Edwards Florist of Northbrook and Caterer Casual Gourmet Invite Businesses …

“We want to get to know the North Shore business community the way we know the rest of the community” – Bill Dvorak, Co-Owner Edwards Florist of Northbrook

Northbrook, IL (PRWEB) June 13, 2013

Edwards Florist of Northbrook is hosting two open houses to reintroduce itself to business and the local community as it marks its first year under the new ownership of entrepreneurs Jim Fauerbach and Bill Dvorak.

The first Edwards Florist of Northbrook open house will be held on Thursday, June 20, from 3:00 – 6:00 p.m. and is open to members of the Chicago and North Shore business community including executives, restaurateurs, hoteliers, venue managers, wedding consultants and all area meetings and event planners. “We want to get to know the North Shore business community the way we know the rest of the community. Our goal is to grow our meetings, events and corporate business,” says Edwards Florist of Northbrook co-owner Bill Dvorak. “As business people ourselves, we understand what it takes to be great business-to-business partners. Whether you’re an event planner, facilities manager, wedding consultant, realtor or restaurateur, Edwards Florist of Northbrook has the one-of-a-kind floral design, business acumen and the customer service to meet and exceed your customers’ expectations.”

The second open house will take place on Saturday, June 22, from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. and is intended for residents of Northbrook and surrounding North Shore communities. “This is our chance to say thank you to our many long-standing Edwards Florist of Northbrook customers,” notes co-owner Jim Fauerbach. “And it’s an opportunity to invite residents of Northbrook and the North Shore area to get to know us even better… to meet our employees and see firsthand the kinds of floral designs, customer service and gifts that make us unique.”

Chef Andrew Brodell of Northbrook caterer Casual Gourmet is partnering with Edwards Florist of Northbrook to provide food and drinks for both open houses. Inspired by Amy Stewart’s best-selling book, The Drunken Botanist, Chef Andrew notes, “ The botanical theme allows us to have some fun with all of the delicious seasonal ingredients currently available at market. And the idea of partnering with Edwards Florist of Northbrook was a natural. We local businesses have to support each other… and our communities.”

Each event will include raffle prizes and/or other giveaways including tickets to sporting events, copies of The Drunken Botanist, manicures and pedicures. Each Edwards Florist of Northbrook open house guest will receive a complimentary potted herb.

Edwards Florist of Northbrook is located at 1353 Shermer Road in Northbrook, IL.

Phone: (847) 272-4344. Additional information may be found at http://www.edwardsflorist.com and on Facebook.

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Green meetings go mainstream – Hotel News Now

You might be asking, “Wait, I thought we already had a green meeting program?” If you thought you were ready for green meetings, think again.

Green meetings programs have been around for years, and hotels have been able to develop and offer these programs to satisfy limited customer needs. A hotel green meetings program exists under the premise that the meeting client puts in a general request, and the hotel dictates the attributes included in the green meeting offering. The reverse is now becoming mainstream as more meeting planners are requesting green meetings with criteria they obtain elsewhere and are seeking the hotel’s compliance.

Furthermore, large citywide events are now looking to become sustainable events. The hotel is not the venue for these events, yet the event planners are still looking for sustainability attributes in the hotel block. They also use resources generated within their own meeting and event circle. These two circles—sustainability in hotels and sustainability in meetings and events—are now converging. Or perhaps better said, colliding. A significant indication of this is the recent release of the Accepted Practices Exchange/American Society for Testing Materials
Accommodation Standard for Green Meetings. That’s right, a new sustainability standard with not one but two acronyms.

An event planner incorporating sustainability into the program will affect hotels serving as a venue for meetings, where the planner may ask for a range of practices or specifications for the meeting. The requests can be comprehensive or simple depending on the planner, and could include serving local food; serving fair trade coffee; eliminating polystyrene from the buffet stations; having recycling bins in the meeting rooms; not placing individual pens and pads at each seat; not serving bottled water; etc.

A second and emerging effect is for sustainable hotel stipulations for citywide events. This gets more complicated because most downtown chain hotels are involved, not just a single hotel. The green hotel practices requested of the room block also vary, as planners will request between 10 to 150 items at each hotel.

Complexity begins to emerge as multiple clients start undertaking non-standardized surveying of multiple hotels for venue and hotel needs. And while green initiatives in corporate business travel have focused on trying to come up with alchemic value based on carbon numbers, meeting planners are more checklist-oriented. They care less about carbon metrics and more about how each type of material in the waste stream was handled.

Many hotel companies started out with their separate green meeting program. As a result, we ran into the familiar problem of these programs not being standardized while at the same time no one single corporate program stood out as a clear leader the others could adopt.

For those working in sustainable events for a long time the inevitable discussion took root years ago: “We need a standard.” This discussion was carried forth through the Convention Industry Council’s Accepted Practices Exchange, which set up a process to develop green meetings standards for both event planners and event suppliers through an American standard-developing organization and with the help of the Green Meetings Industry Council and the Environmental Protection Agency. This was to ensure rigor, transparency and global acceptance of standards.

Nearly a decade (yes, a decade) later, the first iteration of these standards is finally available for how an event planner, a venue, food-and-beverage menus, ground transportation services, the audio-visual setup, the convention center and even the destination can comply with criteria to achieve Level 1 to 4 of the standard. After being tied up and held in a three-year bureaucracy, the standard for accommodation was just released this month. Regrettably, the three-year bureaucracy did not include major hotel industry input or buy-in.

Now that the standards are out, we are entering into the next headache standards bring: certification. APEX and ASTM are focused on developing standards but not on the process of verifying or ensuring compliance with them. So no formalized, structured process exists as to how exactly an entity or organizer can become certified. Yet the green meetings community is heavily touting them to push sustainability forward in meetings and events. At the same time, companies with business models built around preparing for certification and “officially” certifying things are now pouncing on the opportunity. More noise has been created around a premature set of criteria that lack sufficient technical depth, which is now being certified through a process equally lacking in technical clarity.

As if that weren’t enough, another standard for sustainable event “management systems,” ISO 20121, was released last year and is getting traction among large, global citywide events. Entirely process-based in classic ISO form, this standard built off the successful ISO 14001 for environmental management systems, which itself was built off the equally successful ISO 9001 for quality management systems. So all that good document collecting, policy setting, monitoring, measuring, evaluating and so forth has evolved into a comprehensive program to make a citywide event as sustainable as possible. Though ISO 20121 will unlikely be applied to a small meeting held only within a hotel ballroom, it will be applied to citywide events in which case hotels are key suppliers for roomnights, and thus will be evaluated, engaged, measured, monitored and so forth. And there is a slight chance that an event held at a big-box convention hotel might have the resources to go the ISO route.

ISO 20121, however, brings us back to the earlier dilemma of what criteria to request and evaluate against for venues and hotels. At the basic level, simple survey requests come in to the properties to fill out and send back. More engaged event planners will embed sustainability criteria in to the contract language. And some events have even started rating hotels on sustainability criteria and then publishing that rating in the hotel list for attendees at registration, without reference to any justification for which criteria to use or how to weigh them in a rating. So all this is now bubbling up, while at the same time adding confusion to the majority of (non-green) event planners who now have to try to understand how and whether to use ISO 20121 and/or APEX/ASTM, while at the same time dealing with firms selling the related consulting and certification.

For hotels, this will likely result in two things: First, the clamoring around green meetings and sustainable events will generate more interest in asking for some type of criteria, and help get the industry to pay more attention to issues such as recycling. And second, the lack of clear industry buy-in on one single standard or certification will add another layer to the “which green hotel certification?” discussion. At least we don’t have the case here of every state in the U.S. trying to come up with its own green meetings standard. However, if the American Hotel Lodging Association quasi-endorses the Green Key Meetings rating as the AHLA did with their hotel certification/rating, then the plot thickens because meeting planners are about as aware of Green Key as hoteliers are aware of APEX and ASTM.

The roundabout result of all this is that at the property level, hotels will begin to face the complex landscape of standards and certification criteria coupled with the survey fatigue from abundant sustainability evaluation requests. This coincidentally is what corporate sustainability teams face at every major hotel company. So at least the empathy that builds will enable further collaboration to simplify or streamline the work and enable fair competition.

For now, the hotel-level managerial application to best prep for this is to get a checklist going of everything you do on property that is related to environmental and social practices, keep it updated and have it ready to provide to group clients or use it to respond to a survey quickly. Make sure that list includes key energy, water, carbon and waste performance data. Look more closely into sustainable FB criteria and give a cursory look to the new standard. And if your property doesn’t recycle, then get with the times because we’re going to be recycling a lot of criteria and indicators.

Eric Ricaurte works with the hotel industry and its leading companies to advance sustainability through reporting and measurement. His current activities include consulting, industry engagement, academic fellowship, column writing and publication authoring.

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of HotelNewsNow.com or its parent company, STR and its affiliated companies. Columnists published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to comment or contact an editor with any questions or concerns.

Cramps spare LCHS and NMSU grad from bomb scene in Boston; local event … – Las Cruces Sun

Click photo to enlarge

LAS CRUCES — Unruly calf cramps had slowed Cheryl Young’s pace at the Boston Marathon, so, plugged into her headphones, she tried to sprint the final half mile Monday. A growing clog of runners hindered her effort.

“I thought, ‘Why is everyone slowing down?,’” said Young, a graduate of Las Cruces High and New Mexico State University, now living near San Francisco. “Then people were running toward me and screaming.”

By the time Young arrived home, three people had died and more than 170 suffered injuries from the homemade bombs that rocked the famed marathon — just blocks from where she had been running.

Nearly 2,500 miles away from that bloody chaos, in Young’s hometown, most people don’t fret about experiencing such a traumatic experience.

“I feel safe in Las Cruces,” wrote Stephanie Montoya in response to a question on the Sun-News’ Facebook page. “… I don’t see any reason to become unnecessarily paranoid, although people should always be cautious and report suspicous activity anywhere.”

As details slowly emerged Tuesday from the bombing, Dawn Starotska’s thoughts turned to some of Las Cruces’ most popular events: festivals, concerts and holiday celebrations.

“Does it scare me out of my shoes? Yes.” she said. “I think it makes any event planner stop and think.”

Starotska, whose company organizes events such as the Southern New Mexico Wine Festival and Las Cruces Country Music Festival, said she “will be having additional conversations with

security and staff” in the wake of the violence that stuck a beloved and festive Boston tradition.

“It reminds you to be vigilant,” Starotska said. “… It’s easy to think it can’t happen here.”

Safety issues require considerable attention, local event planners say.

“It’s always top-of-mind for us,” said Mesilla events coordinator Ashley Echavarria, who added that December’s shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., pushed her to consider “additional safety training” in the town.

She works closely with Mesilla’s public safety officials — marshal and fire departments — especially during fiestas, such as the upcoming Cico de Mayo celebration.

“We have a department head meeting,” Echavarria said. “So I’m sure that’s something that will come up.”

For area law enforcement officials, Monday’s horrifying scenes in Boston haven’t affected notably their day-to-day work.

Tuesday morning, Doña Ana County Sheriff’s deputies and firefighters blocked a north valley neighborhood after dispatchers received a report of a suspicious backpack hanging on a fence near Jeanne Court.

Using robotic equipment, the Doña Ana County Bomb Squad inspected the pink-and-black backpack emblazoned with Hello Kitty, a cartoon character. A few hours after the report, investigators determined it was a “non-threat.”

County spokeswoman Kelly Jameson described investigators as “being extra cautious.” The backpack drew that response because it was hanging in an area where school children can’t walk and where there are no nearby bus stops.

Jameson said she would not be surprised if the caller who reported the backpack did so because of all the news coverage of the Boston bombings.

“We never want anybody to think they’re being overly cautious,” she said.

Officials could not find the owner of the backpack, Las Cruces Public Schools spokesman Mike Cook said. It was empty and the name on it was illegible. Todd Gregory, the LCPS security coordinator, took the backpack to nearby East Picacho Elementry to no avail.

“My children go to East Picacho Elementary and, as silly as this story is, after hearing about the 8-year-old boy that was killed in Boston, I’m glad it was looked into,” wrote Wylie Johnson Jr. on the Sun-News’ Facebook page. “Better safe than sorry. Make fun of me if you want but my family is my life if it had been a bomb by a copycat idiot, and it wasn’t investigated, I would’ve been pretty pissed off.”

Young’s harrowing experience in Boston haunted her thoughts.

She worried about more terrorism on the six-and-a-half hour plane ride home. A part of her, she said, is “terrified” to compete in another marathon, something she had done six times before Monday.

Another side won’t let her quit.

“I don’t want to not run another because I’m afraid,” she said.

Young took comfort in some of her experiences after the explosions. Without a cell phone, or knowledge of the condition of her friends, she tried to run back to her hotel. After a couple miles a family gave her a ride, water and a Power Bar.

“It was horrifying, but at the same time I was impressed with Boston,” she said. “The response from everyone there was just unbelievable kindness.”

Young can’t shake the image of the injured children. She called it an “overwhelming experience” to see her own children asleep in their beds, completely unaware of what had unfolded.

Her thoughts went back to the cramps, usually a scourge of runners.

“I’m glad I was cramping,” she said. “If not I would have been in the middle of all that mess.”

James Staley may be reached at 575-541-5476. Follow him on Twitter @auguststaley

Casting Wedding planners

Posted On:03/29/2013  

Closing On:04/29/2013
Company:Edge West

CASTING FOR EVENT PLANNERS OR WEDDING PLANNERS WHO KNOW HOW TO PUT ON A BIG THEMED SHOW.

We are casting for EVENT PLANNERS or WEDDING PLANNERS (1 woman, 1 man) for a band new TV Reality series on a major cable channel.

• Are you an EVENT PLANNER or WEDDING PLANNER with attitude?
• Can you put on big themed events for large groups?
• Are you funny, gregarious or even eccentric?
• Do some of your friends describe you as being ‘over the top’?
• Do you wave your hands around to describe everything?

If that sounds like you, or someone you know – who works and lives in southern California and is between the ages of 28-45, then we want to hear from you!!

There is compensation if you’re selected to be on the show.

TO SUBMIT:

Be sure to include: 1. your name (first and last) 2. Contact phone number 3. City/Zip where you live. 4. A short description of why you would be perfect for television 5. Recent photos of YOU (jpg format please)

Editorial: Pigeon Forge wise to create housing bureau for event planners

If you’re going to be a player in the tourist game, and go after those big conventions that attract thousands, you have to stay up with your competitors fighting for the same events and same dollars. The city of Pigeon Forge has done that with its approval of a housing bureau that will make it easier for event planners to book rooms.

The bureau, discussed for a year, passed unanimously during Monday’s City Commission meeting. It could have been controversial or sparked opposition. It didn’t. It was a new concept so there were lots of questions as the process evolved, but frankly the idea makes sense and won over any skeptics.

Landing the National Quartet Convention while construction of the convention center was under way convinced local officials that the housing bureau had to become a reality on a faster track. In fact, the organizers of the quartet convention insisted on it.

The housing bureau will be a one-stop shop for all things lodging. If you own a hotel, motel, cabin rental firm or condominium complex in the city, and you want a piece of a major convention, then this is for you. When an event planner wants the best deal he can get for his guests, he’ll ask the housing bureau, which will then send the word out to members and nonmembers. You send along a proposal, all proposals are sent en masse to the event planner, who looks through them and decides what he’ll recommend to the people signed up to attend the event.

Of course, the housing bureau will be only as good and effective as the people who put it all together. City Commissioner Randal Robinson asked some pertinent questions before he voted yes, seeking to be sure that the process will be fair to all. The contract sets out how it will work, and there are assurances from all involved that anyone who wants to make a proposal to an event planner will have that proposal sent along with the others. If things are not run properly, those aggrieved parties are sure to make their displeasure known.

For now, though, let’s be glad the lengthy development of the bureau is over. It’s an important step in putting Pigeon Forge up there with the big boys in pursuit of and service to the kinds of conventions any tourist area would want.

Business Idea: Event Planner

CREDIT: Dreamstime.com

Are you exceptionally well-organized? A great multitasker? Do you delight in seeing a project through to fruition? If so, then you might have what it takes to be an event planner.

Believe it or not, you don’t have to be the life of the party to put together a successful soiree. The guy or gal who can remain calm under pressure, think creatively and negotiate a good deal is the one who’ll make it in the world of event planning.

If this sounds like you, then stop keeping all your party tricks to yourself and start using them to make a few bucks. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that jobs in event planning are due to grow by 44 percent between 2010 and 2020, making it one of the fastest-growing occupations in the country. So put on that party hat, grab a clipboard, and get planning! 

If you have experience planning parties, holiday dinners, weddings or vacations, then you know the basics of what event planning entails. Planners are responsible for all aspects of an event, from sending out invitations to booking hotel rooms. They make sure everything is taken care of so their clients don’t have to worry about the details.

Entrepreneur.com explains that there are two distinct markets for event planners — the corporate market and the social market. Corporate planners are usually hired by companies to organize meetings, conferences and other work-related events. Social planners, on the other hand, cover weddings, birthday celebrations and all other types of occasions.

If you’re new to the business, it may be easier to get started in the social market. Not only will you be more likely to find clients among friends and relatives for social events like weddings or graduation parties, you’ll also gain valuable experience in negotiating and organizing that will be useful in the high-pressure world of corporate planning.

Many event planners choose to specialize in organizing specific kinds of events. Research the market in your area to determine what kind of planning service is most needed. Perhaps your county is suffering from a dearth of bar mitzvah planners or alternative wedding planners. Maybe folks in your area aren’t aware of all the options they have for throwing creative parties at the local bakery or dance studio. Your business will connect people with goods and services in their own communities.

And all you really need to get started is a laptop, good research skills and a social media marketing strategy Sites like Etsy will be there for you when you need to find the most unique wedding favors or the cutest cupcake toppers. And Pinterest will likely be a huge source of inspiration for all the creative endeavors you’ll soon be undertaking.

Follow BusinessNewsDaily @bndarticles. We’re also on Facebook Google+.

What Does the Future Hold for Event Planners? – Visit The Inspiration Café

Among a video library of industry pros discussing ideas for success, Janet Sperstad of Madison Area Technical College discusses grooming the next generation of planners

How is the events industry grooming the next generation of planners? Is a background in marketing and communications important when planning a well-branded event? What qualities do today’s planners need to have to be successful? These questions and more are answered in The Inspiration Café. Sponsored by PSAV_® Presentation Services, the website serves as an online educational resource, including videos of experts’ interviews conducted at industry conventions.

Recently, Janet Sperstad, program director in meeting and event management at the Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin, sat down to discuss the evolution of the meeting planner.

“Years ago when you would ask a meeting planner how he or she got into the business, you would hear ‘I just fell into it or so-and-so helped me to get a job part-time and I never left,’” Sperstad said. “Today it’s quite different. The next generation is coming into the classroom saying ‘I want to be an event planner. I want to be a meeting professional.’ They have a very clear vision of what event planning is and what it isn’t. That’s very profound in our industry.”

Sperstad went on to say that students today come in with a lot of energy and passion; they talk the talk and already use the vernacular that she had to learn along the way. They understand that to be deemed “successful,” an event just can’t be well-organized and/or fun. It has to create experiences, drive business, capture market share and engage groups to come back again and again.

For more insight on grooming today’s event planners, view the interview with Janet Sperstad on PSAV’s Inspiration Café here.

The Inspiration Café – Rob Scypinski

About PSAV® Presentation Services

PSAV provides the ideas and technology that inspire great meetings. This has made PSAV the leading provider of event technology for meeting planners and producers across the corporate, association, and tradeshow markets. PSAV provides an unparalleled range of event technology to support its customers’ ability to create, collaborate, and communicate. With more than 800 partner locations worldwide, PSAV provides people and resources right where you want to have your meeting. www.psav.com

CLICK HERE to learn more about PSAV

Andee Oleno
United States – Long Beach, Phone: 480.905.3445
Email: aoleno@psav.com

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All Articles from PSAV

Running your own event management company

Running an events company seems like a glamorous career, but do you know what it’s actually all about and what it entails?

Events management, also called events planning, can be described as project managing events like festivals, concerts, parties, and launches.

The services of event planners are required by a wide range of people and organisations; from private individuals, to corporations, government departments, and NGOs.

What skills do you need to become an event planner?

Thinking about career in event planning? Not everyone is suited to being an event planner. A good event manager has the following personality attributes:

A genuine passion for the hospitality and events industry
A bubbly, outgoing personality – not afraid of meeting and interacting with new people
Is creative
Is methodical and organised
Is a hard worker.

It’s no good just having a sparkling personality, though – you need to back it up with the appropriate hard and soft skills, including:

Good people skills
Good presentation and public speaking skills
Project management skills.

What qualifications does an events planner need?

Event planners come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including Public Relations, Marketing, and Hospitality. These days, you can even get a degree in Events Management! The International Hotel School’s Hospitality Management Programme offers students a thorough, all-round education, useful in a later career as an events manager.

How to start your own events company

Follow these steps to establishing your own events business:

Step 1: Get events experience

It’s best to gain some inside knowledge of the events industry first, before striking out on your own. By working for a large events planning company, or as an events co-ordinator at a hospitality venue (like a hotel), you will gain working experience, establish a name for yourself, and a network of contacts which you can leverage when you have your own events company.

Step 2: Brush up on the business skills

As the head of your own events planning business, you will not only be responsible for planning and project managing events, but for the strategic direction and day-to-day management of your own business. You will need to broaden your skills base, from events-specific knowledge to business-related skills and expertise, such as:

Administration skills
Marketing skills
Financial skills
Sales skills
Human Resources skills
People management skills
Leadership skills.

Step 3: Get focused

The events management industry is a highly competitive one; to stand out from the crowd and win loyal customers, you need to be focused. Zone in on a specific area, so that you can perfectly tailor your services to your target audience and build up a solid reputation in your niche area, and strive to be the best in that area.

You could specialise in:

Leisure events planning – focusing on lifestyle, sports or music events
Cultural events planning – focusing on ceremonial and religious events (like bar and bat mitzvahs, for example) or art and heritage events
Personal events planning – focusing on wedding planning or planning birthday and anniversary parties
Corporate events – focusing on brand and product launches, exhibitions and client functions.

Step 4: Consider your geographical area

Your area of operation can affect the success or failure of an events management business. No good running a wedding planning business, for example, in an area which isn’t a popular wedding destination, or offering corporate events management in a rural area with few corporate organisations.

You need to put yourself where the action is!

Step 5: Define your range of services and your pricing plan

Rather than offering everything under the sun, it’s often more profitable to narrow your services down to a select few, particularly if you’re a one-man band with finite resources.

As your events management company grows – and you take on people to help you – you can expand on your initial core services. Pay particular attention to pricing strategy – you may be tempted to knock down your prices to win business, but be wary of running an unprofitable business and getting into price wars with competitors – no one wins in this scenario.

Set a fair price, offer outstanding service, be confident in what you do, and stick with this strategy.

Continue reading here - 

Running your own event management company

Running your own event management company

Running an events company seems like a glamorous career, but do you know what it’s actually all about and what it entails?

Events management, also called events planning, can be described as project managing events like festivals, concerts, parties, and launches.

The services of event planners are required by a wide range of people and organisations; from private individuals, to corporations, government departments, and NGOs.

What skills do you need to become an event planner?

Thinking about career in event planning? Not everyone is suited to being an event planner. A good event manager has the following personality attributes:

A genuine passion for the hospitality and events industry
A bubbly, outgoing personality – not afraid of meeting and interacting with new people
Is creative
Is methodical and organised
Is a hard worker.

It’s no good just having a sparkling personality, though – you need to back it up with the appropriate hard and soft skills, including:

Good people skills
Good presentation and public speaking skills
Project management skills.

What qualifications does an events planner need?

Event planners come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including Public Relations, Marketing, and Hospitality. These days, you can even get a degree in Events Management! The International Hotel School’s Hospitality Management Programme offers students a thorough, all-round education, useful in a later career as an events manager.

How to start your own events company

Follow these steps to establishing your own events business:

Step 1: Get events experience

It’s best to gain some inside knowledge of the events industry first, before striking out on your own. By working for a large events planning company, or as an events co-ordinator at a hospitality venue (like a hotel), you will gain working experience, establish a name for yourself, and a network of contacts which you can leverage when you have your own events company.

Step 2: Brush up on the business skills

As the head of your own events planning business, you will not only be responsible for planning and project managing events, but for the strategic direction and day-to-day management of your own business. You will need to broaden your skills base, from events-specific knowledge to business-related skills and expertise, such as:

Administration skills
Marketing skills
Financial skills
Sales skills
Human Resources skills
People management skills
Leadership skills.

Step 3: Get focused

The events management industry is a highly competitive one; to stand out from the crowd and win loyal customers, you need to be focused. Zone in on a specific area, so that you can perfectly tailor your services to your target audience and build up a solid reputation in your niche area, and strive to be the best in that area.

You could specialise in:

Leisure events planning – focusing on lifestyle, sports or music events
Cultural events planning – focusing on ceremonial and religious events (like bar and bat mitzvahs, for example) or art and heritage events
Personal events planning – focusing on wedding planning or planning birthday and anniversary parties
Corporate events – focusing on brand and product launches, exhibitions and client functions.

Step 4: Consider your geographical area

Your area of operation can affect the success or failure of an events management business. No good running a wedding planning business, for example, in an area which isn’t a popular wedding destination, or offering corporate events management in a rural area with few corporate organisations.

You need to put yourself where the action is!

Step 5: Define your range of services and your pricing plan

Rather than offering everything under the sun, it’s often more profitable to narrow your services down to a select few, particularly if you’re a one-man band with finite resources.

As your events management company grows – and you take on people to help you – you can expand on your initial core services. Pay particular attention to pricing strategy – you may be tempted to knock down your prices to win business, but be wary of running an unprofitable business and getting into price wars with competitors – no one wins in this scenario.

Set a fair price, offer outstanding service, be confident in what you do, and stick with this strategy.

Continue reading here - 

Running your own event management company

Making prom dreams a reality the focus of event

PARKERSBURG – Local event planner Misti Sims is organizing the third annual Dresses and Dreams of the Mid-Ohio Valley event.

Organizers and donators to the event will offer aid to a select group of high school juniors and seniors attending a prom this year.

“If anyone knows a young lady in need of assistance they can send me the information,” said Sims, owner of Little Black Dress Events. “It can be any Wood or Washington County school.”

Event coordinators are seeking donations including mirrors, hangers, clothing racks and gift certificates. Items and services that can be donated also include flowers, hairsytlers, make-up designers and photographers.

The event provides the new and gently used formal gowns and accessories to high school girls whose parents are in financial distress. Sims said anyone can donate gently used prom dresses. Donations can be dropped off on Saturday, March 2 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Lee’s Studio on Murdoch Avenue in Parkersburg.

Stephanie Taylor, marketing director for Lee’s Studio, said the company is offering an incentive to people who drop of dresses.

Fact Box

Contact Information

* Misti Sims is accepting referrals for the third year of Dresses and Dreams of the Mid-Ohio Valley.

* Referrals can be made by contacting Sims at misti@littleblackdressevents.net.

* Girls must be referred to the program by churches, teachers, counselors, community agencies or other trusted adults.

* Participants will be sent an invitation to Boutique Day on March 21 from 6-8 p.m. at the Parkersburg Art Center. Girls can bring one guest to the private event, where they will pick out their prom gown and have the opportunity to win prizes.

* A bakery wishing to help by donating cupcakes for the Boutique Day on March 21 can contact Sims at misti@littleblackdressevents.net.

“Anyone who drops off dresses will be invited to have a free steam facial,” she said.

This year, local businesses are donating prizes, which will be given away during Boutique Day on March 21 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Parkersburg Art Center.

“Elizabeth Michaels donated dresses last year with the tags still on them,” Sims said of the Parkersburg store.

Sims accepts referrals to the program through churches, teachers, counselors, community agencies and other trusted adults, she said. Those selected to attend the Boutique Day at the Parkersburg Art Center are sent formal invitations by Sims.

She said people can volunteer their time to help organize the event and are generally asked to be the women of the community, preferably out of high school.

Premier Productions will be at the event to provide a disc jockey. Floral donations for the girls to win will be donated by Crown Floral and Orchid Floral Designs.

Sims said Lee’s Studio is donating two gift certificates for make-up and a spray tan.

Organizers are seeking a business to supply cupcakes on the boutique day for the girls.

Sims is looking for donations to be made with dresses in larger sizes. She said she likes to have a good collection of sizes but is lacking in the 18 to 24 size range.

“Many of the dresses donated are in smaller sizes,” she said of the 200 dresses already donated. “It would be nice to have a selection.”

Those who want to donate formal gowns to Dresses and Dreams of the Mid-Ohio Valley or refer a student from Wood or Washington County can contact Sims at misti@littleblackdressevents.net.