No More Bad Events

Gorillas, Pigs, and Backup Plans (ft. Danene Dustin, Morris Meetings and Incentives)

Episode Summary

This week’s episode of No More Bad Events takes us from Morocco to Mexico, from meeting gorillas in the mist in Rwanda to an island unfortunately not populated by plentiful pigs. It’s all thanks to our guest, Danene Dustin, and her truly unique perspective on events around the globe.

Episode Notes

Gorillas, Pigs, and Backup Plans (ft. Danene Dustin, Morris Meetings and Incentives)

Meet the queen of turning unexpected into unforgettable

OPENING QUOTE:

“One of my dreams would be to have a client that would say something like, in the next five to seven years if you stay with us and you meet the parameters that we set for our reward travel, you will go to all seven continents in the world.”

-Danene Dustin

GUEST BIO:

Danene is a passionate sales executive for Morris Meetings and Incentives who travels all around the world planning extraordinary incentives for high achievers. Facing down challenges as mundane as air travel delays and as unique as finding no pigs on an island promoted as the destination for swimming with swine, Danene has systems in place for mitigating bad events in even the most challenging of circumstances.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[9:44] - Looking for More in Morocco

Raising the bar when expectations are high

One challenge Danene encounters is that some clients feel like they’ve “seen it all”— and some nearly have. She considers it her job to keep pushing the envelope, exploring new and hidden corners of the world, to deliver truly unforgettable and unique experiences even to the most jaded and well-traveled clients and their rewarded employees.

[15:25] - Where Dreams Meet Reality

Amazing clients while navigating limitations

How do you guarantee clients an absolutely unforgettable experience while also setting and managing expectations? It’s a tricky balance, says Danene. “I really want their dreams and their visions to come to life.” But the truth is that sometimes the budget isn’t there, or the destination isn’t available, or the swimming pigs on the island of swimming pigs just don’t go for a swim that day. It’s all part of a day’s work.

[19:12] - Having All the Answers

Danene’s lessons from her early days

Danene recalls an early proposal delivered to a prospective client. Everything was going smoothly, until they started asking questions. “I was so ill prepared. I had not researched these destinations or the hotels.” The lesson? Go above and beyond to have answers to every possible question— including physically visiting the destination yourself, in some cases.

RESOURCES:

[2:52] About Morris Meetings & Incentives
[21:09] About the Swimming Pigs

Follow Danene Dustin:

Follow Scott Bloom:

ABOUT NO MORE BAD EVENTS:

Brought to you by eSpeakers and hosted by professional emcee, host, and keynote speaker Scott Bloom, No More Bad Events is where you’ll hear from some of the top names in the event and speaking industry about what goes on behind the scenes at the world’s most perfectly executed conferences, meetings, and more. Get ready to learn the secrets and strategies to help anyone in the event industry reach their goal of putting on nothing less than world-class events.

Learn more at: nomorebadevents.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

A veteran comedian and television personality who has built a reputation as the go-to choice for business humor, Scott has hosted hundreds of events over two decades for big and small organizations alike. Scott has also hosted his own weekly VH1 series, and recently co-hosted a national simulcast of the Grammy Awards from the Palace Theater.

As the son of a successful salesman, he was exposed to the principles of building a business at an early age. As a comedian, Scott cut his teeth at renowned improv and comedy clubs. And as a self-taught student of psychology, he’s explored what makes people tick and has written a book (albeit a farce) on how to get through life. He’s uniquely positioned to deliver significant notes on connecting people and making business seriously funny. And who doesn’t like to laugh?

Learn more about Scott: scottbloomconnects.com

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Episode Transcription

Danene Dustin:

One of my dreams would be to have a client that would say something like, to all their people, in the next five to seven years if you stay with us and you meet the parameters that we set for our reward travel, you will go to all seven continents in the world.

Scott Bloom:

Welcome to No More Bad Events. The podcast for professional event organizers and anyone who wants to take their events to the next level. Each week we'll hear from the best in the business and get an inside look at what goes on behind the scenes at the world's most perfectly executed conferences, meetings, and more. Together we'll learn the secrets and strategies to help us reach one big goal. No More Bad Events. Our show is brought to you by eSpeakers and I'm your host, Scott Bloom. Let's get started.

Scott Bloom:

Today's show is sponsored by ImpactEleven, formerly known as 3 Ring Circus, the best and most diverse and inclusive community built for training and developing professional speakers. They're not just elevating an industry we know and love, they work with hundreds of speakers to launch or scale their speaking businesses, earning tens of millions in speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals, and rising to the top of the field. If you're looking to take your speaking career to the next level, they'll help you make a bigger impact, faster. To learn more and schedule a free intro call visit impacteleven.com that's impactE-L-E-V-E-N.com. No More Bad Events is produced and presented by eSpeakers who believes in the magic that happens when the perfect presenter gets in front of your audience and moves them.

Scott Bloom:

The eSpeakers marketplace helps you find, connect with and hire from the deepest catalog of experts who speak on the planet. The platform makes it easy to find, contract and pay the expert who will ignite your audience to accomplish your meeting goals and exit to a standing ovation. For more information, visit espeakers.com/nomorebadevents. That's espeakers.com/nomorebadevents. Let me ask you this, what could possibly go wrong when you're living your dream career and traveling the globe to dream destinations? Well, if you're Danene Dustin, stuff happens. Danene is one passionate and vivacious sales executive for Morris Meetings and Incentives who has been all around the world planning extraordinary incentives for high achievers. And while challenges as mundane as air travel delays, or as crazy as finding no pigs on an island promoted as the destination for swimming with the swines do happen, Danene has systems in place or finds ways to mitigate those kinds of bad events.

Scott Bloom:

Today you'll meet Danene. She'll take us on a journey from Morocco to Mexico, to meeting gorillas in the mist in Rwanda and she'll delight in regaling us with stories that range from the simple to the absurd, all the while sharing tips on how to make every fantastic event even better. So let's do this. Let's take this podcast journey with Danene. You've been, I saw I've been doing little stalking on Facebook and I saw... No, I like to find out about people, what they're up to. No, I found out that you're a fitness, I don't know, would you say you're a fitness guru or you just love fitness? I know. I mean, it all goes together, travel, visiting places, being in the outdoors, but is that something that's a big part of your life as well, right? Fitness, hiking, nature.

Danene Dustin:

Yes, for sure. But more so several, several years ago, I actually took up marathon running a long time ago, many years ago and so I actually ran eight marathons.

Scott Bloom:

Wow.

Danene Dustin:

I won a marathon actually. One in Bear Lake.

Scott Bloom:

Wow.

Danene Dustin:

Up in Northern Utah. I was the first female to cross the finish line. That was my goal. I think in a three, I did like a 320.

Scott Bloom:

That's amazing.

Danene Dustin:

Sadly, many years ago I tore my meniscus and from then it just went downhill. I'm bone on bone now. So my fitness is yoga, lots of yoga, hiking, watching my dog every single solitary day. So I still am very passionate about it, but not to the extent I was when I was into my marathoning. I used to do health and wellness challenges through Facebook. I had treadmills I gave away. I did some really cool things with it to hopefully motivate other people to take care of this one and only body that we've been gifted and it also correlates with our mind, obviously, the way we take care of our bodies.

Scott Bloom:

Well, you're very obviously in tune with yourself and what's, you're an adventurer. You love to travel. I know you recently were in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. My parents just love to go down there. You spent like 10 days down there. Tell me a little bit about that experience.

Danene Dustin:

Sure. So I do what is called group incentive travel. I work with corporations in creating and designing really spectacular trips for their trip runners. They're high achievers and so I just had the good fortune that during, I just got home a week ago yesterday from a 14 day stint that 10 of those 14 days I was actually in Puerto Vallarta. So yeah, they were two different groups, two different, very different demographics. The first group, they were younger and very much into adventure. The second group, they were a little more older, almost all female. So it was just interesting to see two different hotels, two different sets of excursions that were offered, but I love Puerto Vallarta. I just think there's so many different areas that you can stay and so much to do and see. I become a really big fan. I didn't really know it that well before. The first time I'd been there was five years previous and so I'm getting a lot of interest now in my clients wanting to go there for themselves to check it out.

Scott Bloom:

So tell me about, you probably have first time reward incentive folks, first time they're ever on a trip. Tell me how does it feel to see their expressions when they just walk in, just from the very beginning? Because I know that touchpoint starts just right after they get off the plane, they get to the hotel, they walk in the lobby. Tell me what that was like on this last trip.

Danene Dustin:

Oh my goodness. It is just one of the most rewarding parts of this trip, for sure. Or excuse me, my job, my career. The first group I was telling you about, the smaller group, some very young travelers on that one. Some that just got their first passport ever and it was their first time to ever leave the United States on a trip like this. And so when I saw them, I was waiting for them to come up in their vehicle because we can do everything. We get our, we have tour operators in each of the destinations where we take our groups that help us with our ground transportation, excursions and that kind of thing.

Danene Dustin:

And so of course I have my manifest telling me when they're going to be arriving and they let me know when they've landed and how far away they are from the hotel. So I'm right there waiting to greet them when they arrive and just to see them get out and look around, in this beautiful large lobby, it's all open air of this particular hotel. The ocean is right there. This one has a private beach and so they're just in awe and they have a welcome drink in hand. I walked them over to get them checked in and it was really fun with this particular trip runner and her guest. I was actually taking them to show them where their room was.

Danene Dustin:

And as we were walking outside and going on this path, this hotel has an outdoor cafe and so it's full of pastries, beautiful donuts, sandwiches, fruit, all kinds of lattes coffees and I of course stopped there and said to these women, would you like to snack to take with you to your room, look at all these beautiful things. And of course they're, "How much is it?" I said, there's no cost. It's part of the package. We're at an all inclusive resort. Your drinks, your food, even room service is included. And they were giddy and then the next day I showed them the kayaks that are out on the beach and I said, do you want to go kayaking? "How much is it?" It's all included. They could not believe it. They were just, and then getting the drinks on the beach brought to them, all included.

Scott Bloom:

Yeah. I mean that must be one of the greatest parts of your job is giving these folks these first time experiences. I know it can be overwhelming. You walk in these, as you said, these big lobbies, the views.

Danene Dustin:

Yes.

Scott Bloom:

Drinks, everything is given to you. They probably have changed from that experience and you get to be part of it. So that's probably very, just rewarding for you. So these were first timers. You probably have people who have come back time and time again. How do you keep on raising the bar for these folks and making them have that same awe experience. They've been to a few of these. Do they get jaded?

Danene Dustin:

Exactly. That's a really good question and that is definitely one of the challenges of this career, is just especially if I have a brand new client and they've already done something spectacular and then to keep raising the bar. So I will tell you a couple years ago, just pre-COVID I had a new client, they were not new to incentives, they'd done them for many years with another third party, but they decided to give us a shot. And I know there were... I'll tell you what it was we did, but it was pretty cool because at the end of this trip, there were people that came up to me and said, I have earned this trip 25 years in a row with this company. This is by far the best trip I've ever, ever had. And I was blown away that we had been able to do that for people that had been traveling with the same company for 25 years. But the trip that we did, are you curious to know?

Scott Bloom:

Yes, I want... I'm... Yes, I'm waiting to find out. Where'd you go?

Danene Dustin:

It's still to this day probably my most favorite, as far as with one of my groups, with one of my clients. We went to Marrakesh, Morocco for three nights, and then we flew to Lisbon, Portugal and then 30 minutes from there is Cascais, Portugal right on the ocean and that's where we stayed for the another three nights was Cascais, Portugal.

Scott Bloom:

And plus it's just fun to say Cascais. Cascais. And, how'd you find out about this? I'm sure you're always trying to find new destinations. How did you stumble upon this and why did you know this trip would be the best trip for them?

Danene Dustin:

Well, one of the best parts of my job is tour operators, hotels, resorts, CVBs, they invite me on free trips.

Scott Bloom:

The fam. I've heard of the fam. I've heard of the fam, right?

Danene Dustin:

Yes, the fam's. Exactly. Familiarization trips. I always say it very seriously. I'm going on an educational trip.

Scott Bloom:

Yeah. Yeah. The IRS likes it better that way too.

Danene Dustin:

Exactly. They roll out the red carpet because of course they want to, they can also be very exhausting because they will fill your days with everything imaginable because they want you to see and do everything possible in that destination so there's more, you have come away with so much more knowledge and the capability to, or potential to sell that to your clients. So actually, when I was relatively new to this job, I was invited on a fam to Morocco and I fell in love with Morocco.

Danene Dustin:

And I really believe it's one of those destinations, and unless you've been there, you know some people are a little trepidatious about some places like that and once I went there, it was, I've been able to sell it a few times. But on this particular, with this particular group, they were just ecstatic to be able to go there. I have just some fabulous tour operators, the people that are there local that can advise me on the things that are the best for that demographic, for that group that I'm bringing and be able to custom make it for those people so that it fits their needs and wants and desires.

Scott Bloom:

So you fall in love with, you go on a fam trip, you fall in love with Morocco. Is your immediate thought is I got to get everyone to Morocco or where, what is the process? You're talking to a client, they're saying, hey, we want to do something new and special. Do you have go-tos that you're, these are the ones that I'm real hot on. How do you determine what's the best trip for your clients?

Danene Dustin:

Well, I love to just really interview them. I actually have this form that I like to have them fill out just with the things like how many rooms, the very basics, ideal travel dates, ideal destinations, and 3, 4 or 5 star hotels. Does it need to be all inclusive or not? Adults only, all that. But it's really better to have a face to face talk with them. That's when they really come alive and can tell me about historically what they've done, what it is. I always tell my clients, don't just choose something that you as the CEO want to do. You need to survey. I think it's really important to survey your people, find out where your potential trip earners want to go. I think that's what they're going to want to work towards, is something they want.

Danene Dustin:

One of my dreams would be to have a client that would say something like, to all their people, in the next five to seven years or whatever timeframe they set up if you stay with us and you meet the parameters that we set for our reward travel, you will see, you will go to all seven continents in the world. We can cross that off your bucket list. How cool would that be? I said, what would your retention be? I just think something like that or the modern wonders of the world, or maybe it's a company that they're so into sports or something, and we're going to do a whole bunch of baseball fields and something like that. I would just love to be able to do something where they can look ahead and plan years out.

Scott Bloom:

That would be great, right, to let them know, hey, this is where... I mean, in your mind have something so that it does build each year and then maybe, even as you said, has a theme. Hey, we're going to travel to seven continents. Do you ever get people who are just like, well, it's either the place that is, they're just looking for a destination that'll blow them away, but you might have to say that might not be the best for them. How does pushback work in your industry?

Danene Dustin:

Yeah. Well then there's those that they want the world and then their budget is a shoestring budget.

Scott Bloom:

Oh, that must be tough.

Danene Dustin:

It is. It's really hard because I do, I want to give them what they want and I get to go with them and I get to help somewhat in the planning stages. So I really want their dreams and their visions to come to life. That is totally my goal, but it has to be realistic and so I just kind of say, well, I would love to do that for you. Let me see what I can do. Let me work with my partners. Let's see what kind of pricing we can get. And sometimes I will, I'll do kind of what they want, but maybe it's a little more lower price point and oftentimes then they'll realize just in me doing a little bit of the groundwork up front that, oh, that really isn't reasonable. I just don't want to be the bad guy and say, nope, you can't do that.

Danene Dustin:

There's no way we can do that. I'm going to try, even if I know, or I think it's not really reasonable. We have such strong partners. Me personally, and us as a company. We've been doing this for 45 plus years, and our buying power and all of that really do come in handy to help us to negotiate better rates and things like that. So I really don't like to say, no, but sometimes there's the art of compromise too. And so maybe we can, it may not be that they're going to do this way up here, but something near that, that is closer to their budget.

Scott Bloom:

Yeah. So, that must be a challenge sometimes as you're saying. They have these big expectations and you got to sort of manage them. How do you help your clients make informed decisions? Do they ever get to come out on some of these trips beforehand? Is that part of the process? Is that an option or is it done through video or is it just done through your enthusiasm? Hey, you have to try this out and paint that picture for them.

Danene Dustin:

All of the above, all of the above. So I'll give you an example. I did go on a, what they're called site inspections. Some of my clients absolutely will do a site inspection when they go and they check out, it could be prior to signing the contract. So for example, I have a client I proposed, oh, Cabo, I think Cancun and Puerto Vallarta or excuse me, Puerto Rico, and a couple of hotels per city and then ultimately they fell in love with Puerto Rico. So then I did a few, I added a few hotels to that. They narrowed that list from five to three and just a couple weeks ago they went to, on a site inspection to Puerto Rico to see those three hotels.

Danene Dustin:

They've narrowed it to one. So now we're in the process of getting that all finalized and contracted and that sort of thing. Sometimes people will do it sight unseen, just from me explaining it to them, sending them videos, photos and then there are those that just, I think they really do trust me. They realize maybe they don't have the budget to go and do that, go on another trip to check out the property. But a couple weeks ago I did do a site inspection while I was in Puerto Vallarta at this beautiful, beautiful new property and I took my client along with me on FaceTime.

Scott Bloom:

Oh, there you go.

Danene Dustin:

And she went for an hour all through the property with me, checking it out on a virtual site inspection and I've done those for clients where I've had three lined up in one day, in three different countries and one per hour for three hours in a row, they get to see live, a virtual site inspection.

Scott Bloom:

So, you probably are much better now at what you do than when you started. You said you're building relationships with people. What were some rookie mistakes maybe you made when you were younger? If you can share that?

Danene Dustin:

Oh yes, absolutely. Well, when I first started, I still remember going and proposing to a prospective client and they had so many questions. I was so ill prepared. I hadn't been to any of the places. I had not researched these destinations or the hotels. I just, whatever the hotel had sent me and the tour operators was put into this really pretty hard copy proposal, but I didn't really do any research to answer questions or to explain, even things like distance from the airport to the resort and what the beach is like. Is it swimmable, is it not swimmable? But a lot of it is just getting more travel in you and seeing things with your own eyes. I've gotten so much better and I know I will continue getting better the more places I visit. So that's one of the biggest mistakes. I think I came on probably a little too strong as well. I am very passionate and so I think sometimes my enthusiasm, I take it as just being excited and enthused, but I think it can rub people the wrong way. They think I'm pushy.

Scott Bloom:

No, I'm not getting, I'm not getting, I'm not getting pushy. I'm getting enthusiastic, but now you have the experience to back it. So some of that enthusiasm I'm sure was sort of blind enthusiasm. Hey, I'm just really excited. It's trips and now you have actually some knowledge behind it and you mentioned the reward travel experience starts from the moment they hear about that they've won it. I'm sure the luggage tags that get sent there, all the preparation, teasing what the experience is probably going to be about, but you're traveling to different locations. You're going all over the world. There's so much that can go wrong. Has there been a situation where something just, they were on site, it wasn't what you expected to be and then you came in and saved the day.

Danene Dustin:

Oh, I've had a few. Yeah. One when I was early on in this, we had been told in The Bahamas, my client wanted, I don't know if you've heard of swimming with the pigs.

Scott Bloom:

No, I have not.

Danene Dustin:

There's this opportunity that you can swim with pigs and the tour operator had let us know that this place they were going to take us, this particular island for a day excursion included swimming with the pigs. So we built that up, built that up. The day of the excursion one of the people that was working with me in the hotel, he looked at the, we had a big kind of poster outlining the day's activities and he saw that we were going to this island to swim the pigs and he said, "You know, there are no pigs there, right?" And I said, what? No, no, there are pigs here.

Danene Dustin:

We were told there were pigs. He said, "No, that's not this island. That's a different island." Well, long story short, I was frantic and we got to the island and the owner of the company, she just kept saying, where are the pigs, where are the pigs and the people that owned the island where we were, they said, oh, there is one pig that because of the rain he's hiding right now, but we're going to go find him and I'm like, no, that's not what we thought was going to be here. We just had to explain to her that we are so sorry. We were actually misinformed about this pig situation.

Danene Dustin:

We will, I know you're so disappointed, I'm so sorry. You will be getting a refund, a substantial refund on this particular excursion. I still didn't like that answer to be honest. If that had been me in her shoes, I just getting money back. I wanted the experience. I don't want the money. I want the experience. So since then I just make sure that I have way more open communication with my tour operators to explain exactly what this will entail so that there are no unanswered questions, there's no things that are expected that don't transform for us.

Scott Bloom:

So we're going to wrap things up in just a moment here, but tell me what were a few hotspots right now, places that you're definitely going to recommend to your clients?

Danene Dustin:

Well, Mexico, of course. I didn't sell a lot of Mexico quite honestly, pre-COVID, but it is one of the easier places to get in and out of right now during COVID. And for those that are traveling from the US, a lot of those places are relatively easy and have a decent air budget, that kind of thing. But I will tell you this, that I did do a fam a year ago, and it is one of the coolest things I've ever done and I would love to get a group to go here. And that is Rwanda.

Scott Bloom:

Wow.

Danene Dustin:

I went gorilla trekking in Rwanda. I get emotional talking about it. I got to go on this volcano with guides that took this very small group of us to see a family of gorillas in their natural habitat. I got to do that two days in a row, two early mornings in a row. Climbed through the mountains. They would carve out the guides. They actually had to use their machetes to make paths for us because the gorillas don't necessarily go places that are easy to get to for humans and to be in the gorillas in the mist, literally in the mist of this beautiful, gorgeous country, where the people are so warm and welcoming, it's the cleanest place I've ever visited in my entire life. They have very strict rules about littering and cleanliness, but it is for a very niche group. It is definitely not a cheap destination, but it's, if you, if your company wants to do something for your top earners, this would be the place and I will say this too is that a lot of my clients, these trip earners, they do very well.

Danene Dustin:

They have the money. It's not so much money that is an issue to go and do these trips and that kind of thing, but what I tell people is I have access to venues and excursions and special things that they can do that it's not even about the money as much as it is the connection. And so when you partner with someone like Morris Meetings and Incentives, and you work through a third party person like myself, I can go to bat for my clients and find those things that are, their people are going to go tell, put on social media and that kind of thing and people will say, how in the world were you able to do that? And it's because of our connections and our relationships that we're able to do some things that are really, truly bucket list items, that are hard to do for almost anybody else.

Scott Bloom:

Talk about a wow factor, going to Rwanda and hanging out with the gorillas in the mist. I think anyone will be lucky to work with you. You're clearly passionate about what you do. You have that, I can hear it in your voice just recalling that experience. You know, we learned... Marrakesh, definitely on people's bucket list. Is it Cascais? Am I saying right? I could just-

Danene Dustin:

Cascais. Another hotspot is Greece. I'm getting a lot more of interest. I'm taking a group to Santorini this fall. I have a group going there. Again, during COVID in the end we changed. We changed so many times they canceled it, but Santorini is just stunningly beautiful. So Greece is one I really like to talk to people about, but yeah, Morocco, I want to get people to Morocco.

Scott Bloom:

Yeah. I remember those posters. They're in every travel agency, all those white buildings. I spent some time in Athens in school so I know Santorini's definitely a beautiful place. Well, Danene, I want to thank you so much for spending time here on No More Bad Events. Hopefully people have listened, found some great new locations, found great ways to really partner with their clients to find out what they want to do, what to get the best for their people. It's been really exciting talking to you. So thank you so much.

Danene Dustin:

Well, thank you for having me. It's been my pleasure.

Scott Bloom:

That's it for now. I've been your host, Scott Bloom. Corporate event emcee and comedic keynote speaker and of course your connoisseur of connections. If you'd like more information, you can find me at scottbloomconnects.com, or you can book me directly for your next event on eSpeakers Marketplace at espeakers.com/marketplace. And if you like what you heard, subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. If you love what you heard drop as a review and don't forget to share with your friends. For show transcripts and show notes with resources to help you get even more out of the show visit nomorebadevents.com. No More Bad Events is produced and presented by eSpeakers and we're grateful to our sponsor ImpactEleven for helping us make our show possible. Thanks for listening. Now, go out and make your event a good one.