Spring Cleaning for Your Event Planning Business (Part One)
Heather Vickery is the Owner and Event Director of Greatest Expectations Special Events and Weddings, one of Chicago’s most celebrated event planning and design firms. Today, she provides her insights on how to conduct a proper spring cleaning to maximize your event planning business!
Welcome back wedding planners! I hope you have had a nice winter break but now it’s time for busy season! That break seemed to go by fast, didn’t it!? Did you do everything you planned to do? Update your website? Write lots of blog posts? Restock your emergency kit?
Wait … you didn’t? Well, that’s ok! With a little extra organization and a good, solid, plan you can stay on top of your game during busy season and still get ahead!
I love spring! I love the idea that we can emerge from the darkness fresh and ready to do things better than we ever have before! The key to truly kicking the season into high gear is good old fashioned organization – and let me tell you, there are a lot of ways to get organized!
First and foremost, organize your physical space. Clean off your desk, throw out old papers and things that you no longer need (like wedding invitations from events years passed). Make sure your linen sample books are up to date and get rid of anything that you never, ever use! Put a nice smelling candle on your desk and a little inspirational sign. Make the space around you feel welcoming and empowering. This may seem like a silly step but you have been kicking back for a few months and your physical space is cluttered, so is your mental space. Nothing says “open for business” like a well-organized office space.
Next, organize your digital space! That’s right – now is the time to clean up your client files and set up new organizational systems to make you more efficient (and to keep you on top of things). Have you been thinking about moving everything to a cloud-based system like Dropbox or Google Drive (my personal favorite)? DO IT!
Last year I went in and created shared client files in Google Drive. These files house all contracts and important information for each and every event. Now that the clients have access to the documents, they feel more in control and know that they can get answers to anything at any time. It is also a great space for the clients to load things they want to share with me! It saves so much time and energy, not to mention hard drive space!
Beyond that, I’ll bet that computer of yours is running a little slow. Purge all double documents or old files you no longer need to keep on hand. My general rule is throwing out files for events two years after they happen. In order to do this comfortably, I always make sure I keep a list of all vendors and details along with any photos so that I can quickly access any details I might need. But let’s face it, you do not need every email exchange! And get those photos off of your hard drive! Store them in a cloud-based system and back them up on a portable hard drive (this is an important step so don’t miss it).
Stay tuned for Part Two of Heather’s advice coming later this week! In the meantime, discover 5 apps you need for your wedding planning career!
