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How to Work with a Professional Event Planner to Maximize the Experience – Part 2

How to Work with a Professional Event Planner to Maximize the Experience – Part 2

This is the second part of the series “How to Work with a Professional Event Planner to Maximize the Experience.” If you haven’t read the first part, click here to check it out.  

Corporate events are an important part of the business world. They play an integral role in promoting a product, service and/or brand. Sadly, some companies struggle to organize corporate events that can help them meet their event goals. There are many reasons they fail to pull off successful events. Some of them include:

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1.   Careless Allocation of Budget

Budgeting is an important part of the planning process. It isn’t easy for an inexperienced organizer to stick to the allocated budget. But, since the money belongs to the company and not the person who was responsible for organizing an event, they can’t afford to go over budget. Inexperienced event organizers fail to properly allocate the budget to different things like venue selection, food and beverage, décor and entertainment. When they realize that they’ve gone over the budget, it’s too late and their event turns into a mess.

2.   Poor Scheduling

Another common reason for the failure of corporate events is poor scheduling. Poor scheduling happens when an event organizer starts planning late for the event. There are plenty of planning details to focus which is why a lot of time is required to plan a corporate event. If you’re given the responsibility of organizing an event for your company, you should start planning at least three months before the date of the event. That way you’ll have plenty of time to focus on all the planning details. Moreover, you’ll be able to make changes if the requirements of your event change.

3.   Poor Venue Selection

Big corporate events must be organized in open, large spaces. Many times organizers fail to correctly estimate the number of event attendees and end up renting a space that isn’t big enough for the event. The venue becomes too crowded and this leads to the dissatisfaction of the guests. Organizers should always rent a venue after making a proper estimate of the event attendees.

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4.   Miscommunication

A single individual can’t plan a corporate event all by themselves. They need a team to pull off a successful corporate event. However, an event cannot be successful if there’s a lack of communication between the event management team. An event organizer should communicate all the important details of the event to their team members. Everyone should be kept in the loop. If there are any changes, all the team members should be informed about them so that any necessary adjustments can be made.

5.   Not Caring about the Guests

Events are about the guests attending it. If guests leave unhappy, it means that you’ve failed. Small factors can have a major impact on attendees. Your decisions should be based on the experience of guests. This does not mean that you should go over your budget and plan things you cannot afford. It only means that you should care about the requirements of your guests and only spend the money where appropriate.

There are plenty of other reasons behind the failure of corporate events. There’s a simple way you can avoid all the things that can lead to an unsuccessful corporate event: work with a professional event planner. Last time, we discussed the importance of hiring a professional event planner to organize a corporate event and showed how you can work with them. We talked about important documents to review, building a timeline of deliverables and having a consistent communication with the event planner. In this part, we’ll discuss:

  • Knowing the payment options and making timely payments
  • Working with your event planning team from the A/E to the Event Manager
  • Understand quality customer service and what to expect

Knowing the Payment Options and Making Timely Payments

When working with a professional event planner, you must always make the payment on time. An event planner is required to pay all their vendors and staff. They value their relationships with their team and timely payments are critical to maintaining those relationships. If you fail to make the payment on time, the event planner might cancel your contract or seize the planning process until you clear the payment. You should avoid these kinds of issues by making the deposit by the due date and the final payment on the date of the event.

Depending on your event planner, you’ll have different options to make the payment. You may be able to pay in cash or on credit card. If you want to make the payment on credit card, let the event planner know so that they can provide you with a credit card authorization form to complete and submit for the payment.

Working with Your Event Planning Team from the A/E to the Event Manager

Your event planner can manage all the details on their own, but they require your input to ensure that each and everything in the corporate event meets your requirements. Therefore, work with your event planning team from the A/E to the event manager. Make sure that they understand your requirements and if there’s anything you want to convey to them, discuss it with them as soon as possible. If you’re too late, they may not be able to make the required arrangements.

The event manager will be managing all the essential planning details. They’ll take care of the food and beverages setup, entertainment, and manage the staff. So, if you want to make any changes in your corporate event, you should discuss them directly with your event manager. They’ll inform you about any charges (if any) for last minute changes.

Understand Quality Customer Service and What to Expect

Your event planning team will do their best to meet all your requirements and ensure that your corporate event is successful. The more you lay down your expectations and discuss your requirements with them, the better your event will turn out to be. However, it is important for you to understand quality customer service and know what to expect from the event planner. That way, you can hold them responsible for mismanagement. 

You should review the contract and see everything the event planner is entitled to provide you. If you notice that something is missing from the deliverables, you should inform the event planner. If it was listed in the contract, it should be there in your corporate event. If it’s not, then the event planner has to be blamed and they should make up for it by offering you compensation.

That’s all you need to know to work with a professional event planner for maximizing the event experience. Let’s take a quick review of everything we’ve learned in the two-part series. In the first part, we learned that all important documents, including the timeline of deliverables, provided by the event planner should be properly reviewed. If you notice that anything is missing from the deliverables, you should inform the event planner about it. We also discussed the importance of consistent communication. Lack of communication can have an adverse impact on a corporate event, which is why consistent communication is critical to the success of an event.

In this part, we discussed the importance of making timely payments, working with the event planning team and understanding quality customer service. If you want your event to be successful, you should always make the payments to the event planner on time. This is important because they’ve to pay their vendors, staff and other members of the team. Moreover, you should work with the event planning team to make them aware of your requirements and expectations. If any changes are required, you should inform the team about them so that any necessary adjustments can be made. Last but not least, you should understand quality customer service and know what to expect. If anything listed in the contract is not there in your event, you should hold the event planner accountable for it.

Now that you know how to work with a professional event planner, don’t hesitate to hire them for your corporate event. When it comes to professionals, there’s no one else to trust but The Great Event.

We have produced cutting-edge experiences for Fortune 500 companies. We have years of experience in organizing corporate events which allows us to deliver premium quality service. If you want us to organize a corporate event, give us a call and discuss your requirements with us.  We’ll be happy to plan a successful corporate event for you.

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