Everything and Anything is Possible
With Trent McLaren, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Practice Ignition
If you had told me 8 weeks ago that I would be involved in organising one of the largest online virtual summits for accounting professionals, with 15300 registrations and raise of £44,000 for the NHS in the process, I probably would have laughed in your face and said you’re crazy!
But you know that where there’s a will there's a way, and when there’s God, everything and anything is possible.
When the Coronavirus hit, I was fortunate enough to be able to work from home in my role as Head of Strategic Partnerships at Practice Ignition. A Sydney founded start-up that helps accountants and professional services streamline there contract management and payment collection. Imagine if Docusign and Stripe had a baby. You’d have a really good looking baby called Practice Ignition.
Like the rest of the industry, everyone was in shock and trying to adjust rapidly to what was happening around them. I remember one morning I had an email from a large conference organiser asking for an urgent meeting. To my curiosity I took the call that week and they posed a question to me. “Trent, you’re pretty switched on with this stuff, how do we pivot and take what we do online and deliver a new kind of experience for over 10,000 people?”
I replied simply with a cheeky grin and said “Leave it with me”.
The best ideas always seem to be last-minute throwaway comments in my experience. My colleague and I were busy building this online summit, in record speed. We were pretty confident that everything was going to hold up and we were testing the check-out process and user experience to make sure we were happy with how it all looked and felt.
Jordan turned to me and said “Hey mate, we can make it free to attend but we can also charge money for everyone to get a recording of all the sessions, what do you think?” Jordan’s a pretty smart guy so I said “Yeah, what are you thinking? What would we charge?” He replied “Let’s just make it £10, and we can donate 100% of it to the NHS in support of everything going on.” I quickly said “Good one, let’s do it.” This conversation took less than 30 seconds, yet in reflection it was the most important decision we made for the entire project.
I sit here 24 hours after the virtual summit closing, knowing that 4255 people upgraded their pass for £10, to get a VIP ticket allowing them to access 47 hours worth of content that we put on over the last two days.
Although ridiculously tired, I’m incredibly grateful and proud of our effort and what we’ve been able to achieve in just 8 weeks. From concept to to summit completed and money raised.
It’s an experience I’ll never forget.