As an operations manager, your strength is viewing things differently from any other part of the organising team and that’s no bad thing: Every team needs a balanced perspective. As quoted from one sales manager: “An ideal ops manager takes the ethereal ideas of an overexcited sales team and turns them, through an infinitely convoluted process, into the wonderful features we have come to expect”. The trick is to navigate a path so that you and your team appreciate that role.

Don’t assume you’re the only one that can find a way around an operational issue. Be ready to acknowledge that you may not always hold the best solution even if you’ve found the problem. Discussing it with the team can often make their brains tick in a different way, offering up alternative solutions that wouldn’t have come about if you’d just said no.

Understand who is getting the money in to pay the bills. Don’t bombard your sales team with emails and calls in the run up to target day. Their ability to sell directly affects whether the ops budget gets cut and never forget that.

Develop the ability to effectively communicate technicalities, regulations, legislation and all the jargon to a group of people that may well not understand, or indeed care, about that level of detail.

Find a crystal ball and don’t swear too much.

– From Louise Kiwanuka, EventShare, with a little help from Clarion’s DSEi sales team.

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