LocalTalks Ottawa Chapter

@LocalTalksYOW

September 2019 - March 2020

We believe community fuels commerce.

LocalTalks is a monthly networking event for entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, innovators and/or creatives of any type. On the last Tuesday of each month, we host a panel event at Shopify featuring 3-4 local entrepreneurs and creatives.

Sponsorships, Content, and Networking, oh my!

Since joining the LocalTalks team, we’ve increased attendee rates by over 250%, increasing our average from 30 attendees per event to over 80 attendees, our biggest night saw over 150 attendees.

As one of five organizers of LocalTalks, I wore many hats. My main responsibility pre-COVID was director of sponsorships, speaker coordinator and co-editor of the social media calendar. Some of the skills I’ve learned along the way are:

Project Management

  • Managing and coordinating different monthly food and drink sponsors, each month sourcing from a new, local establishment

  • Securing two long-term food & drink partnerships for the 2019-2020 season

  • Finding and recruiting speakers with diverse backgrounds to offer the best value to our attendees

Content creation

  • Working with the LocalTalks photographer to capture the event’s best moments, usually via a shot list

  • Co-editing the monthly LocalTalks instagram, writing captions, and curating photos

community building

  • Brainstorming with the team on how to bring more value to the entrepreneurship community by introducing $20 headshot sessions, bringing more local vendors to our marketplace, bringing finance experts to offer free services, hosting 5-min goal-setting workshops

  • Engaging and networking with attendees before and post-event

  • Creating and running surveys to gather feedback and data on how LocalTalks can improve

COVID-19 Pivot

virtual networking events

Our First Virtual Event: COVID greatly affected our event-hosting capabilities, which is why in Mid-May, we decided to host a free virtual event titled, “Pivoting during a Pandemic”. We had over 150 virtual attendees, the event was a great success.

LocalChats: LocalChats was my brain child. I was attending a lot of random online networking events, and thought it’d be a great idea to do the same with the LocalTalks community. Thus, LocalChats was born. LocalChats is a networking event where we match interested participants with somebody new based on their self-expressed interests and motivations. I co-developed the screening process and organized the match-ups with my co-host Natalia. To build hype, Natalia and I utilized IG Live discussing the best networking tips.

Pivoting all our events to digital was a blessing in disguise because now I feel very confident in hosting any online event!

The LocalTalks Organizers from left to right: Meg (Moderator and Host), Me (Sponsorships and Engagement), Natalia (Business Development), Nicole (Speakers and Volunteers), Taylor (Social Media Manager)

The LocalTalks Organizers from left to right: Meg (Moderator and Host), Me (Sponsorships and Engagement), Natalia (Business Development), Nicole (Speakers and Volunteers), Taylor (Social Media Manager)