The Benefit of Having an Assistant
The Benefit of Having an Assistant
“Looking at the pros and cons of having an extra pair of hands to help you deliver your trivia night”
Welcome back to the start of another week of blogging. I hope you have had a great weekend and that you have been very successful with your trivia hosting. Plans and preparation should already be in place for this week’s sets. We had some great feedback on last week’s topics and a few new suggestions for topics to cover this week. There is plenty planned for the week including question ideas, ideas on themes to include and a wide range of other topics to help you with the hosting of your trivia night.
We are going to look today at one issue which I have been asked about a number of times and that is whether or not you should consider having an assistant. Here are a list of pros and cons and an idea of when they would be necessary…..
The Benefit of Having an Assistant – Is it really necessary?
Okay, lets remember you are running a business here. As we will discuss below there is the cost to consider my think of the assistant as staff. Don’t just use the person helping you to make you have an easier night. If you are running a small scale quiz with only 20 or so players and you are coping fine then you do not need to even consider this option. If you are kept busy all night then don’t consider it but if you are sooooo busy that it is affecting performance then this is when you need to think about hiring someone!
Let us now take a look at a few pro’s and con’s of hiring an assistant….
The Benefit of Having an Assistant – Pro – Helps Prevent Cheating
One thing I have used an assistant for in the past is to help me keep an eye on cheating. Especially in larger environments and especially in rooms where there are little secluded areas. Cheating can really ruin a quiz and make people not want to come back. If you can a handle on this it will help run a smooth night and an assistant can really help as if you are up front presenting, having someone walking around the bar will really help deter cheats.
The Benefit of Having an Assistant – Pro – Speeds up the marking process
If you are doing a system whereby you are marking all the papers then an assistant can really help. She/he can be out collecting all the papers, answering queries and dishing them back out to make sure you can focus on marking alone. If you trust them enough they can even mark the papers or help with ordering them so you give players ongoing updates.
The Benefit of Having an Assistant – Pro – Helping hand with queries
One thing I hate is after explaining the rules time and time again people will just shout out questions when you are trying to present. Having an assistant on hand will ease this a little as they can field question on the floor leaving you to focus on the hosting alone.
The Benefit of Having an Assistant – Pro – Computer help….or frees you up to sort out computer!
If you have invested in the fantastic range of products form DigiGames or such other providers then you maybe be using technology to make your quiz night the best experience possible (If not….then why not…..get it sorted). An assistant who can work the system or provide some marking aid whilst you set up the next round etc could be very handy.
The Benefit of Having an Assistant – Cons – Cost
Starting with the cons…
Is it worth it? If you have someone free who can help you or a member of the bar staff at hand then you don’t need to be worrying about then fine, use all the help you can get. But earning $50 and then having to give $20 to an assistant you don’t really need will change your mindset. (Plus if the quiz is that busy that you need help then you should be charging a lot more than $50!)
The Benefit of Having an Assistant – Cons – Are you on the same page?
I learned this one the hard way……You have to make sure the assistant who helps you knows the quiz, the format, the rules and the expectations. I hired someone once who began flirting with a team, gave them 2-3 answers as she already had seen the sheet and it caused some ructions with the other teams. Also, when marking once, an assistant marked France when the answer should have been Paris….little things like this matter, you need to make sure you and the assistant are reading off the same page.
You also need to find the right person…..reliability, honesty and a hard working attitude. Don’t just hire someone for the sake of it as they then will reflect badly on you. If they mess up its you, as the chief setter, who is going to be getting the call to say the booking has been cancelled so always keep this in the forefront of your mind!
So there we have it then. You can see in a nutshell it is all about business and all about whether you really need one or whether you are just doing so for the sake of laziness! The key points to consider I guess in a nutshell is if this person will add to your trivia experience or detract from it. If you find yourself leaning towards the former then you will need to consider getting someone in but if you think it is unnecessary then shy away until you really need it.
That’s it for today then, I hope you have enjoyed the blog and I hope you have at least gained something from it to help you going forward. Remember if you have any feedbacks, comments, ideas or feedback then let me know, otherwise until next time….happy trivia hosting.
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