Once you are an event organizer, you would most probably have a permanent team and staff employed under you. How would you ensure that your year of business in event organizing is well laid out with secured work to keep your employees busy and paid throughout? This is a tough question to answer and would depend on you to spot opportunities in advance and along the way as well as having great negotiation skills to secure the contracts or projects ahead of time. It also means that sometimes you may have to be creative to propose ideas to your clients during the lean months to keep things going.
Marketing knowledge to spot opportunities
What are the methods that you can employ to ensure that you do not go through dry months of inactivity which is also not good for your reputation as an event organizer. Here are some ideas that can help you along the way to securing possible contracts:
- Expand your client base – you also have to be a great marketing person and not just an event organizer. Every business regardless if it is event organizing is reliant on business and trade. So this is no different. As a business owner, you will need to know how to market your resources and skills. You will also have to have a marketing plan on target clients and you need to socialize to introduce your business. Do not just be reliant on your reputation and hope for sales to drop in, sometimes you do have to play an active part in going out to get the sale. Do not limit your clients to just for one type of event skill, be as flexible as possible so that you have a wider variety of clients.
- Ask to be recommended – these are word of mouth referrals that hold much more weight than just a sales pitch. Having someone refer your services is the best way to secure a sale. This means that you have to keep in close rapport with your clients even though the job is already done and there is no other event plans coming from them. They may know people who are interested in having other events and the closer they are to you and know your reputation, the more likely they will recommend you. Therefore it pays to give your existing clients the personal touch and have them constantly reminded about you. This also ensures customer loyalty so that they do not go and seek the services of other event organizers.
- Socialize – events are great places to meet people and build a customer database. Since you are an event organizer, this opportunity is presented to you on a regular basis. Meet as many people as you can, especially those who are decision makers. There is no harm in mentioning that you are the organizer of the event. However it is more ethical if you do mention to your client that you would like permission to seek other contacts while attending the event. Have your name cards ready, nothing is worse than when you meet an interested and potential client, you have run out of name cards!
Free your time to focus on marketing
All in all, you first have to be good at what you do in your business so that you have a good reputation in the market. You can free some of your time from organizing and focus on marketing if you have an event management system that can keep you in control of the event management and event planning stages from wherever you are. A good event management solution should be able to have a tracking system to monitor the performances and updates of your team without needing you to be there and watching like a hawk all the time.
Investing in a good event solution keeps you mobile and reduces the chances of things going wrong, therefore minimizing your stress levels. It does not matter if you are an event Malaysia planner or not, because these systems are easily available online and they are also versatile enough to be downloaded onto any hand held devices for greater convenience. So, in a nutshell it means that to be able to spot opportunities also means being organized, being sociable and being a great businessman!
