The Summit allows us to access our target audience directly

“We have two new clients from the Marcus Evans Summit. Signing up an enterprise-sized company has been very exciting,” says Lisa Elder, Director of National Enterprise Sales, First Stop Health, a solution provider at the Marcus Evans Employee Benefits & Compensation Summit. 

What new business opportunities has the Summit brought your way? 

Both Summits I attended were very informative and impactful. There was great attendance by the key market segments we target. We had ten great conversations. Around five of them were solid opportunities that led to additional conversations and a request for proposal. 

One company has signed and just recently went live with our services. A second company has confirmed it will use our services soon, so we are almost at the contract execution stage. 

Signing up an enterprise-sized company has been very exciting. One of the clients has 5,000 employees and the other 25,000. We will provide a service for a segment of that population. 

Had you heard of or worked with the companies Marcus Evans introduced you to? 

In most cases, we had no prior contact with the companies. We had some contacts in our system but had not reached out to them yet. This was a new endeavour for us, so our sales team hadn’t necessarily approached them. Before Marcus Evans, we primarily focused on the mid-sized market. The Summit definitely helped us reach these larger organizations much sooner. 

Receiving the list of attendees ahead of time allows us to prepare for our meetings. We do research on the company, the person and their role. This results in much more meaningful conversations. 

Would they have signed up anyway, if you had approached them directly? 

We are more likely to have a meaningful conversation in the structured environment that Marcus Evans provides, versus the structured environment we can create ourselves. Having the extra resources of Marcus Evans really helps amplify our effort to get more people in a room, and more contacts that we otherwise weren’t targeting. 

In this industry, is it very difficult to access decision-makers you don’t know? 

Yes, the system is very complex. We typically work with middlemen, benefits brokers or consultants. In many cases they are the decision-makers. What is great about the Summit is that the HR executives in attendance are from the type of employers who like making those decisions themselves, rather than depending on consultants. So we meet people we wouldn’t be able to target if we just go through the broker channel. 

How would you compare the Summit with other industry events? 

The Summits are definitely more high-end, compared to the large conferences that we attend, and the smaller, more intimate broker partnerships we host. They are held in classy locations and the vibe is different. I value the 30-minute face-to-face timeslots we get to talk to targeted audience members. They help establish that initial trust in the relationship.

Find our more about the upcoming Employee Benefits & Compensation Summit.