As an Event Planner, you “know,” you don’t guess.

You know the facts. The exact dimensions of the party venue. The precise head count for meals, including the band. The event budget to the dollar. You know when the music will start, where the limos are and how long the speeches will be. You know the purpose and the vision for every successful event you produce.

Smart event planners don’t guess, they make fact-based decisions. Any event professional, from a caterer to a decorator understands the risks of “winging it.” I’m sure you’d agree, the more important an event is, the more you require accurate facts.

So why are you winging it when it comes to planning your future and the success of your business?

Do you schedule time to think and plan your marketing a regular basis? Most event business owners don’t. It’s no wonder so many run themselves ragged.

They stop thinking and planning proactively. Instead of accomplishing important tasks that will create growth, income and stability, they fall into the habit of responding to whatever seems
most urgent.

Your business can consume and control your life, or it can serve you. It’s your choice. If you want to avoid long, stressful work hours, erratic income and uncertainty you must do what most people refuse to do, that is “Think and do things in the order of their importance.”

You can run a prosperous event business and still have time and energy for a fulfilling personal life. You can make a nice steady income, take long vacations and have a wonderful retirement too.

But only if you think and plan methodically and consistently.

“Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.”

Just the simple act of gathering objective marketing data and regularly reviewing it can transform your business and lifestyle.

Marketing your event business is simpler when you have a system. Here’s how to grow your business with fact-based marketing.

First, create a Fact Book. It can be a 3-ring loose-leaf binder, a leather bound journal or a word file you keep on your desktop, PDA or online. Just make sure you have easy access to it when
inspiration, curiosity or nuggets of data appear.

Next, schedule one hour a week to review it your Fact Book. Every week works best. Schedule one hour of uninterrupted thinking time on a regular basis. Block off the time in your calendar and keep this appointment at all cost.

“Thoughts lead on to purpose, purpose leads on to actions, actions form habits, habits decide character and character fixes our destiny”

Keep your Fact Book accessible and begin to construct by dropping in bits and pieces as you discover them. Online tools, like Google’s Notebook makes it easy to clip websites, articles and
thoughts into an easy to search database you can access from anywhere.

“Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

Keep your Fact Book limited to, well, facts. If you can’t back an entry up with objective data, leave it blank until you can. Compile information on your competition, customers, your market and your own business.

Competition

Continually gather the answers to questions about your competition. You’re not doing this be a cutthroat competitor. You’re doing this to learn how to better serve and attract client.

• Who are my strongest competitors? List local event planners that directly compete with you.
• Who are the industry leaders? List the top dogs in event planning who have accomplished what you aspire to.
• What are their strengths? Well connected? Great advertising?Large sales staff? Low overhead?
• What is their competitive advantage?
• What are their weaknesses? List objective observations, not list of insults.
• How many employees do they have? Are you sure? How many full time?
• How do they price their services? You can find out anything if you really want to.
• How fast are they growing? How do you measure that? Number of events? Number of press mentions? Pick a metric.
• How long have they been in business? Look it up.
• What type of events do they specialize in?
• Who are their top clients? Dig!
• How do they attract new clients? Get on their mailing lists.
• Where do they advertise? Make time to find this.
• What is their promotional budget? Number ads x cost per ad.
• What do their customers think of them? Call around, keep notes.
• How well does their site rank in the search engines? Do they outrank you when you Google “event planner” plus your city name? Why?
• What does their latest marketing campaign include? Gather samplesof all their promotional materials.

Customers

Gather information about your customers. The act of compiling this information on a regular basis will help keep you focused on your clients.Include answers to these questions:

• How large is our customer base?
• Who is our average client?
• What do our best clients have in common?
• How did we acquire our best clients?
• Why did our newest clients choose us?
• Why did we lose the last one?
• What demographics define our best clients?
• What is the average size order?
• What is our profit per order?
• How long do customers stay with us on average?
• What is the Long Term Value of a new client? (LTV = Average revenue per client per year X average client retention years)

“The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.”

Your Business

• How many sales leads did we generate this month compared to last year?
• Is my sales & marketing data accurate?
• How many hours did I spend marketing this week?
• How many sales calls did we make?
• How does that compare to last week, month, year?
• Which one of our ads produced the best returns this quarter?
• Am I sure I’m tracking my results accurately?
• Can we scale up our best campaign?
• How can we systematize our marketing?
• How many appointments canceled?
• How profitable was our average job?
• What went really well this week? Why?
• Where did we make mistakes? How can we remedy that?

The Fact Book will grow and grow. The questions above are only suggestions and are in no way complete. As you answer one question, it will lead you to another. Spend your time filling in the blanks. Have your assistant do a good chunk of the data gathering, but I must emphasize, only include FACTS.

Selling and marketing your event business, like anything else, goes smoother when you have a solid plan. Start scheduling time to think about your event business using the Fact Book system. You’ll grow faster and better than ever before.

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising, which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”

Singapore caterer Purple Sage  was doing great during the boom times – selling to high-end special events and corporate clients.

Then, the recession hit and now they’re doing what they can to keep their 50 person company alive. Revenues are down 35%.

Before the recession, 80% of their business came from multinational corporations and banks.

According to the The Straits Times; “The biggest shock came during the week after Chinese New Year. ‘On the third day of Chinese New Year, there were zero events. And for the whole week, we had only one event a day,’ said Mr Seow. ‘That was quite a shocker which got us worried.”

Time to get creative! Marketing and sales ideas to bring in new catering clients were needed at once! Download a FREE copy of  “More Clients Now” for breakthrough business ideas and book bigger and better events!

What Are They Doing About It?

What now? The corporate catering firm plans to fill the void by promoting itself to weddings and other social events. Would you switch markets?

Also, they’re tightening their belts – turning off lights, and cutting waste where they can.  That makes sense – of course we should always be looking for ways to cut waste, true?

Event staff is being redeployed as marketing and sales. They’re using their down time to cold call, follow up on leads and even handing out fliers. Would you have your waitstaff handing out coupons?

The firm is offering a lower priced menu for cash strapped clients. Would you see it as a step down or embracing change?

My Take

Seems like Purple Sage will make it through the slow time and be a stronger company if they don’t forget the lessons they learned.

• Diversify – Lack of diversification is always a risk to any business. Make sure that most of your revenues don’t come from a handful of clients. Diversify your vendor list too. Play favorites, but have your plan B vendors at the ready.
• Systems – create a system for everything your business does – including monitoring projected sales very closely.
• Speed - you must be able to react to market trends fast. The only constant in business is change. Always be ready for it.
• Scenario Planning – What if you lost your biggest client? What if you grew by 150% in the next 6 months? What if your key employee left? What if your biggest competitor left town? Plan for many different scenarios and you’ll be able to react faster and more intelligently.

What Are You Doing About It?

Are you pursuing new markets, new marketing channels and new ideas – or are you just hoping things will get better soon? I’d love to hear your ideas.