This is part of Beyond Networking, a 40-page companion guide to the Community Made podcast by Jayson Gaignard. You can download the full book here.
Why Become a Catalyst?
Before you start hosting events, it’s important to understand why they’re worthwhile.
For attendees, connecting with people they wanted to connect with is extremely valuable.
In fact, Thornton May built a nine-figure business by inviting Fortune 500 CIOs to group dinners. While these CIOs were previously isolated, the dinners enabled them to meet each other and talk through the challenges their companies faced, crowdsourcing solutions. Occasionally, amidst discussion, they turned to Thornton to ask if his company could help them solve particular problems, too. Thornton paid for the dinners, but everyone won from the interactions.
For hosts, events provide additional benefits, including a boost in status.
In most rooms, the highest-status person gets the most attention. But this also works in reverse. Being the host means you get attention, and that attention makes you seem high-status.
Hosting events also provides credibility by association. By coordinating, you spend time around high-status people and spending time with high-status people makes you also seem high-status.
You can then leverage this boost in status to interact with more accomplished people.
The 5 Dinner-Hosting Ws: Who, What, When, Where, and Why
Why are You Hosting Dinners?
Your dinner-hosting strategy will depend on what you hope to get from hosting dinners.
Do you want to build a network of peers? What about potential mentors? Do you want to use your dinners to increase organizational sales? Or will your dinners be about giving back, connecting people at the early stages of their journey?
Developing clarity around your “why” will instruct every element of “what” and “how.”
If you’re going to host dinners, start by getting clear on your “why.”
What Size Should the Dinner Be?
Now that you know your goals, pick a dinner size that reflects them.
Large dinners are great for building trust and rapport at scale. They enable micro-interactions with every attendee, helping you plant seeds and decide where you want to invest further.
The downside of large dinners is that the host must play facilitator. Instead of being fully present, you’ll have to mingle, sparking conversations and making sure everyone is engaged. This scales with group size, too. As Jayson warns, “The larger the group, the more energy you'll be investing to make sure everyone is having a great time."
While small dinners don’t plant seeds with as many people, the smaller size produces intimacy. Attendees are more likely to open up and be vulnerable, which creates stronger relationships. These small dinners also tend to self-facilitate, making it easier to fully engage as the host.
Pick your size based on what you think will work best. If you don’t like how it goes, you can always try a different dinner size later. The key is to start—you’ll get better at this as you go.
Who Do I Invite?
Dinners live and die by the quality of your curation. Start with your dinner-hosting goals, then look for people who would want to meet each other.
The best strategy is to target an uncommon commonality: what will everyone in the group have in common that they are unlikely to have in common with a random stranger?
While all relationships must go through the same stages of intimacy-building, this process happens much faster when there is an uncommon commonality. As Jayson says, “The deeper the uncommon commonality, the deeper the bond.”
But be careful! Inviting direct competitors may hurt the dinner’s potential for intimacy.
Where Should I Host?
There are many factors to consider when selecting a dinner location. Here are four big ones:
Accessibility - Consider factors like distance, traffic, parking, and public transit when picking a venue. “Your job as a host,” Jayson says, “is to design an incredible experience for your guests from start to finish, so take time to consider how easily accessible a venue is in advance."
Value - Your best bet is to host at a restaurant with 3.5+ stars. You’ll also want to avoid any restaurants that are overpriced or pretentious.
Dietary Restrictions - Pick a restaurant with a wide array of options, or at the least the ability to accommodate allergies and dietary restrictions. Mexican food is often an excellent choice.
Intimacy – While 4 to 6 person dinners can be hosted almost anywhere, large dinners may require private or semi-private dining. If you opt for private dining, be sure to negotiate with the restaurant in advance. You’ll want to order off the main menu (rather than the pre-fixed one) and avoid food minimums if you can. Sometimes Jayson will suggest ordering a slew of options with the ability to share, giving the impression of variety at a lower cost.
When Should I Host?
The timing of your dinner should be shaped by who you’re inviting.
Consider the lifestyles of your guests, then pick a day and time where they are likely available. You might even opt for breakfast or lunch if that better suits your guests.
Conferences can be especially good times to host a dinner. These events unite similar people and often provide attendee lists, making it easy to find and invite guests. And, by catching people outside their typical schedules, invitees are more likely to say “yes.”
How to Host a Dinner
What follows is a step-by-step guide for hosting dinners. It stands alone and is everything you need to start hosting your own events. But if you want additional support, like exact invite scripts and more, they can be found in Jayson Gaignard’s 2015 book Mastermind Dinners.
Step #1: Schedule Dinner & Book the Restaurant
Once you’ve decided to host a dinner, schedule it and book the restaurant. Adding the event to your calendar makes it real and reserving a table pushes you to execute.
Step #2: Find & Review Invitees
Thinking about your dinner-hosting-why, begin looking for invitees.
Start by tapping into your network, asking if they have any suggestions.
Then try asking, “If I’m notable in this city, where can I be found?” This may lead you to local business organizations or past award winners.
And if you’re still not finding enough people, you might try co-hosting with a local connector—someone who already knows lots of people in the city.
Jayson also tracks interesting people. Anytime he finds someone intriguing on social media, he adds them to a CRM. This gives him an endless list of people to meet when in new cities, which is helpful when hosting dinners on the road.
Step #3: Invitations
Since dinners live and die by the quality of your curation, you’ll want to handpick your guests.
There are two main strategies to securing commitment:
First, you can work up the chain. Start with the person most likely to say “yes” and work up from there. This builds confidence and momentum at the same time.
Second, you can secure an anchor tenant. If you get a “yes” from the most impressive guest, their attendance will make it much easier to recruit the other invitees.
Even if you secure an anchor tenant, you’ll want to be careful with name-dropping. Jayson recommends sharing achievements, like “attendees include a New York Times bestselling author, etc.” without mentioning anyone by name.
Once you invite people, track their status so you know who’s coming, pending, or unavailable.
And don’t panic if you receive early rejections. Invitations get easier as you develop a reputation. Jayson’s first dinner had a 10% conversion rate; now his invites convert 95% of the time.
Step #4: Post-Acceptance, Pre-Dinner
Once a guest commits to attending, you’ll want to send them a calendar invite and intake form. The former locks your event in their calendar while the latter streamlines all dinner-related info. Intake forms are the best way to learn about dietary restrictions, capture details for seating and introductions, and even receive nominations for future dinner guests.
A day before the dinner, you’ll want to send a reminder email to ensure no conflicts have arisen. You can also share some of the group’s achievements to heighten anticipation.
Then, on the day of the dinner itself, Jayson recommends texting every guest from your personal cellphone. This is a nice personal touch and makes communication easy if anyone runs late.
Step #5: The Dinner
Arrive Early & Greet Guests
You’ll want to arrive at the venue at least an hour before the dinner starts. This time helps you get comfortable, meet the servers, pick your table, and lay out name cards for seating.
When guests start arriving, you’ll want to greet as many of them as possible at the door. Greeting guests immediately eliminates the nerves of walking into a new situation.
Starting The Dinner
Once all guests have arrived, start the dinner with some opening remarks. Share the approximate dinner duration and available menu items, before reiterating why you’re hosting the dinner. You’ll also want to remind everyone there’s no soliciting: what happens at dinner stays at dinner.
After these remarks you’ll want to introduce your guests one-by-one. Use this as a chance to brag on all your attendees, highlighting their accomplishments and mentioning commonalities. Your goal is to help people feel safe, allowing space for vulnerability. If natural, you might even lead with vulnerability yourself.
From there, it’s time to let conversation flow. (But snag a group picture once food arrives!)
Wrapping The Dinner
As people finish their entrées, you’ll want to start wrapping the dinner.
Jayson does this by asking everyone the champagne question: “If we were to meet a year from today, with a bottle of champagne, what would we be celebrating?”
Answering this question gives each guest an insight into one another’s goals, often sparking post-dinner follow-ups. If possible, Jayson recommends recording everyone’s answers, too.
After everyone answers the champagne question, Jayson says the dinner is officially over. He tells guests they can leave but are also welcome to stay and keep chatting if they want.
And with that, voilà, you’ll have hosted your first dinner.
Step #6: Post-Dinner
The day after hosting a dinner, Jayson recommends sending a post-dinner thank you.
You can make some comments about the dinner itself, share the group photo, and reiterate everyone’s champagne question answers. If everyone is comfortable, you can also share group emails. This thank you also offers a final chance to request nominations for a future dinner.
If you particularly liked someone, you can go deeper post-dinner. Invite them for a one-on-one or send them a literal bottle of champagne if you hear they accomplish their stated goal.
Dinners are often the seed. Keep pouring into the relationship to help it grow.
Who Pays for Dinner?
The final dinner-hosting question comes at the end of the meal: who pays?
There are several valid options. Choose whichever you think is best!
Option #1: The Host(s)
Jayson always pays when he hosts dinners. He feels it’s his responsibility as the host.
Whether you feel this way or not, paying for dinner also builds reciprocity, strengthening your bond with each guest.
Co-hosting can also help lower costs since you both split the bill.
Option #2: Guests
If you want your guests to pay for their meal, you can let them know by calling the dinner a “Dutch treat” in your initial invite or by creating an Eventbrite page so they can pay in advance.
Option #3: Company Sponsor
Depending on your guests, a company may be willing to cover the bill. This can be a fantastic win-win, since the company gets exposure with target individuals, and the guests get a free meal.
Option #4: Games
One final way to pay is with games.
You can play credit card roulette, letting the server pull credit cards until one remains. Or you can play phone stack, with everyone placing their phones on the table, agreeing that the first person who touches theirs will cover the meal.
These games are great opportunities to increase playfulness and ignite people’s competitive drives, leading to a lot of fun. Just be sure to let people opt out and pay for their own meal if that’s their preference.
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