event planning business money

If you aren't feeling confident about designing your small business logo, then check out our Design Guides for Beginners , we'll give you helpful tips and advice for creating the best unique logo for your business.

If you already have a logo, you can also add it to a QR code with our Free QR Code Generator . Choose from 13 QR code types to create a code for your business cards and publications, or to help spread awareness for your new website.

How to promote & market an event planning business

Marketing and promotion of your business will rely on highlighting your business strengths or areas of focus. You will also rely heavily on the success of past events and the positive words or recommendations of prior clients. Consistently use social media outlets to supply pictures and video of your events as well as connect and network with prospective clients and related professionals.

You will also need a website for your business. By linking to your site, you can give clients more information about your specialties. And, once they are on your website, they can contact you for additional questions and to book you for events.

How to keep customers coming back

Providing a professional level of service and an impeccable relationship for giving the customer what they want is key. People are buying a service from you, for a particularly important event. Your ability to satisfy their desires will determine how many return customers you’ll have.

Still unsure about what kind of business you want to start? Check out the latest Small Business Trends to help inspire you.

STEP 9: Create your business website

After defining your brand and creating your logo the next step is to create a website for your business .

While creating a website is an essential step, some may fear that it’s out of their reach because they don’t have any website-building experience. While this may have been a reasonable fear back in 2015, web technology has seen huge advancements in the past few years that makes the lives of small business owners much simpler.

Here are the main reasons why you shouldn’t delay building your website:

Using our website building guides , the process will be simple and painless and shouldn’t take you any longer than 2-3 hours to complete.

STEP 10: Set up your business phone system

Getting a phone set up for your business is one of the best ways to help keep your personal life and business life separate and private. That’s not the only benefit; it also helps you make your business more automated, gives your business legitimacy, and makes it easier for potential customers to find and contact you.

There are many services available to entrepreneurs who want to set up a business phone system. We’ve reviewed the top companies and rated them based on price, features, and ease of use. Check out our review of the Best Business Phone Systems 2023 to find the best phone service for your small business.

Phone.com is our top choice for small business phone numbers because of all the features it offers for small businesses and it's fair pricing.

Start a Event Planning Business in your State

TRUiC's Startup Podcast

Welcome to the Startup Savant podcast , where we interview real startup founders at every stage of the entrepreneurial journey, from launch to scale.

Is this Business Right For You?

Those with an eye for detail, applied creativity, and the ability to easily converse with the general public, will find a great match in event planning. You must also have patience, humility, and the ability to help materialize the customer’s vision for their event.

Want to know if you are cut out to be an entrepreneur?

Take our Entrepreneurship Quiz to find out!

Entrepreneurship Quiz

What happens during a typical day at an event planning business?

An event planning business makes its money from hosted events. This means interacting with current and potential customers is critical. Either one on one or through larger social media outlets, a successful event planner must constantly work to get their name and reputation known to the public. Additionally, the business will be:

What are some skills and experiences that will help you build a successful event planning business?

To begin, it is not necessary to obtain a degree or professional certificate of training for event planning. It may help you, but many successful event planners learned many of the skills needed from on the job training. A background in customer service or the hospitality industry can provide great experience.

You should also be familiar with or be able to:

What is the growth potential for an event planning business?

Event planning is steadily growing as an industry. With increased globalization in business, more and more companies are looking to host professional, well-organized events to grow their own businesses. And, as business grows internationally, event planning will continue to mirror this trend.

TRUiC's YouTube Channel

For fun informative videos about starting a business visit the TRUiC YouTube Channel or subscribe to view later.

Take the Next Step

Find a business mentor.

One of the greatest resources an entrepreneur can have is quality mentorship. As you start planning your business, connect with a free business resource near you to get the help you need.

Having a support network in place to turn to during tough times is a major factor of success for new business owners.

Learn from other business owners

Want to learn more about starting a business from entrepreneurs themselves? Visit Startup Savant’s startup founder series to gain entrepreneurial insights, lessons, and advice from founders themselves.

Resources to Help Women in Business

There are many resources out there specifically for women entrepreneurs. We’ve gathered necessary and useful information to help you succeed both professionally and personally:

If you’re a woman looking for some guidance in entrepreneurship, check out this great new series Women in Business created by the women of our partner Startup Savant.

What are some insider tips for jump starting an event planning business?

Understand your client base and seek to create a niche for your business. A niche may be weddings and receptions only. Or events near the coast. If you carve out your own special place amongst the competition, the specialization should pay off in return customers and customer referrals.

How and when to build a team

From the onset of starting an event planning business, you’ll need to consider who should be part of your team. It will be necessary to carefully select individuals who understand the multiple roles they will play in creating successful events. As your client list and event size and frequency grows, you’ll want to bring in more staff. You may even consider having an overflow pool of workers, who are pulled in for larger events or as needed, but aren’t full-time employees.

Get more ideas with our Business Ideas Generator .

Check out our How to Start a Business page.

Useful Links

Industry opportunities.

Real World Examples

Related Business Ideas

entrepreneur sitting in his store looking up relief loans on his laptop

Coronavirus Small Business Relief

Boutique Tour Business

Have a Question? Leave a Comment!

Event Planning Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Growthink.com Event Planning Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 5,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their event planning businesses. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through an event planning business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your own event planning business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan

Source of Funding for Event Planning Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of secure funding for an event planning business are bank loans, personal funding, credit cards, and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable. But they will want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

Another common form of secure funding for an event planning business is angel investors. Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding or, like a bank, they will give you a loan. Venture capitalists will not fund an event planning business.

How To Write a Business Plan For Event Planning

When you write a business plan, you should include the following 10 key aspects:

Executive Summary

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of event planning business you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have an event planning business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of businesses.

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the event planning business industry. Discuss the type of business you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target audience. Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy and plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Analysis

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of business you are operating.

For example, you might operate one of the following types:

In addition to explaining the type of event planning business you operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

Industry Analysis

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the industry educates you. It helps you understand the target market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards events that adhere to social distancing guidelines, it would be helpful to ensure your plan details what approach you would take (suggested venues, creative solutions for inclusion, etc.).

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section:

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section must detail the clientele you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: private and corporate clients, high-income households, medium-income households, engaged couples, etc.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of event planning company you operate and the event services you offer. Clearly, businesses would want a different atmosphere, pricing, and product options, and would respond to different marketing promotions than engaged couples.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the age groups, genders, locations, and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most event planning companies primarily serve customers living in the same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target market. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do to attract customers and retain your existing customers.

Competitive Analysis

Direct competitors are other planners and businesses that offer event planning services.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from you that aren’t direct competitors. This includes caterers, venues, and customers planning events on their own. You need to mention such competition to show you understand that not everyone who throws a party hires an event planner each time.

With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other businesses with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be other businesses that offer event planning services very close to your site.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Marketing Plan

In the product section, you should reiterate the type of business that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products/services you will be offering. For example, in addition to designing the event, locating the venue, arranging vendors, coordinating personnel, and supervising the event, will you offer services such as catering, decor, and entertainment?

In this section, document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections, you are presenting the services you offer and their prices.

Place refers to the location of your event management business, conference centers, and/or venues in which you own and/or have a relationship. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success.

The final part of your event planning business marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your site. The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your event planning business such as interviewing clients, making arrangements, keeping the store/studio clean, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your 100th customer, or when you hope to reach $X in total sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch in a new market.

Management Team

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience as event planners or in the industry. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in event planning and/or successfully running small businesses.

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you plan one event per week or several events? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $100,000 on building out your business, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $100.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt. For example, let’s say a company approached you with a massive $100,000 event contract, that would cost you $50,000 to fulfill. Well, in most cases, you would have to pay that $50,000 now for supplies, equipment rentals, employee salaries, etc. But let’s say the company didn’t pay you for 180 days. During those 180 days, you could run out of money.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key startup costs needed in starting or growing your business:

Event Planning Summary

Putting together your own business plan is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will really understand the business, your competition, and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful event planning business.

Finish Your Event Planning Business Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your event planning business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies that have gone on to achieve tremendous success.

Click here to see how Growthink’s business plan consulting services can create your business plan for you.

Event Planning Business Plan FAQs

What is the easiest way to complete my event planning business plan.

Growthink's Ultimate Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Event Planning Business Plan.

What is the Goal of a Business Plan's Executive Summary?

The goal is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of event planning business you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have an event planning business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of event planning businesses.

How to Make Money From Events

Events offer numerous potential revenue streams for creators, with opportunities ranging from sponsorships to experiences to merchandising. But creating events that make money requires approaching your goals thoughtfully and professionally. These revenue streams can let you continue creating and organizing events and growing your business. So, if you hope to bring in a profit , read on for some event ideas to make money.

Sell sponsorships

Define a target audience

How to monetize an event website

Offer premium experiences

Sell merchandise

1. Sell sponsorships

Selling sponsorships is the most popular method organizers rely on to generate additional income for money-making events. It can also work well for fundraising events , where some portion of proceeds goes to a charitable organization. Sponsors are often happy to bask in the glow of promoting a good cause. But sponsorship deals also present challenges, with multiple parties with varying needs and expectations. Provide prospective sponsors with details and define targets before the event — this makes evaluating results after the event more straightforward and effective.

How to get sponsors for an event

To attract sponsors to your event, understand what sponsors are looking for. The sponsor’s primary goal is often visibility, which helps them establish their brand and reach new people. Offering opportunities to put the brand before an audience, such as speakerships or featured presentations, will reassure potential sponsors that you understand their goals.

Then, you can reel them in with a pitch that shows:

How do sponsors benefit from events?

There are many ways to give your sponsors more visibility. Start by describing the sponsorship’s benefits in terms of the cost for the visibility they will receive — in other words, the cost per impression (or “CPM”).

If you expect 40,000 people to see a banner placed in a venue, say that. If you’ll be sending an email invitation with a sponsor logo to 10,000 people, tell your sponsors. Those details help the prospective sponsor justify the expense, especially if they’re considering other alternatives (whose ROI may be more readily measured).

Sponsors also benefit from the goodwill generated by their association with the event. That puts increased importance on the success and professionalism of your event, which can lead to continuing and growing business relationships.

2. Define a target audience

When you reach the right audience for your event, they’re happy to pay for tickets and promotions. How do you know who the right audience is? Try these three methods:

Hosting events to make money often comes down to having excellent people skills. Business events unite people who are actively looking to advance their goals. Referring customers to businesses willing to pay for those leads can exponentially increase the number of successful contacts you make. Allow customers and businesses to network in other creative ways. Why not try virtual coffee breaks or speed dating-style networking events?

Social media

Social media marketing lets you reach various businesses and showcase them to other attendees before your event. Use social media management tools to simplify this process, improve engagement, and generate interest.

Create surveys to learn about registered attendees. Include demographic identifiers, such as age and location, and thoughts and opinions on topics related to your event. Ask for opinions about the value of various promotions or benefits, including potential prices, and analyze your results to determine ways to improve revenue generators.

3. How to monetize an event website

Online event promotion can generate considerable online traffic. The purpose of an event website is to support the event, provide all the information prospective attendees may need to make a decision, and describe the event program in full detail. You can also easily turn your event website into one of your sources of event revenue, upping your event planning profit margin with a few well-placed and thoughtfully chosen ads.

Online sponsorship packages

Work with companies with relevant products or services that appeal to those attending. Online-only sponsorship packages, which resemble ad buys, let you engage companies that weren’t interested in being traditional sponsors. If you don’t have the time or energy to sell ad space on your event site, consider contextual advertising options, like Google Adsense, which make it easy to display and monetize relevant ads.

Engaging and understanding your audience

Connect with followers on YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify. Create contests to capture email subscribers and increase engagement, create branded event pages, send customized emails, and much more. The more you interact with your registrants, the better you’ll understand them, and the easier it will be to appeal to them with offers in the future.

4. Offer premium experiences

Attendees are often willing to pay extra for additional benefits or perks above the general admission ticket.

Use ticket types

Offering different admission levels gives ticket buyers more ways to find a price they can meet. In a multi-day conference with multiple workshops, offer a package of three workshops — and a discount on the package. While this may increase overall attendance, it generally does not create incremental event revenue, which is the goal here. Instead, consider creating memorable experiences for which some of your attendees will be willing to pay extra.

Create value within budget

Think of an event ticket that also includes admission to the after-party. While bundling food and drinks may drive sales of these premium tickets, be careful of the costs incurred by providing these extras — they can rapidly erode (or eliminate) your profit. Try to involve experiences that don’t require additional budget resources but have clear value for the attendee.

Use add-ons

Offer a limited-capacity workshop with one of the featured speakers from your event. Include additional one-on-one time and a more comprehensive program than was presented during the general event. If you’re going online, offer exclusive tickets to a Q&A livestream with the keynote speaker — a more intimate experience for event-goers.

Cross-sell with additional perks

Another option is to email your registered guests a week or two before your event to allow them to promote their ticket to VIP status. Remember to entice those who’ve already bought tickets to spend a little more for additional perks as your event nears.

Create intimate experiences

Work with sponsors to offer attendees special experiences, like a tour of their facilities. Most event sponsors would be delighted to welcome a limited number of VIP attendees and provide refreshments in exchange for the opportunity to engage with them on their own turf. Win-win.

5. Selling merchandise

As the large bags of swag after many events can attest, people like to come home with stuff. Often, these giveaway items wind up in the trash a few days later (along with the promotional hopes of the swag sponsors). A better way to capitalize on this desire is to sell merchandise before and during the event.

This approach works well if your event supports a business that already sells products or services. Use the event to better familiarize prospective customers with your offerings, or motivate them to buy on the spot with discounts or special deals. Hosting your event online? Sell merchandise on your event website for delivery before the event.

The Eventbrite Add-Ons tool makes it easy to sell merchandise, food vouchers, and more, and track what your customers are buying, when they’re buying it, and how your inventory’s holding up. You can take care of a major part of the transaction beforehand and online, reducing the time for your event-goers to stand in line at the event and lowering the need for additional check-in staff.

Another idea is to use ticket types to create attendance options that include merchandise. This method lets you sell merchandise to your attendees when they’re most motivated and excited to attend the event. Authors (and Eventbrite customers) Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin have used this tactic to sell books and create revenue from an otherwise free-to-attend event.

Offer value and event-goers will buy in

When exploring events to host to make money, focus on the idea of value. Provide value to sponsors and they will gladly sign up for your event. Deliver value to event-goers and they will purchase more merchandise or higher-tier tickets. When customers feel they’re getting a lot of reward for a small expenditure, everyone is satisfied.

Start setting up your event so you can see revenue coming in sooner rather than later.

Set up your event on Eventbrite

WAS THIS ARTICLE HELPFUL?

SPREAD THE WORD

about the author

Brian Gabriel

Brian Gabriel’s work has appeared in publications such as the Los Angeles Times and CartoonBrew.com. He has been a featured speaker on intellectual property at the FMX Conference in Stuttgart, Germany, and has written on copyright, trademark, and human rights issues, among other topics. He enjoys skiing, the movies, and taking his kids go-karting.

You might also like these

Internationally recognized event planning courses. HELPING EVENT PLANNERS ACHIEVE THEIR EVENT & BUSINESS GOALS

How To Make Money As An Event Planner

Last week I had an experience with a client that wanted me to do work outside of their event for free. Huh?

Unfortunately this seems to happen more than it should and friends, family and clients don’t seem to think anything is wrong with it. And unfortunately I hear this complaint from our event community all too often.

“How do I make money as an event planner when people don’t want to pay me?”

Are you struggling to grow your event business because you don’t know how to make money as an event planner?

When I started my event business in 2004, I lost money on the first event I planned on my own. I didn’t have the experience, knowledge or a pricing strategy in place to account for the time required to plan an event from start to finish.

This is the #1 mistake event planners make.

How To Make Money as an Event Planner

It’s important to account for the many hours you put into your business and the tasks that no one pays for.

As an event planner, you spend time on tasks, like:

In order to have clients hire you and make money as an event planner, you need to account for your work hours outside of each event and charge accordingly.

Don’t fall into the trap of feeling embarrassed about your rates or expertise or into the trap of thinking you lack the skills or experience to charge what you’re worth. If you find yourself making these excuses, or you hear yourself say “it’s a slow economy so my clients aren’t going to spend money on my services,” or “I don’t have enough experience to charge for my services…”

Consider this…

If hiring you to plan your client’s event saves them time and money, how much is it worth to them? Event planning is an investment with a potentially significant return for your client. Consider this when determining your rates and how much money you should charge as an event planner.

Remember that when you’re in a service business you’re selling YOUR time.

You have a limited “inventory” of time.

You can’t manufacture more hours in a week and the only way to earn more is to charge more for your time. You will never make money as an event planner until you get your pricing strategy right and charge for the time it takes to plan an event.

I’d love to hear from you.

In the comments below, share two tasks you spend time on outside of planning your client’s events that you don’t get paid for.

Remember, we love hearing from our global community, but links to outside videos and posts are seen as SPAM and will be deleted. 🙂

Here’s to your success,

How to Start an Event Planning Business from Home

Becki Cross

January 22nd, 2022 at 9:30 AM EST

Many Event Planners start out working from home. This can be a great model for setting up an event planning business as it keeps overheads down in those critical early stages of trading and can maximise productivity. If you are considering whether it could work for you and how to make a success of it, here are some things to think about.

When I set up my Event Management company over 14 years ago I started working from home. It seemed like a natural choice and it meant that instead of worrying about paying expensive office rent in the early stages I could focus on building my business. It worked for me and I worked from home for over a year before outgrowing my home office and renting an office.

Many other Event Planners, Wedding Planning and Freelance Event Managers report the same and find it a workable solution for them – either for the short or the long term. Others just don’t seem able to imagine the realities of working from a home base and I have been quizzed and insulted in equal measures by people trying to understand the intricacies of working from home!

This post is designed to be the ultimate event planning startup kit, for anyone wanting to start their own event management company . These are the chapters you will explore:

8 Compelling Reasons You Should Start an Event Planning Business from Home

A quick guide to setting up your event planning company: follow these easy steps, start now: get your free event planning business plan template, 9 secrets to nail your business name without delay, the no $%^& guide to startup costs for an event planning business, how to create a cash rich event business in 2020, carve out your niche: proven strategy to increase your business earnings, 6 steps to boost your event business’ sales on a tight budget, 100 effective ways to attract more clients and grow your event planning business (when time and money are in short supply).

Important Final Advice for All New Event Business Owners

What makes you relevant in 2020? We reviewed 350 event planning job postings to find the skills needed to succeed. Download the free report.

Perhaps you are currently employed but want to test the water by starting to develop your own client base and run your own events for people? You may be part of the rise of 5 to 9 entrepreneurs – those that work evenings and weekend to get their own business off the ground.

Or you may have decided that you want to be your own boss and are simply itching to go it alone?

Are you worried that you will struggle or that it will be too big a leap?

Here are eight things to consider if you are looking to start your own Event Planning Business from home.

An Event Planner can work from almost anywhere if you have a laptop, internet and mobile phone. Most important are your personality and event management skills. Starting out by working from home keeps costs lower as renting office space can be a huge outgoing for a fledgling business and you may not wish to be tied into a long-term rental contract from the outset.

Starting from home gives a new business the best possible start during those important early months.

Au Revoir Work Commute!

Commuting to work every day can be time-consuming and stressful in terms of both time and travel expenses, and is a part of the day that fills many with dread. By working from home you are not only potentially saving on your monthly travel outlay but you are probably removing the big city temptations which are so easy to fritter away money on (coffee, cake, and other high street temptations). Most important though you become more time rich.

If your daily rush hour commute was an hour each way this gives you the chance to extend the productivity of your working day by a whole two hours (if you want to) in the blink of an eye!

Set up a specific workspace which can be your dedicated work area. Ideally have a room that you can close the door on at the end of the day, rather than being reminded about the mounds of paperwork on your desk and hearing the phone ring after hours!

You can design the space based on your work preferences. Perhaps you want to use a room with a view or perhaps staring at a brick wall would be better for your concentration. Think about what furniture you will need to work – desk, chair, phone, answer machine, shelves/filing cabinet, etc.

Just because you are working from home doesn’t mean you should be any less disciplined. As well as working set office hours some people still choose to dress as if they were still going to an office job every day. In a creative industry such as the event industry, I don’t necessarily agree with this – it makes sense for me to dress more casually on non-client facing days at the office – but do whatever works for you.

When working from home the most frequent questions I used to get asked is “how do you concentrate on working from home with the lure of daytime television?” and “do you work in your pajamas?”

I think people that asked these questions completely missed the whole point that you are WORKING from home. If you are working for yourself it means that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid! It is up to you but no one else is going to pay your salary for you. Furthermore, in my experience running your own business keeps you busy, busy, busy. Organizing events is a time-consuming operation and organizing events and running your own business doesn’t give any time for slacking!

I actually found the opposite in terms of discipline – it is actually hard to switch off and working from home can fudge your work-life balance as the lines are blurred between the two. Whether you struggle to focus or struggle to switch off though discipline has to be key!

One of the things we struggled with as our business grew was storage space. We invested in bigger and better printers, event equipment, marketing materials, banners and so forth, but this investment also takes up space. Furthermore, our regular clients increasingly wanted us to hold some of their materials and branded items between events which put a further strain on storage space.

When event boxes of literature started taking over the lounge every time we had delegate folders to collate ahead of an event we realized it was time to move to a more purpose-built office solution. Perhaps this is less of a problem today when less information is printed and more is presented digitally for events, but nevertheless, it can add up.

Client Meetings

I find that many of our clients prefer us to travel to their offices to meet but if you ever need a space to meet and your home office isn’t large enough/suitable enough there are plenty of coffee shops, hotels and meeting places which offer a convenient place to meet face to face – so this need never be a concern.

Flexibility

One of the biggest perks of working from home is the productivity element. As event deadlines get close hours are often long for an event planner and it is great to feel safe in your own home and able to carry on working for as long as you need to. Likewise, if you have international conference calls across time zones it is convenient to be able to do this from the luxury of your home office.

Home Working Perks

Don’t forget to update and take out the relevant insurance policies as you should with any business working from a home or office base.

There are however many other perks to working at home too – for example paying no or reduced business rates, tax relief and off-setting a percentage of your household running expenditure through the business. These elements will, of course, vary from country to country so do look into the realities of this before you take the plunge.

There are a million and one things to think about if you are considering starting your own event planning business. Whether it is a distant dream or almost a reality, here are 22 steps you need to take to set up a successful event management company.

Starting up an event planning business is not a decision to take lightly. It is a major decision which impacts not only on your life but also on your family and others around you. At the same time, if you are passionate and determined that this is the right direction to take you shouldn’t take no for an answer – go for it!

Although 80% of businesses survive the first year, almost half no longer exist after five years and only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics ). Interestingly, major economic downturns don’t seem to impact the survival rates for new businesses and these stats have remained remarkably consistent over the last two decades.

As one of the one-third of businesses that have survived past the ten-year mark (my event management company was established in 2004), we wanted to create the ultimate useful reference guide to help others take those important first steps to being their own boss.

Starting a new business is definitely not the easy option or a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. It is a high risk, but potentially high reward strategy over the long term.

Here are the details and the process you will need to follow before officially launching your event planning company. There are lots of things to think seriously about and we have flagged essential action to take for each step. Read, digest and bookmark this article for a blueprint of how to prepare to launch your business and ensure the best chance of survival.

Gain Varied Event Planning Experience

The more event planning experience you have the better the service you are going to be able to offer your clients. This isn’t just limited to event planning skills either, any business skills and experience will make you a more rounded business owner. Jump at any opportunity to get paid or unpaid work experience. Use this to learn the things that work and the things you would do differently.

If necessary teach yourself how to use tools that will benefit you as a small business. Today, many of these programs are available online and there is a wealth of video tutorials and written content to help you learn how to use them.

Be confident in what you have to offer:

Undertake Market and Competitor Research

The first thing you need to establish is if there is a definite requirement for the services that you want to offer. Instead of just believing it is a good idea you need to do some actual research to confirm this.

This information can be difficult to find and you will need to refer to lots of different sources to try to get a reliable picture. Look into public data, reports and analysis on the web, talk to people and try to undertake a focus group and individual phone calls with those that you are looking to develop relationships with, to determine evidence of a need.

Scope out the market through researching:

Identify Your Strengths (and Weaknesses)

Consider whether you are looking to offer a broad, full-service event management company or focus specifically on producing a specific type of event or a specific target market. Although it is tempting to try to offer everything to everyone in order to secure the maximum amount of business it may be that this is actually reducing the amount of business you secure by appearing like a “jack of all trades, master of none”.

If you can, focus on your strengths so you can tailor your marketing and all efforts to attract the right type of business from the start. For example, you may decide to specialize in conferences or exhibitions or party planning. Each of these areas is likely to require a different brand and language to attract the right clientele. The key is not to position yourself in too small a niche it is limiting but not trying to do so much that it detracts you from your real passion and focus and puts you outside of your comfort zone.

Work out your passion and superpowers:

Understand the Realities of Starting a Business

Think about how you are going to survive as it may take some time before money starts coming into the business and you still need to be able to pay your bills during this period. Many people start their business “on the side” during their free time, evening and weekends, whilst working for somebody else. This will obviously depend on the role you have currently to ensure that you are not in breach of contract – make sure you act ethically and fairly to your current employer.

Discuss your aims with your partner and family to try to prepare everyone for the change of lifestyle and circumstances. Working for yourself isn’t the same as working for an employer. The buck stops with you. You are likely to work the longest hours of your life, working 80 plus hours a week is not unheard of for business owners. Also, no work = no pay. Your salary is directly linked to the amount of profit you can generate.

Take decisive steps to work out a plan:

What Type of Business is Right for You?

There are many different types of organizations and you need to learn about the different entities to determine which is the right one for you. You might want to be a freelance event planner or to set up a company. The legalities will vary depending on the country you will be operating in too. We recommend that you take advice from experts if you are unsure.

Work out which business entity is right for you:

Decide on the Business Name

Think carefully and research your business name as this isn’t something you would want to change after launching. Look for any conflicts, which prevents you from using names already in use. Also, think about abbreviations to avoid any unfortunate shortenings.

Decide on a killer business name:

Within this post, there is a section dedicated to choosing event planning business names and offering further guidance on this.

Create a Business Plan

Creating a business plan is highly recommended to crystallize your aims and intentions for your company. It is a document describing your business objectives, financial forecasts and strategies for sales and marketing.

Opinions on business plans differ in terms of how detailed this should be. Whether you create a lengthy document of 60 pages, a couple of A4 sheets or write it on the back of a beer mat, it will be a good use of your time and enable you to speak more confidently about your plans and identify problems. Certain banks and investors would also need to see this document. It includes financial and marketing planning information, as well as the vision and mission statements for the company.

Information you should include in your business plan:

Keep reading this post as we have a free business plan template for you to download and complete.

Think Seriously About Investment and Funding

Is any funding available to you? Certain geographical locations may offer incentives or grants for new businesses, to help them start out, or your college or university may be able to offer support. The traditional route for business investment was always through banks or through an angel or investor, although there are many more opportunities and non-conventional routes available today, such as crowdfunding. You may even be eligible for competitions looking for the best startup idea to secure investment and TV programs such as Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den which give you the chance to pitch your business idea, or at least get some great marketing coverage to tell the world about your product.

Steps to take:

Incorporate/Register Your Business

Find out the process for formally registering your company and what information and format are required. This varies from country to country. In the UK, for instance, the government is keen to encourage people to go into business and so they make the process easy to reduce the barriers to starting up. You can complete a simple online form to create a company in less than 20 minutes.

Be prepared to formally start your business:

Design Your Logo and Develop Your Company Brand Identity

When your company name is decided and registered you can start creating your company logo and branding. You might have to live with this for a long time, so make sure you are happy with your corporate identity. Tools and design packages are available if you have the skills to create this yourself, otherwise, a graphic designer should be able to create your company identity for you for a reasonable price. They can also design your stationery and business cards, which can be printed for a small outlay.

Develop your corporate identity:

Set Up Your Website and Social Media Accounts

Check your website domain is available and purchase it when your company name is agreed. It is also worth reserving the handles on social media channels too, even if you don’t yet want to start completing your profile details actively posting from the accounts. Aim for the same handles across all networks for consistency.

Sort out your online presence:

Protect Your Business Intellectual Property

Protect your brand via trademarks, patents, copyrights, whichever route is relevant to your product or service. Take specialist advice on these matters to ensure that you are protected against theft and plagiarism. Don’t think that it wouldn’t happen to you.

Don’t get caught out:

Set Up a Company Bank Account

When your company is registered you will be able to apply for your company bank account. This will need to be done face to face at your bank to verify your identity documents and to sign the relevant paperwork. Choose a bank account that matches your needs, for instance, do you need to deposit cash or take payments by card. If so they will be able to advise the best solutions available to you.

Choose a bank to support your vision:

Confirm Your Pricing Strategy and Fee Structure

Thought needs to be given to your pricing and fees so you know how to answer questions about your costs. Although you need to know the specific details of an event project to quote accurately you still need to know your hourly and daily rates and to share them confidently. Consider whether you will quote on a fee basis or a time-charge basis. Other pricing methods you might consider are taking a fee as a percentage of the total event budget and taking a commission on any items booked related to the event. You may also want to offer set packages or have an introductory offer to entice people.

Get your price right:

Market Your Business Like Crazy to Secure Clients

Try to work on securing some clients and projects before officially launching the business. Having one client already signed up was a great confidence boost when I launched my company and definitely a deciding factor to take the plunge.

Tell as many people as you can about your intentions, including friends and family. Although they may not directly need your services they may know someone else who does.

Perfect Your Elevator Speech

If you answer the question of what you do with “I’m an event planner,” you’re hitting a line drive to first when you could be going for home. Instead answer with something like, “I help medium-sized businesses make indelible impressions on clients and increase revenue through user’s conferences.” Now, I’m listening.

People Buy People

It is easy, in business, to overlook the fact that we deal with real human beings. Real people can get lost between numbers, projections, ROI and profit margins, when really they are the most important thing keeping all of us afloat.

The importance of retaining a human connection externally with customers and clients and internally with staff and stakeholders, cannot be overstated. Successful connection is all about conversation, mutual understanding, and appreciation. If you don’t connect with the potential customer you are less likely to win the bid. We need to get personal, get real, and start an authentic dialogue to gain genuine trust.

That’s precisely what makes events so important. Events create the emotional energy behind the sale, the human experience element. And no-one at all, including those in procurement, really choose a logical sales choice. They make emotional ones – buying ideas. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it, and the only way to truly engage people with that why, is to offer them a direct, human experience of your brand in real life.

Arguably, the value of connection has decreased. Online, no real thought or effort has to go into communicating anymore, and it’s the same with the way brands operate online. With an increase in the ease of communication, there’s a decrease in what it actually means – making the individual feel important. Keep this in mind whenever you are creating a proposal, networking or pitching for new business and work hard to develop genuine relationships with your client.

Win favour and get clients before you launch:

Take Out Relevant Insurances

Make sure that you are covered by the relevant insurances as soon as you start out in business. In the UK, for example, this may include public liability, employers’ liability, and business insurances such as professional indemnity, business and contents insurance. You may also need specific event insurance for different event projects. An insurance broker will be able to advise the specifics you need to consider within the country you operate in.

Protect yourself:

Decide on Your Office Location

Think about where you will work from. Do you really need the overheads of an office? Can you start out working from home? As we have already mentioned, there are a lot of benefits from starting out using a home office. Often meetings can take place at the client’s office or in a local coffee shop or hotel anyway so having a plush office is not essential. If you feel that it is really important to have an office consider hot-desking, a shared workspace or incubator unit where you will get to meet other business owners too.

Give it some thought:

Purchase Business Equipment and Tools You Need

Starting an event management company has low barriers to entry as generally, it is a service based role, which relies primarily on your skills as an individual. As long as you have access to a phone, computer and WiFi you should be ready to begin! Notice will be required to install a phone line and WiFi to your chosen location though, so plan ahead for this before your launch date if you need any changes to your home set up.

Make a list:

Later in the post, we talk in more detail about what to do if you are looking to start a business with no money. For an industry like event planning, having little money is not necessarily a roadblock to starting your own business.

Identify People That Can Help You

For the foreseeable future you will probably be working alone, or perhaps working with freelancers on a project by project basis. You won’t have a large team around you, which you may have had in previous employment. Keep lean while you can – paying other people’s salaries is a big responsibility, especially when you are first starting out.

Sites like Upwork are great as they allow you to find temporary staff that have the skills you need and agree a set fee on a project by project basis. You can outsource legal contracts, copywriting, web design, video editing and any task you can think of. You can even hire a virtual assistant to help with administration or handle phone calls.

Locally, try to develop a network of suppliers that you know and trust so you know where to turn to for quotes whenever opportunities arise. Let them know that you are going solo and they may also be able to recommend you for projects they hear about.

Think about ways you could work with others for mutual satisfaction and benefit. For instance, a nutritionist might partner with a gym to give her clients a discount, and the gym might have a reciprocal agreement for referrals with the nutritionist. Together they’re getting more clients by offering their clients more value.

Grow your support network:

Officially Launch Your Business

When all these elements are in place the time has come to officially launch your business. People need to know that you are now open for business. Plan well ahead for this day and try to have clients on board even before your official launch.

The hardest step is getting your first client. With every client that you work with you are building a portfolio of achievements which can help you to gain further business.

Launch with a bang:

Stay on Top of Paperwork and Accounting

Any business creates a number of administrative duties, such as tax, accounting and legal reporting and requirements. There are a lot of things that need your attention when running a small business, which takes you away from doing what you actually love and are good at – event planning. Take care to stay on top of all paperwork and declarations relevant to your business and the country you operate in. Submit paperwork and accounts in a timely manner before deadlines otherwise you could be subject to fines.

Always cover yourself by having written contracts with all suppliers and vendors and freelancers so that there can be no misunderstandings or liabilities.

Get systems in place:

Develop Your Business Opportunities

Be sure to dedicate plenty of time to developing and growing your business, otherwise, you will find that you complete your first projects and then have no more work on the horizon. Managing cash flow and the peaks and troughs can be difficult as you get to grips with being your own boss.

Think about the next steps for your event planning business:

When I was considering starting my own event management company I enrolled in a night class which helped me to create my own business plan. The tutors shared a business plan sample layout, as well as general advice and support about taking that important first step into being your own boss. I know how much this helped to focus my efforts on starting up the company and my aims for the future and so I wanted to share with you my own event planning business plan sample.

What Makes a Good Business Plan?

There is no right or wrong answers for your business plan, it is unique. You can adapt the layout specific to your requirements. There may be additional information that you want to add in or questions that are not relevant to your business model. Regardless of the specifics you include and how many pages the completed document is, your business plan is what turns your idea into reality.

The most important questions that your business plan needs to address is:

What will make my event management company stand out?

How will my event planning business succeed when so many others fail?

The strongest business plans:

If you don’t have a problem you are solving, you are a minnow in a very large sea. As an event planner you could be rallying against “ho-hum events” or ensure “more revenue, less hassle” for annual conferences. People hire planners because they don’t want to deal with the details. They want the headache to be someone else’s. Demonstrate through your business plan how you will demonstrate this and take those things on so they can get back to business.

What is your value? What do you do differently from other event planners? Know your unique value to a specific type of client and explain it at every chance you get.

Communicate what you want to achieve so that any potential investors can see at a glance what your business idea is, without using any complicated jargon. Your plan doesn’t have to be long but it should establish the vision for your idea, your objectives, how you will deliver the plan and how it will make money.

Know Their Market and Do Market Research

If you understand your market and the competition, you have a better chance of understanding the business need out there and how your business can position itself. Be clear about your target market Who will you be selling to? Why are you different to your competitors?

Are Realistic with Figures

It is difficult to be accurate and the numbers in the finance section can be scary but it is important to try to be realistic. If your business isn’t going to make money it is best to know now so you can refine your ideas into a viable business proposition. Likewise you need to identify how you will make a profit and the anticipated timescales for this. A strong financial business plan will be essential if you need to secure loans and investment, as well as a tool to keep you focused.

Revisit the Business Plan and Goals Regularly

Your business plan should be a working document, particularly in the important first stages of starting out in business. The process of thinking about and creating your plan is what will give you a competitive edge. Check back and revisit your plan regularly. Let the plan grow with you and your business to keep you on the right path.

Download the event management business plan PDF below and create your own bespoke action plan for your startup.

Do you want to add this PDF business plan template to your own website? If so email [email protected] .

How to Set Up an Event Management Company from Home [Video]

Picking a name for your new business venture is highly important, as you want to get it right and select an epic company name that encapsulates your vision for the business. Deciding on event planning business names may be one of the final decisions you make, as working through your business plan will help you to define the vision of your new entity and therefore impact on the name.

Choose the right company name and ensure that your message and ethos are successfully catchy and well marketed and memorable for the right reasons.

Demand Attention

It’s ok to be different. Look at what your competitors are called and make sure that you don’t come up with a variation that could be confusing. Being outlandish or weird can actually benefit you when choosing a company name because they are more memorable, attendees will start talking about it and they will want to know the story behind it!

On the other hand, don’t push the boundaries too far if you want people to get your name right. I have lost count of the number of times we get referred to as Northern Events, as Events Northern is not the natural way of saying it.

Make It Snappy

Not only is a short and snappy name easier to remember and recall but it can make branding, marketing and signage a lot easier to accommodate as well. Shorter names that stick in people’s head are some of the best options that you can choose. Shorter names pack more of a punch.

Be Laser Focused

Are there gaps in your current event niche that aren’t being catered for that you can get across with your company name? Do some market research just for naming, as this can help you with marketing and focusing your demographic further down the line.

Embody Your Ethos

Know and understand what you want to get across to potential clients before you start and try to embody that in the name. Also, remember that it is your message and style that makes your business unique, and that will help to put a creative spin on your business name.

Although it is hard, try to think long-term in terms of your name as you never know where your company will take you. This is something I have learned from experience as, at the start, Events Northern was always focused on events in the North of the UK, so the business name was ideal for our core focus. Over the years though, our business opportunities have become more varied and we do more national and international work, which isn’t just focused on the geographical North. Although this hasn’t held us back, it is also difficult to quantify the number of clients that have not picked up the phone and contacted us because of our name.

Seek the Truth

It can be very easy to be blinkered when you are deciding on something you are so passionate and invested in so asking for other’s opinions can be an asset, especially if you can’t narrow down your options to confirm the definitive name. Crowdsourcing allows you to get a view from real people; whether it is your family and friends or a focus group you can pick up on things you wouldn’t have even thought of and get a different viewpoint. Gathering impartial data and suggestions can also give you inspiration to evolve your ideas further. It is also a way to check for abbreviations or potential initial errors in the name that you can fix now rather than not noticing until further down the line.

The name is important, but telling yourself that over and over again will usually only lead to one thing, writer’s block and then you aren’t getting anywhere. For many people, it is not easy to come up with something creative and original within 5 minutes so these things take time, and most often you will have an “ah ha” moment when you least expect it. If you are struggling to get any ideas out, get a piece of paper and a pen (old school style) and free write for 5 minutes, write whatever comes into your head, literally everything; chicken, ghost, house, rain, whatever pops into your head and it can help to free up your creativity to get through writer’s block.

Expand Your Vocab

Creating a play on words is effective but you need the knowledge to do this, so pick up a dictionary or thesaurus and help to expand your vocabulary. You can use it to find synonyms of other words or expand your adjectives.

Triple Check Availability

This is the techy bit, check that the URLs and legal rights are available, nothing worse than coming up with the best name ever to find it is actually an obscure blog or failing company that you can’t use the domain name for. In some countries, there will also be restrictions on using certain names together which could lead to infringing copyright or naming patents.

If you are dead set on a name but have found someone else has the domain that you want, you can always contact them and ask them to sell it to you because while big brands and names won’t, there could be older websites or retired bloggers that would be happy to sell up and make a little money on the website they had 10 years ago, plus it can’t hurt to ask.

When you are set on a name also check the social media platforms to aim for consistency across the board.

Think Performance

Google can be a useful marketing tool to spread the word about your business but it is much harder to use if you have a lot of competition. Choose names that aren’t as popular, that don’t have common words in them or that make them specific to certain locations such as; Bonnaroo or The Kentucky Derby as these are more unique and you’ll find yourself higher on the search engine pages from the get-go.

A common question that we get asked is “how much money do you need to start an event management company?” The good news is that the answer in most cases is not much!

Starting an event management company generally has low set up costs compared to many other types of business. The essential equipment/elements you will need are:

Things that will help but are not essential include:

You may already even own/have access to these items. If not, all of these things should be easily within reach.

How to Start an Event Management Company with Little or No Money (Yes it is possible!)

When you are starting out in business (and even when you are established!) you should do everything you can to minimize expenditure. When you work for yourself it is true that every penny counts.

Absolute Essentials (Things you Can’t Skimp on) When Starting an Event Planning Business

If you have no money you can still start an event planning business, so long as you can start making money fast. Let’s talk through how you can start your business if you really have zero money, in terms of the essentials and the nice-to-haves we just identified.

How To Access Things You Need for Starting an Event Planning Business (Even When You Have No Money)

5 Genius Ways To Quickly Inject Money Into Your New Business

If you are starting out and desperately need to bring some money in, there can be four ways to access funds quickly:

Owning your own event freelancing or small business can feel like feast or famine when it comes to work, which means that managing cash flow can be a big challenge. Some days you’re turning it away because you don’t have the bandwidth and other times you’re worrying about having no projects lined up and how you are going to pay the bills.

Operating your own event planning business is wonderfully fulfilling but it also means you’re on the hook to market yourself while busy performing event services. You need to keep the flow of clients coming in. For so many freelancers and sole proprietors, it can feel like boom or bust. If that’s the case, one of the most important things you can do for your business is evening out that cash flow.

Balancing out your cash flow is one of the best things you can do for your long-term success as an event freelancer or small business professional. It’s a challenge but can be done if you look for the right kind of client and nurture that person and relationship. Here are a few ideas on how you can even out your cash flow problems and work peaks and troughs.

Startup Problems: Too Much Work and Too Many Clients

We get it. The last thing you want to do as an event professional who has feast or famine times is to turn away work. It feels almost painful when you know a few weeks or months from now, you’ll really need the income. But you also likely know that you can’t run yourself ragged forever. It affects your health and means you could be pulled in so many different directions that all of your clients feel the lack of attention. This will make it next to impossible to get good referrals from them so you certainly don’t want to do this. Instead…

Create an Event Co-op

Until you build a roster of recurring clients who keep you busy year-round, you will have hills and valleys, dearth and surfeit. In order to level that out, one of the things you can do is work with other event planners in a referral group. Just as a physician will provide a patient with a referral to another physician, you can do this with a group of event managers. Select a group of professionals you believe in and can trust. Remember, you’re telling clients and potential clients that these event profs are as good as you are. Make sure you’re not giving a bad referral.

You also want to ensure that this sort of relationship works for you too. If you’re referring clients to them, you’re hoping they will do the same for you when the opportunity presents itself. Make this clear.

You can also use the group to help increase your staff. If you’re afraid of losing the client altogether, take the client on and then work with your group to cover some of the other functions you don’t have time for. Pay them accordingly.

Let Them Go (for a fee)

If you find yourself doing this often and there’s a market for this type of service in your network, you may discover that you have a new business.

Set Up a Referral Plan

If you have several happy clients, now is the time to create a formal referral program. Ask happy clients to refer you to others in their network or tell your clients that you are accepting new clients for events in a stipulated time frame (like Spring of 2018). This helps you book up your calendar in advance, rewards your clients for the referrals, and creates scarcity when they see how far in advance you are booked. This drives people to book you early or ask for other suggestions, which can help you work your referral group as mentioned above.

Startup Problems: Balancing Out Cash Flow When You Have Too Little Coming In

Even the best event profs can have problems with a steady flow of clients. Whether it’s due to a cyclical economy or being new in town, you’ll likely face a lack of clients at some point. When you do, here are a few things that can help make up for it.

Hire a Virtual Assistant

With feast or famine, you can’t exactly hire someone. What would happen during the famine? But you also can’t grow your business without hiring someone. What should you do?

In this case of plenty, consider hiring a virtual assistant to allow you to bring in more work. You can hire them on a contingency system where they work on projects when you have the work. When you don’t they go back to serving other clients. There’s no long-term contract and you needn’t worry about paying them when you don’t have projects.

A virtual assistant is a safe way to take on additional work that will help you grow without taking the risk of another full-time, permanent employee. You can task them with researching potential new clients too, to hopefully help even out your flow of work..

If you want to get your name out there in an area where you don’t have much of a reputation, consider volunteering on an event or in an activity that would give you exposure to your ideal client. Work hard and make an impression and your new network of people met through volunteering may just hire you. Don’t push your business on them. Simply look for ways in which to be helpful.

Get Clients with Recurring Events to Book Early

While it may not help you get paid any earlier, this tip can help you get your calendar booked early so you can worry less. And if you require a downpayment to hold the spot, you can get a little revenue coming in before the event. If you have clients with recurring events, give them an incentive to book you early. You’ll have peace of mind and you can pass along a small discount or financial incentive for them to get on your books for next year’s event this year.

Ask Your Network

If your event business is new or struggling, the easiest and least expensive way to grow it is through referral marketing. You never know who you know. Don’t assume your friends and family have no use for your services. Ask them if they need any help. Sometimes, someone has taken on more than they can handle and they need someone to finish the project. Other times, they have someone in their network who needs help with an event.

Most people would be willing to hire an event planner that a good friend referred them to, so get happy clients and attendees to talk about you. Our friends know us and know what we like. They wouldn’t steer us in the wrong direction. But it may surprise you to know that people will even make hiring and buying decisions based on reviews by people they don’t know. According to a study from Ogilvy, Google and TNS, 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influence in their purchasing decision.

According to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, one offline word-of-mouth impression drives sales at least 5x more than a paid mention does. Paid advertising may not be in your budget anyway if you’re just starting out but it’s reassuring to know it’s not the most effective way to reach your audience anyway.

Give those referring you all the information they need to make sharing it with their network easy. Make sure to thank them when they do and offer them a referral fee or thank you card or gift for their assistance if work materializes as a result. You can even offer a friends and family discount or free consultation.

Join a Group

Join a group and get to know other people. In-person networking groups like your local chamber of commerce and others as well as virtual groups on LinkedIn and Facebook allow you to make connections with your ideal clients and other professionals who can help expand your network.

When you join a group, don’t hit them immediately with how desperate you are for a new client. Instead, look for opportunities to be of assistance and connect them to the people they want to meet or need help with. If you become a resource for others, they are likely to become a resource for you as well because they will begin to know, like, and trust you.

Become a Subject Matter Expert

As mentioned above, becoming a resource for people is a good way to get hired. That’s why becoming a subject matter expert is paramount to getting clients year-round. If you can become the noted expert in an area, book speaking engagements, publish about topics of interest to your ideal audience, write a book (or an ebook), post on sites offering your assistance or answering questions, following others on social media and joining in on chats and other discussions, you can quickly become known for your insights. When you do, people will approach you to work for them. This means less time spent needing to market your services.

Know one more benefit to becoming a subject matter expert? You can increase your pricing, which is another good way to improve cash flow.

Sell Something

Going off of the subject matter expert advice, look for ways you can expand your offerings and sell something. As an event professional, you are exchanging your time for money. You can make a very good career doing so but you can also exhaust yourself chasing the money and working the hours because you want more of it (to make up for times when clients are few and far between).

An ideal way to balance out cash flow is to produce something that can earn you money without you being involved. For instance, a book, product, or even a course can bring in revenue without an additional investment of your time. You invest initially in its creation because you do so on spec. Most likely you will not be paid to create it. But once it’s created, the revenue possibilities aren’t limited by the hours in the day. People can buy it (and pay you) even while you’re sleeping.

Offer a Smaller Service

You likely serve a particular audience and you’ve decided what they will pay. By setting your prices you have chosen to work with a client of a specified means or revenue. That leaves others out and that’s okay when it comes to booking events.

But a way to get more clients is by going into another market. This could mean taking on another niche or dropping your price. If you’re not interested in doing either of these things, try offering smaller consulting services. This would entail shorter stints, less work on your part, and a wider audience base. For instance, you can offer “day-of” event manager work on events. Some corporate people plan the events and then realize they don’t have time to manage them or need additional support. Or some people just want a plan they can follow. Their limited budgets may prevent them from hiring a full-time planner. You can fill that need.

Improve Your Existing Cash Flow

To improve cash flow, either get more clients, raise prices on your services, or change how you collect the money. For instance, adding a payment plan for large events that would bring in a smaller amount each month preceding the event would help, as would requiring a down payment to hold the date and another partial payment when they see your first plan or some other accepted milestone. Your final payment may be diminished but spreading out the payments would bring some stability to the cash flow.

Put on Your Own Events

Instead of waiting for clients to come to you, think about opportunities you can make a start on right away. You probably have event ideas which could be financially viable, so why not do them yourself? Of course, there is risk involved and investment needs to be secured but it can also potentially give you the biggest returns. You can start small and build the event year-on-year. Consider options such as crowdfunding to test the viability of the idea and reduce your financial risk. Look for in-kind sponsorship, partners, funding opportunities and ticketing to balance the budget.

Winning Out-of-Town Business

If business is really slow, think about if you need to widen your catchment area to look for clients a little further afield. Of course, the convenience factor drops and the travel time and expense increases when you are working out-of-town but if the demand for services is high elsewhere new contracts can be negotiated to cover these factors. Setting travel budgets and fees can feel a little overwhelming in the beginning, but they can still profitable course of action.

Know your worth. It’s non-negotiable. The only exception to that is if you have a potential client who will open up doors for you. In that sense being flexible in your pricing may just be the cost of doing business.

Getting Contracts Approved Faster

Winning a new contract should be a cause for celebration but it can soon turn to frustration when your client’s board or legal team are causing unnecessary hold-ups to the progress of the project (and the first invoice being issued).

Of course, people get busy. Email inboxes become overwhelmingly full. Forgetting to sign your contract isn’t a personal slight but it simply may have fallen off of their to-do list. Politely remind them every few days. Make sure the reminder that you set for the day before the deadline has a much more urgent tone.

If you’re worried about sounding pushy with these reminders, word each differently. But start with something along the lines of, “Just checking in to see if you had any questions about the contract. I’m eager to get started.” or “ Wanted to see if you needed anything further from me in order to get the finalized signatures. Please let me know.” Then as the deadline approaches, add more urgency and personalize the subject line.

Businesses need to know who they serve and what problem they solve. Building your event business is critical to paying the bills but if you’re selecting the wrong clients, numbers won’t matter. Attract the right clients and you’ll create a business you love. Attract the wrong ones and you might not be in business much longer.

A successful event business is about more than just numbers. Yes, numbers make the difference between a red balance sheet and one that’s in the black but there’s more to building an event business than just getting people who will pay you money. If getting bookings for events was all that mattered, everyone would be in business for themselves.

However, having the right type of client is as important as having projects that pay the bills because without good clients, you’re more likely to return to working for someone else. The wrong kind of client can be one heck of a headache so you want to make sure you attract the kind that you enjoy working with.

Don’t Try to be Everything to Everyone

You cannot please everyone, and trying to offer event planning services to everyone, no matter what their brief is, means that you are missing out on specializing on your strengths and developing your specific area of expertise.

Newbie event professionals who want to eat often take anything that comes their way, whether it’s the kind of work they want or not. They also try to be all things to all people because they worry that if they segment their marketing or target a particular niche, they’ll miss out on work. The opposite is true. You can’t market to everyone without weakening your message. Most people think choosing a niche is limiting. It’s not. It’s called specializing and specialists are worth a lot more than generalists. Ask a neurosurgeon. Selecting a niche to focus on can be the wisest move you make.

As personalization increases, niching will become an expectation much in the same way physicians select a specialty. Yes, some people will still be in general practice but those in high demand will specialize.

In a niche, you will be expected to:

Refine Your Marketing Messaging

Determine who you want to work with and speak only to them. Once you know what you want and who you work well with, cast narrow not wide. Focus in on your ideal and turn away those who don’t fit it. Everyone will be happier in the long run.

When you personalize your marketing to a specified group of people, they will feel you are speaking just to them and will appreciate the personalized attention. You’ll then get to work with the type of client you want in the area you want. By doing so you begin to make a name for yourself among your ideal client type and they’ll share your information with their like-minded friends and peers, attracting even more of your ideal client.

Saying Yes to the Wrong Client, Means Saying No to the Right One

You only have so many hours in your day. Every project and client you choose, takes your time. If you say yes to one that isn’t your ideal, you’re taking the spot away from someone who is, and that someone could be the next email you receive. Pass on clients who aren’t your ideal. When you get your marketing refined to target your ideal client, you won’t need to worry about the others. You’ll receive a better referral and review if they’re in your ideal category because your services will shine.

But still, many businesses hesitate to narrow down prospects because they worry that means less potential clients. It does from a numbers perspective but it doesn’t matter. Let’s take a look at keywords to understand this concept. You can take a keyword and by using analytics tools see just how often someone searched for that term. In pay per click, some terms are more expensive than others to place for because they are popular searches. But that doesn’t speak to their value. In order to decide whether that’s something you want to pay for or not, you want to look at conversion rate. If there are only 1,200 searches of that term per year, but a large percentage convert, then you would be wise to buy for that term.

The same is true for niches. There may not be as many people looking for them but if those who are looking, are serious clients, that’s all you care about. You don’t want thousands of inquiries who want RFPs only to vanish in the night. You want people to self-select before they ask you to give of your most precious commodity – time.

Fire the Mr. and Ms. Wrong Client

If you’ve already taken on clients who were not your ideal, finish up those events and walk away. It’s easy to agree to do another job for your less-than-ideal clients instead of worrying about where your next client will come. If you feel that pressure, resist and understand that taking on the wrong clients means that you’re going to end up with more of the wrong clients as they refer you to their peers. Think of the referral business like high school cliques. Jocks are generally friends with jocks and nerds with nerds. If you want to do business with nerds, don’t ask the jocks for referrals.

Be Brave and Get Known for Your Event Planning Niche:

New Research Reveals the Most Effective Strategies Event Planners Use To Get More Clients

In January 2018 we conducted one of the largest pieces of event planning research ever completed. With 2,400 contacts and over 1,000 respondents. If you would like a copy of this research to publish it on your website, you can request it here: State of the Event Industry Research 2018 .

45% of the event planners we surveyed told us that they have more clients than 12 months ago. 43% have the same amount and 12% have fewer clients. The outlook for the industry is looking positive overall.

We asked event planners their most effective strategies to find new clients and the top strategy was networking face to face (66%), followed by social media (45%).

In order to be successful in your event planning business, you need to learn to prioritize leads to understand who to spend your time with and who to let go. Since you can’t get a refund on precious time, you’re hurting your business if you waste time on the wrong people.

One of the most critical things you can do for the success of your event planning business, outside of pricing, is understanding the leads process. If you don’t, there’s a good chance you’ll either waste your time on someone who will never become a client or you’ll ignore someone who could be very good for your business.

If you’re unfamiliar with lead screening and prioritizing, it’s time you learn all about it. Here are the basics you need to know.

The Basics of Lead Prioritization

Prioritizing leads will not only help you spend time with the most worthwhile prospects, it will also increase your revenue because more of your time will be spent with those who are able to make a difference to your checking account.

Know Your Ideal Client

There is no way to prioritize a lead effectively if you don’t know who you want to work with. As we have already covered, you should identify your ideal client, otherwise, it makes it next to impossible to be effective in your lead generation. Select a niche to serve, or at least identify your ideal demographic. Do you want to work only high-end events or do you love family-oriented get-togethers? Or maybe there’s an industry you know well. Whatever it is, sketch out who your ideal client is and what they struggle with.

Know Where You Excel

Another way of narrowing down who it is you want to work with is knowing what you’re good at. If you are a whiz at last-minute soirees or you host amazing destination events, decide whether that’s something you want to specialize in.

Now that you know who you want to serve, you can go into prioritizing how to work the leads.

Attend to Inbound Leads First

While this is common sense, some event planners still forget this basic advice. Always work inbound leads first. These are people who have reached out to you. Most event planners understand the priority behind a contact form but fail to see that there are other inbound lead types. These could be people who stopped by at your booth at a show, asked you a question via social media or downloaded material from your website.

No matter how they approached you, the follow-up is critical. Check in with them periodically to see if you can be of service. Use drip marketing or a newsletter to stay in touch and remain top of mind so that when they need an event planner, they think of you.

Prioritize the Clicks

If you send out any sort of cold messaging via email or a newsletter, follow up with those who have clicked on any of these materials. If the person is someone who started as an inbound lead where they contacted you and were then added to a list, they take priority. Otherwise, anyone who clicks on your email or newsletter content deserves a polite, how can I help you? or would you like additional information/content? contact.

No one clicks out of kindness. If they click, they have some interest in you, your services, or your content. Ideally, you would have technology in place that could keep track of their activity history and you could analyze it for patterns. For instance, do they seem to click on a particular topic like corporate events? Then consider touching base and offering them your corporate events guide.

This will position you as an industry expert, understanding of their needs, helpful, and a resource to turn to for assistance. All of these things will bring them back when it is time for them to make a decision about their event.

Stalk Website Visitors

Assuming they have downloaded content from you in the past or are on your email list, you can track every time they visit your site (if you’ve invested in the technology to do so). Pay particular interest in what they’re downloading and the pages they’re visiting.

When you contact them to see if you can be of service, offer them a piece of content that is in line with their interests. Just make sure it’s not something they’ve already downloaded.

Pick Up the Phone

If you have absolutely no potential clients reaching out to you, it’s time to do some research and find events that may be a good fit for your services. You can contact businesses directly (for corporate events), inquire with other vendors on potential partnerships, or market yourself on social media, to name a few.

However you decide to do your own cold calling (or approaching), make sure you have your ideal client information at your fingertips. You do not want to approach someone just for the sake of getting more contacts in. Make sure they are good contacts and would make good clients and a good fit. Otherwise, you are wasting your time and theirs.

But what if you don’t have any of the technology set up? What if you just want to know how to prioritize leads that are all coming in the same way such as through a contact form? Keep reading.

Prioritizing Same Type Leads

Let’s assume all of your contacts are coming in the same way and you’re wondering how to prioritize and screen them so you’re not wasting your time with leads that won’t convert. The first way to help you prioritize is to create a contact form that tells you what you need to know before contacting them. These things include:

Remember that ideal client list you made and the demographics you laid out? Use that to prioritize incoming leads or contact forms. Ask yourself the following questions:

Content, Conversion, and the Sales Funnel

It’s important to talk about conversion, the sales funnel, and lead nurturing. Selecting an event planner is not the same thing as going into a store and buying a loaf of bread. When you want bread, you walk into the store and buy it. There’s very little comparison shopping done. A quick scan of the shelves and that’s it.

On the other hand, there could be a very long sales cycle in selecting the perfect person to plan an event. The client could also be mid-cycle, meaning they don’t need a planner now but anticipate the need for one in the future.

This process of selection is often depicted as a funnel. A funnel starts with a wide mouth. If you’re marketing your services, you’re likely casting a wide net. (Although, hopefully not an immense one. You should be personalizing your campaigns based on your ideal client.)

Entice with Content

At this stage, people don’t know you or your business very well so you provide them with introductory materials based on their needs.

After digesting these materials, some people will decide you are not a good fit for their event. This decision is usually based on preliminary qualifications like budget and industry specialization. This elimination is okay because you don’t want to work with just anyone.

Is This The Start of Something Special?

Next, people now know a little bit about you and have decided you can handle their event but do they want you to? This part of the process is all about personalization and making connections. They have options when it comes to event planners. At this stage, they’re ensuring you are someone they want to work with.

Again, some people will decide you are not a good fit for them now that they’ve gotten to know you better. Maybe your personality and theirs don’t jive. Maybe they’ve found someone who knows a little more about their industry. Whatever the reason, don’t worry about it. This works both ways as you may decide you have no interest in working with them either.

It’s a Match!

The last part of the sales funnel is the narrowest. The potential client knows you can do their event, they like you well enough to give you the opportunity, and now they’re just narrowing it down to a decision. Remember, that decision could mean your competition or it could just as easily mean forgoing an event planner altogether and doing it on their own.

At this stage addressing their needs is more important than ever. If you can provide a much deeper connection and understanding of their goals, they are more likely to select you.

So what moves people down the funnel? It’s not gravity. It’s a thing called nurturing.

You Can Do It

This is why prioritizing potential clients and leads is so important. The sales process requires a natural sloughing off of potential clients. Because of this, you don’t want to spend any extra time with prospects that won’t become clients. You want to recognize the potential of becoming a client as early as possible and spend your time with those people. If you spend your time with tire kickers who never convert to sales, you’re losing money.

Identify your ideal client so you can recognize them when they fill out a contact form or call you. Know the right questions to ask to identify them as such and don’t be afraid to say goodbye to those who aren’t an ideal fit. For those who are a good fit but aren’t ready to make a decision, nurture them until they are. Be a resource and you become a valuable ally.

Be a Client Magnet:

One of the most common questions we get asked at EventMB is how to get more clients. Whether you are a self-employed event planner or an ambitious CEO, clients are the lifeblood of the business. It seems to be a lot harder nowadays too since people are tuning out advertising. But it’s not hopeless. The good news is that many of the ways you can reach new clients are free (or inexpensive) to you, outside of the time it costs to perform them. Whether you are introvert or extrovert, there are plenty of ways to land new clients. Knowing your ideal client will help you recognize them when you see them. It will also help you understand which tips on this list will help you the most. Here is the biggest list of tips to attract more event planning clients and grow your event planning business.

The event industry is a service industry and event planning is a service which means:

no clients = no business.

You need clients to survive and we all want to gain profitable event clients. Here is a bumper list of ways you can improve your client magnet potential while business is slow.

Create Happy Clients and then Ask for Referrals The primary thing you need to do, is to create happy clients and attendees. Without them, there won’t be any referrals even if you beg and plead – at least not the kind you want to be published. Find ways to delight and excite your attendees and clients as the basis for creating a referral plan. Once you have people who think you’re amazing, you can begin creating opportunities for them to share their love of your work.

Gain More Reviews of Your Services You want to make it as easy as possible for people to review your services so when you ask them to review your work, either refer them directly to the website that you’d like them to post the review on (such as LinkedIn or Facebook) or tell them you plan on posting it to your website and then get it up there as soon as they give it to you. This will make them feel proud to see their review on a site and will also give them something to refer people to in order to learn more about what you do and how you do it.

Get Reviews and Testimonials from the Right People Event planners can benefit from reviews from clients and attendees. But you can also receive persuasive reviews from vendors and people in the industry you’ve worked with. Anyone who has worked with you and benefited from your level of professionalism is a good ask. If you volunteered your services for an event, you can use them too.

There’s no easier way to get that review than to ask for it. Help them understand that you depend on word-of-mouth as a small business and it means a lot to you. There are very few people who will say no to an impassioned, yet humble, request. Just make sure you don’t ask when you’re delivering the bill. No one is in the mood for that.

Ask for Introductions and Pass it Forward This is one of the most awkward things for most event planners. It feels forced, but if you are confident in your services you should feel like you are giving each one of your clients an opportunity to help one of their acquaintances out by referring them to you.

Unless you ask you won’t receive. Always ensure that you “pass it forward” yourself too. If you bring business to your clients they will be eager to return the goodwill.

Be Yourself Be yourself, unless that self is standoffish and shy. In that case, be the opposite. But seriously, let the clients get to know you and open up to them. Don’t be just an event planner. Be THEIR event planner by connecting with them and caring about their lives as well. Someone who does more than just the service you hire them for is someone you want to refer to others.

People want to be helpful and refer others, but they won’t do it for just a mediocre experience. They want to shine in front of their friends and peers. If they have a great experience with you, they’ll gladly share, knowing they’re doing a service for their friends as well by introducing you.

Referral Incentives If you are struggling with natural referrals from busy previous clients then it may be beneficial to add a little more incentive. Offer your existing clients money off or discounts if they refer a friend and they are more likely to recommend you if they are getting something in return. For long-term clients or contracts, you could also offer discounted rates to their new referral as part of a loyalty scheme. The options for this are quite broad because you could base the incentives on the amount of work that they bring in and you may find that you need to do little else once this gets the ball rolling.

Know Your Demographic It is important to fully understand who you are trying to attract, what their preferences are and the best way to contact them. You will be looking to market your services in completely different ways if your demographic is 18-24 year olds compared to 50-60 year olds. Think about technology and social media, as well as more traditional marketing channels such as newspapers, leaflets and business networking.

Online Q&A Create a YouTube video or Facebook Live session where you answer frequent questions about your services so that people can put a face to the brand and make a more informed choice about picking you. You could simply sit and discuss topics that you have been asked (low/no budget) or you could invest in creating something which really shows off your brand and image if you have a little budget to play with.

Make a Package Bundling together various services can help to create a bigger sense of value to your client. Think about offering a simple package to entice more customers. Think carefully about what is and isn’t included though to ensure there is no misunderstanding. What opportunities are there to upsell the package?

Creative Sponsorship Sponsorship can help you increase your brand awareness and improve interaction with potential clients if done correctly. Sometimes you need to speculate to accumulate. Make sure you choose opportunities that are relevant to your audience and get creative so that you stand out from the crowd by showing why clients should pick you! As an event planner you might want to offer in-kind sponsorship – where you offer your services pro bono to run an event or a specific element such as the VIP lounge (instead of giving a financial payment). In return, you are listed and promoted as the sponsor and gain the perks that that brings.

Video Adverts Fewer people are watching live TV now and many are recording and skipping past the adverts. Not that TV adverts were probably ever within your budget anyway! Instead, make a video advert and share it via your social media accounts to your followers and potential clients. You could also use the video as a welcome or explanation of services when you get an inquiry. This is an effective way of showing off some of your projects and is much more engaging than an introductory email. Give it a go to see the difference in your client conversion rate.

Become a Guest Speaker As an eventprof you have a lot of expertise and experience that others want to hear. Some of the best ways of showing what you do is to discuss it and show them exactly how competent you are. Attend events as a guest speaker and you can discuss the problems that your services fix and deal with! The key here is to offer value within the talk itself, give good advice on the day and encourage potential clients to come to talk to you afterwards. Your professional knowledge is that carrot enticing people to come and strike up a conversation with you.

Host a Giveaway Everybody loves free stuff, and hosting quality and interesting giveaways is a quick way to get people involved and aware of your brand. It goes without saying that the more valuable and desirable the prize the more awareness and potential leads you will get but it is important that when using giveaways to attract clients, that you make the prize relevant to the services you’re offering. For example, you could offer taster sessions, event workshops or some of your services for free so clients know what they are getting and you know those that are entering are the “right” people.

Make Use of Trade Shows If you have the budget to participate, a trade show can be great for networking success, brand positioning and sales. Exhibitions bring buyers and sellers from your industry, or local area, together which means you have a good chance to meet long-term potential clients. Try to be innovative, stand out from the crowd and draw attendees to your exhibition stand to better your chances. Most importantly though make sure that you follow up on any promising leads promptly after the event, otherwise, your investment will be worthless.

Create Your Own Leads Sometimes clients are not always forthcoming and you need to proactively go out there and find them yourself. One of the ways to do this is to use platforms that have a lot of business information about people, for example, LinkedIn. You can see the company’s that you want to appeal to and their HR, PR or management department representatives and contact them directly for a more personal and innovative approach. This also helps to connect you to similar people that may help your business too, for example, new suppliers.

Hashtags There is a plethora of information on social media and it can be hard to get noticed without having to pay for adverts or to get your message out. Using popular and relevant hashtags on social media can be an easy way to get in front of potential new clients. Twitter chats can be a great opportunity and some chats are based on geographical location while others are based on different expert topic areas and interests. Keep your content and hashtags relevant and you might find that a retweet or share turns into a bigger opportunity. Resist the urge to do the hard sell on social media though. Focus on being genuine and striking up real conversations and relationships.

Business Cards Whether you still favor traditional paper business cards or have gone digital make sure you always have your details to hand for easy sharing. With more and more people storing their cards on their phone they are less likely to take and keep a business card, so have both options available if you can. Include social media details as well as traditional methods of contact.

Creative Partnerships Do you have a non-competing business that would work well with your own? Approach them to create great package rates that help you both. You can offer to refer to one another with paid incentives for referrals or even special rates of advertising in their shop or website. Clients want to know that they can get everything fairly easily and joining forces with other businesses helps to add value that can benefit everyone.

Talk About Your Business Every day let people know about your business and services. You would be surprised how little other people pay attention to your life, do your friends and family know and understand what you do? Would they recommend you? Getting clients can sometimes start at home by building your network outwards. There is a lot of event and client potential there, so make sure that you are the first person who pops into their mind in the circles they move in.

Business Deals Promotional offers and deals can get new clients in the door to show off your products or services and get them hooked. Some of the more successful deals prompt new clients into action straight away such as “limited time only” or deal limits such as “free consultation to the first 5 people to call/email”. This gives them more incentive to act and creates more of a buzz for new potential clients.

Long-term Pricing A lot of your business may be one-off or short-term event projects but include a long-term incentive into your pricing structure to encourage your clients to think ahead and keep them coming back. This could be an improvement on rates for next time as a loyalty bonus, or offering a long term service such as managing and updating their event social media channels for their event for 12 months when the next project is confirmed. It is easier to keep a client than recruit new ones each time so this could be a winning strategy.

Online Help Increase awareness for event consultancy and management services by helping others online to answer questions. Using sites such as Quora or Clarity can allow you to create a profile to showcase to potential leads that you know what you are talking about. You can offer your services to provide consultations or resolve questions for users which increases brand awareness and proves you know what you are talking about. You can also improve your profile with portfolio elements and add reviews from previous users you have helped to improve your status and make you more reputable. If you fill out your complete profile with all of your services and previous history it will make users more likely to come to you.

Get Personal On a daily basis, people have their inboxes and phones flooded with ads, cold calls, spam and junk and they can spot it a mile away. If you are working on a client lead then do your research, treat every client like a VIP and you are less likely to be added to the SPAM folder. Know your audience and it will foster a long-term relationship rather than seeing you as “just another brand”.

Press Releases Get some press.

With the increase of technology, eventprofs often overlook sending out press releases but this is a missed opportunity to secure local or national media coverage. If you have something newsworthy create a press release and send it out to the right channels.

It’s important to know, the press won’t think you landing a big client is newsworthy, but if you can, share the story in a frame that interests them (like event planner gives back to cancer patients through hosting events they missed due to illness), they might just cover it.

Press Opportunities Follow the #journorequest and #PRrequest hashtags on Twitter for opportunities to share your expertise with journalists writing specific features.

Help a Reporter Out Register on specialist sites such as HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to enable you to provide insight and put yourself forward as a reliable source to secure yourself media coverage. Getting a quote in a major newspaper goes a long way to establishing yourself as an expert in your industry. It is important to remember not to underestimate the power of traditional press and the kudos and reach they bring when looking for new clients.

Brand Ambassadors Another opportunity for event planners to consider is blogs and websites that are read and respected by your target audience. Perhaps you could submit a guest post offering some top tips or be featured with an interview. High traffic blogs may offer sponsored posts, reviews, banner ads and other opportunities.

Associations Join an association and get to know other event planners.

Join a chamber of commerce or networking organization In-person networking groups allow you to make connections with your ideal clients and other professionals who can help expand your network. You never know who you might meet.

Create relationships with business organizations Volunteer for your local chamber. They throw a lot of events. They could just end up hiring you or if not, giving you a great referral.

Volunteer for a non-profit Volunteering allows you to give back, gain more experience and potentially find opportunities for paid work in the future.

Partner with other event vendors Can you offer a package with an AV company, event stylist or other vendor that compliments your event planning services? By working together you can add value and involve partners that can market the package to their own networks.

Follow-up with past clients Check in regularly with past clients. You never know what ideas it could spark or how often it leads someone to say “I was thinking about contacting you about an idea I have…”

Ask if they are in need of your services, could refer you to a friend, or write/record a testimonial for you on your services.

Work with Venues Contact local venues and get on their preferred partners list.

Plan an Event to Show off your Skills If you want to attract more corporate clients set up a free business networking event to show off what you can do and bring together people who may want to talk to you.

Be a Mentor Just because someone is on the lower rung of the career ladder does not mean they are lacking in connections. Just don’t make your business the only reason you’re mentoring.

Partner with large event planning firms Large players in the industry will often pass on projects that are too small or don’t fit their ideal client spec. Ask them if they might refer them to you instead.

Make Proactive Approaches Contact companies with user conferences and ask them if they’ve thought of outsourcing the work. Be ready to break down the costs of doing so.

Industry events Go to trade shows or conferences that your ideal customer would attend then network like crazy.

Co-working Opportunities Contact your local co-working space. A lot of budding entrepreneurs have a need for event planners on a freelance basis. The co-working space itself may need one.

Free Consultations Offer a free consultation or a 15-minute planning walk-through of suggestions. Sometimes people just need to be pointed in the right direction and realizing the enormity of planning an event and their lack of experience might just get you the job.

Meet Small Business Owners Network with other event planners. Independent business can be filled with ups and downs when it comes to clients. Sometimes you have so many you need to turn them away, other times you wish you had some. Partnering with other event planners allows for recommendations in the case of overflow situations and vacations. Be prepared to do the same for them – pass on extra business when you get to that point.

Create a Course Create a course on UDEMY to showcase your planning skills.

Affiliate Marketing and Incentives Offer a referral bonus for past clients who refer you to new ones. Create an affiliate program with other vendors, software providers, or venues. Give free new client consultations to existing clients to give out to friends and colleagues.

Become an Official Event Partner If you have a large corporate client, inquire about how other departments in that company handle their events. Ask to be introduced to people who might benefit from your services. Look for ways to save the company money by becoming their “official” event planner.

One-stop-shop Connect with technology providers in the event planning space. This may seem like a far stretch but as companies are trying to differentiate themselves from others, they may want to become a one-stop shop for their customers. If a customer approaches them about software and also finds they need event planning, that company may be in a position to give them your name.

Get Known Contact companies with internal event planners and see if they are ever in need of short-term, consultant solutions. For instance, their event planner may be out on maternity leave and you could fill in. They may not think they need that sort of assistance but then a surgery or other temporary work issue comes up and guess who they’re calling?

Go Live Go live on Facebook. This video creation option expands your reach and you’re able to connect with people who may not usually see your content.

Speak at Business Events Speak at the chamber or other organizations whose audience could be comprised of people who would be interested in hiring an event planner. You most likely won’t be able to pitch your own services but the exposure presents you as an expert. They will likely mention your business in the intro or at the end. Ideally, your contact info would be provided so that people can follow up with questions.

Create a Follow Up List Don’t give up on leads. If someone contacts you for more information but doesn’t respond when you give it to them, reach out periodically with help and resources. They may still need you but have been too busy to respond.

Identify Ideal Clients Search connections of your past clients on LinkedIn that would fit your ideal client profile. Either ask your client for an introduction or reach out directly and mention you’ve worked with X in the past.

Build your LinkedIn Profile Rework your LinkedIn profile to detail the types of events you specialize in. If you turn up in searches more often, you’ll get more leads.

Thought Leadership Post industry thought leadership pieces that attract attention. Be controversial.

The Business Story Rewrite your website to include your story.

Email Signature Invite people to book their event with you on your email signature.

LinkedIn Groups Participate in LinkedIn groups for your industry niche. Do not sell your services, just ask questions, comment and be helpful to get noticed.

Get Social Create social media profiles on sites that cater to your ideal client. Post actively on these sites with helpful information and not sales messaging.

Paid Social Media Ads Run a social media paid ad campaign.

Retargeting Use Google retargeting to bring visitors back to your website.

Website Redesign Redesign your website with a fresher look.

Blogging Create a blog and post to it on a regular basis.

LinkedIn Pulse Post to LinkedIn Pulse.

Ebook Write an ebook, downloadable checklist, and/or a playbook for a successful event. Make it available on your website as a free download.

FAQs Create a FAQs page on your website using valuable keywords.

Tracking Get technology that helps you understand who has visited your website and where they went. Then create a content strategy based on what you see them doing.

Checklist Create an interactive checklist to help people plan different types of events and host it on your website.

Online Community Start an online community that fits your niche. For instance, companies that host events may need resources to help them do it. Be helpful and when they decide there’s no value in doing it in-house anymore, they’ll think of you.

Guest Blog Guest blog on a site that will be read by your ideal demographic.

Local Search Results Improve your SEO organically or through paid options. Just make sure that you are concentrating on local search if that’s who you work with.

Email Marketing Create a cold email campaign of people who employ event planners in your niche.

Social Search Search on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to see who is asking about hiring an event planner.

Google Alerts Create a Google alert or use Mention to find people talking about keywords that matter to you.

Pinterest Create Pinterest boards as portfolios for your work or to capture your event visions. When people contact you, they have an easy way to see your past events.

Reviews Check out your reviews on review sites. If you have an office, you may have reviews. Make sure you know what’s out there. Respond to everyone who leaves you a review, even if the review is less than stellar.

Facebook Reviews Ask former clients to leave you a star rating on your business Facebook page.

Use Your Personal Network Share your business content with your friends and family on Facebook. Often people don’t realize what we do. When they know, they may bless you with referrals.

Different Service Levels Create multiple levels of service for potential clients. In economic downturns, people may not host as many parties or events. You need to safeguard yourself against these economic ups and downs by creating something even those with small budgets could use. This could be a product like an ebook on how to plan an event on a budget or offering a consultation-only service where you tell them how to do it in a consultative role but are not involved in the actual planning. These low-end budget clients may eventually convert to full-cost paying clients when the economy picks back up. But if they don’t you have found a source of revenue that requires very little effort on your part.

Drip Marketing Launch a drip marketing campaign to nurture leads until they are ready to make a decision.

Handwritten Note Take up the art of the handwritten note. Use them for thank you’s, introductions, referrals, and more. Your communication is bound to stand out.

Industry Article Write an article for an industry magazine, one that will be in the hands of your ideal customer.

SlideShare Create a SlideShare deck. SlideShare has a wide audience. Sharing your content there is another way to position yourself as a thought leader and expert in event planning.

Case Studies Create a case study of work you’ve done with past clients. Don’t just share how you made them feel but what you did for them from a number’s perspective. Use stats and revenue whenever possible but ensure your client is okay with airing those stats.

Gain Respect from Peers Share others content. When someone shares your content, you get notified of it. The next thing you do is visit that person’s page or profile. It’s a good way to get them to pay attention to you, if only for a minute.

Comment Along those same lines, comment on their content. This will help you build a relationship with them.

Round-up Posts Create a round-up post and include the content from someone you want to build a better relationship with. They’ll appreciate the share.

Opinion Piece Give your opinion on a blog post someone else wrote. Don’t be contrary but giving your view (or supporting theirs by adding to it) can help create a relationship between you and the author. When selecting the blog post, it’s best to choose a post written by someone who you would love to have as a client.

Creative Business Cards Have a business card that stands out. Whether you design it to stand out or it serves another purpose like a USB card or a business card that contains flowers seeds, find a way to stand out from the competition. This is a good idea because potential clients want to know an event planner is creative. A creative card will get their attention and make them believe that you can create a memorable event for them.

Work on Your Ideal Client Personas Work on your ideal client personas and then rework your marketing message to better appeal to your ideal client.

Network Online and Off Join a networking group, in person or virtual, preferably both. Be helpful, don’t sell.

Increase Your Digital Marketing You must have a professional website, social media presence (don’t forget the visual sites like Pinterest and Instagram), and a blog. These are no longer optional. They act as a front desk/receptionist even when you’re not “in” the office.

Provide Resources Create downloadable resources for clients and potential clients. If you’re worried people will use the resource instead of your services, you’re not providing enough value. Make these resources free for the cost of an email.

Build Your List Using the step above as well as subscribers to your blog and visitors to your site, give people the opportunity to stay connected with you through a newsletter. This will keep you top of mind and build your reputation in the industry.

Do Guest Posts or Podcast Interviews There are plenty of fledgling blogs and podcasts. People are always looking for content and guests. You won’t get paid but it will help get your name out there. Just make sure that you agree to do these things only for blogs and podcasts that appeal to your ideal client.

Participate on Social Media “Participate” does not mean drip (only) your content. Participation means active conversation. Yes, content is good but interactions are what will bring new clients to your virtual doorstep. Try participating in Twitter chats and reading other people’s blogs and commenting meaningfully on them. Remember that ideal client? Find them on social media and get to know them.

Always Follow Up Most people fall flat in this area so it’s easy to stand out. Follow up on referrals, comments, events, compliments, suggestions, contact forms, and any form of communication.

Client Feedback Surveys

Use post-event surveys not only as a way to improve but also as a way of engaging clients and creating a source for testimonials.

Educational Content

Create content that helps your client whilst presenting yourself as an expert in the field. Become your clients’ go-to for anything related to events.

Competitor Analysis

Use competitor whitespace analysis to work out what makes you different from your clients and focus on selling the things you can do that they can’t.

Highlight Innovation

Look for opportunities to highlight where you’ve used innovation to the benefit of clients. This shows that your finger is on the pulse and you have the necessary experience to put new ideas to work.

Send a Thoughtful Gift If you really want to make an impression with someone you want to work with send them a small gift. It doesn’t have to be anything flash, but ideally something thoughtful that they will appreciate. Of course, it doesn’t guarantee they will award you a contract but it guarantees that you are memorable to them.

Important Final Advice for All New Business Owners

One of the best things about being a business owner is that you don’t have to answer to anyone. Unfortunately, one of the worst things about owning your own event company is, also, that you don’t have to answer to anyone. Why? Because there is no one to stop you from getting in your own way.

When you work for a boss, and she sees you spending too much time on floor plans, which she can have her assistant do, and not enough time on meeting new clients, which is your top priority, she can haul you into her office and set you straight. “I don’t care how much you like doing floor plans,” she says, “the company needs you out in front of clients.”

But when you’re the boss, there’s no one to call you out and deliver the tough love message. And so, without any oversight, you spend even more time on floor plans than you would with a boss looking over your shoulder. When you wonder at the end of the year why your business didn’t make more money, despite all the successful events and happy clients, there’s a decent chance this is the reason.

Companies that have been successful at breaking into higher and higher levels of growth tend to be very good at policing how they allocate their time, particularly the time of the senior people. Too often, however, business owners gravitate to their comfort zone, which is usually not where your company needs you to be.

That’s the Entrepreneur’s Dilemma: the freedom from having a boss which is so enticing can also be the roadblock to your company’s growth.

How Do You Get Around This?

The first step is understanding where your company needs you the most. A good rule of thumb is listing the various tasks that need to be done, and assigning an hourly rate for what you’d have to pay someone on the outside to do that work. You as the owner should be spending the bulk of your time at the highest level tasks, whether it’s sales or design or managing your team. The lower items should be delegated to someone who can do them at a much lower rate.

Be Accountable

The next step is acknowledging that many people find it quite hard to police themselves, so you need an outside force. A mentor or consultant can help with this, but an often overlooked resource is your own staff. Whether it’s your partner (if you have one) or your assistant (or virtual assistant), enlist them in your efforts. Tell them, “I need to be focusing on the following areas to best grow the company. If you see me spending time on another area, and you’ve got it under control, let me know, as a polite reminder.”

Sounds goofy?

Maybe, but I’ve done it and it works.

In the beginning, people were hesitant to say anything, but I would catch them fidgeting and ask them what was going on. They’d respond, “Um, you remember when you told us to tell you when you were involved in one of those things that are not on your top priority list, and we should tell you when we have it under control? Well, um, we’ve kind of got this under control.”

There are only so many hours in the day, and before you think about borrowing or raising money to expand, make sure that your time is allocated to the highest possible uses that benefit the company. As strategies for growth go, this is the low-hanging fruit.

IN CONCLUSION

Starting an event planning business can be daunting and overwhelming as there are a lot of things to think about and decisions to make. If after reading this post you are just as passionate and determined as before then we encourage you to follow your dream and don’t look back.

We hope that you are feeling inspired now you have 100 new ways to get more clients but the trick is, of course, keeping them and making sure they stay loyal. Ultimately, focus on doing a good job, offering a great service and experience to your clients and they will come back again and again and recommend you to others too.

Now onto you:

The Best Outdoor Activities for Team Building (With Planner Checklist)

In the age of Zoom fatigue and hybrid work, outdoor activities are an ideal solution for team-building exercises that re-energize participants and build company culture. Discover eleven inspiring ideas grounded in real-world Arizona adventures, and download the accompanying free planner checklist to make sure your outdoor event goes off without a hitch.

A meeting group enjoys an outdoor meal around a small bonfire in Arizona's Sonoran desert after a day of outdoor team-building activities.

Food Donation After an Event Is Now Easier Than Ever

President Joe Biden recently signed the Food Donation Improvement Act into law. This legislation makes donating food easier than ever, welcome news for the meetings industry.

Instant Booking Ushers in New Era of Transparency for Group Rates

In today’s pressure-cooker environment, planners want the same immediacy and variety as in their online grocery shopping. GroupSync’s instant booking gives them the faster, smarter decision-making capabilities they crave.

An image of a meeting planner's hands typing on a keyboard, with the screen showing the registration page for GroupSync and Marriott's instant booking platform for meetings.

PCMA Convening Leaders Exemplifies the Importance of Having a Contingency Plan

Booking a big-name speaker for your event attracts attendees. But if that speaker has to cancel, it's crucial to have a contingency plan in place. PCMA Convening Leaders led by example.

Destinations International Announces Bespoke Event Cancelation Program

Destinations International is joining forces with insurance and risk management firm Anderson Benson to create a bespoke event cancellation program.

Get the Skift Meetings Daily Standup

Our daily newsletter delivers breaking news, and fresh original content – straight to your inbox, every weekday.

Event Smart

online event registration ticketing and ticket sales

How to Start an Event Planning Business With No Money

November 19, 2018 by mariaansari Leave a Comment

Unlike most startups, you can start a successful event planning business with a fairly limited startup budget. There are many different types of events you can offer your event planning services for, including:

In this article, we’ll show you how you can start an event planning business with very little money up front. We’ll cover everything from start to finish including identifying your target market, developing a business plan, pricing your services, marketing your business, developing a business plan, and carrying out operations.

Let’s put everything into context before we begin.

Basics of an Event Planning Business

Event planning is all about helping individuals, groups, organizations, and businesses plan, organize, and execute events. It involves everything from conducting market research and finding a suitable venue to making sure everything goes as planned on the day of the event. The list is exhaustive and varies from one event to the next.

Event planners are often charged with a number of responsibilities. Once they understand what type of event their client wants to host, they start off by evaluating the different services and resources they’ll need to execute the event. Next, they draw up an estimated budget for their client to give them a breakdown of how much it’ll cost from start to finish.

Simply put, event planners plan, organize and execute events for clients while making sure everything fits the client’s budget.

As you can probably imagine, this requires the party planner, wedding planner, or event organizer to:

Now that we have a good idea of what event planning is and what event planners actually do, let’s take a look at how you can start your own event planning company with a very limited startup budget.

5 Steps for Starting an Event Planning Business With No Money

Starting your own event planning business doesn’t have to be difficult. With the right set of tools, you can even get started and close your first client without spending a dime.

In this section, we’ll show you how to start an event planning business with a fairly limited startup budget. We’ll cover:

We recommend using an event management tool for building your site, managing your resources and contacts, and marketing your services. Event Smart is a hosted event registration, ticketing, and management solution that offers a free Basic Plan to help you get started.

Step 1: Identify Your Target Market

The first thing you need to do is decide whether you’d like to jump into general event planning or target a specific niche market for events.

If you don’t have a lot of event planning experience or are just starting out, it’s a good idea to pick a unique niche market for events and branch out to other types once you’ve built a portfolio for yourself. If possible, start with the type or at least events industry that you’re familiar with. If you’re not familiar with events, then attend some events and notice how things are done. The key benefit of offering your services to a niche event market is that you’ll be able to cover more ground and use your resources (time, effort, skills) more effectively for specific types of events and clients.

Once you’ve decided on the type of niche events, the next step is to do some research and identify your target market. If, for example, you’d like to plan fundraising events, you might consider getting in touch with local non-profit organizations and charities.

Next, do your research and learn as much as you can about the needs of your selected market. For example, you might consider finding out:

You can get this information by checking out the organization’s event website, their social media pages, doing competitor research, or simply reaching out to the organization and asking for an interview.

Step 2: Pricing Your Event Planning Services

After you settle on a niche and do some research, you’ll need to decide how to price your event planning service/s. Although your rates may vary from one event to the next depending on the client’s requirements, you should still have some general pricing information in mind. For example, you’ll want to decide:

It’s also important to decide on an overall pricing strategy. Will you charge solely on a per-hour rate or a percentage of the total event budget? Will you charge a commission for booking venues or hiring caterers?

Event planners generally opt for a cost-plus pricing strategy (on average, it’s 15% of the total cost of the event) that allows them to keep their business operational while making a profit.

Once you’ve determined individual prices and pricing strategies, consider creating service bundles and offering event planning packages at different price points.

Step 3: Marketing and Resources

Since our goal is to start an event planning business with very little money, your marketing efforts will be limited in the beginning. However, once your event planning business starts to take off, you can put aside some funds every month for marketing purposes.

When you’re just starting out, you can market your event planning services using the following marketing strategies:

Word-of-mouth marketing

Let your friends, family, and colleagues know you’re in business! Hand out your business card containing your business name. Find opportunities to plan events for friends and family. This is a great way to build a portfolio, gain experience, and get the word out about your event planning business. Visit or contact businesses that need services like yours and discuss their needs.

Social media marketing

Create a business page on social media websites and begin marketing your events to your target audience. Use the right hashtags and post regularly for maximum outreach.

Marketing through your event website

Create a free event website with Event Smart and use it to promote your event planning services. Spend some time creating landing pages, blog posts, a FAQs section, a services page, and a pricing table. Leverage Event Smart’s Blogging & Custom Pages along with your event registration pages.

Email marketing

Look for potential clients in local business directories who’d be interested in availing your event planning services and start building an email list. Send them information regarding your event planning services and pricing.

Visit Venues

You should become familiar with the venues in your area that can be leased for events. Venues should be very willing to speak to event planners who can bring them customers for their space. As you talk with the venue owners, you will be building relationships with new businesses that can help you and your clients. It can also be an effective means of gaining new clients like small business owners as you connect to their network.

Step 4: Develop a Business Plan

Developing a business plan is a key step to starting any business. It includes information about your company, what your goals are, what services you’re offering, and who you’re offering services to. Having a solid business plan helps you stay on track and serves as a guide when you need to make key business decisions.

At the minimum, your event planning business plan should include:

Check out this Event Planning Sample Business Plan for instructions on how to get started.

Step 5: Operations and Logistics

Coordinating and supervising events are event planning activities that happen at or during the event. Depending on the niche you selected, this might be over the weekends, during evenings, after business hours, or maybe even during business hours (for any business meeting or other corporate event).

In addition to this, it’s important to keep in mind that some events are seasonal. For example, non-profits are more likely to host fundraising events around the holidays .

However, as an event planner, you’ll be in charge of many different event planning activities and operations depending on the type of event. Here are some operations that are common to most events:

Event Research

It’s a good idea to do some research related to the types of events you’ll be planning in advance. Different event types have different needs. For example, if you’re hosting a virtual event, you’ll be needing special equipment, event space and facility.

You might want to compile a list of possible venues and catering services. Your list might include information regarding availability, costs, and contact numbers.

After gathering your client’s requirements and conducting research, the next step is to produce an event proposal for your client. This, again, depends on the type of event you’re planning.

That said, most event proposals contain a brief portfolio (with photos), testimonials, pricing information, contract, and schedule. Since you’re just starting out, you might consider charging a fee for the consultation in which you’ll share the proposal with your client.

Here’s a downloadable Event Proposal Template to help you get started.

Organization

After the client accepts your proposal, you’ll need to take steps to organize and execute the event. This step usually involves making phone calls and visiting various vendors. You’ll be renting out a venue, hiring vendors (catering, seats, lights, entertainment, etc.), and doing anything else that the client would like to feature at the event.

It’s a good idea to involve the client during the decision-making process and make it as easy and smooth for them as possible.

Coordination

Coordinating with the people, vendors, and suppliers who are coming together to make the event a reality can be pretty daunting. You have to make sure everyone is on the same page and has a clear understanding of the event’s schedule.

Event Smart’s Add Collaborators feature makes it easy to manage the entire team and opens up a platform for collaboration.

Starting an event planning business with very little funding is entirely possible. Initially, you’ll have to spend a lot of time on market research, building a portfolio, and marketing. Once your business starts to take off, you’ll be able to put some money back into your business and think about hiring staff or expanding into different niche event markets.

Hopefully, you have a better idea of how you can start your event planning business – from ideation to execution – with very little funding to start.

How to Start an Event Planning Business

Written by: Carolyn Young

Edited by: David Lepeska

Updated on March 2, 2023

Investment range

$2,050 - $7,100

Revenue potential

$100,000 - $400,000 p.a.

Time to build

0 – 3 months

Profit potential

$70,000 - $160,000 p.a.

Industry trend

Some people thrive on planning events such as wedding receptions, parties, or banquets, but others find it an arduous task. That’s where event planners come in. Event planning as an industry is valued at over $3 billion in the US If you’re one of those who enjoy planning events, an event planning business could be a lucrative opportunity for you. You can make 15% to 20% of the total cost of the event, so think about how much you’ll make for planning a $50,000 wedding reception!

Planning and launching your business, however, is in itself an arduous task. It will take preparation, just like an event, as well as knowledge. Fortunately, you’ve come to the right source, as this step-by-step guide has all the information you need to be on your way to entrepreneurship as an event planner.

Looking to form an LLC? Check out the Best LLC Formation Services .

Step 1: Decide if the Business Is Right for You

Pros and cons.

Starting an event planning business has pros and cons to consider before deciding if it’s the right path for you.

Event planning industry trends

Corporate event planning makes up a large part of the industry, so as corporate profits rise, the event planning industry thrives.

Industry size and growth

Trends and challenges

Trends in the event planning industry include:

Challenges in the event planning industry also exist which include:

event planning industry Trends and Challenges

What kind of people work in event planning?

How much does it cost to start an event planning business?

Startup costs for an event planning business range from $2,000 to $7,000. The high-end costs include a larger marketing budget and virtual event planning software.

How much can you earn from an event planning business?

You can charge between 15% to 20% of the total cost of an event, or you can charge an hourly rate of between $100 to $150. These calculations will assume that average events cost $20,000 and that you’ll charge 20%. If you hire assistants to work with you at the events, your profit margin should be about 70%.

In your first year or two, you could work from home and do 25 events per year, bringing in $100,000 in annual revenue. This would mean $70,000 in profit, assuming that 70% margin. As your brand gains recognition, sales could climb to 100 events per year. At this stage, you would rent a commercial space and hire additional staff, reducing your profit margin to around 40%. With expected annual revenue of $400,000, you would make about $160,000.

Event Planning business earnings forecast

What barriers to entry are there?

There are a few barriers to entry for an event planning business. Your biggest challenges will be:

Related Business Ideas

How to Start an Event Venue Business

How to Start a Wedding Planning Business

How to Start a Party Rental Business

Step 2: hone your idea.

Now that you know what’s involved in starting an event planning business, it’s a good idea to hone your concept in preparation to enter a competitive market.

Why? Identify an opportunity

Research event planning businesses in your area to examine their services, price points, and customer reviews. You’re looking for a market gap to fill. For instance, maybe the local market is missing a virtual corporate event planning service.

You might consider targeting a niche market by specializing in a certain aspect of your industry such as wedding receptions.

This could jumpstart your word-of-mouth marketing and attract clients right away.

What? Determine your products or services

You need to determine what kinds of services you want to offer during the course of your event planning. You can provide a full service in which you handle all the logistics of getting everything to the event and setting it up, or you can just do the planning and scheduling. You could also expand your business by adding additional services including:

Photography

Those might be things that you add later as your business grows.

How much should you charge for event planning services?

Generally, event planners charge 15% to 20% of the total cost of the event. For smaller events, it might be better to charge by the hour. Hourly rates can range from $100 to $150. If you work from home your costs will be limited to labor costs, fuel, and marketing. You should aim for a profit margin of about 70%.

Once you know your costs, you can use this Step By Step profit margin calculator to determine your mark-up and final price point. Remember, the price you use at launch should be subject to change if warranted by the market.

Who? Identify your target market

Your target market will depend on the kind of events you want to do. If you do corporate events, your target will be corporate managers, most likely human resources managers. You can reach those people on LinkedIn or by making direct calls to corporations. If you do parties and wedding receptions your target will be broader, but generally, it will be more well-established people who you can also find on LinkedIn as well as Facebook.

Where? Choose your business premises

In the early stages, you may want to run your business from home to keep costs low, and you may want to continue to do business from home. But as your business grows, you’ll likely need to hire workers for various roles and may need to rent out an office. Find commercial space to rent in your area on sites such as Craigslist , Crexi , and Instant Offices .

When choosing a commercial space, you may want to follow these rules of thumb:

Step 3: Brainstorm a Business Name

Your business name is your business identity, so choose one that encapsulates your objectives, services, and mission in just a few words. You probably want a name that’s short and easy to remember, since much of your business, and your initial business in particular, will come from word-of-mouth referrals.

Here are some ideas for brainstorming your business name:

Once you’ve got a list of potential names, visit the website of the US Patent and Trademark Office to make sure they are available for registration and check the availability of related domain names using our Domain Name Search tool. Using “.com” or “.org” sharply increases credibility, so it’s best to focus on these.

Find a Domain

Finally, make your choice among the names that pass this screening and go ahead with domain registration and social media account creation. Your business name is one of the key differentiators that sets your business apart. Once you pick your company name, and start with the branding, it is hard to change the business name. Therefore, it’s important to carefully consider your choice before you start a business entity.

Step 4: Create a Business Plan

Every business needs a plan. This will function as a guidebook to take your startup through the launch process and maintain focus on your key goals. A business plan also enables potential partners and investors to better understand your company and its vision:

If you’ve never created a business plan yourself before, it can be an intimidating task. Consider hiring an experienced business plan writer to create a professional business plan for you.

Step 5: Register Your Business

Registering your business is an absolutely crucial step — it’s the prerequisite to paying taxes, raising capital, opening a bank account, and other guideposts on the road to getting a business up and running.

Plus, registration is exciting because it makes the entire process official. Once it’s complete, you’ll have your own business!

Choose where to register your company

Your business location is important because it can affect taxes, legal requirements, and revenue. Most people will register their business in the state where they live, but if you’re planning to expand, you might consider looking elsewhere, as some states could offer real advantages when it comes to event planning businesses.

If you’re willing to move, you could really maximize your business! Keep in mind, it’s relatively easy to transfer your business to another state.

Choose your business structure

Business entities come in several varieties, each with its pros and cons. The legal structure you choose for your event planning business will shape your taxes, personal liability, and business registration requirements, so choose wisely.

Here are the main options:

We recommend that new business owners choose LLC as it offers liability protection and pass-through taxation while being simpler to form than a corporation. You can form an LLC in as little as five minutes using Northwest Registered Agent’s online LLC formation service . They will check that your business name is available before filing, submit your articles of organization , and answer any questions you might have.

Form Your LLC

Choose Your State

We recommend ZenBusiness as the Best LLC Service for 2023

Step 6: Register for Taxes

The final step before you’re able to pay taxes is getting an Employer Identification Number , or EIN. You can file for your EIN online or by mail or fax: visit the IRS website to learn more. Keep in mind, if you’ve chosen to be a sole proprietorship you can simply use your social security number as your EIN.

Once you have your EIN, you’ll need to choose your tax year. Financially speaking, your business will operate in a calendar year (January–December) or a fiscal year, a 12-month period that can start in any month. This will determine your tax cycle, while your business structure will determine which taxes you’ll pay.

The IRS website also offers a tax-payers checklist , and taxes can be filed online.

It is important to consult an accountant or other professional to help you with your taxes to ensure you’re completing them correctly.

Step 7: Fund your Business

Securing financing is your next step and there are plenty of ways to raise capital:

Your best bet will be personal funding since you don’t need much cash to get started.

Step 8: Apply for Licenses/Permits

Starting an event planning business requires obtaining a number of licenses and permits from local, state, and federal governments. Federal regulations, licenses, and permits associated with starting your business include doing business as, health license and permit from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ( OSHA ), trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other intellectual properties, as well as industry-specific licenses and permits.

You may also need state-level licenses and local county or city-based licenses and permits. The license requirements and how to obtain them vary, so check the websites of your state, city, and county governments or contact the appropriate person to learn more. You could also check this SBA guide for your state’s requirements.

This is not a step to be taken lightly, as failing to comply with legal requirements can result in hefty penalties.

If you feel overwhelmed by this step or don’t know how to begin, it might be a good idea to hire a professional to help you check all the legal boxes.

For peace of mind and to save time, we recommend using MyCorporation’s Business License Compliance Package . They will research the exact forms you need for your business and state, and provide them to you to make sure you’re fully compliant.

Step 9: Open a Business Bank Account

Before you start making money, you’ll need a place to keep it, and that requires opening a bank account . Keeping your business finances separate from your personal account makes it easy to file taxes and track your company’s income, so it’s worth doing even if you’re running your event planning business as a sole proprietorship.

Opening a business bank account is quite simple, and similar to opening a personal one. Most major banks offer accounts tailored for businesses — just inquire at your preferred bank to learn about their rates and features.

Banks vary in terms of offerings, so it’s a good idea to examine your options and select the best plan for you. Once you choose your bank, bring in your EIN (or Social Security Number if you decide on a sole proprietorship), articles of incorporation, and other legal documents and open your new account.

Step 10: Get Business Insurance

Business insurance is an area that often gets overlooked yet it can be vital to your success as an entrepreneur. Insurance protects you from unexpected events that can have a devastating impact on your business.

Here are some types of insurance to consider:

Step 11: Prepare to Launch

As opening day nears, prepare for launch by reviewing and improving some key elements of your business.

Essential software and tools

Being an entrepreneur often means wearing many hats, from marketing to sales to accounting, which can be overwhelming. Fortunately, many websites and digital tools are available to help simplify many business tasks.

You can use industry-specific software, such as Backstage , Cvent , or Planning Pod , to manage your planning tasks, scheduling, pricing, billing, and workflows.

Some of your business will come from the casual online visitors, but still, you should invest in digital marketing! Getting the word out is especially important for new businesses, as it’ll boost customer and brand awareness.

Once your website is up and running, link it to your social media accounts and vice versa. Social media is a great tool for promoting your business because you can create engaging posts that advertise your products:

Kickstart Marketing

Take advantage of your website, social media presence and real-life activities to increase awareness of your offerings and build your brand. Some suggestions include:

Develop your website

Website development is crucial because your site is your online presence and needs to convince prospective clients of your expertise and professionalism. They are unlikely to find your website, however, unless you follow Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) practices. These are steps that help pages rank higher in the results of top search engines like Google.

You can create your own website using services like WordPress , Wix , or Squarespace . This route is very affordable, but figuring out how to build a website can be time-consuming. If you lack tech-savvy, you can hire a web designer or developer to create a custom website for your business.

Focus on USPs

Unique selling propositions, or USPs, are the characteristics of a product or service that sets it apart from the competition. Customers today are inundated with buying options, so you’ll have a real advantage if they are able to quickly grasp how your event planning business meets their needs or wishes. It’s wise to do all you can to ensure your USPs stand out on your website and in your marketing and promotional materials, stimulating buyer desire.

Global pizza chain Domino’s is renowned for its USP: “Hot pizza in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed.” Signature USPs for your event planning business could be:

You may not like to network or use personal connections for business gain. But your personal and professional networks likely offer considerable untapped business potential. Maybe that Facebook friend you met in college is now running an event planning business, or a LinkedIn contact of yours is connected to dozens of potential clients. Maybe your cousin or neighbor has been working in event planning for years and can offer invaluable insight and industry connections.

The possibilities are endless, so it’s a good idea to review your personal and professional networks and reach out to those with possible links to or interest in event planning. You’ll probably generate new customers or find companies with which you could establish a partnership.

Step 12: Build Your Team

If you’re starting out small from a home office, you may not need any employees. But as your business grows, you will likely need workers to fill various roles. Potential positions for an event planning business would include:

At some point, you may need to hire all of these positions or simply a few, depending on the size and needs of your business. You might also hire multiple workers for a single role or a single worker for multiple roles, again depending on need.

Free-of-charge methods to recruit employees include posting ads on popular platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or Jobs.com. You might also consider a premium recruitment option, such as advertising on Indeed , Glassdoor , or ZipRecruiter . Further, if you have the resources, you could consider hiring a recruitment agency to help you find talent.

Step 13: Start Making Money!

An event planning business can be a dynamic and rewarding way to make some money and have fun at the same time. It’s a $3 billion industry so clearly, your services will be in demand. All kinds of events need planning, from corporate events, to birthday bashes, to wedding receptions, and more.

The possibilities are endless, as is the opportunity to make a comfortable living. Now that you’ve started your planning process by gathering information, you’re ready for the rest of your entrepreneurial event!

Event Planning Business FAQs

Event planning can be very profitable. You can charge 15% to 20% of the total cost of an event, so if you, for example, do a corporate event that costs $50,000, you can make up to $10,000. Corporate event and wedding reception planning will tend to be your most profitable services.

Typically, you can charge 15% to 20% of the total cost of the event. For smaller events, you can charge by the hour. Rates should be between $100 to $150 as a general rule.

Featured Resources

57 Best Service Business Ideas

David Lepeska

Published on December 1, 2022

The services sector is undoubtedly the biggest economic sector in the US as it accounts for nearly 70% of the country’s gross domestic product. It ...

18 Party Business Ideas

Carolyn Young

Published on July 21, 2022

If you like to socialize and have great organizing skills, then starting a party-related business might be the perfect career choice. Greatattention ...

50 Business Ideas For Women

Esther Strauss

Published on June 30, 2022

Women run more than 11 million US businesses. That’s a lot less than the number run by men, but one thing is certain — women are just asinno ...

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

General Tips , Your Event Career

How Much Does It Cost To Start an Event Planning Business?

How much does it cost to start an event planning business? Today, we’ll answer this very question! Starting your own event planning business can be an extremely lucrative and fulfilling endeavor – but it doesn’t come cheap. In order to start an event planning business, you’ll need to invest in a variety of equipment, supplies, software, office space, and marketing materials.

The good news is that we’ve done the research for you and have created an exhaustive list of all the estimated expenses associated with starting an event planning business from scratch. By the end of this article, you’ll know exactly how much money you need to save up and invest in your new venture!

PRO TIP: Before we get started, it’s worth knowing if YOU should start an event planning business in the first place… Check out this article to find out once and for all!

Event planning startup costs: how much does it cost to organize an event.

Now that we know you should start an event planning business, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty – how much does it cost to organize an event ?

To get a better understanding of how much it costs to start your own event planning business, we’ve broken down all the estimated expenses into 8 categories:

Keep reading for a detailed breakdown of each category!

How much does it cost to start an event planning business in-post image 1

1. Event Planning Business Expenses

The first thing you’ll need to do when starting your event planning business is to choose the legal structure of your business. Will you operate as a sole proprietorship, limited liability company (LLC), or corporation? The type of business entity you choose will affect how much money you’ll need to spend on formation expenses.

For example, if you decide to operate as an LLC, you’ll need to file Articles of Organization with your state and pay a filing fee – which can range from $50-$500 depending on your state. You’ll also need to obtain the proper business licenses and permits, which will cost you an additional $200-$500. Finally, you’ll need to purchase insurance for your business, which can cost anywhere from $500-$5000 per year (depending on the type and amount of coverage you choose).

All in all, you should budget for at least $1000 in business formation expenses when starting your event planning business.

PRO TIP: You can save a lot of money on business formation expenses by forming your LLC or corporation online! Two common resources for this are Incfile and LegalZoom .

2. equipment + supply expenses.

In order to start planning events, you’ll need to have the proper equipment and supplies on hand. This includes items like a laptop or computer, printer, scanner, and digital camera. These can cost anywhere from $500-$2000, depending on the quality and brand of the products you choose.

You’ll also need to purchase office supplies like pens, paper, folders, and sticky notes – which will require an additional investment in the ballpark of $100-$200.

PRO TIP: You can save quite a bit of money on equipment and supply expenses by shopping for refurbished or used products online! Popular websites for this are Amazon Renewed and Best Buy Outlet .

3. software expenses.

To help you run your event planning business smoothly, it’s strongly recommended that you invest in various software programs. These can include project management software (like Asana or Trello ), accounting software (like QuickBooks or FreshBooks ), and email marketing software (like Mailchimp or Constant Contact ).

Closeup view of Male hand typing on laptop keyboard.Businessman working at office on modern notebook.Concept of digital diagram,graph interfaces,virtual screen,connections icon.Blurred

Prices for these types of software programs can range from $0-$100 per month, depending on the features and functionality you need. For example, here are the current fees associated with each of the above programs (as of May 21st, 2022):

Asana (Note: 30-day free trial offered):

Trello (Note: Premium Plan offers free trial):

QuickBooks (Note: All plans are currently on sale for 75% off + free 30-day trial offered):

For small business accounting:

For self-employed expenses:

Self-Employed: $3.75 CAD/month

FreshBooks (Note: Currently offering 90% off for 3 months + free trial offered):

Mailchimp :

Marketing Platform:

Website & Commerce:

Constant Contact (Note: All prices are based on number of contracts + free trial offered):

Digital Marketing Subscriptions:

Sales Accelerator Subscription:

All-in-one CRM platform: Starting at $449 USD/month

4. Office Space Expenses

Starting an event planning company in a commercial space.

If you plan on starting your event planning business in a commercial space (such as an office suite or retail store), then you’ll need to factor in the cost of rent, utilities, and internet service into your budget.

For example, the average cost of renting a small office space in the United States is currently $600-$700 per month. Moreover, depending on your location, utilities can add an additional $100-$200 per month to your expenses. Lastly, business-grade internet service can also cost you around $50-$100 per month.

In total, you should expect to spend at least $850-$1000 per month on commercial office space rental expenses in order to start an event planning business.

Starting an Event Planning Company from Home

On the other hand, maybe you’re looking to save some money on office space rental expenses. In that case, you might want to consider running your event planning business from home !

Of course, this option isn’t for everyone. After all, some people simply prefer the structure and discipline that comes with working in a commercial space. But if you’re the type of person who doesn’t mind a little bit of extra noise and commotion in your living space, then starting your event planning business from home could be a great way to save some cash each month.

Just keep in mind that even if you do decide to start an event planning business from home, you’ll still need to factor in other associated expenses like internet service (approx. $50-$100/month) and office supplies (approx. $50-$100/month).

In total, you should expect to spend at least $600-$800 per month on office space and associated expenses when starting your event planning business from home.

Want to learn more about running an event planning business from home? This article will help you get started in 3 easy steps!

How much does it cost to start an event planning business in-post image 3

5. Website Costs

If you want to be taken seriously as an event planning business, then you’ll need to have a professional website!

Of course, you could always try to build a website yourself using one of the many DIY website builder platforms out there (like Wix or Squarespace ). But unless you have some previous experience with web design, we wouldn’t necessarily recommend this option.

Instead, we recommend working with a professional web designer to create a custom website for your specific event planning business. Depending on your needs and budget, this can cost anywhere from $500-$5000+.

Alternately, if you’re looking for a more cost-effective solution, you can always use a pre-made WordPress theme to build your event planning business website. This will still require some basic web design knowledge, but it’s a great way to get a professional-looking website up and running without spending a ton of money. Currently, WordPress offers a basic (free) plan, a $10.00/month plan, and a $29.00/month plan.

To learn more about what needs to go into creating your official business website, check out this article !

6. Advertising + Marketing Costs

As with any business, one of the key ingredients to success is advertising and marketing. After all, how else are you supposed to let people know about your event planning business and attract new clients?

There are a multitude of different ways that you can market your event planning business. However, some methods will obviously be more effective (and more expensive) than others. For example, TV commercials, print ads, and social media ads (such as on YouTube and TikTok) can be costly. However, they also reach a wide audience and can generate a lot of buzz for your business.

On the other hand, targeted online ads and social media campaigns tend to be much less expensive – but with a smaller budget will come a smaller audience reach. So, that’s definitely something to keep in mind.

Ultimately, it’s up to YOU to decide which marketing channels makes the most sense for your specific event planning business. But as a general rule of thumb, you should expect to spend at least $100-$1,000 per month on advertising and marketing expenses.

7. Employee Expenses

If you plan on growing your event planning business beyond a one-person operation, then you’ll eventually need to start hiring employees.

Of course, the number of employees that you’ll need to hire will depend on the size and scope of your specific business. But regardless of how many people you end up hiring, you should expect to spend a decent amount of money each month on employee-related expenses.

This includes things like salaries, payroll taxes, benefits, insurance, and other associated costs. Depending on the number of employees that you have and the type of benefits that you offer, these expenses can range anywhere from $500-$5000+ per month.

Happy group of successful company employees in office

8. Freelancer Expenses

In addition to (or instead of) hiring employees, you may also need to hire freelancers to help with specific tasks and projects.

Just like with employee expenses, the amount of money that you’ll need to spend on freelancers will vary depending on your specific business needs. However, you should generally expect to pay freelancers by the hour, and rates can range anywhere from $20-$100+ per hour.

So, How Much Does It Cost To Start an Event Planning Business?

Based on everything we’ve discussed, the total (estimated) amount that you should be saving up in order to start your event planning business is approx. $12,000+ . Of course, this number could be higher or lower, depending on a variety of factors – such as whether or not you already have some of the necessary equipment, how big/complex your website will be, etc.

At the end of the day, starting an event planning business is definitely not a cheap undertaking. However, if you’re passionate about event planning and are willing to put in the hard work, we believe it’s definitely worth it!

So, what are your thoughts? How much did YOU spend when starting your event planning business? Let us know in the comments below!

And as always, don’t forget to check out our other articles on event planning tips and advice. Thanks for reading! 😁

Become an internationally-certified event planner in just 3-6 months by enrolling in QC Event School’s self-paced, online certification training today !

Next article.

Search by Category About the School Business Corporate Event Planning DIY Education Event Decor Event Planning Tips Featured Floral Design Free Resources From the Experts General Tips Graduate Features Helpful Resources Planning Tips Quiz Student Ambassador Student/Graduate Features Uncategorized Wedding Planning Tips Your Event Career

Search by Author Sloane Seguin Celina Feng Ana Scholtes Katie Deck Victoria Begin Mireille Pitre Alicia Haniford Alison Kasko Danielle McIntyre Gillian Hogerland Corina Wan Mwai Yeboah Erin Siksay QC Career School Tamesha Antria Kate DeCastro Nicole Thielmann Neena McConnell Amira Harris Afton Romrell Katherine Dionne Carissa Corsi Catherine Hammond Jenny Alperin Shawniece Evins Amanda Thompson Maggie Soares Alex Monteiro Lauren Ballinger

Featured Posts:

Industry spotlight: mwai yeboah.

Event Planning Careers Thrive in These 6 Industries

Am i too old or too young to become an event planner, leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

How to Start an Event Planning Business

Are you daydreaming right now from your cube or home office about the notion of starting an event planning business? Perhaps you’ve been working in the events and meetings industry for several years and think that now is a good time to figure out how to work for yourself. Or maybe you’ve helped organize a few events in the past and feel that this could be your life’s passion. These are all good reasons to pursue this profession. But anyone who contemplates the fantasy of starting their own event planning business must follow some important steps before you even beginning to talk to clients.

Gain Event Planning Skills and Experience

UpperCut Images/UpperCut Images/Getty Images

The long-term success of an event planning business will be based on the experience that the planner brings to his or her clients. That means, if you’re thinking about starting an event planning business, you should have a solid grasp as to what an event planner is, and make sure you have some solid skills:

It would also be helpful to obtain professional certification in the industry, including CMP designation or involvement in MPI.

Determine Your Event Planning Market/Forte

Okay, let’s say you’ve been working in corporate meetings for five years and are ready to create a business. The first thing to realize is that your strengths are in the corporate arena. A common error many planners make is to say that they are willing to coordinate all kinds of events, including corporate meetings, weddings, fundraising galas and more.

Stop. While the urge may be there to offer a variety of services, the reason you’re ready is based on your collective previous experiences. In time you may handle a full range of events, but initially recognize that there are distinctive differences between corporate, association, nonprofit and social events. Determine your market accordingly.

Develop a Business Plan

Because you decided on your market, you may be thinking this is a good time to share the news about what you can offer to the world. Not so fast. Starting your own business isn’t as glamorous as such fantasies. Like everything else, starting an event planning business requires a business plan.

The good news is that several resources are available to help. Expert to Home Business Randy Duermyer provides some insights into business plan basics and walks you through the process. The U.S Small Business Administration is a good resource that publishes materials about writing business plans as well.

Designate Which Business Entity Fits Best for Your Firm

Now that you realize that creating an event planning business should be viewed as a “work in progress,” it’s very important to determine your business structure in the beginning. The most fundamental step is to make sure you decide what type of business entity works best for your plan. For this, it’s important to secure professional advice.

There are several options available to you, and it’s important to select the type of business organization that best represents your interests. The Expert to Tax Planning William Perez outlines the six forms of business organizations recognized within the U.S. by the IRS: Sole proprietor, C-Corporation, S-Corporation, Partnership, Trust and Non-profit organization.

Obtain Business Insurance

Business insurance is mandatory. Event planning businesses should secure general liability and other forms of insurance to protect the business owner’s interests. Several forms of insurance exist, so it’s best to speak with an insurance advisor to learn all of the requirements.

Whether you plan on starting a home-based business or if you will have a small office elsewhere, ask questions about these forms of insurance (but not limited to) as follows:

Develop Your Network of Suppliers and Staffing Resources

It’s time to try to lighten the burden of business structure for a moment. Now it’s time to consider who you want to include in your network of suppliers. Event planners work with a variety of suppliers , including caterers , florists, photographers and more.

And although you may think that you can handle all tasks, ultimately you are going to need to establish an infrastructure of resources to support your events and overall operations. This includes staffing resources for administrative, sales, marketing, communications, legal, accounting, and other functions.

Define Your Event Planning Services

Some of you may be disheartened by the reference to “legal” and “accounting.”. Don’t be. They are very important friends and resources. But now it is also a time to think a little deeper and continue pondering what types of event planning services you will offer.

We recognize that many of you have probably already thought of this, but it’s important to stay focused on your core services. What’s your product? Who is your target market?

Will you offer full-service planning and execution on behalf of your client for venues, catering, production, speakers, gifts, transportation, lodging and more? Will you specialize in one particular aspect of the planning? What about communications services for event communications and more?

Establish an Event Planning Fee Structure

With services in mind, it’s important to determine your fee structure . Many independent and small event planning firms should be conscious of the various ways to cover their expenses and make a reasonable profit. After all, this will help keep you in business five years from now. Most event planners charge based on the following:

Secure Funding for Your Business

In most cases, this shouldn’t be step 9, but it’s important to be motivated by the work that your new firm will bring so that you don’t get discouraged when considering the necessary realities. And each business owner will vary how he or she chooses to secure and source such funds.

Most businesses require an operating budget, and it will be important to have access to a comfortable base of cash while establishing the firm. While it is possible to establish a business with limited funds, it is still important to have enough money to start your business and cover any living expenses while waiting to become profitable.

Focus on Business Development and Marketing for Your Event Business

With your business model in place, an understanding of your services, a sense of how you will charge for your services, now it’s time to begin to develop important business and marketing materials.

Well, now you’re ready to choose the right name for your business and work your business development plan. You will also need to create business cards, stationery, a website, sales collateral, proposals, client agreements and more.

By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

20 Profitable Event & Party Business Ideas

Are you looking for profitable party business ideas?

if you are passionate about offering people a good time you can turn the passion into a profit by launching your own party business.

The events industry is still going strong - even if that may look a little different than before.

Although many events are going virtual and parties are looking smaller, there's still a huge opportunity to innovate in the space and build a profitable event and party business.

We've identified 20 business opportunities in the events space to get the wheels turning for you.

1. Start an event management company

Do you have a basic understanding of events, possess great communication skills, and aren’t afraid to talk to C-suite executives, event attendees, donors, brand sponsors, and vendors?

Event management is a profession that is growing rapidly. Experts estimate that the event management and planning industry will experience a growth rate of 10% in a few years.

You can use your skills and passion by starting an event management company. Event management is not only an exciting career, but it is also a profitable business opportunity, with endless opportunities, you can focus on social and entertainment events, and corporate events, or become a general event management company.

How Much Can You Make? $10,000 — $400,000/month View all 5 case studies Average Initial Investment $18,700 Skills Self Motivation Skills Customer Service Skills Business Savvy Skills Business model Consulting See More

Hi, I’m Dietrich, a retired investment manager and co-founder of Spacehuntr. Spacehuntr is a fully integrated 360° platform that enables businesses to book and manage unique Work, Play & Stay spaces for corporate events in one easy to use platform that acts as a digital event planner.

In 2019, revenues grew +700% and we are, despite the global pandemic, on track to match this growth in terms of international expansion in 2020.

how-we-successfully-pivoted-our-app-for-coworking-spaces-to-a-50k-month-platform-to-book-event-venues

2. Start a virtual events business

It is no secret that the 2020 global pandemic changed how we interact and engage. Today, more meetings and events take place online than ever before. According to statistics , the trend of virtual events is not slowing anytime soon. Corporates and entertainment sectors plan to organize more virtual events in the coming decade.

Thus, starting a virtual events business can be a great idea.

A virtual event is where attendees experience the event and its content online rather than being physically present. A virtual events business ideates, plans, organizes, executes, and coordinates virtual events on behalf of its clients. A virtual events business also develops creative ideas that make the virtual events unique and memorable.

To start and operate a successful virtual events business, you must possess broadcasting and audience psychology skills and be ready to learn and deal with new technologies. The good news is that you have multiple platforms where you can run virtual events.

How Much Can You Make? $66,667 — $2,500,000/month View all 5 case studies Average Initial Investment $14,450 Skills Writing & Research Skills Design Skills Business Savvy Skills Customer Service Skills Self Motivation Skills See More

I am Gregg Dukofsky and I’m the visionary and founder at Interactive Entertainment Group, an event production company. I started my business in 1988 with one idea, and since then have grown my business to include hundreds of unique products ranging from sports simulators to virtual reality to giant games. Some of our most popular offerings include a Giant Human Claw, Augmented Reality Gaming Wall, Virtual Graffiti Wall, VR Soar, and Urban Hoops.

In 2008 when the stock market crashed, disposable income became significantly limited. To recession-proof my business, my team pivoted to focus on corporate events rather than private ones. More specifically, the bulk of my business transitioned to activations involving team building, product launches, experiential marketing, trade show traffic building, brand initiatives, and holiday parties. To paint a picture of our growth, we have ranked in Inc. 5000s fastest-growing private companies three years in a row in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

how-i-started-an-award-winning-event-production-company

3. Start a balloon decor business

Balloon decorations involve the creation of balloon-based arrangements and thematic shapes, covering backgrounds, ceilings, walls, columns, centerpieces, and entrances within the event and party venues. Balloon décor is popular in corporate events, entertainment and social events, children's parties, and weddings.

Balloon décor is a low overhead business and can be a profitable entrepreneurship opportunity. You do not need a storefront as you can work from home with a few pieces of equipment. You need proper planning skills to start and operate a successful balloon décor business. You should plan and analyze every step and challenge before starting the business.

How Much Can You Make? $20,000/month View all 2 case studies Time To Revenue 240 days Skills Self Motivation Skills Crafty Skills Customer Service Skills Business Savvy Skills Design Skills Business model Consulting See More

I’m Janeen Brown! Founder and CEO of Balloon Haus LLC. In February 2018, I started Balloon Haus - the first opulent online and in-store Balloon boutique - where lifestyle and decor enter a "luxury" level of design. Our team consists of dedicated and loyal employees in Toronto, Atlanta, Detroit and South Florida destined to create iconic balloon memories to last a lifetime.

how-i-started-a-20k-month-balloon-installations-and-decorations-business

4. Start a party planning business

Party planning involves budgeting, establishing party timelines, selecting and reserving ideal party sites, acquiring permits, theme décor, and coordinating party catering and transportation.

Are you organized, creative, and client-focused? You can put those skills into starting a successful party planning business. To become a party planner, you must desire to help other people enjoy themselves. Besides, you need diplomacy, salesmanship, and multitasking skills.

How Much Can You Make? $25,000 — $400,000/month View all 3 case studies Average Initial Investment $8,666 Time Commitment Per Week Min. 6 hours/week Skills Negotiation Skills Crafty Skills Customer Service Skills Business Savvy Skills Design Skills Planning Handy Attention To Detail Organizational Creativity Interests Travel Outdoors Music Work Sales Food Design Coffee Business Finance See More

Hello, I am Akshay Patel from Albuquerque, NM the land of enchantment. I started an event rental and decor company that led me to an event venue. The View Event Center is a lavish space that is an indoor and outdoor event venue with panoramic city views. Our high-end venue with experienced staff will assist from venue decor to the smallest details entailed in making memories of a lifetime. Simply Decor, Tents, and Events ensures exclusive decor and thrives to bring your event to life through customized, elegant decor for all of their clients.

The full-service company will individually work with every client to design their event that will intrigue every eye in the room. Our company is broad that we get many different types of customers and we make many great connections with them as well. The company was making upwards of $380,000 a year.

how-i-started-a-35k-month-event-decor-business

5. Start an Event and after party cleaning business

Event and after-party cleaning business depends upon corporate and individual customers celebrating various events and hosting parties. The party and event organizers do not worry about cleaning utensils or cleaning the event venues.

Starting the event and after-party cleaning business requires the proper planning, maid, and janitorial skills. To start, purchase the appropriate cleaning equipment and hire skilled venue cleaners.

How Much Can You Make? $3,000/month View all 1 case studies Average Initial Investment $20,000 Skills Business Savvy Skills Customer Service Skills Self Motivation Skills Negotiation Skills See More

I am James Hookway and I own and run Hangover Helpers. The business is an after-party cleaning company that started about 5 years ago. We don't just clean up your mess we also bring breakfast and refreshments. (Please note due to COVID-19 we have ceased the food and beverage services until further notice).

Monthly revenue about 3k a month with some months up to $7k during the busy summer period. After COVID-19 there is a big backlog of cleans here in WA so we are having to say no to cleans as not enough staff. We are about to hit our 500th clean, so on average we do 100 cleans a year (just on weekends).

how-i-started-a-3k-month-side-business-offering-after-party-cleaning-services

6. Start a party supply store

If you love fun activities and helping other people enjoy their parties, starting a party store in your neighborhood can be a rewarding and profitable business.

Party stores sell balloons, decorations, costumes, novelties, confectionaries, theme party wear, and other party supplies.

If you are starting a party store, you may choose to join it as an affiliate or enter a franchise. A party store is a low-to-entry business venture and can be rewarding in the long run.

How Much Can You Make? $25,000 — $400,000/month View all 2 case studies Average Initial Investment $500 Skills Business Savvy Skills Customer Service Skills Self Motivation Skills See More

I'm Dean Salakas Chief Party Dude at The Party People. Our goal is to help people have the parties of their dreams. We are Australia’s largest party store selling balloons, decorations, costumes, novelties, confectionary, theme partyware, and anything else you could possibly want for a party.

starting-a-party-store-and-growing-into-a-chain

7. Start a wedding rental business

Do you love wedding planning and looking for a business idea to turn your passion into profits? Starting a wedding rental business can be a great idea.

Your role as a wedding rental business is to supply all equipment and accessories to make the occasion colorful and memorable for attendees and the wedding couple. If you are starting a wedding rental business, focus on building relationships with wedding planners and event companies. Remember often couples visit wedding venues before even contacting a rental company. Being in contact with wedding venue business owners could get you repeat business.

How Much Can You Make? $5,000 — $5,583,333/month View all 5 case studies Average Initial Investment $25,250 Time To Revenue 270 days Skills Negotiation Skills Self Motivation Skills Customer Service Skills Business Savvy Skills Design Skills Business model E-Commerce Brick & Mortar See More

Hello! I’m Brandon Wong, the CEO and part of the husband and wife team that started Photobooth Supply Co.

I think the most important thing about what we do is the fact that we’ve transformed over 1,000 people’s lives. It’s not about the money for me, it’s about the fact that the company I started with my wife has given so many fantastic opportunities for people to achieve their full potential, while having a lot of fun while at it.

embracing-the-experience-economy-with-a-300k-mo-photo-booth-startup

8. Become a wedding planner

A wedding planner assists with designing, planning, and managing a wedding, so the bride and groom have the happiest day. Wedding planners enjoy a flexible working schedule and opportunities to travel locally and globally, and it’s a great career with numerous growth opportunities.

To start a wedding planning business, identify your target clientele and study their wedding cultures so you can offer the clients excellent service. Remember, excellent wedding planning is all about having the passion and knowing how to harness that passion for designing weddings that bring out the emotions of those in attendance.

How Much Can You Make? $2,000 — $50,000/month View all 2 case studies Average Initial Investment $500 Time To Revenue 180 days Skills Self Motivation Skills Business Savvy Skills Writing & Research Skills Design Skills Customer Service Skills Business model Consulting See More

The Complete Service is the opposite of The Essential Service, it costs more but we handle the entire process for the couple!

We have gone from doing 5 to 10 weddings a month to 80 to 100 weddings a month in 4 years.

this-couple-started-a-50k-month-business-helping-people-get-married-in-denmark

9. Start a catering business

A catering business is responsible for providing food & beverage-related services for vast types of events.

Catering businesses are known to be more flexible than other businesses because they don't have to worry about location or pricing and can even work 24/7. They can cater anywhere and offer any price point that they want.

However, starting a catering business requires a lot of planning. To start a successful catering business , you'll need to plan and prepare menus, manage budgets, handle clients, and more. In addition, catering allows you to meet more people and show off your cooking skills.

How Much Can You Make? $3,750 — $48,333/month View all 4 case studies Average Initial Investment $356 Time To Revenue 180 days Skills Customer Service Skills Business Savvy Skills Self Motivation Skills Business model Brick & Mortar See More

Hi, my name is Nestor Nidome and I am the founder and owner of Elegante Catering. Serving the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside county) and now have expanded to serve all of Southern California. Our customers, mostly higher middle class, have enjoyed our delicious menu ranging from full service plated meals, made to order pasta bars to buffet-style menus such as Mexican fajitas bar and tacos.

Weddings because there is no higher compliment than to have the bride and groom come up to us complimenting us and letting us know how all their guests are raving about the food. As for corporate caterings we like to make it as simple as possible for them. We have 12 different menus they can choose from so that every month their employees enjoy a different menu. Plus once we have their information all they have to do is text us the Date, Menu, and Time they want. We understand that they have better, more important things to do than order food. This has allowed us to grow our monthly sales to $20,000.

how-i-found-success-with-a-20k-month-catering-company-after-starting-many-businesses

10. Start a Greeting Cards Business

People use greeting cards to mark births, deaths, graduations, anniversaries, and other parties or events. If you love helping people celebrate special occasions, starting a greeting card business can be a great business opportunity.

When starting a greeting card business, choose a potential niche and write a business plan. Then, find an ideal spot to sell the greeting cards. For instance, you can offer greeting card design and posting services, so customers can choose the best designs and post greeting cards online.

How Much Can You Make? $2,000 — $100,000/month View all 5 case studies Average Initial Investment $11,166 Time To Revenue 300 days Skills Self Motivation Skills Crafty Skills Customer Service Skills Business Savvy Skills Design Skills Business model E-Commerce Brick & Mortar See More

I am Travis Peterson and started Joker Greeting. We make original prank gifts and prank non-gifts for friends, family, and offices. It all started with a non-stop musical greeting card that looped for 3-6 hours.

For 2.5 years, I have been working on making musical greeting cards interesting again. To be clear, I never intended on making a greeting card or joke company, but we launched on Kickstarter and raised $92,073 in 30 days with no marketing, so I decided to give it a shot.

i-created-a-prank-card-company-grew-it-to-30k-month

11. Rent party & events venue

Businesses use event venues for various purposes, including meetings, tradeshows, conferences, product launches, etc. On the other hand, individuals host birthdays, weddings, and other celebrations at event venues.

According to the latest statistics, the events industry is growing rapidly . Events provide a great marketing tool for businesses, and events are crucial for strengthening relationships.

The demand for event venues increases as individuals and corporates host more events annually. If you have some unused space and are enthusiastic about hosting events, you can start an events rental business.

To start, choose a niche, and market your business. You can focus on corporate events, social and entertainment events, or general venues suitable for any setting and party theme.

How Much Can You Make? $35,000/month View all 1 case studies Average Initial Investment $12,750 Skills Self Motivation Skills Customer Service Skills Business Savvy Skills Business model Brick & Mortar See More

12. Become a cake decorator

Cake decorators order baked cakes and decorate them for birthdays, weddings, and other special occasions.

The primary role of a cake decorator is designing the graphics and using cake molds and other decorating elements to create a unique appearance.

How Much Can You Make? $4,000/month View all 1 case studies Average Initial Investment $300 Skills Design Skills Business Savvy Skills Customer Service Skills Crafty Skills Self Motivation Skills See More

My name is Amanda Bradford and I own Bradford Bakery. I started in the culinary industry 15 years ago and have done everything from restaurants to the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday cake and celebrity catering events.

Our customers reach out to us because they know they are getting quality products that will meet the needs of their event and their dietary restrictions if they have any! We are a favorite of our local community and love that people are spreading the word about our business to their friends which we are seeing in our growing client list! Even in the past few months we have seen a 550% increase in our SEO on google and filled more orders for the community just by them recommending us and searching us on the web!

i-opened-my-dream-bakery-with-just-500-based-in-texas

13. Become a face painter

If you love making people happy and helping them celebrate different events in life, consider starting a face-painting business.

If you are planning to start a face painting business on a professional basis, it would be wise to take an introductory training course to learn the basics of face painting and the safety and health precautions involved in the business.

Average Initial Investment $10,000 Skills Design Skills Business Savvy Skills Customer Service Skills Crafty Skills Self Motivation Skills See More

14. Start an A/V equipment rental

Buying AV equipment does not make sense unless you are an event organizer or your company runs multiple events annually. Instead, businesses prefer hiring AV equipment rather than investing thousands of dollars in buying the equipment for a single event.

An audiovisual equipment rental business offers event or party organizers the right equipment to make the events a hit. The AV equipment rental business offers bundled packages to add technical perfection to any type of events their customers are looking to host.

Starting an AV rental business can be capital intensive, but given the rising demand for AV equipment, it can be profitable. If you plan to start the AV equipment rental business, remember there is high competition. Therefore, you have to ensure aggressive marketing to attain the business objectives.

15. Start a game rental business

Parties and events are a way for attendees to indulge in fun activities. One way to enjoy the event is by playing games at the event venue. If you are passionate about event organizing and entertaining event attendees, you can turn your passion into a profitable business by launching a game rental business for events.

Game rental businesses are highly affordable to start compared to other niches and can turn to a profit much faster. Your target market can include corporate team-building events, children's parties, wedding parties, and other social events.

How Much Can You Make? $600/month View all 1 case studies Skills Customer Service Skills Self Motivation Skills Business Savvy Skills See More

Case Study — HOW TO MAKE MONEY RENTING GIANT GAME FROM AMAZON - THE EASIEST SIDE H... ➜

16. Start a holiday decorating service

Holiday decorators make the interior and exterior of businesses and homes festive. While the holiday decoration business is seasonal, it is also highly profitable and requires minimal startup investments. You do not need any special training to start the holiday decorating business. However, being creative and having experience in decorating is crucial to running a successful business.

How Much Can You Make? $20,000/month View all 1 case studies Skills Customer Service Skills Self Motivation Skills Business Savvy Skills Negotiation Skills See More

17. Become an event promoter

An event promoter is a professional responsible for marketing and promoting events such as concerts, conferences, speeches, festivals, and sporting events.

Event promoters can work as independent contractors or for a specific organization. The core responsibilities of event promoters include conducting research into the intended audience and setting up and running social media campaigns, among other duties.

To become an event promoter, develop communication skills, be proactive and learn how to organize and influence people to attend the events.

How Much Can You Make? $10,000/month View all 1 case studies Average Initial Investment $60,000 Time To Revenue 210 days Skills Customer Service Skills Business Savvy Skills Self Motivation Skills Business model Subscriptions Consulting Work from home Work From Home See More

Hello! I am Mark Thomas, the managing director of the Thomas Hemingway Group of companies and CEO of EventBookings, which I founded in 2017.

Fast forward to today, we are now running the business with 25 employees and are currently on track to reach our next revenue target of $1M.

how-i-built-a-120k-year-event-booking-platform

18. Become a local event artist

Event artists make the audience more centered, increase event PR, attract new artists, and build a good brand profile.

Becoming an event artist is easier than you think. All you need to do is choose a niche and work on attracting foot traffic to the events. Be creative and work on your communication skills.

19. Start a special event security

The event security business takes care of event venues’ safety and security. The event security team works towards enhancing the guest experience and takes care of security strategies, risk assessment, threat and vulnerability protection, and more services to enhance the guest’s experience.

To start an events security business, hire staff who understand crowd-handling strategies and how to respond to emergencies. A good security company commits to safeguarding event attendees’ cash and valuable items.

20. Become a mobile DJ

Mobile DJ carries their DJ kit with them and entertains clients at weddings, birthdays, and corporate parties or events. There is plenty of demand for mobile DJs, and customers will pay well to be entertained at their premises or parties.

To become a mobile DJ, first, learn the art of DJing, specifically how to DJ open-format style. If you are a beginner, enroll in online classes where you will learn the best DJing practices.

Hey! 👋 I'm Pat Walls, the founder of Starter Story.

Get our 5-minute email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

"How do you know when you have the 'right' business idea? What does that look like?"

What if you could see exactly how successful founders figured this out?

That’s why we built Starter Story - the only place where 4,409 founders of successful businesses share with you their exact timeline of building their business to thousands of customers.

You’ll learn how thousands of ordinary people (just like you) built businesses to millions in revenue - all starting from a simple idea or side project.

At Starter Story, we search the internet for the doers (the people who act rather than merely talk).

These hard-to-reach, low-key, founders are in the trenches building real businesses right now.

And we get the lowdown on the most essential, hard-hitting parts of building their business:

(1) How exactly did you find this opportunity? (2) What were the exact steps to build it? To launch it? (3) How did you get to 10, 100, and 1,000 customers? (4) How much money are you making?

^ Yes, we asked thousands of founders these questions. And we are asking more every day.

You might get too inspired when you actually see the answers behind thousands of successful, ordinary entrepreneurs.

You'll realize there is no “magic formula” , that building a successful business is actually quite straightforward.

(You’ll realize that you can do it, too.)

We collect and analyze the data from every case study and give you that data.

Industries, markets, and trends - you’ll get access to the world’s biggest, living, breathing database of 8,602 business ideas, side projects, and products to sell .

When you join us, you’ll get access to over $1,000,000 in software savings - we’ve exclusively negotiated discounts on 240+ tools that are proven to grow your business.

Based on data points from our 4,409 case studies, you'll find the 201 most effective ways that founders are growing their business right now.

Uncover the growth strategies that founders are actually using.

Our team of 15+ are working every day to find more entrepreneurs, uncover their secrets, and put them in front of you.

Right now, we have 4,409 case studies you can read, and we add new case studies every single morning.

Every day, you’ll find new, interesting businesses that are taking off right now.

Our goal is to show you that building the business of your dreams is not only possible, but it’s quite straightforward once you see how others have done it.

We have seen countless Starter Story readers join us, get inspired, and change their lives through the businesses they’ve built.

After interviewing 4,409 founders, here’s my biggest takeaway:

Building a business is simple , but it’s not easy .

There are many bumps in the road that require many decisions,

But, founders do not fail because they make the wrong decisions, they fail because they don’t make a decision at all .

At Starter Story, our goal is to help you make these decisions by giving you the information and answers you need - from 4,409 successful founders that already went through it firsthand.

At less than $3/week, Starter Story is a no-brainer investment in your business.

Leave your email below to get started!

On a budget? Get 52 business ideas you can start for under $1,000

Join our free newsletter to get unlimited access to all startup data including startup costs.

Join our free newsletter to get unlimited access to all startup data. We just need your email:

Join our free newsletter to get access now. We just need your email:

1. Build a solid business plan

I can’t tell you how many small event planning businesses fail because the founder didn’t put together a business plan in advance.

Start by researching successful plans and businesses that are similar to your scope of work. Then reach out to others in the events industry who may be able to guide you!

Reach out to others in the events industry that may be able to guide you. Click To Tweet

Even if you’ve never seen a business plan, there are plenty of resources and templates online that can get you started. Additionally, when you look to grow your business, an up-to-date business plan is vital to secure any kind of investment.

Start with the right event tools for your business

Get Started Free

2. Set a marketing budget and use a PR company when possible.

When starting your party planning business, your marketing budget may be 30% or more of your business expenses. Does that seem like a lot? Think about all the things you’ll need:

Don’t leave anything out! You will need to spend money to make money, ultimately. The goal in the early months is to secure your base of customers as quickly as possible. If you deliver on the promise of creating memorable events, your clients will stick around and recommend you. As a result, your marketing costs will start to drop.

Here’s How to Start an Event Planning Business Click To Tweet

3. Clearly define your scope of work, mission and goals for your event business.

Your event planning business may evolve over time, but even when you’re just starting out, it’s important to clearly outline what you are and aren’t willing to do. You can even put this on your website to attract the right type of clients.

When you’re still building your business, saying “no” to clients is one of the hardest things to do. But it might save you from dealing with the kinds of customers that take up too much time and don’t offer enough value in return.

Guide: How to Create an Event Planning Checklist

4. Have your elevator speech ready.

After I set up my first events business, I had a hard time selling it to people because my 30-second pitch wasn’t refined. Make sure to spend time developing this ” it is the key to introducing everyone to your business.

Pro tip: Don’t stress about the name of your event planning business. At the end of the day, the name of your business doesn’t matter ” as long as you produce truly memorable events. However, a catchy event business name idea might stick in someone’s brain better during an elevator pitch.

5. Do your market research

Before jumping, in I always tell people to understand their market and competitors. What is your unique value proposition? Are your fees similar to, better than or higher than others in your area? Understanding your competition and your clients will give you the leg up in this market. Don’t skip this step!

6. Spend some time learning tax laws and business filing in your area.

No matter what kind of business you want to start, there are lots of legal pieces to understand. I spent time researching which type of business would be best for me (LLC made the most sense for my consulting business).

It’s also critical to understand the tax implications before you dive in. For example, when I moved my business from Virginia to California, I had to go through the process of dissolving the business. I should have taken more time to research other possibilities!

There’s a lot to navigate, but some great resources exist for building small businesses. Here are a few I recommend:

One of my favorite resources in Women In Events . New event planners can take advantage of our mentoring/coaching program after signing up.

Now You’re Ready to Start a Great Event Planning Business!

Have questions? We’ve got answers. Connect with @socialtables on Twitter.

Up next, here’s how to pick an event company name for your business . Or check out Social Tables free event planning tools to manage seating, meals, and so much more.

Try the event management software planners love

More tips for aspiring event planners.

Still searching for answers about starting an event planning business?

Do your research, make a plan, set a budget, define your scope of work, and throw amazing events!

You should plan to set aside at least $15,000 to $25,000 to start a small event planning business.

Event planning can be quite a profitable career choice. The best event planners will make a name for themselves and be able to charge high prices for their vision, creativity, execution, and results.

Home » Business ideas » Entertainment Industry » Event Planning Business

How to Start an Event Planning Business at Home With No Money in 22 Steps

Are you interested in starting an event planning business from home? If YES, here is a complete guide to starting an event planning business with NO money and no experience plus a sample event planning business plan template.

When it comes to venturing out and starting a business as against keeping a 9 to 5 paid employment, an avalanche of people get scared of taking that giant step of faith that might land them into their fame and fortune. The truth is that, there are several business opportunities an aspiring entrepreneur who is still keeping a paid employment can test run without leaving their jobs, and one of such opportunities is event planning.

One good thing about event planning is that most often than not, events are done during weekends and if you are lucky not to be working during weekends, you can successfully test run an event planning business part time. The truth is that, most of the basic skills needed to effectively run an event planning business are some of the soft skills you are likely going to acquire in your work place.

What is Event Planning?

Event planning is all about helping corporate organizations, government, groups and individual plan and execute their events from start to finish. An event planner ensures that they work with the stipulated budget of the organization or individual and ensure that they deliver a successful event as agreed. In some cases, it is the responsibility of the event planner to draw – up a budget for the organizer of the event once they get a brief of the nature of the event.

Events planning require that you take off the burden of planning an event from the shoulders of your clients. This is whether it is a corporate of informal event, or an informal party. Therefore, you would need an eye for details in addition to the physical eyes you have got. Confused? Do not be, that was on a lighter note.

What Does It Take to Start an Event Planning Business Successfully?

Now, the truth is that you would need to be extremely detailed. You do not want to come across to your clients as one who leaves some important details out. If you do not possess this skill now, you may consider building it up.

The key to a successful event is to ensure that all that is listed in your event planning checklists is ticked. As a matter of fact, if you undergo event planning training, you are going to be taught how to draft event planning checklists for various events and key components that must be listed in your checklists.

The event planning is such an industry that needs you to be vast and well informed about news about the industry. What does this mean? This means that you have got to be alert about everything as it concerns events planning all around the globe. You may consider reading up a whole lot- do not be far away from information. You can successfully pull off being a researcher off by reading books on this business, as using the internet.

22 Steps to Starting an Event Planning Business from Home With No Money

1. understand the industry.

According to Inside Business, the event planning industry is expected to grow to 20% with the median income of an event planning being $42,180 a year. By 2016, this industry is expected to grow to over 60,000 jobs.

Interesting Statistics About the Industry

Statistics has it that the top 5 highest paying location in the united states for event planners and their average annual earnings are;

So also the top 5 states in the United States with the highest numbers of employment for event planners are;

No doubt the event planning / management industry cannot be said to be oversaturated despite the fact that the entry bar for starting an event planning business is pretty low. As an event planner, if you are creative and hardworking, you can successfully create your own steady market. It is safe to say the industry is still growing especially with the advent of new social media platforms.

For example in recent time, a world class event planning / management company in city in the United States of America can successfully organize an event with active participant from all over the globe participating in the event without living their country. This is possible with the aid of teleconference, and Skype et al.

Some of the factors that encourages entrepreneurs to start their own event planning business could be that the business is easy to set up, the start – capital is indeed affordable and the running cost can be put at the minimum level; you can actually start your own event planning business from the comfort of your home. All you need to do is to create an office somewhere in your house.

Lastly, event planning / management business is not restricted to just organizing conference, corporate events or parties, but also organizing big international events such as Olympic and United Nations Events.

2. Conduct Market Research and Feasibility Studies

Demographics and Psychographics

The demographic and psychographics composition of those who need the services of event planners cuts across people from all works of life and organizations et al. There is no clear cut distinction on those that would naturally need the services of event planners especially when they can afford it.

Over and above, if you are tinkering with starting an event planning business, then you should direct your marketing efforts to those who can afford your services. Of course corporate organizations, government agencies, business owners, religious organizations, schools and individuals falls within the demographic composition for an event planning company.

3. Decide Which Niche to Concentrate On

On the average, it is the practice for most standard event planning companies to handle all aspect of event planning that ranges from wedding planning, to annual general meetings (AGM), to corporate events, to end of year parties et al. This is so because there are little or no difference with the planning and execution of events.

However, you can decide to build your event planning company around an area of specialization in the industry and these are some of the basic niches ideas within the event planning industry that an entrepreneur who is looking towards starting an event planning company can specialize in;

The Level of Competition in the Industry

The level of competition in the event planning industry depends largely on the location of the business, and of course the niche of your event planning company. If you can successfully create a unique brand identity for your event planning company or carve out a unique market, you are likely going to experience less competition.

For instance; if you are one of the few event planning companies in your country or state that handles all government events but at local, state and federal level, you are sure going to be making constant mega box year after year. This is so because it is normal for government to organize several events all through a calendar year.

However, it is important to state that the event planning industry is to a large extent a very competitive one and this is why one have got to stay abreast with happenings in this domain. Those who already walk this path successfully know that once one begins to relent at doing some fundamental things, then there is the tendency for your competitions to catch up with you and even overtake you.

So as an event planner, in order to stay afloat in the industry and continue to make profits despite the competition in the industry, you must ensure that you continue to come up with creative marketing ideas that will help you attract your target market and stay competitive.

4. Know Your Major Competitors in the Industry

These are some of the well – known event planning companies / event planners in the United States of America and perhaps in most parts of the world;

Economic Analysis

If you are looking for a business that requires less stress to set – up and perhaps minimal start – up capital to start, then you can consider starting an event planning business. The cost of running an event planning business when compared to the turnover you get annually can be poles apart (this is applicable only when you have been able to establish your feet in the industry and secure retainer – ship with big corporations and even government agencies).

On the average, most people who start event planning business start the business from a small office space / shared office space or virtual office and still make headway in the business. One thing is certain when it comes to event planning business, most of your meetings prior to winning the contract and planning for the event will be in the office or home of your client.

The truth is that, the cost of running an event planning business can be kept to the barest minimum because there are always ways you can cut operational and overhead cost. As a matter of fact, most people that runs event planning business choose to run the business alone or at most with a handful of full – time employees just for the sole aim of reducing overhead, and maximizing profits.

5. Decide Whether to Buy a Franchise or Start from Scratch

When it comes to making a choice whether to start a business from the scratch or to buy a franchise, there are loads of factors that should influence your choice. Generally, the reason why you want to start a business, your business goal, business mission and vision should help you make informed decision.

Good enough, any entrepreneur that wants to start an event planning business may not have the option of buying a franchise simple because you can hardly find one to buy. So you should brace – up and be ready to start your event planning company from the scratch.

One thing is certain, if you want to have full control of your business and you intend exploring every form of creativity within your capacity, then it will pay you to start your event planning business from the scratch. Starting your business from the scratch has loads of benefits despite the fact that you would have to work hard and smart to achieve your business goals and objectives.

6. Know the Possible Threats and Challenges You Will Face

If you decide to start your own event planning business today, one of the major challenges you are likely going to face is the presence of well – established event planning company / event planner within the same location where yours is located or the arrival of other event planning companies. The only way to avoid this challenge is to create your own market; concentrate on specific – target market. It could be individual clients or corporate client et al.

Another threat and challenge that you are likely going to face when you start your own event planning company is economic downturn; if the economy is in bad shape it automatically affects the purchasing / spending power of the general public and that can impact your business negatively.

So also, unfavorable government policies could as well affect the profitability and growth of the event planning industry. For example, if a government decides to ban all public events in a location due to security reasons, it will directly affect the organization of outdoor events.

7. Choose the Most Suitable Legal Entity (LLC, C Corp, S Corp)

If you are considering starting a standard event planning company, a company that will work for government at all levels and big corporations, then you should take the selection of the legal entity for the business seriously.

When it comes to choosing a legal entity for a business, the nature of the business, the industry the business falls into and your business goals should inform your decision. When it comes to choosing a legal entity for an event planning company, you have the option of choosing from a general partnership, a limited partnership, an LLC, a “C” corporation, or even a “S” corporation. It is important to clearly state that these different forms of legal structure for business has its own advantages and disadvantages; which is why you must weigh your options properly before making your choice.

These are some of the factors you should consider before choosing a legal entity for your event planning company; limitation of personal liability, ease of transferability, admission of new owners and investors’ expectation and of course taxes. If you take your time to critically study the various legal entities to use for your event planning business, you will agree that Limited Liability Company; an LLC is most suitable. One good thing about LLC is that, you can start your event planning business as limited liability company (LLC) and in future convert it to a ‘C’ corporation or even a ‘S’ corporations especially when you have the plans of going public or selling franchise.

Upgrading to a ‘C’ corporation or ‘S’ corporation will give you the opportunity to grow your event planning company so as to compete with major players in the industry; you will be able to generate capital from venture capital firms, you will enjoy separate tax structure, and you can easily transfer ownership of the company; you will enjoy flexibility in ownership and in your management structures amongst other benefits.

8. Choose a Catchy Business Name

When it comes to choosing a name for your business, you should be creative because whatever name you choose for your business will go a long way to create a perception of what the business represent. Usually, it is the norm for people to follow the trend in the industry they intend operating when naming their business.

If you are considering starting your own event planning company, here are some catchy names that you can choose from;

9. Discuss with an Agent to Know the Best Insurance Policies for You

In the United States and in most countries of the world, you can’t operate a business without having some of the basic insurance policy covers in place that is required by the industry you want to operate from. So, it becomes important to create a budget for insurance and perhaps consult an insurance broker to guide you when it comes to choosing the best insurance policies for your event planning business.

Here are some of the basic insurance covers that you should consider purchasing if you want to start your own event planning business in the United States of America;

10. Protect your Intellectual Property With Trademark, Copyrights, Patents

If you are then starting your own event planning company, usually you may not have any need to file for intellectual property protection / trademark. This is so because the nature of the business makes it possible for you to successful run the business without having any cause to challenge anybody in court for illegally making use of your company’s intellectual properties or trademark.

However, if you just want to protect your company’s logo and other documents or software that are unique to you. Then you can go ahead to file for intellectual property protection. If you want to register your trademark, you are expected to begin the process by filing an application with the USPTO. Please note that the final approval of your trademark is subjected to the review of attorneys as required by USPTO

11. Get the Necessary Professional Certification

If you are considering starting an event planning business, you do not necessarily need any professional certification to kick start or manage the business. However, you can go ahead to source for any professional certification course that can help you perform effectively as an event planner.

There are several professional certifications that you can acquire as an aspiring event planner and here are some of them;

12. Get the Necessary Legal Documents You Need to Operate

These are some of the basic legal document that you are expected to have in place if you want to run your own event planning business in the United States of America;

13. Write a Business Plan

When it comes to starting a business, one of the first steps that you are expected to take is to consult experts to help you draft a good and workable business plan or you can make use of business plan template to prepare your business plan. The truth is that, in order to successfully run an event planning business, you would need to have a good business plan in place.

A Business plan is the road map that is needed to successfully run a business; with a workable business plan in place, you will reduce the trial and error approach of doing business. You will be able to manage your business with purpose and perhaps precision; you will know what to do per time and how to handle business challenges and business growth / expansion.

In essence, if you want to start your own event planning business, you are required to write a detailed business plan that can pass reality test when subjected to it; you should work with the facts, figures and other indices in the event planning industry as it applies to the locations / country you intend starting your event planning business.

The whole idea of writing a business plan is not just for the sake of having a business document in place; but a detail guide on how to effectively run your business from the scratch. Your business plan should outline and cover strategies on how you intend to manage and grow your event planning business.

The rule of thumb in writing a business plan is to try as much as possible to be realistic and never to over project when putting figures on income and profits et al. As a matter of fact, it is safer to underestimate when writing a business plan so that you won’t be so disappointed when reality sets in.

These are the key areas that should be covered in your business plan;

Executive summary and Company’s descriptions

You are expected to write about the concept of your business, descriptions of your company, your company’s vision statement, mission statement and where your company will be located and also if you intend partnering with other companies or opening offices in different cities in the United States of America and in other parts of the world.

Other key components that should not be missing out from your event planning business plan are product offering, SWOT analysis, competitive analysis, marketing and sales analysis / strategies, target market, market goals, pricing, costing and financial projection, publicity and advertising strategy, expansion and growth strategies, budget and start – up capital generation et al.

14. Prepare a Detailed Cost Analysis

Starting an event planning business can be cost effective; this is so because on the average, you are not expected to acquire expensive machines and equipment. Basically what you should be concerned about is the amount needed to secure a standard office facility in a good and busy business district, the amount needed to furniture and equip the office, the amount to purchase the required software applications, the amount needed to pay bills, promote the business and obtain the appropriate business license and certifications.

When it comes to starting a small scale event planning / event management company, the following expenditure should guide you;

Going by the report from the market research and feasibility studies conducted, you will need about $70,000 or less to set up a small scale but standard event planning business in the United States of America. You will need over two hundred and fifty thousand (250,000) U.S. dollars to successfully set – up a medium scale but standard event planning business firm in the United States of America.

If you are considering starting a large scale event planning business with several professionals under your payroll and offices in key cities in the United States of America and perhaps other parts of the world, then you should look towards budgeting from 1 million United States dollars and above.

15. Raise the Needed Startup Capital

Starting an event planning business can be cost effective- especially if you choose to run the business from your home, share office space with a friend or make use of virtual office. Securing a standard office is part of what will consume a large chunk of your start – up capital, but if you choose to start the business on a small scale with an office from your home, you may not have the need to go source for fund to finance the business.

No doubt when it comes to financing a business, one of the first thing and perhaps the major factors that you should consider is to write a good business plan . If you have a good and workable business plan in place, you may not have to labor yourself too hard before convincing your bank, investors and your friends to invest in your business.

Here are some of the options you can explore when sourcing for start – up capital for your event planning business;

16. Choose a Suitable Location for your Business

The fact that you can operate your event planning business from your home does not mean that locations have little influence on the success of this type of business. If you have taken your time to study the event planning industry, you will realize that event planning companies are always located around busy business districts especially event planning companies that specializes in corporate events.

So, if you are looking for a location for your event planning company, ensure that it is a place that is located in the hub of business in your city, a place that is visible and easily accessible. Of course you would not want to locate this type of business in the outskirt of town. Your clients should be able to drive down and locate your office with little or no difficulty.

Having said that, these are some of the factors that you should consider before choosing a location for your event planning company;

17. Hire Employees for your Technical and Manpower Needs

Aside for relevant event management software applications that will help you with registering for events, booking for seats or space and hotel reservation et al, and also the aid of social media tool for promoting and marketing events, there are no core technicality when it comes to starting an event planning business. The business is easy and straightforward to run especially if you have the required soft skills; basically organizing skills and business management skills.

When it comes to choosing between renting and leasing an office space, the size of the event planning company you want to build, and your entire budget for the business should influence your choice. If you have enough capital to run a large event planning company, then you should consider the option of leasing a facility for your office; when you lease, you will be able to work with long – term planning.

As regards the numbers of employees that you are expected to kick start the business with, you would need to consider your finance before making the decision. Averagely, you would need a Chief Executive Officer or President (you can occupy this role), an Admin and Human Resource Manager, Business Development Executive / marketing Executive, and Customer Service Officer or Front Desk Officer.

Over and above, you would need a minimum of 10 key staff to effectively run a medium scale event planning company.

The Service Delivery Process of the Business

Making money as an event planner is all about ensuring that your clients are satisfied whenever they contract their events to you to handle on their behalf. The truth is that once you are able to meet or surpass the expectations of your clients, you are likely going to get repeat businesses and in most cases you will also get referrals. You will quite agree that word of mouth advertisement from satisfied clients will always go a long way in increasing your revenue and also promoting your brand.

So, the bottom line is that whenever you secure any event planning contract, be sure to clarify all that is needed to be clarified from your clients before going to work. Anybody that asks loads of questions hardly derail in pursuit of a goal or in locating a destination. Hence, if your intention is to meet or surpass the expectations of your clients as an event planner, then one of the key things that you should do is to ask them loads of questions to clarify any grey area and to fully understand the brief. You can as well go ahead to work with your clients in setting goals for the event.

As a professional event planner, you would have been trained on how to engage your clients in such a way that they will be able to answer any question you ask them as regard the event or any related topic that will help you deliver a fantastic event.

Over and above, the service delivery for an event planner covers budgeting, scheduling, venue selection, acquiring necessary permits, coordinating transportation and parking, arranging for keynote speakers, motivational speakers, master of ceremony (MC) or entertainers, arranging decor, event security, catering and emergency plans .

The hallmark of an event is when the success benchmarks are meet or even surpassed. So part of what you need to ask your client as a professional event planner is to know key measurable areas where they would want the event to be assessed. It could be the numbers of participants that attended the event, the feedback they got from the event and it could be any success indicator as agreed by the organizers of the event.

18. Write a Marketing Plan Packed with ideas & Strategies

People and organizations will hire your services as an event planner to help them handle all their events if they know that they are going to get value for their money which is why you should have done your proper homework and be ready to deliver excellent events when contracted.

Hence, when you are drafting your marketing plans and strategies for your event planning company, make sure that you create a compelling personal and company’s profile. Aside from your qualifications and experience, it is important to clearly state in practical terms what you have been able to achieve in time past as it relates to helping people and corporate organizations handle their events from the planning stage through the execution of the event. This will help boost your chances in the market place when sourcing for contracts from corporate organizations and government agencies.

Please note that you when you bid for contracts from corporate organizations, you will be called upon to defend your proposal, which is why you must add presentation skills as part of your marketing skills.

Here are some of the platforms you can utilize to market your event planning company;

19. Develop Iron-clad Competitive Strategies to Help You Win

The event planning industry is indeed a competitive industry, and you must come up with a unique strategy to be able to outsmart your competitors in the industry. Part of what you need to do in order to stay competitive is to continue to ensure that you go all length to make available top notch and affordable services to your clients and potential clients alike. The truth is that people will always come to you when they know that they are likely going to get what they are looking for and good value for their money.

Another competitive strategy you should adopt is to maximize the internet when it comes to marketing your event planning business and also ensure that you provide a wide range of complimentary services as it relates to event planning. Services, such as consultancy services and rental services will cut it for you.

20. Brainstorm Possible Ways to Retain Clients & Customers

When it comes to business, no matter the industry that you choose to pitch your tent in, one of the easiest ways to increase customers’ retention and perhaps to attract new customers is to satisfy your customers always whenever they contract their events to you to handle. If your customers are satisfied with your services delivery, they can hardly source for alternative service provider or products.

Statistics has it that one of the major reasons why clients source for alternative service provider or product is when there is a drop in quality or if when most often than not they tend not to get what they are looking for when they visit your shop or office as the case may be. Another reason is poor customer service.

If you can continue to improve on the quality of your customer service delivery and also give your customers options, then you won’t struggle to maintain loyal customers.

When it comes to managing your customers and building loyal clientele base, you should purchase a customized CRM software. With a customized CRM system you can easily stay in touch with your clients (you can carry out quick survey, you can introduce new products and prices to them without any hitch, you can felicitate with them on their birthdays and other anniversaries, you can send bulk SMS and customized e – mails and above all you can easily receive compliant and feedback from them).

21. Develop Strategies to Boost Brand Awareness and Create a Corporate Identity

If you are in business and you are not deliberate about boosting you brand awareness and communicating your corporate identity to the public, then you should be ready to take on whatever the society portray your business to be. One of the secret of larger corporations is that they are willing to spend fortunes year in and year out to boost their brand awareness and to continue to communicate their corporate identity the way they want people to perceive them to be.

If your intention of starting an event planning company is to grow the business beyond the city where you are going to be operating from, then you must be ready to spend money on promoting and advertising your brand.

In promoting your brand and corporate identity, you should leverage on both print and electronic media. As a matter of fact, it is cost effective to use the internet and social media platforms to promote your brands, besides it is pretty much effective and wide reaching.

Another strategy is to sponsor relevant TV and radio programs, advertise your business in relevant events magazines and newspapers and also ensure that your workers wear your customized shirts during working hours.

22. Tips for Running an Event Planning Business Successfully

The truth is that, irrespective of the kind of business you run, your ability to get all the members of your team on same page at all times is one of the keys you would need to successfully run the organization.

As the chief executive officer or president of the event planning company, it is you responsibility to give direction to the business. Part of what you need to do is to ensure that you create time for office meetings; a time where challenges, feedback, projections and relevant issues are discussed. The meetings could be daily, once in a week or once in a month – just ensure that it is consistent.

Carrying out appraisals on a regular basis and training your employees will help you run your organization effectively. Encourage your employees to pursue certifications in their various area of specializations as it relates to your business; it will help your organization’s profile and of course it will help the individuals. You can choose to sponsor some of the certifications or pay part of the fee.

To sum up, you should keep your doors open for suggestions from members of your team and you should be willing to reward excellent performance as at when due.

How to Make More Money As an Event Planner

This article is part of our Event Planning Business Startup Guide —a curated list of articles to help you plan, start, and grow your event planning business!

While the recession of 2008 may have caused a slight downturn in the number of events held in the U.S. every year, one thing is still certain: Everyone loves a good party.

Event planners are always in demand; from weddings to corporate gatherings, there is always call for someone who can help make an event run smoothly.

However, not all event planning businesses are created equally. The discrepancy between event planners’ salaries is fairly large; for example, while top wedding planners can earn $120,000 a year, the industry average is $44,260.

So, how can you boost your business so that you are one of those top-earning event planners? Follow these strategies to help you attract more clients, keep your existing clients happy, and ultimately bring in more money for your event planning business.

1. Choose a niche and excel at it

If you’re trying to be an event planning generalist, it’s time to get specific. Even specializing in a specific type of event, such as weddings, isn’t usually enough. You need to find an even more specific niche and become an expert in that niche.

For example, take Bernadette Coveney Smith of 14 Stories. Inspired by her background as an event planner for nonprofits, she decided to go into business as a wedding planner for LGBTQ couples. Her services range from taking care of all the traditional wedding planning needs these couples face, to the more specific needs of LGBTQ couples, such as “elopement packages” for couples whose home state does not allow them to marry.

Another specialist, Helena Parker of Divine Events by Helena, chose to focus her business on day-of coordination, for couples who want minimal hands-on help planning their event. There is even a growing market for “bridal coaching,” wherein event planners bill themselves as part organizational expert and part therapist and shoulder to cry on.

How do you go about researching and picking a niche? There are plenty of strategies: consider what you most enjoy doing or who you’d ideally like to work with, conduct market and industry research, and take a good hard look at your competition to spot any voids in your local event planning marketplace. In addition to these resources, check out How to Research a Profitable Niche Market for more information.

2. Use Pinterest and Instagram to “get found”

When it comes to wedding planning, visual sites like Pinterest and Instagram reign supreme.

Of course, you probably already guessed that. But, did you know that 46 percent of brides were influenced by a vendor’s presence on social media sites, and 34 percent have contacted a vendor through social media?

This means that when it comes to getting more clients and growing your revenue, maintaining a strong presence on Pinterest and Instagram is very important. It’s potentially also a good idea to consider Facebook and Twitter as well, depending on your personal bandwidth for managing social media profiles.

However, it’s important to be aware that when it comes to social media, selling shouldn’t be your top priority. Event planner Christie Osborne of Mountainside Media recommends thinking of Pinterest and Instagram as marketing tools, rather than a way to book clients. This way, you are able to inject your personality into your pages, and increase your reach. “Think of social media as a way to get found,” she says. “It’s not a way to book brides. When you think about ROI for your social media efforts, consider it as a lead-generating tool.”

How do you cultivate a Pinterest and Instagram presence that will help get your business out there, bring people back to your website, and ultimately bring in more money? Focus on creating and sharing original visual content, whether that be shots from the last event you planned or a helpful infographic you created. Be sure to take advantage of relevant hashtags, and make sure that the images on your website are “pinnable,” with Pinterest buttons embedded for each image.

For inspiration, check out the event planners featured in this article, Insta-Faves: 10 Wedding Planners and Event Designers to Follow On Instagram. You’ll be sure to get some ideas on what kind of content to post on your own Instagram or Pinterest account.

3. Combine SEO tactics with excellent customer service

When it comes to bringing in more revenue for your event planning business, SEO is hugely important.

Half of all couples seeking wedding planning help find planners and vendors through online search, which means if you aren’t showing up online, you’re losing out on revenue.

That being said, the event planning industry still relies heavily on word of mouth to bring in new clients; 52 percent of brides turn to family and friends offline for recommendations first. Not only that, 74 percent of customers say that word of mouth influences their buying decision.

What does this mean for your event planning business? It means you’re going to have to pull off something of a balancing act. While SEO matters, so does word of mouth—combine your SEO marketing tactics with great customer service to cover all your bases.

If the idea of optimizing your website and online presence for SEO overwhelms you, don’t worry—there are plenty of resources available to help you get a handle on that process. Start with Search Engine Watch’s SEO Basics: 8 Essentials When Optimizing Your Site, and move on to Moz’s great Beginners Guide to SEO. For more on building a strong relationship with your clients in order to cultivate that precious positive word of mouth, check out Creating Strong Loyalty Through Your Client Experience.

4. Ditch the idea of the “average” bride

In the event planning industry—and especially when it comes to wedding planning—you’ll hear lots of talk about the “average” customer.

For example, wedding site The Knot published this study on average wedding expenditures, concluding that the average wedding for U.S.-based couples cost $29,858, and the average amount spent on wedding planning was $1,874.

The problem? Your target customer, as defined by your specific niche, is unique. They aren’t the national average, but rather a discrete section of the market that will have their own budget, habits, and needs.

Why does this matter? Thinking of the “average customer” is problematic when you fail to remember that they don’t actually exist. The average customer is an aggregation of buying and spending habits across the industry, which may not accurately reflect your actual customers and specific niche.

To combat this myth of the “average bride” and bring in more money for your event planning business, focus on creating a user persona based on your primary market research of your actual customers. This will help you get a clear understanding of your “ideal bride” (or customer in general) that you are targeting, which will make your marketing efforts less general and more personal.

5. Outsource wherever possible

Jennifer Gilbert, founder of event planning company Save the Date, cheekily recommends that event planners “Outsource everything but [their] soul.” The quote highlights an essential aspect of starting a business: To give yourself as much time and energy as possible, it’s necessary to delegate tasks that can be done by others, to others.

This is never truer than in the event planning business. By freeing up your time to do what you do best, you’ll be able to bring in more clients and more money, while still providing the best service possible.

What can you outsource? Well, that ultimately depends on what you’re good at, but popular tasks include website construction and design, the creation of your logo, your bookkeeping, and similar tasks that are not directly related to your work as an event planner.

For more information, be sure to check out How Event Organizers Can Use Freelancers to Boost Productivity, as well as our article on the LivePlan blog, Why You Should Consider Outsourcing, and How to Get Started. If you’re looking for more information on how to choose the best people to help take on outsourced work, I’ve written an article on finding great freelancers.

Tying it all together

When it comes to bringing in more money for your event planning business, it’s easy to see that specialization and a narrow, strategic focus is the name of the game.

By focusing in on and really getting to know your ideal target market, you can deliver services that will leave your clients happy, and encourage them to recommend you to friends and family. Combine this niche strategy with a strong social media and web presence, and you have a solid strategy that will help your business grow and bring in more money.

Briana Morgaine

Briana is a content and digital marketing specialist, editor, and writer. She enjoys discussing business, marketing, and social media, and is a big fan of the Oxford comma. Bri is a resident of Portland, Oregon, and she can be found, infrequently, on Twitter.

Starting or Growing a Business? Check out these Offerings.

Business Plan Writers

Investor-Ready Business Plans Written In No Time

100% Free Quote

One-Page Business Pitch

Write A Winning Business Pitch In Just 60 Minutes

Start for $20/mo

Business Tools

Exclusive Offers on Must-Haves for New and Growing Businesses

$100+ in savings

Management Dashboards

All the Insights You Need to Help Your Business Succeed

Works with QBO & XERO

Plan, fund, and grow.

Easily write a business plan, secure funding, and gain insights.

Achieve your business funding goals with a proven plan format.

Industry-specific and extensively researched technical data (partially from exclusive partnerships). A paid subscription is required for full access.

U.S. party and event planner industry market size 2012-2022

Market size of the party and event planner sector in the united states from 2012 to 2021, with a forecast for 2022 (in billion u.s. dollars).

You need a Statista Account for unlimited access.

Access to this and all other statistics on 80,000 topics from

$468 USD / Year $708 USD / Year

Additional Information

Show sources information Show publisher information Use Ask Statista Research Service

October 2022

United States

2012 to 2021

*Forecast Figures have been rounded.

Statistics on " Ceremonial services in Japan "

Statistics on Ceremonial services in Japan

Wedding services

Consumer spending on weddings

Funeral services

Consumer spending on funerals

Major companies

Further related statistics

Further Content: You might find this interesting as well

Home » Uncategorized » Plan Your Next Business Event From The Ground Up

The Yale Ledger is a student-led magazine showcasing content from around the Yale community.

If you are affiliated with the Yale student community and have an article you want to share, please email Layla Winston .

If you notice any spam or inappropriate content, please contact us so we can remove it.

Plan Your Next Business Event From The Ground Up

Are you getting ready to plan your next business event? This could be a meeting with crucial investors or a marketing pitch that is designed to help your company get a fresh jolt of interest, increasing demand in your products or services. Regardless of what type of event you are preparing for, it’s important to make sure that you are planning it the right way. Here are the elements we recommend that you do explore.

Choose The Right Location

One of the first things you need to think about is where you want to hold your next event. This is something vital that will need to be set in stone quite early on. This is so you can organize everything else that goes alongside choosing the right venue. Think about how many people will likely turn up, this will give you a general idea of if your chosen venue is big enough. You will need to let customers and clients know where you are holding it so they can plan their journeys and if they are attending.

If you are offering catering at your event then you will need to get this sorted as well. There is nothing worse than holding an event and leaving your guests hungry. You need to decide which type of meal will be best for the chosen location. It all comes down to the type of event you are holding. Is it formal? If so, why not offer a sit down meal? If it is more of a mingling and networking event then you might want to consider nibbly, finger-foods such as a buffet.

Plan Entertainment Options

It can’t be all work and no play when you are planning a business event. You need to make sure that you strike the right balance here. For instance, you might want to consider hiring guest speakers. Guest speakers are a great choice as they can invigorate a crowd while also acting as a unique selling point. You just need to make sure that you are choosing the right speakers that will fit well with your planned event.

Recruit Key Team Members

If you have members of your team who you think will work wonders at your next business event then be sure to invite them along. Recruiting members of your team will not only give them a boost and prove you have confidence in them but it will likely get you what you are wanting from this event. If you are looking to get funding or more suppliers for your company then putting your best team out there will ensure this happens. Give your team plenty of notice if you do decide to invite them, they may have partners and childcare issues to sort out for the big event. It would also be helpful to give them cues for the evening and who they should be chatting to, just so they don’t end up feeling a little lost.

Market Effectively

Something else you will need to think about is how you are going to market this business event. If you want people to turn up then they need to be aware of its existence. If you use social media for your business and have quite a large following then you could market it through that. Alternatively, you could send out a marketing email suggesting your patrons and customers attend.

Use Insurance

Next, you should make sure that you are using an insurance service for your business event. While this will add to the costs, it can also save you from financial disaster if there is any reason why your business event can not go ahead. There are specialist insurance solutions available for companies who are planning a one day event. You should read this great one day event insurance guide from Insuranks . That will help you understand why this is important and the level of coverage that you can gain from a solution like this.

Think Carefully About The Cost

It’s important to manage a budget for any business event. Some business events will cost more than others. For instance, you could be planning to attend a trade show with your brand. This is a great way for a small business to get a lot more attention. However, it can cost a lot of money. On average, you might need to spend at least one hundred thousand to cover the costs of staff and presentation work.

Think About Your USP

There are lots of business events that are held throughout the year. If you are trying to get the attention of investors, then it’s important to realize that they will always have other options to explore here. That’s why you need to make sure that you are thinking in terms of a USP or unique selling point . You need to find something that is going to help your company event stand out from the rest that are planned. Events like this could even be held by competitors close to the same date as yours.

Lay Out Your Objectives

Finally, you need to make sure that you are laying out the objectives for your event. There are lots of different objectives that could be worth exploring here. For instance, you might be interested in boosting team morale or perhaps raising demand in your business. Your goals could also be related to gaining new funding for your company. There are so many possibilities to consider here and by laying them out clearly, you will have a solid understanding of what you need to do to ensure that your event helps you reach these targets.

We hope this helps you understand some of the key elements that you should consider when you are planning your next business event. In doing so, you can guarantee that this is a success and does deliver the fantastic results that you hoped for. If you are struggling to get the right things in place, then it’s worth talking to a professional planner. They can help you every step of the way and guarantee that no important aspect is missed during the planning stages.

Tesla stock down as investor day falls short on specifics

In this article

Tesla shares down 7% after Investor Day despite positive analyst sentiment

Electric vehicle maker Tesla hosted a 2023 investor day presentation in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. CEO Elon Musk took the stage to share his "Master Plan 3," and to discuss how Tesla plans to scale up in the face of increasing competition.

The presentation was long on vision, and included a review of prior achievements, but short on specifics about any new Tesla products or services.

Near the beginning of the presentation, Musk said: "There is a clear path to a sustainable-energy Earth. It doesn't require destroying natural habitats. It doesn't require us to be austere and stop using electricity and be in the cold or anything." He added, "In fact, you could support a civilization much bigger than Earth, much more than the 8 billion humans could actually be supported sustainably on Earth."

Musk was initially joined on stage by Drew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and energy engineering at Tesla. They discussed a future in which the company would play a role in "re-powering the grid with renewable fuels" as they ramp up battery production, both for Tesla's electric vehicles and for the company's utility-scale energy storage systems.

Tesla's goal is to produce 20 million electric vehicles per year by 2030, executives reiterated. The company reported full-year deliveries of around 1.31 million vehicles in 2022.

Tesla shares dip more than 5% after hours as Investor Day falls short on specifics

During a question-and-answer session following the three-hour presentation, executives fielded a question about how Tesla could grow its market share in China.

Elon Musk passed the question to Tom Zhu, who is heading up global production and has run the China and APAC businesses for Tesla for years. "As long as you offer a product with value at affordable price you don't have to worry about demand," Zhu said. "We try everything to cut costs," he added, "and pass down that value to our customers."

Musk then added, "Demand is a function of affordability not desire." He said, "Even small changes in the price have a big effect on demand."

Zhu also announced that as of Wednesday, Tesla had produced 4 million cars in total.

"It took us 12 years to build the first million, and about 18 months to the second million. The third million, 11 months. Then less than seven months to build the 4 millionth," Zhu said, touting the company's improving operational efficiency.

He said Tesla plans to construct new car and battery cell factories, and also to produce more cars per year at its existing factories.

Tesla charging leader Rebecca Tinucci said that in 2022 the company provided 9 terawatt hours across charging methods, including home charging including 40,000 Superchargers. (By way of comparison, the entire U.S. consumes about 4,000 terawatt hours of electricity per year.) Tinucci also noted that about half of the company's Superchargers in the EU are open to other vehicles, and that the company just opened 10 Superchargers in the U.S. to non-Teslas.

Book on data-driven social development launched at Raisina Dialogue event

The book is the third in a series published by reliance foundation and orf about transformations in development and governance..

Jagannatha Kumar at the Raisina Dialogue 2023 event.

A book that focuses on how data is driving social impact at the grassroots was launched during the Raisina Dialogue event on March 3.

Titled 'Micro Matters: Using Development for Data in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution', the book is the third in a series published by Reliance Foundation and ORF about transformations in development and governance.

The book explores eight interventions by organisations in India that are advancing the country’s D4D agenda by gathering data; processing it to evolve insights; translating insights into actions; and making a social impact. It also identifies key replicable lessons from the design and execution of these initiatives.

Introducing the book, Jagannatha Kumar, CEO, Reliance Foundation, said the cases it describes are examples of the D4D approach that is a core priority of the Indian G20 Presidency.

“Micro Matters shows how organisations in India use data to drive sustainable development in healthcare, education, disaster preparedness, women’s empowerment, and agriculture. With India recognised by many as representing the interests of the Global South both within and beyond the G20, there is no better time than now to integrate the principles of D4D into the global development agenda,” he added.

Trending news

Paytm boss Vijay Sharma says he’s never watched ‘Sholay’ and Twitter is shocked

You got 90 Day’s Trial of

Ad-Free Experience

You are already a Moneycontrol Pro user.

Computer chip money underwriting ‘woke’ agenda, Republican senators say

Requiring some recipients of the $39 billion to offer child care and encouraging the use of union labor are elements of the CHIPS and Science Act funding guidelines announced Tuesday.

Loading....

Share this Article

Give this Article

You can share 5 more gift articles this month.

Anyone can access the link you share with no account required. Learn more .

Subscribe to gift this article

With a Press Herald subscription, you can gift 5 articles each month.

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

It looks like you do not have any active subscriptions. To get one, go to the subscriptions page .

Already a subscriber? Sign in .

WASHINGTON — Republican senators are accusing the Biden administration of using $39 billion meant to build computer chip factories to further “woke” ideas such as requiring some recipients to offer child care and encouraging the use of union labor.

The administration has countered that these elements of the funding guidelines announced Tuesday will improve the likelihood of attracting companies to build the semiconductor factories and people to work there – a key challenge that could determine the program’s success. It sees the guidelines as a starting point for working with companies to ensure value for taxpayers.

President Biden speaks during an event to support legislation that would encourage domestic manufacturing and strengthen supply chains for computer chips in 2022, in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus in Washington. Patrick Semansky/Associated Press, file

The tension is an example of the partisan mistrust that can arise in Washington even on an agenda item that lawmakers from both parties say is vital for U.S. national security. Republicans say the administration, in implementing the law, is trying to squeeze in priorities that please the Democratic base. They also argue that the guidelines will increase the cost of constructing semiconductor plants and will poison any sense of ongoing trust.

“What President Biden is doing by jamming woke and green agenda items into legislation we pass is making it harder for him to ever get legislation passed again,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who voted for the law.

But in the grand scheme, administration officials say, the guidelines can help to address two fundamental challenges to the government’s plans to transform the United States into the world leader in producing advanced computer chips: The companies need skilled labor and they need innovations that can reduce production costs.

If the investments are going to succeed, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said, the companies must find and train tens of thousands of workers, from welders to electrical engineers. More importantly, the industry needs scientific breakthroughs to halve the cost of making chips so the U.S. can compete with Asia, Raimondo told The Associated Press in an interview before the guidelines came out. Advertisement

“Innovation happens when you go to solve big fat problems like cutting the cost of chip production in half,” Raimondo said. “That’s what we have to do.”

The money for the factories comes from the CHIPS and Science Act that President Biden signed into law last August. It includes $11 billion for research, in addition to the $39 billion for building advanced computer chip factories. Tax incentives bring the total investment to $52 billion.

Chips are integrated circuits that are embedded in a semiconductor, a material – notably silicon – that can manage the flow of electric current. The terms “chip” and “semiconductor” are often used interchangeably. Computer chips are used in everything from autos to toys to advanced weapons, making them as fundamental for the digital era as iron and steel were in the industrial age.

Administration officials said the factories could have an easier time attracting workers if child care is provided to parents at an “affordable” rate by companies that would receive $150 million or more in government backing. Similarly, companies seeking the money are given a preference if they use labor agreements for construction, a boost for building trade unions. The White House, in a 2022 executive order, said that can ensure projects are completed on time.

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said no prospective applicant has complained about the child care provision. The official added that TSMC and Samsung – two possible applicants – already provide child care at their facilities in Taiwan and South Korea, respectively.

Researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank focused on national security, described the child care provisions as necessary for the “fabs,” the chip industry’s term for factories. Advertisement

“It is not, as some have wrongly argued, an issue of social policy,” wrote Sujai Shivakumar and Charles Wessner, both at CSIS. “It is a pragmatic move, clearly aligned with the nation’s security interests, to grow the workforce necessary to get the fabs built and producing the chips on which our country runs.”

There are roughly 360,000 jobs in semiconductor production, according to the Labor Department. Announced projects tied to the possibility of government support could add 200,000 more jobs, including 36,000 directly tied to computer chips, according to a report by the Semiconductor Industry Association.

That same report noted that the U.S. leads in terms of designing chips and the equipment to manufacture them. But more than 70% of the chips produced globally come from China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea – an economic and military weakness for the U.S.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the mandates for accessing government support would raise the cost of completing the factories planned by Intel, Micron and Wolfspeed, which plans to make silicon wafers in his state.

“What we’re beginning to do is discount the value of the investment that we’re making,” Tillis said. “I think that what we’re doing is social engineering.”

Support for the computer chips legislation was bipartisan. Seventeen Republican senators joined with Democrats to back the bill. Twenty-four House Republicans voted for the legislation. Advertisement

Raimondo, when asked if the law could get tripped up by politics, said: “You always worry. Washington’s unpredictable. And politics is crazy.”

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., said the practical impact of the guidance is limited because companies likely would have offered child care and relied on some unions anyway. But Young said the administration’s messaging is not going over so well with colleagues.

Young was instrumental in generating Republican support for the bill and worked closely with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in crafting it. The idea behind the proposed investments is “consistent with our free market principles,” he said. “But the communications exercise of the administration as related to these matters is complicating that.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who voted for the bill, said he has exchanged text messages with Raimondo since the guidance came out and told her “that when the administration does things like that, it really undermines our ability to work together in a bipartisan basis to pass legislation.”

Cornyn said he realizes that Raimondo “doesn’t call all the shots,” but he hopes she’s sending the message to the White House about Republican frustration. He acknowledged that he is still evaluating the guidance and trying to figure out “what difference does it make.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he voted to “give us the capabilities that we don’t have,” not the “union agenda” that he sees embedded in the application process.

Graham said Republicans have recourse to make sure the administration knows their objections, possibly taking the squabble well beyond computer chips: “Hold every nominee, make life miserable,” he said.

Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.

Enter your email and password to access comments.

Forgot Password?

Don't have a commenting profile? Create one.

Hi, to comment on stories you must create a commenting profile . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login. Already have a commenting profile? Login .

Invalid username/password.

Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.

Create a commenting profile by providing an email address, password and display name. You will receive an email to complete the registration. Please note the display name will appear on screen when you participate.

Already registered? Log in to join the discussion.

Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why .

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

Send questions/comments to the editors.

« Previous

Enter email address

Nor'easter starting Friday set to end messy, stormy week

Victorian era remains found in sanford identified after 6-year search, over a century since launching its famed boots, l.l. bean sued over a ‘waterproof’ claim, boy struck by passing vehicle while trying to board school bus in south portland, no immediate solution to maine’s sludge problem.

Subscribers

Connect with Us

Press Herald Events

IMAGES

How To Start An Event Planning Business With NO MONEY
How to make money with your event planning business. How to book more brides for your weddin
Pin on Event Planning
15 Steps To Start An Event Planning Business With No Money
How to Start an Event Planning Business With No Money
How to Start Your Event Planning Business with No Money

VIDEO

Monika Michelle Events on Brunswick Biz
New Business Planning
PROMOTING YOUR ALBINISM BUSINESS
Business Planning 2022
Insure your Event Planning business
Business planning

COMMENTS

How to Start an Event Planning Service
The primary duties of full-time or part-time, on-site event planner jobs include: Doing research prior to the big event. Event design and team-building for project management. Finding the...
How to Start an Event Planning Business in 8 Steps in 2023
You can easily set up an event planning business with little to no startup money. If you keep the operation small and work as a sole proprietor, there's no need to register the business or set up a merchant bank account. That said, this route does limit the opportunity for growth.
How to Start an Event Planning Business that Turns a Profit
It's really not that difficult to make money with an event planning business as long as you know what you're doing and aren't afraid to work hard. Event planning is a highly profitable business that requires hard work, dedication, exceptional customer service skills, and effective marketing.
How to Start an Event Planning Business
A social event planning business can make between $10 - $75 per hour, whereas a corporate level event planning business could charge between $15-$150 per hour. An average salary for an event planner employee is around $35,000 annually, with an owner averaging $75,000-80,000. How can you make your business more profitable?
Event Planning Business Plan Template & Guide [Updated 2023]
With regards to funding, the main sources of secure funding for an event planning business are bank loans, personal funding, credit cards, and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest.
How to Make Money From Events
How to monetize an event website. Offer premium experiences. Sell merchandise. 1. Sell sponsorships. Selling sponsorships is the most popular method organizers rely on to generate additional income for money-making events. It can also work well for fundraising events, where some portion of proceeds goes to a charitable organization.
How to Make Money as an Event Planner
Event planning is an investment with a potentially significant return for your client. Consider this when determining your rates and how much money you should charge as an event planner. Remember that when you're in a service business you're selling YOUR time. You have a limited "inventory" of time.
How to Start an Event Planning Business from Home
A Quick Guide to Setting Up Your Event Planning Company: Follow These Easy Steps Start NOW: Get Your Free Event Planning Business Plan Template 9 Secrets to Nail Your Business Name...
How to Start an Event Planning Business With No Money
Event planning is all about helping individuals, groups, organizations, and businesses plan, organize, and execute events. It involves everything from conducting market research and finding a suitable venue to making sure everything goes as planned on the day of the event. The list is exhaustive and varies from one event to the next.
How To Start Event Planning With No Money
Here are some great ideas to help you make money as an event planner today. 1. Freelance Event Planning For Companies Companies in every city plan events. At the very minimum, they plan holiday events every year. However, most companies of 25 people or more, host 2 - 5 events a year. And that's on the low end.
How to Start an Event Planning Business
An event planning business can be a dynamic and rewarding way to make some money and have fun at the same time. It's a $3 billion industry so clearly, your services will be in demand. All kinds of events need planning, from corporate events, to birthday bashes, to wedding receptions, and more.
How Much Does It Cost To Start an Event Planning Business?
Ultimately, it's up to YOU to decide which marketing channels makes the most sense for your specific event planning business. But as a general rule of thumb, you should expect to spend at least $100-$1,000 per month on advertising and marketing expenses. 7. Employee Expenses
How Much Does It Cost To Start An Event Planning Business? (In 2023)
The minimum startup costs for an event planning business: $62 The maximum startup costs for an event planning business: $28,347 The average startup costs for an event planning business: $14,887 Here's a detailed list of an event planning business startup costs: Learn more about starting an event planning business: Where to start?
How to Start an Event Planning Business
Many independent and small event planning firms should be conscious of the various ways to cover their expenses and make a reasonable profit. After all, this will help keep you in business five years from now. Most event planners charge based on the following: Flat fee Percentage of expenses Hourly rate Percentage of expenses plus hourly rate
You Won't Believe the 10 Best Cities for Event Planners
8. San Francisco, California. An eco-friendly meeting destination, San Francisco saw a record 26.1 million visitors in 2018, many for meetings and conventions. This historic, quirky city continues to be a draw for business people looking for a good mix of scenic beauty, cuisine, ambiance, and atmosphere.
20 Profitable Event & Party Business Ideas
Event management is not only an exciting career, but it is also a profitable business opportunity, with endless opportunities, you can focus on social and entertainment events, and corporate events, or become a general event management company. How Much Can You Make? $10,000 — $400,000/month View all 5 case studies Average Initial Investment
6 To-Dos Before Starting an Event Planning Business
At the end of the day, the name of your business doesn't matter " as long as you produce truly memorable events. However, a catchy event business name idea might stick in someone's brain better during an elevator pitch. 5. Do your market research. Before jumping, in I always tell people to understand their market and competitors.
How to Start an Event Planning Business at Home With No Money in 22
22 Steps to Starting an Event Planning Business from Home With No Money. Table of Content [ show] 1. Understand the Industry. According to Inside Business, the event planning industry is expected to grow to 20% with the median income of an event planning being $42,180 a year.
How to Make More Money As an Event Planner
However, not all event planning businesses are created equally. The discrepancy between event planners' salaries is fairly large; for example, while top wedding planners can earn $120,000 a year, the industry average is $44,260. So, how can you boost your business so that you are one of those top-earning event planners?
Party & event planner sector market size US 2022
Published by Statista Research Department , Nov 16, 2022. The market size of the party and event planner sector in the United States was 4.08 billion U.S. dollars.in 2021, up from the previous ...
Plan Your Next Business Event From The Ground Up
It's important to manage a budget for any business event. Some business events will cost more than others. For instance, you could be planning to attend a trade show with your brand. This is a great way for a small business to get a lot more attention. However, it can cost a lot of money.
5 Steps for Planning a More Sustainable Event
You also need to motivate people to give up their cars. Offer them special treatment or a prize for coming by bicycle or on foot. E. g. bicycle maintenance or foot massage. 4. Old news already but ...
How the Bucks and local leaders are making a pitch for the NBA All-Star
"The planning process is the most critical process of any event," said Valerie Daniels-Carter, co-founder and president and CEO of V&J Holdings Co., and another Bucks minority owner.
Tesla 2023 Investor Day: 'Master Plan Part 3' focus on sustainability
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stage to present his "Master Plan Part 3" for the company at its 2023 investor day in Austin, Texas. The company's manufacturing leader, Tom Zhu, revealed that ...
Book on data-driven social development launched at Raisina Dialogue event
Jagannatha Kumar at the Raisina Dialogue 2023 event. A book that focuses on how data is driving social impact at the grassroots was launched during the Raisina Dialogue event on March 3. Titled ...
Computer chip money underwriting 'woke' agenda, Republican senators say
Similarly, companies seeking the money are given a preference if they use labor agreements for construction, a boost for building trade unions. The White House, in a 2022 executive order, said ...