Why Business Owners are Seeking Live Events more than ever

What I have observed gaining momentum, in recent weeks, are conversations getting people back into a room to meet again. After several years of everything sliding towards every other communication method; SMS, email, messenger, What's App, LInkedIn messages, something is moving back the other way, and I am more than pleased.

Here's what I like most about it; nobody is arguing that technology has its place.

The conversation has stopped being for-or-against and settled into something far more useful, which is, people treating their technology tools as tools. AI included. You use it or set it up, it does a job, it results in you having more time. What's interesting is, what people are choosing to do with this time it gives back to them, and many are choosing human connection and interaction.

Because look at what's actually happened to how we speak to each other. A question that would once have been a two-minute phone call is now four messages across several platforms.

This wasn't planned, I think what we're realising is, it happens when you allow it to or when there is no intended strategy.

Out of curiosity, I checked my own habits, by looking at my own downloads folder. Here there were many guides I'd saved, webinar replays I fully intended to watch, and a folder of AI summaries of articles I have yet to read. Sheesh! Not one of them changed a single decision in my business.

Then a member contacted me after an online Mastermind, ninety minutes, online, four people in the her group, and she told me she'd finally moved into action. She already knew what she needed to do. But what she wasn't doing was backing herself. Then focused time with a virtual room of people who run businesses, affirming what she already knew and giving her the confidence to get going.

That's the thing I keep coming back to. Information was not her problem.

So what is actually needed?

Live meetings, two or more people with focused attention at the same time, prioritising connection between each other. This can happen in a local cafe or on a call anywhere in across the country.

Communicating through email or text is limiting. Because every message you send is completely composed. You draft it, you edit it, you reread it before you press send. In live interactions, spontaneous conversations and inspired ideas can happen between trusted colleagues.

For most of my working life seeking knowledge has been a high priority. For example, to understand pricing psychology or how to structure a client journey, that knowledge had commercial value, because getting it was slow and expensive.

That era has ended. Any business owner reading this can open a chat window right now and get a competent explanation of pricing psychology in about eleven seconds. It'll be reasonable depending on the quality of the prompt (this is where expertise is relevant now).

What it can't do is know that you undercharge because you're afraid from past learned experiences. You may have learned at a young age through those you knew, that putting your price up is how you lose people. It can't hear the wobble in your voice when you say the number out loud. It can't say, gently, I've watched you do this three times now.

What most business owners I meet are missing is someone who knows them well enough to notice these limiting patterns, in a setting where the truth can actually be shared.

What live meetings give you

I want to be precise here, because the word "connection" gets used so loosely it can stop meaning anything.

Commitment. A meeting in your diary at nine on Tuesday morning is a decision you planned, and you turn up because you said you would. Members tell me our accountability check-ins work less because of what happens in the thirty minutes and more because of the six days beforehand, when they know they'll be asked what they achieved that week.

Powerful questions. This is the one that can't be replicated anywhere else, and it's why live wins over typed or AI chats rather than merely differing from it. Write your problem in an email and the reader receives it finished, your framing, your order, your conclusion. Say the same thing out loud to four business owners or a coach may ask: hang on, why are you doing it that way at all?

Powerful questions are able to give you fresh, new perspectives that challenge your current status quo. Essentially helping you get out of your own head or business to be able to see clearly and strategically. I share more in my contribution to Dynamic Businesses Let's Talk series here: https://dynamicbusiness.com/leadership-2/lets-talk-business/lets-talk-what-does-stepping-back-from-the-business-really-require-of-a-founder.html

Genuine Support. Say out loud in September that you'll fix your follow-up, and in November someone from your business community asks how the follow-up is going. Not a notification. A person, who was there, who cared enough to check in.

People think of you later. Referrals come from people who you have a relationship with, there is trust and they know how you work. A deeper connection goes beyond a profile or a pitch. It forms from having been in a room while you shared a challenge.

And if you'd like to know more about how to track and convert your referrals read my blog post: https://www.askfleur.com/blog/tracking-business-referrals)

Live meetings are often undervalued

Online connection often gets a bad name. Three hours, a slide deck, housekeeping, a round of introductions, a chat window full of links. You leave with a business card and half a day gone.

That's not a problem with online. That's a problem with the design.

Which is why I've reignited the Success Connection Sprint networking events built the other way around. One hour. Thus a networking Sprint. Several rounds of connection inside that hour, small virtual rooms, maximum twenty people. Structure that exists for one reason, which is to get you talking to people who run businesses and then give you your time back.

Since we moved every Ask Fleur event online in July, we've been attracting guests and members from Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, people who could never have made a Perth breakfast, now in the room every month. The format I built to save people an hour commuting turned out to be what needed to happen for this business to be truly national.

That mix matters more than the geography. When a Sydney consultant and a regional WA business owner are in the same virtual room, neither one can assume the other shares their market, their costs or their environment. You get asked better questions and exposed to new ways of thinking.

The next Sprint is Tuesday 29 September, 6 - 7 pm (AWST0. It's $15, and that $15 comes back to you as credit on your next Ask Fleur purchase within thirty days, which means the only real cost is the hour. Or free for our Success Community members.

Not sure where you're heading yet?

The Next Level Success Roadmap is my full ten-step coaching framework, I created it as the ideal plan to walk my clients through. Yours for free → https://www.askfleur.com/next-level

We go further than a calendar invite

There's a reason I started sending actual food to Ask Fleur online Masterminds and Planning events.

When we ran 90-day workshops in person, the good conversation never happened during the session. It happened over morning tea, when someone leaned across and said the thing they hadn't put their hand up to say. So when we moved workshops online I had a decision to make about whether that part was worth keeping.

We now send a physical snack pack to every member's door before each monthly event, put together with love by Vera from Grazie Gifts, who knows considerably more about this than I do. From July 2026 every 90-day workshop runs as a live online event, so our national members can be in the room for all four.

It sounds like a small thing. It isn't. I've written about why we bring food to the table: https://www.askfleur.com/coaching-and-connection-ask-fleur-brings-food-to-the-table, because opening a parcel before a call does something to how you arrive. You've been thought about. You settle differently.

Who this suits, and who it doesn't

If you want the fastest possible answer and then to be left alone, live events will frustrate you. There are days that's genuinely the right call, and a search tool is the better option.

Live works when you are clear about what it is you do, you have most of the answers already, and the thing slowing you down is that you're leading alone. That's the person the Success Community was built for. Business owners, business development professionals, and for-purpose leaders who are experienced enough that more information isn't always the answer.

Try us out

You don't have to join anything to test this.

Pick one live thing in the next fortnight. The Sprint on the 29th, a D32 breakfast, an industry meetup, a conversation with a competitor you've always been curious about. Turn up, be authentic, present rather than the polished version, and notice what's different afterwards.

Then ask yourself the question; which of those actually moved something?

> Not sure what your next step looks like?

> The Next Level Success Roadmap is my complete ten-step coaching framework, free to download. It's the same structure I use with one-to-one clients to get from where you are to where you want to be.

> Download the Roadmap → https://www.askfleur.com/next-level

> Next Ask Fleur events: https://www.askfleur.com/events