WELCOME TO THE
Library
Pull something off the shelf. I write most weeks about the parts of an event nobody sees.
New on the shelf
everything on the shelf
What's actually missing from your retreat tech (7 gaps with fixes)
Seven things that go missing from event tech setups, each one small enough to overlook and large enough to cause a scramble. This post covers what each looks like when it's finally in place, and how to get there.
Why rebuilding your retreat tech keeps giving you the same problems
You rebuilt the whole thing and within a month the same problems came back. That repetition is telling you something useful. This post covers what it usually means and where the real issue tends to sit.
How to audit your retreat tech layer by layer before your next event
Before you add another tool, it's worth finding out what's already broken in the ones you have. This post walks through a layer-by-layer check you can run in an afternoon, and what to do with what you find.
Set up vs. built: Why your event tech keeps failing
Everything is connected, everything is technically working, and things still fall through. This post covers the difference between a setup that exists and one that was genuinely built, and how to tell which one you're running.
You’re building your retreat backwards (start with the tech)
Most retreats get built in an order that guarantees you'll redo half of it. This post makes the case for starting somewhere that feels counterintuitive, and covers what it saves you later.
Stop being the search engine: how to build a retreat coordination hub
When every question comes back to you, you've become the place people look things up. This post covers how to build the place they should be looking instead, and what has to live there for it to work.
The brief that lets your retreat team decide without you
A good brief tells your team what to do. A better one tells them enough to make the call themselves when you're mid-session and unreachable. This post covers the difference and what has to be in the second kind.
The 4 retreat roles that make delegation actually work
Delegation falls apart when nobody is clear on who decides what, which is a different problem from nobody knowing what to do. This post covers four roles that make the handoff clean and what each one owns.
Why Your Retreat Team Keeps Coming to You for Everything (And How to Fix It)
Your team is capable and they still check with you before nearly every decision. They're missing something you've been carrying in your head without realizing it. This post covers what that is and how to get it out of there.
Why staying hands-on with event tech can slow everything down
Keeping the tech yourself feels faster and safer, and for a while it genuinely is. This post covers what it costs once other people need access to it, and how to hand it over without losing track of anything.
The difference between planning your event and building your tech
Planning your event and building the tech behind it are two separate jobs, and treating them as one is why both keep taking longer than you budgeted. This post covers where the line sits and what belongs on each side of it.
Is your event tech setup complicated… or just unfinished?
The setup that feels impossibly complicated is very often just half-built, and those two problems have completely different solutions. This post covers how to tell which one you have before you scrap everything and start again.
The hidden cost of stretching event tech across weeks
Twenty minutes here, half an hour there, and it feels like progress. This post covers what it actually costs to keep restarting the same build, and why the work never seems to get closer to finished.
Why your event tech setup keeps getting delayed
The tech has moved to next week four weeks running, and you're not avoiding it out of laziness. Something specific is blocking it every time. This post names what that usually is and what it takes to get past it.
How to build a retreat backend that actually makes profit
The places money leaks out of a retreat are rarely the places you'd think to check. Most of them sit in the setup rather than the spending. This post walks through where they are and what to build so the profit survives to the end.
Why retreat profit should be planned before you book
Profit worked out after the venue is booked is really just whatever happens to be left. By then most of your costs are already decided. This post covers how to build the number in from the beginning, before anything gets signed.
Why raising retreat price didn’t bring relief
You raised the price, the guests still came, and the pressure stayed exactly where it was. This post covers what a price increase can genuinely fix, what it leaves untouched, and where to look when the relief doesn't arrive.
Why retreat pricing feels harder than everything else
Pricing a retreat means putting a number on something that doesn't exist yet, for a group of people you haven't met. That's genuinely harder than pricing your other work. This post covers why, and what makes the number easier to land on.
Selling out isn’t the same as being profitable (Here’s why)
Every seat filled, a beautiful event, and almost nothing left at the end. It's one of the most common outcomes in this work and one of the least discussed. This post covers where the money goes and how to find it while you can still change something.
She registers, gets a confirmation, and then hears nothing for six weeks. Whatever excitement she had gets a chance to cool all the way down. This post covers what should be reaching her in that stretch and how to set it up once.