Inspiration Hub

Event planners are a special breed of hard-working, hyper-organized adrenaline junkies. Consistently named as one of the world’s most stressful jobs, the role of event organizer is uniquely challenging — yet equally rewarding for some. Think you were born to be an event planner? Check out these must-have event planning skills to see if you’ve got what it takes.

Feedback is a positive thing. It helps us identify ways we can improve our personal and professional lives, and yet we dread the idea of receiving any form of criticism. Why? According to a New York Timespiece, “Why It’s So Hard to Hear Negative Feedback,” it’s all about how we think — and feel — about it.

For meeting planners, being interrupted by competing priorities is a way of life. But did you know it takes, on average, 23 minutes to refocus your mental effort and energy on a task after being interrupted? (According to a study by the University of California.)

People or organizations who are passionate about something and put their hearts and minds into it, typically also want to leave something behind after their work is done: a best practice, a new approach, a better future for others or the earth … or maybe even create a building, a song, or a work of art. Something that says “I/we were here” and “ I/we tried to leave things a little bit better.” In other words, passionate people and organizations often want to leave a legacy.

Think event planning might just be the perfect career for you? If you love meeting new people, handle stress well, and pay attention to even the smallest of details, then yes — it totally could be. Whether you’re an experienced professional looking to make a change or a student wondering what type of degree to pursue, there are a number of paths you can use to break into the events industry. The first step? Getting the event planning education you need to excel as an event creator.

Breaking into event planning with little to no experience can be a challenge. And it’s REALLY hard to get experience if no one will hire you. Or is it? Hey, I’ve been there. I know the challenges. But they can be overcome with a few tactics, tools, and strategies. In this article, we’ll navigate this event planning career path together and give you the kind of jumpstart to your career you’ve been looking for. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about landing your first event planning position and making the most of an incredibly rewarding career.

When Mark Lipton started researching executive leadership effectiveness decades ago, he came upon an alarming trend: A large number of the founding entrepreneurs he read about had a distinct, unfortunate personality trait — meanness. Many of us have heard stories about cold-hearted behavior of leaders such as Steve Jobs or Henry Ford, but Lipton, an adviser to major corporations, start-ups, government agencies, and not-for-profits, feels that the aggression in leaders — in particular, male leaders — goes beyond a handful of examples.

Have you ever noticed how you may be on your way to your dream job, body or relationship and somehow, you’ve sabotaged yourself? Why would we consciously or subconsciously derail efforts that are bringing us towards what we believe we want? While a few reasons may be that we’re afraid of change, afraid to put ourselves out there, and afraid to shine, there are many other reasons too.

Are you presenting to colleagues, customers, or are you on a stage in front of a large audience? Then you should definitely read this. Why? Because the following 5 mistakes are made by a lot of presenters, even by the most experienced ones. I often see professionals falling into the same traps when it comes to presenting… And although your charisma, your posture and a flawless delivery are the ideal conditions to ensure a successful delivery, if the presentation, which is designed to improve the speech by adding visual impact, is not at all impactful, the audience’s attention will quickly wander around.

There’s nothing more frustrating than when someone refuses to take responsibility for their behaviors and actions-especially when those behaviors and actions caused harm. While we’re often so willing to overlook and forgive an error in judgment or a transgression, we tend to hang onto it more tightly when the person who caused the harm refuses to own it. So, instead of blaming, making excuses, getting defensive, ignoring it or assuming the other person doesn’t need an explanation or apology, take responsibility for the part you played (whether it was intentional or unintentional) and own it.

Interested in a career in events? If you’re lucky enough to secure a job with an event agency, you’ll likely start in the position of Event Assistant. To give you a flavour of what that might entail, we asked Faye Smallwood, Event Manager at Make Events in Cheadle Hulme to describe her day, from waking up to lights out.

Sometimes, you just need to look at leadership from a different angle. In Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights, organizational consulting expert Janet Britcher urges readers to “zoom in and out” with a flexible, open mind when problem-solving, rather than looking at a situation from a single point of view.

At Convening Leaders 2018, Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP, founder and CEO of Insight Event Strategy, and former senior vice president of education and events at PCMA, shared with student attendees five things she wished she had known when she was just starting out:

In the events and hospitality industry, dealing with clients on a regular basis is part of the job. Whether you are a planner, hotelier or supplier, your goal is to make clients happy and do your best to meet their demands. At times, however, the demands become excessive and difficult to manage. This is where it becomes important to maintain a positive client relationship (even if it seems impossible at times), and do your best to keep the client happy while being realistic.

Since I was traveling at least one week a month, I really needed a separate set of toiletries and travel-related gear. Since much of this was on my list, I was able to build up a bit of an inventory while I was out and about—whenever I went to the pharmacy, I’d stock up on travel-sized soaps, lotions, and toothpaste. Because I loved my hair stylist’s hair-care line, I purchased some travel-sized products when I was there for my regular appointment. Even if you’re not traveling for a week or more, start to put aside your clothing in one place as you do your laundry, assuming you won’t wear it in the meantime.

When I began writing Intentional Event Design: Our Professional Opportunity, it was to delve into and provide information on designing events that are people-centric and purpose-driven. The more I wrote, the more I realized it came down to one thing: using meetings to build trust – in the organization, between teams, and between solution providers and their potential clients. To create environments that allow the time and space for conversations is part art and part (neuro) science, and deeply understanding how humans respond to live event environments is our new currency as we build the value of our industry.

That New Year’s resolution to increase your productivity might seem impossible, given never-ending emails to answer and phone calls to make. In his new book The Compass Solution: A Guide to Winning Your Career, pharmaceutical industry veteran, motivational speaker, and The Compass Alliance founder Tim Cole describes these distracting and often mindless tasks as “the storm,” capable of keeping us from true effectiveness at work. Here are three tips from Cole on how to lower your daily anxiety and focus on the tasks that matter most in 2018:

It’s that time of year. People around the world switch from overindulging to planning to get healthier. They head back to work after some much-needed time off, resolving to work harder and smarter next year. And after a busy holiday season, event creators are no exception.

There is a trait that neuroscientist and TED India speaker Vilayanur Ramachandran believes is fundamental to what made human civilization possible by enabling us to learn the complex social behaviors needed to produce civilization, itself. Powerful stuff. These relatively recently discovered neurons are called "mirror neurons" and they are what instill in us the trait of human compassion; the instantaneous ability we have to feel what others are feeling and imagine what they are thinking. Our mirror neurons are activated both when we take an action, and when we see another take that action. If we see someone having a strong emotional reaction, we feel that emotion, too.