Steal this event playbook (Exit Five Newsletter)

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🎟️ G2’s Event Playbook For Selling Out At Every Single Stop

Editor's Note: Hey. It’s Dave. Back again today talking about events (still so hot right now). I had a great conversation with G2 CMO Sydney Sloan on my podcast recently and got a bunch of DMs about it because of what she shares about events. And we're doing a bunch of events at Exit Five too so selfishly, I got a ton of notes from our conversation. I am realizing now that you DO have to obsess over details like was the sandwich good enough and was the WiFI OK and how was parking?? But after wrapping up Drive last month, I’m also learning what actually matters after the event.

Events can be amazing.

Events can also be a place you just send away budget to die.

But most of the time when events don't work people blame the channel. "Events are broken." "ROI is impossible to track." "Nobody shows up anymore."

The hard part is…running a good event and running a great event are two completely different games.

So how do you actually do this right?

What makes people show up, engage, and actually convert?

How do you justify the budget when the CFO is asking for hard numbers?

Luckily Sydney Sloan, CMO at G2, broke down exactly how they run events that sell out. Four cities. 250 people each. Sold out every single stop.

Not theory. Not what you'd read in an event planning book. What G2 is doing right now that's actually working.

If you're running events (or thinking about it), this is the blueprint.

Start With What You Want Them to Think, Feel, and Do

Sydney learned this framework years ago from a CMO named Lisa Steele, and she still uses it for every event.

It's a 3x3 grid: Pre, During, Post across the top. Think, Feel, Do down the side.

Before the event starts, what do you want attendees to think? How do you want them to feel? What action do you want them to take?

Same thing during the event. Same thing after.

For the AI in Action roadshow, they wanted people to think they weren't too far behind but needed to move now. They wanted them to feel a sense of urgency but also empowered. And they wanted them to leave with a blueprint they could take back and use with their team.

That clarity drove everything else.

You can layer this by persona too. One grid for VIPs. One for developers. One for champions. Whatever makes sense for your event.

The point is you're not just planning sessions and booking venues. You're designing an experience with specific outcomes in mind.

Rehearse Three Times (Yes, Really)

This is where most events fall apart.

G2 ran three full rehearsals before every city. Not a quick run-through. Full rehearsals where Sydney sat in as the emcee and gave direct feedback.

Too many slides? Cut them. Saying the same thing as another presenter? Decide who says it. Weak call to action? Rework it.

Every presentation was capped at 15 minutes with built-in interactivity. Attendees started with a blank slate and left with a fully mapped-out workflow and a pre-built prompt they could use immediately.

That level of polish doesn't happen by accident. You have to put in the work.

Sydney also kept the same presenters across all four cities when possible. The dynamic got more personal over time. The content got tighter. The experience got better.

Details Aren't Details. They're the Entire Experience.

Here's something most people miss: they assigned tables based on experience level.

Novices sat with novices. Experts sat with experts. Nobody had to waste time explaining basics to advanced users or holding back experts who wanted to go deep.

Every table had a trained facilitator who knew their role. They kicked off discussions. They made sure one person didn't dominate. They ran the prompting session at the end.

And get this: marketing took ownership for directly inviting the right people. They didn't just send emails and hope. Sydney was DMing people. Palmer was texting. They worked to get the right people in the room because the table you sit at matters.

They even had a system to identify who was really there to learn versus who just showed up for the swag. Because one disengaged person at a table ruins the experience for everyone else.

Stop Measuring Registrations. Start Measuring Revenue in the Room.

Sydney's favorite metric for event ROI: revenue in the room.

How much prospect revenue is in the room? How much retention revenue? Because existing customers matter just as much as prospects. Your happy customers will sell your prospects on the value better than you ever could.

For the New York stop alone, they had about $6 million in revenue in the room. By the end of the roadshow, they'd touched over 20% of their total revenue.

After each city, they ran a separate VIP event. Sometimes it was a dinner. Sometimes a sporting event. Sometimes a concert. The Giants baseball game in San Francisco was the most successful for recruiting and overall experience.

But here's what matters: they tested different formats and paid attention to what worked.

If You're Not Following Up That Night, You're Already Too Late

Most people think about events as the event itself.

But the value is in the follow-up. And it needs to happen immediately.

Sydney drops leads the same night or first thing the next morning. Not two days later. Not next week. Same night.

Why? Because people are still checking their email. And being first shows you're on it. It signals you're the kind of partner they want to work with.

They also push their photographer to turn around at least 20 high-quality photos within 24 hours. Not two or three days later. The next morning.

They send a thank-you with a link to the photo library so attendees can share branded images while the event is still fresh. That's how you get organic social reach that actually matters.

If you wait a week to send photos, it's too late. The moment is gone.

What This Means for You

Running great events isn't about bigger budgets or fancier venues.

It's about being intentional with every detail. Knowing what you want attendees to think, feel, and do. Rehearsing until the content is tight. Getting the right people in the room. Measuring revenue in the room, not just registrations. Following up fast.

Most events fail because they skip these steps. They wing the content. They don't think about post-event until it's too late. They hope for the best instead of designing for specific outcomes.

G2's approach isn't revolutionary. But it is rigorous. And that's exactly why it works.

If you're planning an event, steal this playbook. Map out your Think-Feel-Do grid. Rehearse your content. Get serious about follow-up before the event even happens.

The details are what separate events people forget from events people talk about for months.

– Dave

P.S. Sydney had a great tip for community-based events: run a buddy program on the first night. Pair newcomers with OGs who share something in common (same role, same industry). Make finding their buddy the first activity. It solves the cliquey problem and ensures everyone knows at least one person.

I loved this episode because it gave me tons of ideas for our events at Exit Five. So tell me…what’s one thing you learned from this that you’re excited to try? Or just hit reply to say hi. I love reading your responses. Seriously, I send them around to the entire team.

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

[THURSDAY] The B2B Buying Experience With AI: What Changes?

AI is changing the balance of power in B2B. “Get on the phone with us and we’ll tell you pricing.” No more. “Get on the phone and we’ll show you our product.” No more. Today’s buyers now self-educate, run deep research with AI tools, and show up to sales calls already armed with more information than ever and ready to make a buying decision.

So what does that mean for the role of marketing? Should marketing own more of the funnel than ever? What is the playbook in marketing when buyers get all of their information from AI before talking to your company??

Let’s unpack this all together in this month’s Exit Five live session. Dave Gerhardt will sit down with Lindsay O'Brien (Head of Marketing & Operations, Predictiv), Tom Wentworth (CMO, incident.io) and Aditya Vempaty (VP of Marketing, MoEngage) to unpack how AI is reshaping the B2B buying journey.

They’ll share how they’re adapting go-to-market strategies, redefining KPIs, and restructuring teams for a world where:

• Buyers move faster and expect smarter content
• Marketing and sales lines are blurring
• “AI-readiness” is a new part of marketing strategy

Expect an honest conversation about what’s working (and what’s breaking) as B2B teams navigate this new AI-driven landscape.

Save your spot

🏢 Open Roles

Who's hiring right now?

Affinity is hiring across five marketing roles, including brand, product, paid, social, and organic growth, to build a modern marketing team that connects strategy, storytelling, and performance. The team is focused on scaling awareness, demand, and community in the private capital space using data, creativity, and AI-driven experimentation.

Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:

• Animalz is hiring a LinkedIn Content Marketer
• Doist is hiring a Growth Marketing Lead
• Spark Advisors is hiring a Director of Demand Generation
• Steno is hiring an Art Director
• Steno is hiring an Events Marketing Manager
• TLDR is hiring a Senior Growth Marketer - Paid Acquisition
• TLDR is hiring a Senior Growth Marketer - Lifecycle & Automation
• Dragon360 is hiring a Demand Gen Strategist
• Vapi is hiring a Head of Marketing
• Tatari is hiring a Senior Manager, Customer Marketing
• Paramark is hiring a Marketing Manager
• Tatari is hiring a Digital Marketing Manager

See all open roles

Have an open role and want to make sure the best B2B marketing talent sees it? Just reply to this email and we'll send over more info on how you can post it on our job board + get it in front of 42k+ marketers.

✍️ NEW CONTENT FROM EXIT FIVE

Do you need to learn more about AI in Marketing?

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Click here to subscribe to The Prompt and we can help you get an A in AI. 🍎

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