How One Event Helped Close a Million-Dollar Deal | From an Event Planner focused on adding real value.
Updated: Jul 21
Corporate Event Planning & Delivery — Ascot Ladies' Day
(psst...book me for your event planning - contact me at contact@amyeviola.co.uk!)
The event moved the deal from almost there to over the line.
The point of this article is to sell myself a little (just being real!), and to explain why I think the details matter in event planning, especially for closing deals, in the context of an event.
I give a summary of my event planning:
How I tackle a brief using lateral thinking
The challenges faced with this event
How I resolved it as the event planner
The business impact of this resolution, and
A summary of what made the day so successful.
Why you should read it:
If you are looking for a B2B event planner to help you with an event that will bring real business value and return on investment.
If you are a B2B marketer/event planner yourself, or interested in the field.
If you are none of the above, but just like reading something written by a real human, with real, straightforward conclusions and no jargon.
So, let's begin!
The brief + How I tackled it
As I'm sure many event planners can relate to, the brief was vague. I was given no budget and many ideas. Importantly, it was for ~30 of our highest valued, long-standing clients, plus one client we were yet to cross the line with.
It had to involve
fine dining, and
guests picking horses for prizes
also maybe a spinning wheel?
With a brief like that, some serious groundwork needs to be carried out, and a proper foundation laid. Here's how I did it.
Get to know the guest list:
The guest list was spitballed verbally at me, and I noted it all down. I found contact emails and numbers. I built a spreadsheet of these contacts that can be used for all future events. I looked into their companies, our deals with them, and found out why we needed them in the room. There was one client we were trying to cross the line with - I'll tell you all about that further down, in "The deal we wanted to win."
In this phase, I discovered something crucial to the planning of the event. I found out many of the invited business partners were horse-racing fanatics, but a fair few had no knowledge or interest in the sport. This brought its own unique challenges in terms of making the event cohesive and enjoyable for all. More on that below too, in "The engagement challenge". First, it was time for step 2...
Become an expert on horse racing (or close enough):
There would be experts there, and I needed to provide a competition worthy of engaging them. There would also be novices there, and to make the event a success, I would have to guide the,. That meant I had to bring myself up to speed as quickly as possible. I started watching races, YouTube guides to horse betting, and read the Racing Post for the first time ever. I got to grips with previous years' results
Build my tools for planning, tracking, and on the day execution of the game:
The crucial stuff - budget trackers, quote comparison sheets, guest RSVP lists.
And the exciting stuff: An RSVP microsite, guest invitations, and personalised post-event follow-ups. The centrepiece was a live, interactive tipping-competition leaderboard with QR-code guest access, auto-updating in real time from a live scoresheet - turning the simple tipping brief into something guests could follow from their phones all afternoon.
The Engagement Challenge
As stated before, in my discovery phase, I found that our guest list was made up of a mix of horse racing enthusiasts and people who (much like myself before step 2!) didn't know the first thing about it.
Furthermore, the racing went on for 5 hours, and to facilitate further relationship building, we had cars booked to a local bar afterwards - we needed them to stay the whole time.
Finally, at a high level in B2B business, our partners are being invited to events left, right, and centre. How do we make sure they remember and care about ours? These were all the issues I collated and tried to tackle. Here's how:
Make the game exciting, but not exclusionary
The event was scheduled to be 5 hours long. For those that care about all the races, it is easy to stay engaged. But for those that have less interest, we don't want them getting bored and leaving before the drinks portion of the evening.
To ensure maximum client engagement for the entire event, I played with the points awarded for a win. Let me break this down, for those that find the nerdy stats calculations as exciting as I do.
Click here to read the logic behind my points structure!
In the brief, a tipping competition was outlined to me as "everyone chooses a horse, and then each race, those who pick the top 3 horses win points".
But when I started researching, alarm bells started ringing. Some of these races had 36 horses running. Following the conventional wisdom would put the chances of a guest's random pick placing anywhere in the points at only 8.33%.!
For an intimate event with 30 guests, this was nowhere near high enough to ensure client enjoyment. So, I played with the numbers.
First, points were extended to being awarded for the first 6 horses - double the norm. So you were rewarded positively for choosing a horse in 4th, or 5th, consistently. Immediately, this increases chances of guests randomly winning points in the larger races to around 1-in-8 - much better for our 30 guests. Plus, in the smallest race, with 11 horses, we could estimate that over 50% of guests would get points - great for driving engagement and enjoyment in the event!
However, giving out points to everyone is also a very easy way to make the game boring. Why would anyone put effort into choosing the best horse, if choosing 4th best is almost just as good?
Also, I had to balance the needs of our experienced horse pickers too - they were some of our highest value clients. They could feel jaded if the playing field was too even, as they would (should!) have higher chances of picking winners due to their knowledge and experience - they may feel that the event is not worth them engaging in, and is just a lucky raffle.
So, I engineered this by weighting the points so that a lucky win could shoot you right up the leaderboard. This brought a dual benefit. Experienced pickers still felt their expertise and knowledge was of value. Also, for those that hadn't picked any good horses by race 3, it was still worth the client's time to engage. They still had a shot at a prize.
TDLR: the point structure was fine-tuned to strike a perfect balance and increase client engagement. And it worked! Right up until the final race, the top 3 spots were still up for grabs - and people were scanning the QR code and interacting with the game until the very end.
Build excitement well before guests arrive.
This is where email marketing came in. Deciding our theme, building our invites to fit our brand identity but to stay unique, making the RSVP process smooth and pain-free - all of these were crucial at this stage. Letting them know what they are in for, and persuading them to come, without sounding desperate. In the B2B world, you need to portray warmth and strong relationship values, whilst keeping your dignity - it's something I've seen businesses not quite hit on the nose a few times.
Facilitate enjoyment on the day!
This includes.....
Embody the desired experience of the event - in this case, warm, open, but still luxurious and formal.
Flitting around and checking in (not too often, let them enjoy it)
Controlling the flow of the event, but not with an iron fist - I like to let my preparation do the talking.
All of these things sound simple, but it's a careful balance - one that necessitates reading the room, facilitating introductions between the right people from our company and our clients, and guiding proceedings with an invisible touch, so guests do not feel pressured, rushed, or uncomfortable. As they were served their champagne, I checked in on how they were feeling about the upcoming game, which had been teased in the invite emails. If they seemed confident in the format and event, I highlighted the expert tips or betting odds sections of the booklet to show them this was a high-level event worth their time. For those, on the other hand, that seemed unsure or said they had no knowledge of the sport - I made sure to put them at ease. I showed them the simplicity of the booklet design. I gave them tips on how to enjoy the race. And most importantly, I emphasised the importance of luck to make them feel that they didn't have to be experts in order to engage and to end up on top.
That's all for making the clients feel warm and fuzzy and welcomed, and making sure they have a great time.
But why? Why did we spend time, money and effort on our business partners this way?
Of course, businesses don't want to be too tactless with the truth. But we all know it - it's for the deals that are solidified at events like these.
The deal we wanted to win.
We had a deal that had been fermenting for months. Contracts had gone back and forth, quotations had been provided, decision-makers had been met, and our value had been demonstrated every way we knew how. Still, the deal wasn't crossing the line.
Relationships close B2B deals as much as proposals do, so rather than sending another follow-up email, we invited this client to our event.
This was strategic - up until this point, all of our other guests were clients we had been doing business with for years. The event would be bringing together 28 guests from 16+ client organisations. All long-standing partners who could vouch for us in a way no pitch deck could. This particular client was the only prospective client in the room, and that was deliberate. The goal wasn't to sell to them again. It was to let our existing clients do the talking.
Where we almost lost the chance
The day before the event, our prospective client emailed in a panic. They'd double-booked and would still love to attend, but needed to bring a plus-one who knew nothing about the day, the format, or the client relationships in the room.
Given what was riding on this relationship, there was no hesitation: I told them we'd be delighted to have their guest along too.
That did mean getting the venue on board with an extra meal, changing seating arrangements, and on the day, that did mean a bit of extra hand-holding from my end too. But because of my friendly attitude and a genuine inside-out understanding of the day's events, everything went without a hitch.
Afterwards, I received an email directly from this plus-one, who turns out to have known and worked with our target client for years, and was curious about working with us:
"Thank you so much for an amazing event, and for including me when I had no idea what was going on. See you at the next!"
Here was another comment left on my LinkedIn post regarding the event -
"Such a well-organised event, with fun and laughter 🤗
Thanks again Amye"
Comments like these showed what those with experience in this field already know - nothing is too small to think about, and you can never be too well prepared. A well-planned B2B corporate event, executed with genuine passion and in a manner that prioritises client engagement and quality of experience, can build prosperous business relationships with guests - whether you have a deal in the pipeline or not.
This time, we had a deal in the pipeline... and it cleared!
All B2B events, as fun as they are, need to serve a business need. This event delivered.
Event spend: £6,400
Immediate outcome: Within the week, a million-dollar contract was signed.
Future ROI potential: The client's plus one now has us as a front-of-mind connection in our industry, and will likely remember us for future business needs and recommend us highly amongst his network.
To be clear: the event didn't build this deal. That was the work of our sales team, our engineers, and months of patient responses to every enquiry along the way. But the event moved the deal from almost there to over the line.
It's not a coincidence that the client held off signing until after they'd spent an afternoon in a room with people who already trusted us. The event showed them, in a way no proposal could, that we'd value them as a partner. More than that, it put them face-to-face with existing partners willing to back that up.
Once they felt they could trust our proposal, they signed.
Other successes summary (and photos!)
A few design choices underpinned why the day worked as well as it did for guests at every level of horseracing knowledge:
Designed for a mixed audience: With a guest list split between committed horseracing enthusiasts and complete newcomers, every piece of event material — from the schedule posters to the tipping booklet — was designed to work for both. Nobody needed prior knowledge to follow along or take part.
Personal touchpoints throughout: Rather than leaving guests to work things out on their own, I made a point of speaking with each of them before and after every race - checking they understood what was happening, answering questions, and reading the room to keep the balance right between the racing, the competition, and simply letting people enjoy their meal.
Careful pacing: The afternoon paired a three-course meal with five races, and the timings of both were deliberately coordinated so neither interrupted the other - no course arriving mid-race, no race missed because a plate hadn't cleared. That pacing was a big part of why the day felt relaxed rather than rushed, for hosts and guests alike.
A personal touch for our female guests: As this was Ladies' Day, the women in the room were in the minority - a dynamic many of them navigate regularly in a male-dominated industry. To recognise that and show that their presence and input genuinely mattered to us, each woman received a personal gift bag, sourced specifically from women-owned brands.
A framework for future events: Beyond this one deal, the event became a template. The post-event report, which evaluated ROI, guest value, and new leads generated, turned a one-off day into a repeatable playbook for future client events, with a cost benchmark and a proven format ready to run again.
Thank you for reading!
If there's anything that speaks to you in the above, or anything you would contest, leave me a comment! I'd love to have an engaging conversation with you :)
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