The Trusted Advisor Series: Understanding Your VORP (Value Over Replacement Planner)

No sport has drawn more use of statistics and analysis than baseball. So much so, that a Society of American Baseball Research (SABR, the source of the term “sabermetrics”) was established in 1971, led by a guy named Bill James*, often considered the father of modern-day sports analytics, and the author of over two dozen books about baseball history and statistics. His approach, digging incredibly deep to find overlooked metrics for evaluating players, was the foundation for the strategy deployed by the 2002 Oakland Athletics, chronicled in the book Moneyball, by Michael Lewis, and its film adaptation of the same name.

• *Interesting side note: While you might expect James to hail from a consulting firm or a university math department, he did most of his early number-crunching and writing while working nights as a security guard in a pork and beans cannery, not exactly a bastion of critical thinking.

In 2001, Keith Woolner, an author for the sabermetric website, Baseball Prospectus, introduced a concept called Value Above Replacement Player., or VORP, which measured the worth of a player compared to the average replacement at the same position. VORP eventually morphed into WAR, wins above replacement, to distill each player’s statistics into a single number, one that measures how many additional games a team would win (or lose) by having that player instead of the average replacement.

In 2023, the leader was Shohei Ohtani, clocking in at a WAR of 10.1, (meaning this guy, by himself, is worth 10 additional wins) followed by Mookie Betts at 8.4. It’s no coincidence that Betts signed a then-record 12-year, $365 million contract with the Dodgers in 2020. And it’s widely anticipated that Ohtani’s next contract will exceed $500 million. In short, a player’s WAR is directly tied to his compensation.

Know Your Own VORP

If we apply the WAR/VORP concept to being event professionals, it shifts the focus from your absolute value (e.g. what you do, and how that benefits your client or employer), to your relative  or marginal value (how you compare to your would-be replacement). Because, at the end of the day, that’s how your boss or stakeholder is ultimately evaluating you: comparing the quality of your work with that of whoever they’d bring in if you left.

It pays to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and think about your own personal VORP, your value over a replacement planner. And remember, it’s not what you think your VORP is; what matters is what your client/boss thinks it is. As Jeff Bezos famously said, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

This can be a sobering realization for many. Event management involves juggling a million details, and with the constant uncertainty of the past few years, if can feel like you’re juggling those million things while treading water in the middle of the ocean. It can be stressful and overwhelming, but you make it work, somehow, with your experience, your know-how, and your incredible work ethic. It’s logical, then, to conflate what we accomplish, and how hard we work to do so, with our intrinsic value.

But the truth is, if you got hit by a bus tomorrow (or whichever “what if” scenario you use when contingency planning), it’s highly likely that your boss or client would have no problem bringing in someone else who could get the work done. Sure, it might take them some time to get up to speed on the event and organization, but they’d get there soon enough.

Given this reality, it pays to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and think about your own personal VORP, your value over a replacement planner. And remember, it’s not what you think your VORP is; what matters is what your client/boss thinks it is. As Jeff Bezos famously said, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

Mind the Gap

Here’s an exercise I’ve conducted when running growth & strategy workshops for event departments, agencies and other event teams, which can help identify gaps in VORP perception between yourself and your stakeholder.

1. Create a table with four columns. In the first one, list all the things you do that provide value to your clients.

2. In the second column, write down what you think your boss or client would say if they were asked the same question. And be brutally honest. Assume discussions are taking place about you and/or your team behind closed doors. Maybe they’re looking at budget cuts and debating who stays and who goes. Maybe they’re having a post-event debrief and are evaluating whether to re-book with your company or go elsewhere. Think about what they are actually saying about your value, not what you would want them to say.

3. In the third column, identify any major gaps between the first two.

4. In the fourth column, indicate the level of difficulty your boss or client would have in finding a replacement to deliver that value-added item: easy, moderate, or hard. 

A Visit to the Doctor

By now you should have a grid that lays bare the reality of your perceived value, compared to how others see it, and compared to your average potential replacement. A common example when I run this exercise is that the planners will list “strategic guidance” or “creative ideas & solutions” as assets they think they bring to the table, but ultimately recognize that their clients probably would not list those. If this is the case, it may help to look at examples where you are the client, and you’re evaluating the VORP of someone working for you.

“If you don’t like what’s being said (about your personal brand), change the conversation.” Think about how you can change the conversation about you, about your personal brand, on the highlighted areas in your chart.

If you’re sick and go to the doctor’s office, there are a number of services being provided. A receptionist checks you in and gives you paperwork to fill out. A nurse takes your temperature and blood pressure. A lab runs blood, urine and other tests. Maybe a technician takes an X-ray or scan. These are all important steps, but you’ll notice that your doctor performs none of them.

Why? Because these are tasks that an average replacement can handle; they do nothing to contribute to the doctor’s VORP.  Do you care that she delegates these responsibilities? Of course not. She could inform you that all of the support staff – the receptionist, nurse, lab technician, etc. – have been replaced, and you wouldn’t bat an eye.

What you do care about is her ability to examine you, determine what’s wrong, and recommend a course of treatment: all the things she performs herself. You value the interpersonal relationship you have with her, and the trust you place in her judgement. Those are the things that comprise a high VORP to you.

Changing The Conversation

 Now let’s revisit that table. With the doctor example in mind, highlight the areas in the first column that you feel deliver the highest value to your client, the equivalent of your doctor examining, diagnosing, and treating you. It’s likely these are also strengths that your client could not easily replace if you left. If your client doesn’t think you provide these assets, you have a perception gap you need to close.

I quote a lot from Mad Men, because in many ways the show is a clinic on providing strategy and creative ideas as a trusted advisor. And as the main character, Don Draper, often says, “If you don’t like what’s being said (about your brand), change the conversation.” Think about how you can change the conversation about you, about your personal brand, on the highlighted areas in your chart. Depending on what those are, you could consider the following:

• Do your clients believe you really understand their business?

• Have you shown them you know the customer personas of the business?

• Do you know the CAC (customer acquisition cost), customer LTV (lifetime value), and other key metrics they use to measure the business?

• Can you explain how an event would (or would not) help that business achieve its goals?

• Do you know how to help your client articulate specific event objectives?

• Do you ask probing questions about why the client wants to host events, so you can properly frame the situation? (Problem identification before problem solution.)

• Can you engage in a discussion about how to measure success, and offer some options?

• Do you know how to calculate ROI in general?

• Do you know which budget metric to focus on? (e.g. Total, per attendee, per client attendee, per sales person, per employee, per 1:1 meeting, etc.)

• Can you present a case that the event budget must be increased significantly in order to achieve the goals, if that is the case?

• Conversely, are you willing to advocate to cancel an event, or significantly change it, if there are better ways to spend the money?

• Are you willing to push back if your client has a bad idea, or one that will not achieve the right goals?

• Are there any “hidden services” you provide that your client should know about? E.g. When sourcing venues, do you only present the ones that are available and meet the criteria, or do you also convey how you eliminated many venues that are not a good strategic fit?

• Do you proactively come to them with ideas? Do you show that you’re staying abreast of new technologies, innovative event design concepts, best practices for engaging attendees, and are evaluating their potential application to your client’s events?

• Can your client count on you to proactively evaluate risk, in all facets, including potential political / social risk that may arise from hosting events in states that have passed laws that run counter to the organization’s values, or those of its employees or customers?

Whichever strategies you use, whether it’s a combination of the suggestions above or you come up with your own, they key is to make sure they showcase the highest-level value drivers you can offer, the ones that fortify your VORP. And the arbiter of whether you’re successful or not in changing the conversation is your boss, your client or some other stakeholder.

VORP and Your Personal Brand

But ultimately, if you start being laser-focused on honing your VORP, it won’t just be your client who sees the value you provide. Your co-workers, suppliers and industry colleagues will see it too. These two things - providing significant value above your potential replacements, and ensuring that everyone you deal has consistent agreement on that value – form the bedrock of your personal brand, the best asset you can have in advancing your career.   

Additional Resources

• Helping Clients Define & Weight Event Goals

• The Art (& Value) of Framing An Issue

• Managing Expectations On Process (Not Just Results)

• Building Attribution Models

• Driving the Value Proposition of Your In-House Event Team

• Getting (& Keeping) A Seat At the Table: Strategies for Being A Trusted Advisor