3 Event Planning Lessons I've Learned

As a business coach I love talking to people about their business dreams, and this week 2 new clients signed up for event planning coaching. I have done many events of different types: social, fundraising, and others. I really enjoy doing events and currently planning two as we speak.  As you peruse the internet there are plenty of tips for successful event planning that cover everything from establishing the theme, setting up the budget, marketing and sponsorship relations.  The goal of this post is to tell you a few of the mistakes that I've made and how you can avoid them.

1. Be as diverse in marketing as you possibly can.  I threw a nice looking white party a few years ago. I was able to get sponsors to provide wine and food, nice cheese and fruit trays, the venue was free and helped me make fliers. Everything was perfect except the attendance. This was due to poor marketing on my part. I could point to factors such as this was pre-facebook and social media, I was a one man team, and I don't have many contacts. But the bottom line is that I did not market effectively. I had fliers and word of mouth then. Today there is facebook, Twitter, blogs, email, text messaging and more. Use all of them together. Be persistent without overbearing. And respond to R.S.V.P.s if possible, it adds a personal touch.
2. Develop an eye for the details. As you form partnerships and sign contracts do not take your partner's word that they have everything on the contract covered because we can all miss things. A few years back we partnered with a food vendor to help us with a community picnic. The food vendor said that his license covered amplified sound so that we could play music. The day of the event the park district shut us down because his license did not cover amplified sound and no one on my team looked at his license to double check.  Double check the details and avoid embarrassment later.
3. As for your team, how do you deal with people that don't pull their own weight? I've worked recently with people that say they want to do events but won't do anything to make that happen. The best way is to get dead weight off of your team. When, for whatever the reasons may be, you can't drop them then you must learn how to use the talents they may have, and to spread the other tasks out so that they aren't a burden to the rest of the team. You may not be able to drop family members, senior partners or even friends. But you can make their responsibilities smaller and leave the important jobs to those that you can depend on.  Lastly, when you have a member of your team like this be sure to follow up on any job you give them to make sure it's done right and you have no mistakes as in lesson 2 above.

These are just a few of the lessons I've learned. I have had many successful events and you will too. Be organized and have fun.  Take lots of pictures and try to enjoy the event on the day of. If you need any help or have any comments feel free to email me at fremusic3@gmail.com.  Good luck!!!

Thanks to the good people at www.planyourmeetings.com for the video. Enjoy!!