Becoming a successful event planner can be a dream come true. You get to create fantastic events and turn them into reality, while meeting many interesting people along the way and getting paid very well.
Here are a few tips to becoming a successful event planner:
Choose a Specialty or Clientele
It is very difficult to market yourself as an event planner as that term is far too general. The most successful event planners tend to focus on one specialty, which might be large conferences, large parties, corporate training or industry trade shows, just about anything.
Being able to say that you plan large conferences is more specific than saying you are an event planner and gives people a much more solid idea of what you do.
Establishing Contacts and a Track Record
It is very hard to land event planning clients if you have never planned an event before. Before you go out on your own and try to start your own event planning business, it is a good idea to first gain some experience in the industry. Begin by working for an event planning company. Volunteer at events in your spare time. Establish contacts with organizers and event hosts.
Planning an event isn’t easy. You need to have contacts in a wide variety of areas. For example, to run a successful conference, you need a trusted team, designers familiar with conference design, and so on. In addition, you need contacts in the industry in order to land clients. In short, rather than jumping in and hoping for big success right away, you need to ease into the industry and develop the necessary contacts to do both the job right and to land clients in the first place.
Gain at least six to twelve months of experience by working with an event planning company before you try to market yourself as an event planner in the specialty you choose. If you are going for smaller-scale events such as birthday parties, you can cut the learning and networking time down significantly.
Create Your Portfolio
Your portfolio should contain photographs of packed events and smiling event speakers. You need testimonials from event hosts about how amazing and easy you made the whole event a great success. In short, you need to have a portfolio you can show to prospective clients about how great their event is going to be by working with you.
Finally, the most important thing is that the only way to really learn how to be a successful event planner is to just jump into the industry and learn. You will often find that people are more than happy to teach you what you need to know.
