The Experiential Strategist with Jenny Howard-Maxwell

Most event professionals can tell you attendance numbers. Almost none of them can tell you what an event actually made people feel, and whether that feeling was designed on purpose or just left to chance. In this episode, Jenny shares what came out of an unplanned fifteen minute call with Liz Lathan of Club Ichi, and why that conversation led her straight to return on emotion, the measurable frame...

Every experience produces an emotion whether you planned it or not. Eight years ago I planned a memorial service for a woman named Mindy who chose me for a job when nobody else in that room wanted me there. I did not know it then but every decision I made that day was the framework I would spend the next eight years building. The pink couch. The world map with pins from every city her guests trave...

This one is personal. Jenny spent a year planning a football-themed Mitzvah. Custom turf dance floor. Stenciled logo. A smoke-filled entrance moment that made her client cry. Every detail intentional, every element designed to land. And it did. Then the caterer was late. And just like that, everything Jenny built disappeared. Not physically — but emotionally. The tears at the door were gone. The d...

Matthew Barney left the Coast Guard, bought a one way ticket to Seattle, signed a lease on an apartment he never saw, and built a career producing experiences for some of the biggest brands in the world including AWS, Delta, and Microsoft. He describes himself as a creative person who became operationally dangerous. The moment I read that I knew we had to talk. In this conversation Matthew and I g...

I was standing in a former Denver Broncos airplane hangar in a gown, throat on fire, two major experiences back to back that weekend. And when I woke up on Monday morning I could not tell you what a single one of them did for the business. Not one metric. Not one data point. Twenty five years in this industry. An MBA in marketing. And I had nothing to show for it except a beautiful experience nobo...

You have been in that budget meeting. The one where someone asks whether the event was worth the spend and nobody in the room can answer the question. In this episode, Jenny Howard-Maxwell makes the case that events are not a line item to defend. They are an asset to invest in. And when you start showing up that way, everything changes. Your budget. Your title. The way your clients see you. Jenny...

There is a title that has been quietly redefining what the events industry pays for and who gets the seat at the table. Experiential strategist. And if you have been in this industry for seven to ten years, designing corporate events, brand activations, and experiential campaigns, there is a good chance you already are one. You just do not have the language to prove it yet. In this episode I share...

Most event planners are not hearing what the job boards are actually saying right now. Last week I pulled 12 real experiential marketing job postings from Google, Reddit, Versace, SKIMS, Vuori, and A24. What I found changes everything about how you need to be presenting yourself in this market. Seventy five percent of those postings did not require a degree. But every single one required the same...

After twenty years in the industry, Jenny has noticed a pattern: when event professionals aren't sure their event is working, they add more. More décor. More activations. More production value. More spend. But more is not the answer. Clarity is. In this episode, Jenny breaks down the one question every event professional needs to answer before they book a single vendor — and how that question chan...

In this episode, Jenny breaks down every major certification in the events industry: the CMP, CSEP, CMM, DES, CEM, and DMCP. What they cover, who they're built for, and where they sit in the landscape. Then she explains the gap none of them fill — and why that gap is exactly what CPES was built for. If you're a mid-career event professional who already knows how to run events but can't get a seat...

There are two types of event professionals in this industry. Planners and strategists. And for too long, there has been no clear path from one to the other. In this episode, I am talking about the gap that has been holding talented, experienced, brilliant event professionals back. Not because they are not good enough. Not because they do not work hard enough. But because the industry built an enti...

I want you to think about the most successful event you have ever planned. Not the biggest. Not the most expensive. The one where you knew, in your bones, that you had done something extraordinary. Now I want you to think about how it felt when someone else took that moment away from you. In this episode, I am sharing a story I have never forgotten. A three hour event across three floors of a stun...

Knowing what your event is for is the beginning. Engineering it to produce that result is the work. And the key to that work lives somewhere most event professionals have never been taught to look. In this episode of The Experiential Strategist, Jenny Howard-Maxwell introduces the neuroscience behind why experiences move people and why that changes everything about how you design them. Drawing on...

Your event tech is not lying to you on purpose. It is just answering the wrong question. In this episode of The Experiential Strategist, Jenny Howard-Maxwell breaks down why your post-event dashboards are full of accurate data that still cannot tell you whether your event worked. From check-in numbers to NPS scores, the platforms we rely on were built to manage logistics at scale. They were never...

Seventy percent of event planners cannot effectively track or describe event ROI. Most post-event reports measure two things: attendance and whatever the planner decided engagement means that week. That is not a result. That is a recap. In this episode I am breaking down exactly what your post-event report should be measuring, why most planners are leaving their seat at the table undefended, and t...

More activations. More wow moments. More spend. More impact. That is what we were told. That is what I believed. It took years of research, an over-produced event or two, and a Lady Gaga impersonator to teach me otherwise. In this episode I am breaking down the Peak End Rule, why the brain is designed to forget most of what happens at your event, and what to do instead. We also get into How Emotio...

Jenny Howard Maxwell posted something on LinkedIn about the planner plateau and it got over 114,000 impressions in under a week. The comments were not just likes. They were event professionals saying finally. Finally someone named what I have been living for years and could not articulate. So Jenny went deeper. In this episode she breaks down why the salary ceiling between $65,000 and $75,000 exis...

If you have ever received a stressed out phone call from an HR director two weeks before a company conference, you already know what this episode is about. Jenny Howard Maxwell opens with a confession and then makes a case that most companies are actively undermining their most powerful marketing channel by treating events like administrative tasks. In-person events are the most trusted marketing...

What if the metric you have been reporting on for your entire career means absolutely nothing to the business that paid for your event? If you have ever turned in a post-event report with the word engagement in it and could not define exactly what that meant in measurable terms, this episode is for you. In this episode I am breaking down why engagement became our industry's go-to metric, why it is...

What happens when you hand someone $50,000, tell them to go spend it, and then let them come back and decide whether they did a good job? That is exactly what most event professionals are doing right now. And it is costing us our credibility, our budgets, and our seat at the strategic table. In this episode I am sharing the story that changed everything about how I approach my work. A $50,000 holi...

If you have been in the eve.nts industry for a few years and feel like your income has hit a wall, you are not imagining it. There is a very real salary ceiling that most event planners hit between $65,000 and $75,000 and it has nothing to do with how hard you are working. In this episode I am breaking down exactly why it happens, what the data actually says about event planner compensation, and t...

If you have been planning events for any amount of time and you have ever walked out of a post-event debrief feeling invisible, this show was made for you. The Experiential Strategist is hosted by Jenny Howard-Maxwell, founder of The Edgucation Institute and creator of Strategic Experience Design. This show covers how to break through the Planner Plateau, how to design for behavioral outcomes, and...