If you have excellent time management skills, love to organise and want to start your own business, then you might just be the perfect person who can offer professional event planning services. Here is how you can achieve that.
What Is Event Planning?
Firstly, it depends on what kind of events we’re talking about. Events can be organised for the purpose of celebration, education, promotion, commemorations, and so on. This kind of categorisation is a basic division of events purely based on whether they are business or social related events.
The common thing between all of them is that event planning almost always includes:
· Conducting research
· Creating an event design
· Finding a site
· Arranging for food, decor and entertainment
· Planning transportation
· Sending invitations to attendees
· Arranging any necessary accommodations for attendees
· Coordinating the activities of event personnel
· Supervising at the site
· Conducting evaluations of the event
Why Do People Hire Event Planners?
The answer is quite simple. Event planning, especially for bigger occasions, requires a lot of time management and organisational skills. Most of the time, people don’t have time or the right resources to organise bigger events on their own. That is when they turn to professionals to help them out.
How to start?
The process of starting an event planning service involves a few important stages.
Becoming Certified
Firstly, you need to either get a degree or a certificate from the local university in event management or planning. You need to be certified to start this business.
In addition to that you can work to become a CSEP (Certified Special Events Professional) or CMP (Certified Meeting Planner). Most of the corporations or individuals who are looking for an event planning business to plan an event for them will check if you see these designations. Knowing how much time and effort getting them requires, customers value those businesses as reliable and professional.
Target Market
There are two types of target market you need to consider when starting a business in event planning: the corporate and social market. Most of the successful event management companies tend to focus on a certain type of events and specialise in them until they reach near perfection.
The Corporate Market
The term corporate market includes companies as well as charities and non-profit organisations. The second two groups mostly host gala fundraisers, athletic competitions, receptions, and events similar to these. They usually have a goal to expand their public support base and raise some funds in the process. Though most of these events occur once or twice a year and are pretty huge events, you can still find some smaller ones to start out easily and gain more experience first. Companies, on the other hand, host conventions, company picnics, holiday parties, trade shows, and staff meetings.
The Social Market
Social market events are usually birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, reunions, bar/bat mitzvahs, and so on. You can choose to specialise in one of these or you can offer several different types of event planning services.
Start-up Costs
When you’re working on a start-up business, you need to evaluate the overall costs of starting an event planning business. The costs will largely depend on the cost of living in the area where your business operates from and whether you will work in the office or from home. Besides that, your taste and lifestyle will affect the costs.
Operations
Not many people who work in event planning businesses work 9 to 5. Event planning can involve evenings, weekends, and sometimes even holidays. This kind of business can’t simply be tied down by the regular working hours. So, before you open your own company, think about how much time you plan to dedicate to this kind of a job.
This will also depend on the type of events you will be organising. For example, social events will probably involve a lot of weekends and holidays.
The following are some of the main tasks you can expect to have as an event planner:
Research
At first, you need to do your homework. Research includes finding the venue, researching about vendors and suppliers, and making sure the demand is large enough, and so on. Only after you’ve done your research can you start with the planning and organising.
Design
This is the stage where your creativity is the most important asset. Take your time to brainstorm some ideas with your staff but make sure to consult the client about all the details and any changes you wish to make.
Proposal
Once you have done your research and came up with ideas, it’s time to present them to the client. You make a proposal by holding consultations that should include a consultation fee.
Organization
After the proposal has been accepted it’s time to start organising. Expect to be on the phone pretty much all of the time. It’s your job to coordinate all ends of the organisation and talk to a lot of people to make the event happen.
Coordination
Once you get the bigger tasks out of the way, it’s time for coordination. You need to make sure everything is set in place and everything is going according to the plan. The event schedule needs to be in place and everyone included in the event planning needs to be aware of the schedule.
Evaluation
Lastly, after the event is over, it’s very important to get feedback from the client and get evaluated for the work that has been done. That way, you’ll know what you did great and what needs to be a bit improved.
Income & Billing
The goal should be for you to price your services in a way that marks up your labour and material costs sufficiently enough. The income should be able to cover all expenses while generating an acceptable profit as well. These are the three factors you need to take into consideration when determining your fees:
· Market segment served
· Geographic location
· Experience and reputation of the event planner
Conclusion
In conclusion, starting an event planning business revolves around getting certified, choosing the type of events you want to organise, and calculating the fees. Once you get the gist of it and start gaining experience you’ll notice a huge improvement and you’ll be able to expand your business even more.