General Tips, Your Event Career
2016 New Year’s Resolutions for Event Planners
Last winter, we helped prepare you for the New Year by suggesting some resolutions all event planners can make. We hope that these suggestions helped you get organized, get positive, and get down to business.
Anyone who’s ever made a New Year’s resolution, however, knows how hard they can be to keep. The holidays are always busy and building yourself a new routine around your resolutions can be challenging. Even if you didn’t keep them in 2015, New Year’s resolutions are worth making! Setting yourself new goals is never a bad thing.
2015’s resolutions
At the end of 2014, we suggested some resolutions that we thought might help you feel fresh and prepared to take on a whole new year. Organization and communication were some top priorities on the list.
In 2015, we encouraged you to:
- Gather feedback from your clients
- Clarify and ask questions
- Take big projects piece by piece
- Adopt a positive vocabulary
- Streamline your planning process
Your year in review
Did you give our resolutions a shot in 2015? Lots of people start the year strong and get distracted as the months go by. Don’t feel bad if this was you! Perhaps there were some resolutions you stuck with and others that you let go. Either way, you can try reaching those goals again in 2016!
Maybe you made some resolutions last year and you were very successful? In that case, it’s time to set yourself some new goals! Are there other areas of your planning process that you’d like to improve? Based on the things you did well last year, what would you like to achieve in 2016?
Remember to choose realistic resolutions that you’ll be able to commit to. Your goal should be to achieve new things, not set yourself up for disappointment. The New Year is simply a little extra motivation to set you down the path towards improvement, both personally and professionally.
Plan for 2016!
If you set yourself event planning goals last year, you might have a good idea of which ones you’d like to try again. You might also feel inspired to set completely different goals based on your experiences.
Here are the event planning New Year’s resolutions we’re making for 2016!
1. Try a new planning software
Event planning software isn’t for everyone, but you’ll never know whether you’ll like it unless you try! Many event planners find planning software beneficial, particularly for very large events or ones with many small details. Planning software lets you create seating plans, organize floor plans, keep contact lists, send and share files easily, and keep your to-do lists updated. Don’t settle for the first one you see in a Google search! Look into a few programs and maybe even try a few free trials before you choose which software is best for you. This resolution might be an extension of last year’s goal to streamline your planning process. Good planning software can make things quick and easy!
2. Learn a new technique
Whether it’s a new approach to organizing your client consultation meetings or even just a new color scheme suspected to be popular this season, set out to learn something new this year. The more tips, tricks, and skills you can add to your planning tool belt, the more you have to offer your clients. The best planning professionals are those who understand that even people with experience should never stop learning their craft. Developing your skills each year will help you keep up with trends and evolve as a planner instead of stagnating.
3. Seek out new opportunities
Professional opportunities for event planners come in many different forms. If you’re still a beginner, you might seek an assistantship with a more experienced planner in order to observe and absorb their skill. If you’d like something much more thorough, you might build on your event planning certification by enrolling in a degree program in events management. Perhaps your new opportunity isn’t directly a learning position, even though it’ll undoubtedly still teach you some things? Applying for a new position with a prestigious event planning company might be just the thing you need to evolve as a professional this year.
4. Network with a new professional
As an event planner, you’re used to networking with vendors. Occasionally, however, a planner might come across a particular person whose work they love and whose skills they admire to no end. Maybe 2016 is the perfect chance to approach that photographer you’ve always wanted to do a styled shoot with, or the well-known décor specialist from the city that recently moved home to start a second brand of her successful business? Approaching new professionals and expanding your business contacts is a great way of networking in the New Year.
5. Get your work published
Maybe 2015 held nothing but success for you! You organized gorgeous dinners, planned luxurious weddings, and expanded your business contacts two-fold. It might be time to spread your name a little wider now that you’ve got the experience to back it up. Consider investing time in 2016 into getting your work published. Research blogs, websites, magazines, and perhaps even television shows, and see what their requirements are for submissions. Organize a styled shoot, collect photos from weddings you planned last season, and use your hard work to benefit your reputation and widen your client base.
Tell us about it!
Did you make one of our resolutions in 2015? Tell us about your experience in the comments below! Did you make your own event planning resolutions last year, or do you have some planned for this year? We’d love to hear about those too! Happy New Year!
