The close isn’t the finish line: how events support the full customer journey

Last week was about planning events from the top down. This week is about where events sit across the full journey, before and after the deal closes. Map it out and a pattern shows up. Attended events (industry conferences, experiential events, client on-sites) cluster early, from awareness through evaluation. You’re borrowing someone else’s audience to get discovered. Hosted events (onboarding, user training, user groups, advisory boards, executive dinners, your own conference) take over after the close, where adoption, advocacy and expansion happen. The close is the hinge, not the finish line. By stage: • Pre-seed/Seed: attend for discovery. A dinner for eight design partners counts as your first hosted event. • Series A: add one recurring hosted format, such as a quarterly customer roundtable. • Series B: balance both sides on purpose, especially if expansion is a 2027 goal. • Growth: hosted events become a channel of their own. Question for the group: what was the first event you hosted for customers, and what did it teach you? Next week: SKO season, and why it’s where your 2027 pitch gets set.