Everyone wants to enjoy a hassle-free wedding, corporate event or other types of occasion. However, it’s tiring to schedule all the appointments with the vendors, scout for possible venues and perform other event planning tasks. This is why a lot of individuals have started venturing into event planning. There is a high demand for event planners and coordinators.
Traditionally, you must have a college or university degree in hospitality or other related fields to acquire the knowledge and skill set needed to organize events. However, nowadays, event planning business owners are free to offer services without formal training or certifications.
As long as you have a keen eye for detail, a flair for planning and coordination, superb communication skills, and a lot of patience, you will most likely succeed in an event planning career.
Where to start
Begin by narrowing your choices. What type of events do you want to specialize in? Generally, there are three types to choose from – corporate, social and non-profit. While you can attempt to accommodate all three, it’s better to concentrate on at most two types of events. It can help you polish your skills and build your list of trusted vendors easier as compared to going all in.
Build your presence
As a home-based event planner, you need to establish both your online and offline presence. Potential customers need to know that your business exists. You can reach out to them online by building your website and social media presence. Make sure that your website amply describes your business. Focus on sharing your story and how you aim to help people enjoy a smooth and problem-free event. You should also actively connect and engage with your target audience on social media.
Apart from building a robust digital presence, you also need to reach out to customers and fellow planners through trade shows. There are several event planning trade shows in the UK each year. Some of the most popular ones include the BNC event show, Event Buyers Live, Confex and Event Production Show.
You need to prepared materials to attract the attention of your potential customers. Your pull up banners, pamphlets, brochures, and other materials should showcase your expertise.
As much as possible, you need to provide a portfolio. It should contain photos of previous events you organized. If you don’t have prior experience, you can create a portfolio that describes how you intend to plan events like birthdays, product launches, weddings, and property turnovers. Be as detailed as possible to show how you can potentially help a client.
Invest in improving or developing your skills
As an event planner, you need to keep abreast of the latest trends in the business. As such, you need to invest in attending seminars, courses, coaching sessions, joining conferences and exhibitions, etc. You need to continually seek professional growth so that you can offer more value to your prospects.
Creating a home-based event planning business will require a lot of investment. You will need to invest a lot of time, money and effort to reach your goals. You might start on a rough patch, but as long as you focus 100 percent on the tasks at hand, you can surely fulfill your dream of becoming a good home-based event planner or coordinator.
