Leah Warwick: Hi, everyone. I’m Leah Warwick, and you’re listening to The Admin Edge. This episode was recorded at the Administrative Professionals Conference 2025, in Seattle, with host Debra Coleman and guest Darcy Bennet. Darcy is an EA and trainer at this event on how to conquer travel and event planning, which we know is no small feat. So, let’s jump into this informative conversation between Deb and Darcy on the show floor at APC.

00:00:39

Debra Coleman: Well, hello. Welcome to The Admin Edge podcast. I am Deb Coleman, owner of The Seat Upstairs. Joining us today is Ms. Darcy Bennet, Founder of DB Executive Services, and a trainer here at APC Seattle. Thank you, Ms. Darcy, for taking time, honestly, out of your busy schedule to meet with us today.

00:00:58

Darcy Bennet: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Debra Coleman: Absolutely. And you’re going to talk to us about a very important topic, which is conquering event and traveling planning, which is either you love it or hate it as an admin, I think. That’s been my personal experience. You’re going to set us on the right path, absolutely.

Darcy Bennet: Yes.

Debra Coleman: All right, well, let’s dive into a little bit. Alrighty, Darcy, you have, honestly, over ten years of experience supporting top executives with travel arrangements, which means you’ve probably seen a lot when it comes to travel planning. You could probably write a book. Oh, my goodness. So, what’s one traveling planning mistake that you see we make that could be easily avoided as we plan these trips for our executives or our team members?

Darcy Bennet: Not adding in enough buffer time for, first of all, getting to the airport if there were delays. Getting off and getting your baggage, getting to the hotel that they’re going to, as well as making sure that they have enough time to just relax and breathe for a little bit, and get themselves settled, before having to meet with somebody.

00:02:03

I feel like it’s a constant go, go, go, especially for executive teams, and you need to really think of it as: How would you like to be treated in that kind of situation? And for me, I want to just chill. I just want to be able to relax for a little bit before I have to interact with a bunch of people.

Debra Coleman: So true, absolutely. I know, for my exec, I try to do that. I try to say, “Well, you land here. Let’s have you not go to the conference maybe for two hours.” Or I try to get him in the day before even, giving him like a full night’s rest before he’s got to hit that conference floor.

Darcy Bennet: Yeah, I always aim to do the day before instead, just because then they get a full night’s rest, and then they’re able to really bring their best selves to the table at that point.

Debra Coleman: Right. And do you do it on the backend, too, like upon coming back or the day after?

Darcy Bennet: It really depends on what the executive prefers, but I would always try to push for them to either have the day off, or have an extra day just to be able to relax in the city that they’re in, and maybe go explore the area and enjoy the location that they’re at.

Debra Coleman: Right, because they’re human, too.

Darcy Bennet: Exactly.

Debra Coleman: Right? And so it’s not all business all the time. Good advice. I think that is a misstep. I know I have to kind of remember that every trip.

00:03:20

It’s not something that comes naturally because I’m not Darcy, but that’s okay. That’s all right. That’s why we’re having this conversation. So let’s talk a little bit about complex event planning, multileg trips, complexity to the travel itinerary—my personal worst nightmare, because, to me, there’s so many areas to get wrong. I know that’s probably not the way to think about it, but I just get nervous because, again, I’m not in the trip. I’m planning it for someone else.

00:03:45

So, multicity business trip planning can be a huge challenge. When you’re planning a complex event, or a multicity business trip, what’s your secret weapon or go-to strategy to help things run smoothly? And I’m going to add onto that a little bit, saying, not only for who we’re travel planning for, but us, too, to stay sane in the moment.

Darcy Bennet: So, something that I do, which is actually very simple, is just creating a day-of playbook for each day that they are traveling, so that it has things like the hotel and car reservation, the flight information, the hotel—I said that already. Sorry about that.

Debra Coleman: It bears repeating, actually.

Darcy Bennet: Yeah, so hotel and car reservation, flight information, directions to the lounge, if they’re in one of those top-tier levels, if they’re flying a lot. Key contacts as well as making sure that you have your information there, in case any sort of technical issues go wrong and they need to have your information on hand.

00:04:51

I always do that, and make sure that there’s always a backup plan, every step of the way. If there’s a car service, make sure you have another one, just in case. Make sure that you have a backup plan if the flight is delayed, especially if your executive has to get to a location at a certain time or a certain day.

Debra Coleman: Yes, I love that, a series of kind of checks and balances.

Darcy Bennet: Exactly.

Debra Coleman: And emergency… Now, are you a fan—because we live in a digital age, where do you stand on having hard copies at the ready as well? Or is that not necessary?

Darcy Bennet: So, I do think that it’s important to have hard copies as well, not to be super outdated or anything, but tech things fail. Power goes out sometimes. And you never know what’s going to happen, so at least having the paper copy will be the last resort. That’s the way I see it. I always recommend having that as well. Make sure it’s downloaded on their phones, too, just in case.

Debra Coleman: Smart, yes, exactly, because then they can always refer to it if they need to. Personal story: I planned a multi-trip for an executive. It was a Friday. I left work and I wasn’t going to take the hard copy with me. I thought, I won’t need it. They’ll be okay. But I changed my mind and grabbed it.

00:06:02

Sure enough, Saturday evening, I got a call. Something happened. We needed to switch on the fly. And I was so glad I had the hard copy because it maybe would’ve taken me a little longer to log into our computer system. So, yes, fan of the hard copy. And you are not outdated. That is actually very strategic and smart.

Darcy Bennet: Thank you. [laughter]

Debra Coleman: Okay, so our next question: Event and travel planning can feel overwhelming. Absolutely. I fall into that camp. Every time I’m hit with a travel request, “Oh, here we go. Here we go.” So, for admins who feel like that, who feel that sense of overwhelm when it comes time for this type of activity or task, what’s one habit you might recommend that we could implement maybe right away so those listening maybe can take it back with them next week and start to implement strategically, right away.

00:06:50

Darcy Bennet: So this is a little bit odd, but something that I really think is a good thing to do is—it’s called a premortem. What you do is you just imagine that your event or travel plan is a complete disaster, and you think of every single scenario that could possibly end up happening that would be making this like a catastrophic fail. And then you end up figuring out the solutions for each one of those problems ahead of time. So, I love that type of planning, making sure like, hey, this is like worst-case scenario, but I’m already prepared. As somebody who deals with anxiety on a daily basis, it also really helps me be calm throughout the day as well. It’s really—

It’s something that I use for my day-to-day as well, like speaking at this conference. It’s my first time. I just kind of went through all the different scenarios, and then I came up with backup plans for each one. I feel a lot more confident today than I did yesterday.

00:07:54

Debra Coleman: That’s what it’s about, absolutely, because our exec doesn’t need to call us midway through their trip with an emergency and have us be Tasmanian devil and going off. They need to know that, okay, we’ve got it—even though we may be like a duck; our legs may be going really fast under the water.

Like you said, I think what you kind of also alluded to earlier was flip the script and think of it as you. So what would you want from maybe your righthand person if you were in that moment? Good advice, absolutely.

Darcy Bennet: Thank you.

Debra Coleman: Backup plans. That “ugh” moment—well, I’ve got this. Wonderful. Excellent. Okay, so do you have time for our listener question?

Darcy Bennet: I do.

Debra Coleman: All right, excellent. Wonderful. I love this talk. I love talking about things that give me fear. It kind of removes that. And I don’t know if “fear” is the right word, but overwhelm. So our listener asks: Darcy, would you recommend a platform for travel arrangements, or an internal tool to use when making travel arrangements for our executives and managers?

00:08:53

Darcy Bennet: Sure. So, the first step that I would do is using an internal travel platform that integrates with your company’s expense platform. So, if that is something like Concur—I’ve used that for many, many years. If you are just running around like crazy and you don’t have the time, I would recommend, actually, reaching out to an external source. One company that I recommend for room blocks would be The Room Block Source. They might actually be able to get you a better deal because they have the relationships with the different hotel groups, and a lot of the people who are in this company are former event planners, so they have like the best knowledge when it comes down to it. I definitely recommend reaching out to them.

00:09:44

But also make sure that there is a single source of truth when it comes to a communication channel. That is not so much like a technology type of thing, but being prepared and having that one space that everybody could go to, whether that’s a Slack channel or a text, like a group WhatsApp chat. I don’t really recommend doing an email chain because it gets messy, but if you have one single place that they could go to and refer back to, it is something that is just invaluable to me.

Debra Coleman: That’s great advice. That is great advice. That’s true because it’s easier maybe to hop into a Teams chat, where maybe a file was saved or a link was saved, and grab it quickly. Could you repeat that external resource again for room blocks?

Darcy Bennet: Sure. It’s called The Room Block Source. They’re based, I think, in Dallas, but they have an incredible reach around the world.

Debra Coleman: That is a fantastic resource. Good job there. Okay. [laughter] Because we do want to be fiscally responsible when we travel, too, so there’s that play, right? Comfort, efficiency, but also being mindful of the money we’re spending.

00:10:55

Darcy Bennet: When it comes down to it, if you don’t really know the hotel that your executive is going to, wouldn’t you much rather get it from somebody that’s been doing this for a very long time? I think value—it could go both ways. Of course, it’s the money that you put in, but also it’s the services that you get and the location that you’re eat. It makes a complete difference.

Debra Coleman: I’m curious. Would this be a good resource for planning like team off-sites?

Darcy Bennet: Yes.

Debra Coleman: So when you need a large set of rooms blocked, as well?

Darcy Bennet: Yeah, I would say that that would be a really good resource. There’s also offsite.com. They do a ton of that, like they are just amazing when it comes to offsite types of events. Jared, he is the CEO. He’s really active on LinkedIn, so you could just reach out to him directly, or anybody on his team, and they’re really, really good at communication.

Debra Coleman: And what was that source again?

00:11:48

Darcy Bennet: It’s called offsite.com.

Debra Coleman: I love these names. They’re very clear. What do you want to do? Offsite.

Darcy Bennet: It is amazing. It’s just like straight to the point, which I love.

Debra Coleman: Yeah, me too.

Darcy Bennet: So, yeah, I recommend those two resources as well.

Debra Coleman: Excellent. Thank you for that. What you pointed out, really, is we’re not in it alone. Let that overwhelm sit, but then don’t stay there. Know that you have some resources, external or internal, to turn to, to help you with this travel planning.

Darcy Bennet: Exactly. And leverage your LinkedIn network because there’s admins all over the world that will be able to give you the advice on where to go and where to avoid. I always rely a lot on my admin network, and I just think it’s so important to do that.

Debra Coleman: Excellent point. I love that. I love that we’re ending with that, because that speaks to community and collaboration, even in the travel world.

Darcy Bennet: Yes.

Debra Coleman: Well, speaking of connection, where can we find you, Ms. Darcy, to learn more, to learn about your services or to maybe engage with you for some travel planning tips and tricks and all that?

00:12:55

Darcy Bennet: Sure. So, I’m very active on LinkedIn, so you could find me there, Darcy Bennet. If you want to learn more about what I do with my fractional and corporate type of work, you can go to dbexecutiveservices.com. Or, if you’re interested more in the event planning side of what I do, or public speaking, it’s darcybennet.com. Very straightforward.

Debra Coleman: Here we go again with the straightforward. [laughter] Darcy is right there, no tricky words. That’s fantastic. Thank you for that. And thank you for this conversation.

Darcy Bennet: Thank you for having me. I’m having such a great time.

Debra Coleman: Isn’t it fun here?

Darcy Bennet: Yeah.

Debra Coleman: I love it. Thank you, Darcy.

Darcy Bennet: Thank you.

[music playing]

Leah Warwick: Thank you for listening to The Admin Edge, produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals, original music and audio editing by Warwick Productions, with audio and video production by 5Tool Productions. If you liked this podcast, please leave us a nice review, five stars, and subscribe. If you’d like to submit a listener question, you may do so on our website at ASAPorg.com/podcast.