Rajavanya Subramaniyan

The number comes from an agency's own marketing, with no published methodology or sample size, and the agency has an obvious interest in making experiential look excellent.

• It may hold for some campaigns; ask for the methodology and sample size before using it.
• The figure matters when brands connect event activity to CRM and e-commerce systems, so the activation closes a loop rather than merely opening a relationship.
• The argument then turns commercial.
• Event-services businesses have long sold capacity, kit, square footage and the size of the stunt, all of which a procurement lead can put in a spreadsheet and grind down on price.
• A provider who connects what happens at an event to what happens in a pipeline becomes a partner attached to an outcome, and outcomes are not value-engineered out of a budget the way equipment is.

The post's suggested mechanics, chosen before anyone books the space: a trial that leads somewhere, a sampling moment that captures first-party data with consent, and a follow-up. The activation that produces a result is not the flashiest one but the one wired to what happens afterwards.

Read original

Rajavanya points to a Harvard Business Review analysis by Graham Kenny and Ganna Pogrebna on a side effect of AI-assisted buying: buyers use AI tools to build supplier lists and fire polished requests for quotation at a dozen firms in minutes, creating a surge in low-signal inbound demand.

• Specialist firms are hit hardest because their cost to quote is genuinely high.
• Three leaks follow.
• First, treating enquiry volume as a health metric when quotes-to-close and cost-per-quote are the numbers that moved.
• Second, quoting everything that moves: most event-services businesses have no formal disqualification step, and someone needs the permission and criteria to say no before estimating work starts.
• Third, buying more leads, which feels like action but pours volume into a process that already leaks.
• The proposed screening test is deliberately blunt: budget confirmed, decision date, and a named decision maker.

What a quote actually costs an event-services business above ten million: a site visit, a technical drawing, a structural calculation, a logistics plan, a pricing exercise three people had to sign off, and a week of the estimating team's capacity. A software company loses an hour to a junk RFQ; this business loses all of that.

Read original

Watching videos of elaborate CRM and knowledge-management setups, they found the same three faults in all of them: too many steps, too much maintenance, too many things to remember.

• They reduced a people-and-interactions system to two keyboard shortcuts, with link creation, dates, folder placement and daily-note connections handled automatically.
• The measure of success in the post is not features but the absence of upkeep: it was used for a few months without being touched again.
• That instinct carries into the commercial writing: decide on a single connecting mechanic rather than build a heavy measurement programme, and reduce an argument to one defensible line.

Two shortcuts in Obsidian: one opens a person selector and auto-creates the note in the right folder when a new name is typed; the other creates an interaction note, links it to the person, fills in the date, and connects it to the daily note. Built on QuickAdd, Templater, one custom script and DataView tables.

The two posts pull in opposite directions on AI, sharpening the picture.

• In the post about call notes, Rajavanya declines AI for note-taking, treating the task as a skill that grows with time and aids retention.
• In the RFQ post, AI-assisted buying is a threat that inflates supplier inboxes with low-signal demand.
• The consistent position is neither pro- nor anti-AI: a process should keep a person's judgement where judgement is the point.

Read original · Original 2 · Original 3

Rajavanya Subramaniyan starts with the number brands are passing around: up to 10 times the ROI from event attendees versus non-attendees.

• The post immediately flags its weakness.
• The figure comes from an experiential agency’s own marketing, with no published methodology or sample size, and an incentive to make experiential look incredible.
• Could it be true?
• Yes, for some campaigns, but it is not a law of nature to put on a slide.
• The more useful question is why the claim might be true.
• It comes down to one behaviour: connecting event activity to CRM and e-commerce systems so the activation closes a loop instead of only opening a relationship.
• The activation that produces a real result is not the flashiest one; it is the one wired to what happens next.
• For event-services businesses, this matters commercially because the industry has long sold capacity, kit, square footage and the size of the stunt—all things procurement can grind down on price.
• A provider who connects what happens at an event to what happens in a pipeline becomes a partner attached to an outcome, and outcomes are harder to value-engineer out of a budget than kit.
• The post says this does not require becoming a data company.
• It requires deciding the mechanic before anyone books the space: a trial that leads somewhere, a sampling moment that captures first-party data with consent, and a follow-up.
• The line to remember: the number you can defend beats the number that impresses.

For brands planning a campaign

For a talk or advisory engagement on event-to-CRM measurement, build around this central argument.

• Do not repeat the 10-times claim.
• Use it to show why an unsupported industry stat is a liability, then move the audience to designing the loop: what event activity feeds into CRM, how consent-based first-party data is captured, what follow-up happens, and how a supplier becomes attached to an outcome instead of a cost line.
• The post also offers a frame for pitching an event-services client on margin defence: measurement can help escape day-rate price fights and lumpy project pipelines.

It is the most directly operational piece in the set.

This post opens with a familiar good-news problem: enquiry volume is up.

• Rajavanya Subramaniyan argues that might mean nothing.
• It cites a Harvard Business Review analysis by Graham Kenny and Ganna Pogrebna on a side effect of AI-assisted buying: a surge in low-signal inbound demand.
• Buyers can use AI tools to generate a supplier list, draft procurement emails and send polished requests for quotation to a dozen firms in minutes.
• More RFQs land in supplier inboxes without more real opportunities behind them, and specialist firms are hit hardest.
• For an event-services business above ten million, quoting is genuinely costly: a site visit, technical drawing, structural calculation, logistics plan and pricing exercise that three people had to sign off, plus a week of estimating capacity.
• The post identifies three leaks.
• First, treating enquiry volume as a health metric; watch quotes-to-close and cost-per-quote instead.
• Second, quoting everything that moves; most event-services businesses have no formal disqualification step, so someone needs permission to say no before estimating begins, using criteria rather than instinct: budget confirmed, decision date and named decision maker.
• Third, responding by buying more leads, which feels like action but feeds more volume into a leaky process.

For brands planning a campaign

For an advisory engagement or talk focused on pipeline strategy, this post offers a practical qualification gate and a set of metrics.

• It can support a session on adding a disqualification step before estimating, tracking quotes-to-close and cost-per-quote, and separating real opportunities from AI-generated RFQ noise.
• It also connects directly to the event-to-CRM measurement theme: the challenge is not only proving event ROI, but protecting the estimating capacity that turns real interest into pipeline.

Open it for a practical, developer-led account of system design and to see how a note-taking method sits alongside their commercial writing.

This post is about a small personal system rather than event marketing.

• Rajavanya Subramaniyan says they wanted to make a video like the fancy YouTubers and did so during winter holidays in the north of France, near zero degrees outside.
• They do not use AI for call notes because they value note-taking as a skill that grows with time and helps retention and understanding.
• They had been using Obsidian for notes but had no easy way to link people to interactions without manual housekeeping.
• They watched many videos showing elaborate CRM setups and found the same problem in all of them: too many steps, too much maintenance, too many things to remember.
• Having been a developer for 10 years, they do not do manual work.
• They built two keyboard shortcuts.
• One opens a person selector: type a few characters to find someone, or type a new name and hit enter, and the note is auto-created in the right folder.
• The other creates an interaction note, auto-links it to the person, fills in the date and connects it to the daily note.
• Everything else is automatic.
• The stack is QuickAdd plus Templater, one custom script for the person selector macro, and DataView for tables and reports.
• They say they have used it for a few months without touching the setup.
• The post ends by offering the scripts and templates to anyone who comments interested.

For brands planning a campaign

This is a secondary starting point for the event-services brief, but it shows how Rajavanya Subramaniyan thinks about tooling: reduce the system to a few actions, remove manual maintenance and make the record useful later.

• For a talk, it can support the idea that event-to-CRM measurement need not begin with a heavy platform.
• It can start with small, owned mechanics that capture who was met, what happened and what follows.
• The post also shows a build-and-share approach that may suit an advisory engagement with a team seeking a lightweight process rather than a large software rollout.

The post cautions against repeating an agency’s “up to 10 times” ROI claim without published methods or sample details. It emphasizes planning follow-up and measurement before the event, rather than treating a dramatic statistic as proof.

Challenges an unsupported headline figure, then redirects attention to the business mechanism that could create value: connecting event activity to what follows.

For brands planning a campaign

A B2B events-services brand could assess Rajavanya for an advisory session on designing event-to-CRM measurement and follow-up. Ask for a worked example defining the outcome, data capture, consent and attribution; the post offers a strategic argument, not a tested measurement framework.

Examples: Source 1

The post recommends looking beyond enquiry counts to quotes-to-close and cost-per-quote, setting criteria such as confirmed budget, decision date and a named decision maker, and fixing conversion problems before buying more leads.

Frames the issue as three budget leaks and links each to a management action. It distinguishes higher inbound activity from better commercial opportunities.

For brands planning a campaign

An event-services company could consider Rajavanya for a talk or advisory engagement on RFQ qualification and sales capacity. Ask for benchmark data and a complete qualification process to assess how the recommendations would apply to your team.

Examples: Source 1

They describe using two keyboard shortcuts to create person and interaction notes, with links, dates and folder placement handled automatically. It’s a practical productivity example rather than a direct event-marketing argument.

Explains the problem, shows the minimal process and names the tools used, giving readers a concrete example to assess.

For brands planning a campaign

A productivity or note-taking brand could evaluate this demonstration-led content angle on reducing maintenance in relationship tracking. Ask how the setup performs across different team workflows before positioning it as a broader solution.

Examples: Source 1

The post frames it as a personal system the creator built after ten years as a developer.

View example

Gemma focuses on small-business systems and a seven-question enquiry stress test; Rajavanya focuses on commercial measurement and RFQ qualification in event services, alongside a separate interest in personal note-taking workflows.

Read original · Original 2

They argue that teams should capture and act on supplier or tender signals rather than leave them in someone’s head or a message thread.

Suzanne writes from a background in construction procurement and training; Rajavanya covers event services, focusing on event-to-CRM loops and quoted ROI claims.

Read original · Original 2

They advise fixing the bottleneck—qualification, follow-up or journey design—before adding tools or volume.

Saikat addresses solopreneurs and small businesses through web design and digital marketing; Rajavanya focuses on event-services businesses, event measurement and estimating capacity.

Read original · Original 2

Hill describes how patterns across tenders and supplier conversations can become market intelligence, and highlights the strategic questions behind AI-era buying: whether to build, buy or partner, who owns the data and intellectual property, and where risk sits. That makes this a stronger fit for a procurement-led strategy discussion than an event-measurement campaign.

Hill’s posts focus on construction procurement and changing buying decisions, not event activation measurement or the cost of qualifying event-services RFQs. For those specific challenges, Rajavanya Subramaniyan’s posts offer a more direct match.

Sarkar argues for diagnosing the bottleneck before adding tools, and for judging automation by outcomes such as customer fit and show-up rates—not just clicks or booked calls. That is useful for a marketing team improving lead handling across its website, content and follow-up.

Sarkar’s posts address marketing and sales funnels, rather than event attribution or qualification criteria for resource-intensive event-services quotes. Rajavanya’s posts speak more directly to connecting events with CRM follow-up and screening low-quality RFQs.

Murphy’s seven-question stress test covers response speed, keeping lead records in one place, follow-up, prequalification and client onboarding. It offers a concrete starting point for a general review of enquiry handling.

The checklist is broad and small-business oriented, rather than focused on event-to-CRM measurement or the cost and capacity pressures of event-services quoting. It is a useful alternative for basic process checks; for the measurement-and-RFQ brief, ask for specific guidance on event-to-CRM measurement and quoting costs and capacity.