If you’ve ever organized an activity or event, you’ve undoubetedbly had someone (perhaps many) ask you: “Who’s all going?”
This question can be frustrating and annoying to the organizer.
Now, if the person inviting you is a close friend, you may be able to decide just on the basis of your close friendship. If a close friend asks you to attend something, it may be a no-brainer. Often times it is for me: “Of course I’ll attend — when and where?”
But when you’re inviting someone to your function that you’re (the organizer) not that close to, or whom the other prospective attendees aren’t close to, the invitee wants to know: “Who’s all going?” And I think it’s an appropriate question. With so many things pulling for our attention these days, we have to prioritize the potentially great experiences from the not-so-great ones. What people are trying to answer is: “Will I have a lot of fun?”
Though it seems obvious to me now, it didn’t occur to me until recently that we actually do care most about who will be there — we care most about the people.
You may really want to go skydiving. It may be something on your bucket list. I think your experience skydiving can be good with a so-so group, even memorable. Afterall, you’ve always wanted to go skydiving. But if you do this with a great group of people (even if the skydiving itself isn’t so great), the whole experience will be significantly better — significantly more memorable. There’s a simple test for this. Just ask yourself what your best experiences have been. I bet it’s been those with the best people.
Why is this? Well, much of our time is spent in the presence of others, communicating (both verbally and non-verbally), regardless of what it is we’re doing.
And everyone wants to have enjoyable conversations, and thus, an enjoyable experience.
There are two categories of people that people are curious about when deciding how to RSVP to an invitation. First, there are your existing, close friends. People you know and like, perhaps even love. You just enjoy being around these people, regardless of what you’re doing. The second group of people are new people — people you don’t know.
If you’re inviting a single guy friend to a function, and you inform them that a bunch of your single, cute girlfriends are going, you need not supply anymore information. I’ll bet they’ll be there in a heartbeat.
That may be an extreme case. But if you’re inviting someone to something with new people, you’ll have to convince them why they’re great, or why you think they’re great. If you do that, I think most will end up attending.
As for me, I’m usually in for anything new, regardless of the group — be it skydiving, a road trip to some place new, dinner at a new restaurant, a run at a new park. You name it. I just highly value new experiences.
But at the same time, if I get to share the experience with a great group of people (known or unknown), it truly does make the experience that much better.
So if you’re organizing an activity, do whatever you have to do to get the great people to commit to attending first (but just don’t lie to them).
If you get the great people to attend, you’ve done the hardest part.