people with that sort of expertise ourselves. Let us step back and focus on the next thing.

Carlin Putman [00:24:54]:

Yeah, correct.

Paige Buck [00:24:55]:

In a little bit of time that we have left. I'm curious. I want to ask you to tell me about someone you admire in this industry or in this profession.

Carlin Putman [00:25:03]:

Someone I admire was probably the person who hired me when I was straight out of college almost. I think I was 23 years old at the time, and it was Kelly Livers. And she currently works for Global Atlantic. She's in the financial insurance industry. But she was my boss and she took a chance on me because I was just 23, straight out of college, with a business degree in marketing. I put my resume because I was always kind of a planner throughout growing up, just planning things, just in general, whether it was a high school dance or was it a college, I was on the lacrosse team, and I was president of Lacrosse Booster Club. And so I played all the events for both women's and men's lacrosse teams, and also was in a sorority, which I did plan their annual retreat. So I was doing this for fun.

Paige Buck [00:26:02]:

I was just saying, being in a sorority in the south, that is like a full-time job.

Carlin Putman [00:26:06]:

Yeah. Being in a sorority in the south, in Texas, is quite a job. And playing a sport at the same, it was interesting. You know, like meeting planning, you have to juggle the balls, right? You have multiple things.

Paige Buck [00:26:23]:

With the Lacrosse stick

Carlin Putman [00:26:24]:

Stick with the ball. And then I had my duties, and then I had it to make straight A's.

Paige Buck [00:26:32]:

Yes.

Carlin Putman [00:26:35]:

It was a great time, and I always did it for free. And then I found out leaving at the end of the day with my counselor. I was like, I see all these meeting planner positions out here. What is- Do people get paid to do this?

Paige Buck [00:26:50]:

What is that?

Carlin Putman [00:26:51]:

What is that? And I was like, yeah. Because I was looking at PR and I was looking at marketing and all these different advertising and all this stuff, and had interviews with newspapers and to sell advertising and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, wow, meeting planning. And I saw this position open because somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody knows my mom. And she says, hey, I heard about this position that somebody knows about, and it happened to be, like, her accountant or something. And so she sent me the link and I applied for it, met with Kelly Livers, and she was my mentor for years and taught me everything I know.

Paige Buck [00:27:31]:

And is Kelly still with AIG, or is she.

Carlin Putman [00:27:34]:

No, she is with Global Atlantic. She's with another Fortune 500 company or Fortune 100 company, but she moved into a different group under the financial and insurance umbrella. But I still talk to her all the time. We're still good friends. It's great. It's been almost getting close to 24 years that I've known her. She has grandbabies and everything.

Paige Buck [00:28:01]:

I love the community that you have of other people in the field. I think that's really admirable.

Carlin Putman [00:28:06]:

Absolutely.

Paige Buck [00:28:07]:

Carlin, thank you so much for your time. I'm going to close this out by saying I've been having the pleasure of talking with Carlin Putman, President and Founder of Page One Events. And where can people learn more about you and your company?

Carlin Putman [00:28:20]:

Well, I mean, I'm in Houston. You can find me on LinkedIn under Carlin Putman. P-U-T-M-A-N. My contact information is on LinkedIn. So for now, that's probably the best course of action to communicate with me once my website is up and running.

Paige Buck [00:28:35]:

Well, we will share your LinkedIn info in the show notes for this and then you'll have to update all of us and we'll push out an update when your website goes live. That’s exciting!

Carlin Putman [00:28:45]:

That's absolutely. I will. That's a work in progress right now, so hopefully I'll get it done in the next after the holidays.

Paige Buck [00:28:52]:

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time.

Carlin Putman [00:28:54]:

Thank you. Happy holidays.

Paige Buck [00:28:56]:

Happy holidays.

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Paige Buck is the co-owner of Kennedy Events, a large-scale event management company based in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. Our team creates stress-free conferences and events with a positive impact, which allows our clients to resonate with their audience. Kennedy Events specializes in producing flawless product launches, award ceremonies, fundraisers, and multi-day conferences while keeping our eye on retention and engagement goals.

About Kennedy Events

Kennedy Events began with one goal in mind—to produce high-level corporate events with just as much strategy as style. Maggie founded the company in 2000, found her match in Paige, and in 2011 the two became official partners. Since then, these two resourceful and brilliant creatives have pooled their strengths to build one one of the most the most sought after corporate event companies in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.