Anyone who uses basketball as an analogy for any business strategy gets a gold star in my book. And that’s what Dennis Shiao did in a recent blog post on how you can draft the right team to help you pull of a successful virtual event or virtual show. His blog post is just so brilliant, I just can’t believe I didn’t write it first.

As I went through Dennis’ post, all his advice applies to virtual event managers, however, what stood out is the following:

The Point Guard – the point guard is often considered the surrogate coach on the floor – s/he dribbles the ball up the court and commands the offense.  In a virtual event, the point guard is the Event Host or Event Planner – the person who’s responsible for coordinating all the various parties involved in the execution of the event.  Rookie point guards rarely excel in the NBA – so make sure you have a veteran player running point in your virtual event.  If you have rookies on board, have them play the understudy role, so that they can grow into a starting role for the next virtual event.  A virtual event is best produced by someone who’s run the show many times before.

In my years of playing basketball, I’ve played with some amazing point guards. I’ve also played with points guards who were awful. The ones that were awful didn’t shout out the right instructions, had a look of fear in their eyes and performed very poorly.

Sadly, the awful point guards weren’t rookies. Some were actually veterans. They may not be the starting point guard, but may be the one that came off the bench.

What her lack of confidence did for the team is made even the best player unsure of herself. I’ve seen this happen with virtual events. The virtual event host who lacks confidence in what she’s doing will:

• Have TONS of dead air during the session
• Shuffle papers in the background as she scrambles to find the “interview questions”
• Forget the name of the speaker’s book (this has happened to me where the virtual event host said the name of my book 2 different ways, neither of them correct)
• Not introduce her speakers correctly
• Not remind speakers/exhibitors/sponsors about important deadlines
• Etc., etc., etc.

At the end of the day, it’s better to ask or attend other virtual events to learn what to do it well than to try and wing it. All the point guards I’ve played with has had years of experience. They didn’t just pick up the ball yesterday and play for a team today.

Instead, they attended camps, they practiced and they learned how to be excellent. As a virtual event host or manager, you have to do the same. Attend learning events, join groups and be around other virtual event managers and hosts that do it well.