Executive dinner
An executive dinner is an invite-only meal a company hosts for a small group of senior buyers from its target accounts, often alongside a major show, where some of the most valuable conversations of an event happen.
It is a hosted event, and when it runs next to a trade show it is also a satellite event of that show.
Why do executive dinners go unrecorded?
No badge scanner sits at the table, and your team doesn’t type notes between courses. The executives doing the talking hand the conversation off verbally, if at all. What your guests said stays in your host’s memory until they write it down.
Executive conversations disappear the same way at booths and in hallways. At one company, a CRO-level conversation with a strategic prospect never reached the CRM. The rep who followed up couldn’t find the person in the system.
How do you run one well?
- Build the invite list from the parent show’s target account list, once you have matched it against the CRM.
- Assign an inviter per account and invite early, since the invitation competes with every other dinner in town that night.
- Have each host debrief per guest the same night: what mattered, what they agreed, who follows up.
- Check the dinner’s attempt rate 2 weeks out. At a table of 12, every guest should have a recorded follow-up.
Where do you find it in FieldXM?
In FieldXM, each guest your hosts capture gets an owner, a next step, and a first-touch deadline before the night ends. Your host can add a voice note after saving a capture. See how follow-up works.
Related terms
- Hosted eventA hosted event is an in-person event a company organizes itself, such as a dinner, workshop, roadshow stop, or user conference, where the company controls the guest list, the venue, and the agenda.
- Satellite eventA satellite event is a company-hosted event held alongside a major trade show, such as a nearby dinner, reception, or workshop, that meets target accounts in a smaller room while the show brings them to town.
- Target account listA target account list is the set of accounts a revenue team intends to engage at an event, which the team matches to the CRM, tiers by fit, and assigns to owners before anyone travels.
- Capture failureCapture failure is the in-event failure mode of in-person GTM, in which the context of booth and hallway conversations disappears before it reaches the CRM, leaving a name with no record of what the buyer said.
- Attempt rateAttempt rate is the share of event leads that received at least one recorded sales follow-up attempt within the agreed window, the base measure of whether sales reps worked the leads a show produced.
See it in FieldXM
- Follow-upAssign each lead to an email blast, a sequence, or direct outreach. FieldXM enrolls it and shows you what hasn’t gone out.
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