Why schedule discipline matters

Pick your poison. You can either be annoying during breaks or have your sellers annoyed that people aren't sticking to their schedules. There is no neutral option.

If Meeting A goes past the meeting time and the breaks are short, then the buyer/seller will be late for Meeting B. That not only lowers the potential for Meeting B, it creates a domino effect across the entire floor.

The rules

• Take the schedule deadly seriously. Keep on time!
• "One thing at a time" — don't run speakers or roundtables during meeting time. It confuses people and almost guarantees late arrivals. First-hand data shows roundtables during meeting time directly caused over 85% of meetings to become no-shows.
• If attendees aren't moving, have staff approach and physically move them to their next meeting
• Have "walkers" — staff who enforce meeting times on the floor

Clock visibility

• Make the clock clearly visible from any seat in the room
• Ideally use a dedicated meeting timer — a tool like Backtrack works well for this

Break time formula

• Break time is mandatory — build it into the schedule, never skip it
• 60 seconds of buffer per 100 tables for travel time
• Have travel time baked in — "they will figure it out" doesn't work. They won't.
• Assume everyone will go 60 seconds over their meeting — design accordingly

Break music and signals

The break signal is one of the most important operational details at any hosted buyer event. Get it wrong and people don't move. Get it right and transitions happen smoothly.

• Too low volume or too "nice" of a sound and people don't move
• Not an annoying sound — find the balance
• Loud enough to get people to hear and move
• No lyrics — people don't get tired of the lyrics
• Soft start to the song — lets people finish their thought without being rude
• 30-second rule — the build-up needs to happen soon so they realize it's time to go
• Neutral genre — all ages must be able to hear it and not hate the genre

Table markers

• Make table markers easy to understand and find instantly
• "F5" is easier to find than "WT2" or "C1245"
• Premium table signage — not folded paper. It signals you care about details.