Twenty minutes across a table. The whole event turns on who sits there.
Les Entrepreneurs Haute-Garonne builds its convention around Speed Business: 209 members, seated, short back-to-back meetings. The format only pays if the person opposite is the right one. Sena used the week before the event to learn what each member was after.
Before anyone sat down, 99 of 143 members told Sena what they do, what they want, and who they need across the table. With a stated target, you know where to seat each member.
What the registration form knew
- Name
- Company
- Trade
Nothing about who they wanted to meet, or which way round the meeting had to go.
What Sena knew before anyone sat down
- Wants companies with staff who need an employment lawyerin their own words, unprompted
- Target: owners of businesses with ten or more employees
- Region: Toulouse and Occitanie
- Direction: seller, not buyer
One real member, anonymized. You can seat people on the right-hand column. Before Sena, you had only the left.
Every seat costs twenty minutes
Speed Business only works if the person across the table is worth the twenty minutes. The form knew each member's name, company and trade. It did not know who they were after, and a trade is not a target.
The organizer put the opt-in on the registration form and pushed it in the run-up. Sena then talked with each participant before the doors opened, so the seat plan started from those conversations instead of a job title.
What members told Sena before the event
Sena asked its questions in a chat, with no form in sight. A typical conversation ran to 5 messages. 55% ran to five or more, and the longest ran to 22. 16 members answered in 58 voice notes and described their business out loud as they walked.
Each percentage is a share of the members who talked with Sena, out of the 209 who signed up for Speed Business.
Members described the same counterpart again and again: owners of companies with ten to fifty employees, HR directors, and local Occitanie businesses. That profile is a ticket-sales brief for next year, in the members' own words.
"Je souhaite rencontrer des chefs d'entreprise ayant au moins 10 salaries"
I want to meet business owners with at least ten employees.
Member who wants clients, the largest group
Members also prepared for the day with care. They asked how long they speak, how many people sit at each table, and whether they get a stand. One in five, 26 members, asked some version of a single question: who am I going to meet? After basic logistics, it was the most common request of the whole week. It tells the organizer exactly what members want from the format.
Who was in the room, and why they came
These conversations also answered a question the organizer never had a way to ask. Who is in this room, and what are they here to do?
Most of the sellers were B2B service providers after the same person: an SME owner with staff. It tells the organizer which members to recruit for the next edition and which to court as buyers. It also shows how to seat the tables so the two sides meet. It came out of conversations with members, and it is the organizer's to keep.
The numbers
Four things from the organizer. Sena did the rest.
The organizer put the opt-in on the registration form and pushed it in the pre-event emails. They also sent us the programme and the partner list.
The 76% came from the organizer: the opt-in sat on the registration form, and members knew to expect the message. That push is the one thing we need from you, and we will ask for it before the event.
Have an event coming up?
Get a Sena agent for your next event. On the call, we show what your guests want before you seat them.
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