Earlier this year I was lucky enough to attend Event Solutions Ideas Factory in Las Vegas.  Over several days myself and AAWEP Director, Kylie Carlson enjoyed workshops, seminars and presentations from some of the industries most influential and inspiring people.  Event Solutions will take place again next year in late February and if you can make it I highly recommend attending.

You can stay up to date with news about the Ideas Factory and what is new and happening in the industy by subscribing to Event Solutions E News here.

Enjoy!

Before I give you this all important magical tip, I have to be upfront and honest and say that I am not good at following it, yet.  However, I am hoping that by declaring my intentions here, I will come to embrace it.

Over the last week I have read several similar posts, which have discussed how to manage your time.  Within one of them, there was a very simple tip.  As soon as I read this tip, I knew it was the key for me.  I knew that not doing this thing, was the cause of my working longer hours to get things done and the cause of me often feeling mentally numb during much of the day  The tip involved practising restraint in how often you check and respond to emails and Social Media posts.  Not something I hadn’t heard before, but by relating it back to the energy you have for concentrating on work, it hit a nerve with me this time.

I don’t spend huge amounts of personal time on either email or Social Media, I use both primarily for business, as you probably do too.  So how can I be suggesting that we cut back?

Ok, before you have a panic attack or think I have gone mad, I am not suggesting that your commitment to using either medium changes.  For me it can’t; I will be out of business very quickly if it does.  However, what I have come to understand that I absolutely must do, is stop letting spending time on these platforms, drain me of the energy I have for other work.  Sound like you too?

How do we do this?

The answer is the best part and where it gets simple – my tip for managing your time and conserving energy for ‘work’, is to delegate times of the day for responding to email and attending to social media commitments.  Currently, I flick constantly between what I am working on, my inbox and my Twitter and Facebook pages.  I expect many of us do as the technology is quite addictive in that way and is training us to not be able to focus on the one thing for long periods of time.  Flicking from your work to emails etc. becomes a habit and I for one find it quite hard to resist.   But what I have realised is that it is also mentally draining and requires me to be constantly re-focussing my attention, as I respond to new emails and posts.

So I am putting myself on a diet and if you are like me, I encourage you to give it a try too.  The diet is simple.  Assess your day and what would work best for you and then set 2, or 3 if you need to (but no more), times of the day, for attending to email and social media.  I am going to start with 3 because my working day tends to be spread out from early in the morning until early evening.  If you work a normal, 9-5 day, 2 times should be sufficient.

I am starting this today.  Whilst the tip is simple, I expect it is not going to be easy…like breaking any habit I and you if you join me, are going to have to be disciplined.  But I am determined.  If you are too…drop by over the next week and let us know how you are going and if you have a tip to share we would love to hear from you.

If you have been looking for a handy mobile tool to take your event planning to another level, industry heavy weight Howard Givner has come to rescue with a very handy app.  Super Planner is amongst the most in-depth mobile tools on the market today for iphone/ipad and the good news is that there is a Blackberry version on its way too (May 15th).

So what is Super Planner?  Super Planner is a business app for the professional event planner.  It provides a variety of planning tools including calculators for venue capacity, staffing, catering, staging, projection and dance floor, as well as useful tips.  Its key features are Food and Beverage, Audio Visual and Venue Capacity;; basically what every planner needs to be a ‘super planner’ all at your fingertips.

Ok let’s break it down to see exactly what you get with the app:

• Room Capacity Calculator – Great for calculating the size of the room you will require, or use it in reverse to work out how many guests and in what configuration, you will fit in a specific room size.
• Staffing Calculator – Love this one!  Just enter the number of guests expected at your event and let the app work out your staffing requirements.
• Catering Calculator – Calculates quantities for both food and beverage.
• Staging Calculator – Calculates the recommended stage height based on room size and provides you with a staging diagram.
• Dance Floor Calculator – No one likes a squishy dance floor.  This function calculates the size you need based on the number of guests you expect.
• Projection Calculator – This one is very handy for those of us who are just a little technically challenged.  This app will make calculating things like screen height and where your first and last rows should sit, so much easier.

The app also includes:  Speaker Prep Tips, Pricing Conversions, PowerPoint Design Tips, Projection Tips, Table Grid and Place Setting.

Super Planner is perfect for anyone working as a planner.  What I love about it is that it allows you to calculate on the run and whilst you are in the spaces you intend working in.  It is the perfect addition to the mobile office, without having to add another piece of equipment to your handbag.  I am Peronally looking forward to the Blackberry version.   Check out the Demo here and if you have used the app let us know, we would love to share your reviews with our readers.

Recently a fellow business owner and I had a brief conversation about the pros and cons of relying on Facebook as a marketing tool.  During the ocnversation we were both reminded that whilst we have all of these great new tools for doing business online, there is still a place for traditional sales and marketing in business.

I have been using Social Media as the primary marketing tool for one of my clients for over 12 months now and in that time I have seen her business grow dramatically, so I can definitely speak to more pros than cons about mediums like Facebook. But to say that the growth of the business has come about solely because we started using Twitter and Facebook, would be ignoring the bigger picture. The fact is that growth has come from a combination of things including;

• Improved services
• Better customer service & leads processing
• Enhanced website features
• Stronger brand
• Social Media Strategy

One of the things that can be tempting when you first start out in business is to rely too heavily on Social Media to bring you business. This is easily done; it’s easy to use, relatively cheap to use and with a little effort and gentle pressure on your existing networks, possible to gain a strong number of followers quickly. If you do this however you are more likely to find that the only thing that is growing is your number of followers and the amount of time you spend keeping up with them.

Too often I see small businesses whose followers on social networks are not their potential customers. Time and again when I look into the names behind my client’s lists I find friends, family, competitors and others wanting to work in the same industry. There is nothing wrong with this, but if you are not reaching your customers and potential customers, your social media presence is not going to help you grow your business, regardless of how good you are at posting, commenting and following others.

I am not suggesting that you give up on your Social Media strategy, in fact having a strategy is an important part of ensuring you are reaching your potential customer and having a broad list of followers is a great networking tool.  Think of Facebook like a big networking event.  You can walk into a networking event and meet 20 people but you many not connect with a customer.

But where your pool of people to network with at an event is limited, social media offers an almost endless supply of people to connect with.  The key is to get a bit clever about who you are talking too. You can’t wait for your customers to to find you. You have to go out there and find them. Sales has almost become a ‘non-word’ in this world of social networking, but it’s what everyone in business is after and it’s one of the things you need to be good at too. Being a witty and engaging Facebook poster is not enough.

My first tip is to sit down with a notebook and spend some time thinking about your ideal customer. Give them a name and write a bit of a bio about them. What do they do, where do they hang out, what do they read, listen to, watch? By doing this you will have a clearer picture in your mind about where you might find your customer and how you can connect with them via social media. If you haven’t a clue or haven’t had a customer as yet, this is your first step. Research the market and discover who it is who is going to want your services/products. If your potential client is broad, profile two or three and start from there. A different strategy may be required for each target market type.

For e.g. if you sell ‘hip Gum Boots’ you might head to the Triple J Facebook and Twitter pages to connect with festival goers who are going to love your boots. But you may also need to consider other avenues for connecting with your customers. Do you need a presence at Festivals, or should you be selling your boots through retailers who already have as their customers your target market? If this is the case you may need to consider attending Trade Shows. If you have a great new product that women are going to love, get it out there. Consider packaging it up as a gift and sending it to the editors of the magazines your ideal customer’s read or give some away to girlfriends/daughters of girlfriends with a bunch of your business cards and ask them to hand out your details to anyone who comments on it.

These are just examples and what will work is different for every product/service, which is why you need to spend time getting to know your ideal customer. Facebook and Twitter are great tools for building your brand presence and driving traffic to your site. But good old fashioned marketing and sales techniques have not become obsolete. Sometimes you will have to pound the pavement and play the Public Relations game to get noticed and sell your wares.

Here at WEP we are off to Blog Bootcamp and we want you to come along for the ride!

I write blogs and sales copy every day for other businesses, but as evidenced by the date of last post here, keeping up with my own blog, is another matter.  Like many people, I had high expectations for my blog when I started it and I still really believe in the power of a blog to connect with your target market.  A blog, like Facebook and Twitter are excellent tools, particularly for those of us whose businesses are entirely online.  You can’t pop into my office and meet me (well you can, but you will find me sat in a corner of the living room, soon to become my bedroom, in my over 100 year old house which is currently undergoing major renovations), so my blog is my shopfront and the place where I display my expertise and personality. 

So when I am absent from it – what does that say?  Enough said!

If you feel the same about your blog, or even if you are doing quite well, but feel you could take your blogging to another level, you might benefit from joining me on the Pro Blogger 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge – the WEP Blog Bootcamp, which kicks off on Monday 23 May (Sign up at any time prior to 19 May and receive your workbook immediately, so you can start planning your progress through the challenge).

Our Bootcamp is based on the Pro Blogger Ebook/Workbook and so far 1000′s have worked through it, to help them get their own blogs in to shape (you can read some reviews here).  By joining us you will receive the workbook at the discounted price of $14.95, but because we believe every challenge is made easier and much more fun when you have company, we want to build a support network around the month long process.  As you complete the exercises we want you to let us and your fellow bloggers know about it, so we can offer feedback, support and guidance.  The idea is to wrap a big warm hug around the challenge so we can do it together and keep each other inspired (and perhaps honest).

Every day for 31 days WEP Blog Bootcampers will:

• Complete the task for the day
• Receive an email from me with some additional guidance about the task and a link to my own entry
• Post a link to your completed task (blog) on the WEP Discussion board

We also want to encourage all participants to get behind each other by commenting to each other’s posts and linking to them via Facebook, Twitter etc.; this about promoting each other in a really positive way.

As Darren Rowse explains via the Pro Blogger website;

“The idea is simple. By the end of the 31 days you’ll have learned 31 aspects of blogging and put them into practice. It is designed not only to fill your head with knowledge ABOUT blogging but give you some concrete things to do to actually DO something with the knowledge.”

Participating in the Project with WEP is absolutely free and your only expense is the $14.95 for the Pro Blogger workbook (normally $19.95).  To join us and receive your workbook, simply contact me for more information.

Yesterday I encouraged you to ‘be inspired’.  Today I wanted to share with you a profile I wrote for  Wedding Reporters featuring celebrity Wedding Planner Jung Lee.  Whether you are a bride, or someone working in the industry, I can guarantee Lee is someone to ‘be inspired’ by.  Just writing the article inspired me to create my favourite Mood Board of the year so far. 

Happy Day!

One of the things that I love about what I do is that it gives me a legitimate excuse to seek out inspiring things.  I particularly enjoy stumbling across images of pretty things.  Things that are completely frivolous, but that when you look at them, your heart skips a beat.  Whilst my partner marvels at how I manage to call this activity work, I am perfectly happy with devoting some of my time each day to the task. 

Sometimes seeing something beautiful just puts me in a good mood, which helps me to work better and give more.  Other times something I see will spark my imagination and become the starting point for a design.  Today two things caught my attention and did both of these things.

These shoes caught my eye the moment I saw them.  I had one of those totally girly moments where I fell in love with a pair of shoes.  It’s the red heels.  I have a thing about red used so cleverly in design.  But there is more than a crush going on here and it is what prompted me to add this image to my inspiration file.  Over the last few weeks I have been playing with a design idea which draws on metallics;  gold, silver, bronze and textures like chain, sequins and pressed metal.  The idea that is forming is part chic, part industrial and it is taking a while to come together in my mind.  This image and the others I have collected will be used to help me define the idea to the point where it works.

The second inspiring thing that happened to pop up in my day was a quote.  I am a little weary of quotes being used excessively on Twitter and in Blogging, but some are just so pure, so inspring, so lovely, that they are never out of place.  This is one I heard for the first time many years ago.  It was such a treat to see it again today;

“Each day comes to me with both hands full of possibilities…”  Helen Keller

It is nice thing to remind yourself of as you step up to face another day. 

If you work for yourself, even if you don’t, it can be really tempting to skip feeding your creative soul.  Hey I am guilty of it too.  When there is work to be done, there is work to be done.  But there is nothing wrong with taking 5, or 10 minutes to inspire yourself; even if it is just to leave the desk, walk outside and take a deep breath.

Last week the world watched as Queensland was devastated by widespread flooding.  As a Brisbane girl who was born near the worst hit areas in the Darling Downs, I have been deeply moved by the tradegy and the overwhelming response and support of the community towards the victims. 

Whilst my heart goes out to everyone who was affected, today small business is on my mind.  As a small business owner I know that something like this has the potential to ruin any business especially a small one.  If you are in Queensland and have been affected by the floods there is support out there and whilst getting back on your feet may seem like a huge challenge, especially if your home has also been hit I want to encourage you to explore all of your options when you are ready to begin again. 

I recommend starting with the Queensland Government website where you will find a handy list of resources that may be valuable to you at this time.  Click here for small business assistance and advice and here for assistance for primary producers and small business.

Lifeline is also offering emotional support to victims, simply phone 13 11 24 (24hrs).