Skift Take
It’s important to nail down what your goals and objectives are to be an amazing event planner, not only for the near future, but for your extended career. Here are 5 ways to do just that!
You may be in the know with trends and upcoming cool gadgets, but how do you plan to implement using these tools? Where do you go to learn more, ask more, and communicate more with other event planners? There are several ways you can test your skills to ensure you have continued success planning events.
Map It Out
One way to ensure success as an amazing event planner, is to take a look at ways you stayed organized in the past. How were you successful in the area of organization? Where do you think you failed? Test out different variations over the next few months to step up your organization process. For example, if in the past you made checklists or jotted down ideas on post-its, maybe go digital moving forward. Keeping everything online is a much smoother process when sharing ideas, collaborating with your team, or keeping yourself in check. It may be nice to have lists and ideas on paper, but very often these things can get lost, so be sure to have copies of everything online!
Stay Flexible
As any good event planner knows, there’s never an event where everything goes 100% smoothly. And, if it seems like it does, that’s a great feeling for the planner, but secretly they may know a few areas that are in need of improvement. To ensure success in this area, try being more adaptable to ideas and new situations that come up. If in the past you were more in control of what happened in every single detail of an event, try to loosen up a bit and actually listen to feedback and suggestions. There may be a few golden nuggets in that feedback that could improve your events, and even your planning skills! It’s important to stay open-minded as an event planner – you never know when a disaster can strike, and you may need a plan B or C lined up that you couldn’t think of yourself!
Shine
Another area to be successful is to step up your creativity. Most event planners are creative by nature, but deep down we tend to hit a wall from time to time, and need boosts of inspiration to get us back on track! Remember to stay on top of trends, review other events in the industry, listen to attendees and vendors, and then see what worked for you in the past. If you were successful with networking outings, maybe tweak those to become an online meet-up, or smaller in-person meet-ups. Take the feedback given to you after each event, and see in what areas people may want more. This could be anything from different giveaways, session names, event themes, or even taking the food up a notch!
Be Nice
There’s one quality in a successful event planner that everyone notices right away – that’s customer service. Nice event planners are the most successful, and the most popular. Taking that extra step, and going that extra mile for not only event attendees, but also your extended staff, vendors you work with, and speakers is a nice touch. If you think you have slacked in this area, come up with ways to collaborate and check-in more with these folks.
Remember, everyone talks to each other, so the last thing you want as an event planner are clients who were not happy with the way things were handled for them. Always listen, communicate, and have answers in your back pocket to provide.
Manage Your Commitments
Being a multi-tasker and having great time management skills are crucial to be an amazing event planner. If you haven’t been on time to meetings, or sent files to clients on time, be sure to review your performance and step this area up big time! Staying on track and getting more than one item checked off your list at a time is so important in the events industry. If you don’t have the skills to multi-task, this may not be the best job role for you. You need to step out and shine as the planner, so come up with ways to improve your time management this year. Whether that means you commit to getting to meetings 15 minutes early, or calling clients instead of sending texts or emails, take that extra step to really make time work for you.
In Conclusion
Go the extra mile when planning events. Review your performance from previous events you have planned, and dig into areas you think you could improve on. Make lists of goals and objectives to accomplish in the near future. There are so many planners out there, so make sure you continue to stand out from the crowd!
