My first real event.

[jackdaniels]

So, on Saturday i attended my first "on my own" real client event.
We talked over the phone, and at the begining she didnt like the prices.
It was for a sweet 16 party, (hispanic sweet 15 actually).
So i offered her a small package she couldt refuse.
This is what it was.

4 Hours of Limouse (at our cost, so i did not make any money)
2 hours of free unlimited pictures (digital and send them on CD, so no actual cost for me)
and the deal was that I was going to setup a small "studio" on the party with a small and cool background and there is where i was going the make my money.
I thought, Ok, if she goes with someone else i lose, so i offered this like that and make money on the "kiosko studio" that i setup, and sell a few pictures @ $15 each.

So when i arrived, first of all it was a very small ass church
Then, she didnt mention that they where super super religious, I dont have aaaaanything against religions, but you know stereotypes, everyone says that they dont like to spend one cent.
So after that there where like 15 adults at the most on the "party"
and the rest where children running around. So i setup my ministudio and told my girlfriend, so when they come asking about this, you tell them this and that, and everything.
Not a single one came to the ministudio to ask for #**&@@#^Y%&@
So I went to the tables with a loooot of business cards and told them, Hello bla bla bla, this is what we are doing, and this and that, if you have an upcoming party give us a call bla bla, and told them about the pictures at the kiosko

At the end of the night 1 single pictures of $15 was sold

And the limo was late for 5 minutes, and the lady started to tell me, you better give me this 5 minutes extra, and i was like
so stereotypes or not.
What went wrong?
was it my fault?
did i do something wrong?
The truth is, I really lerned a lot from this

[ltressel]

These are your mistakes:

1) When you meet your clients, you have to be ready with questions like:
a) What is your budget for the event?
b) How many people do you intend to invite?
c) Their vision of the event
d) What services do they need? Limo, photography, DJ, decorations,
catering, venue, video, etc.
e) Basic Who, What, Where, When questions

2) You came in to this without any knowledge of what event planning is
about.

3) You have no network of vendors. Do you actually have a rolodex of Limo
services, DJ companies, Bakeshops and Caterers, Photographers, Florists
etc?

4) Other personal skills to improve on: communication skills ( base on your
posts, it's pretty poor), organizational skills, negotiating skills, sales skills,
presentation skills, interviewing skills. You need to improve these to better
run your business.


Remember you are suppose to make the event easy for people. Keep your things in line so the event is stress free for your client and also keeping your vendors i.e. DJs, florists, photographers, caterers honest, reliable, and dependable professionals.

Pick your clients well. It sounds to me that you pushed your sale in desperation and you tried to recoup you loses by selling $15 pictures that backfired. They weren't paying customers to begin with. You've already lost the value of your services as soon as you offered the limo for free.

Sorry it turned out that way-but being novice and ignorant of your business got the best of you. Research and educate yourself before you go further.


LT

[jasaunders]

Your main problem is that you gave everything away for free. When you say it was no cost to you... there is a cost to you, you are giving time and effort and taking on risks; one of those risks was realized. By providing the limo free, you are responsible if the service fails (which it did in a way by being 5 minutes late). If the limo didn't show up at all, you have a lot of liability. Same thing with the pictures. Even if you provide them at no cost, you have a responsibility to deliver on your promise.
And in general, I think it was an awful decision to do this event with your only premise of making money being that you needed to charge the guests. You should be making your money in this situation from the person throwing the party, not their guests.

Valuable lessons hopefully you will learn from for next time.

[jackdaniels]

These are your mistakes:

1) When you meet your clients, you have to be ready with questions like:
a) What is your budget for the event?
b) How many people do you intend to invite?
c) Their vision of the event
d) What services do they need? Limo, photography, DJ, decorations,
catering, venue, video, etc.
e) Basic Who, What, Where, When questions

2) You came in to this without any knowledge of what event planning is
about.

3) You have no network of vendors. Do you actually have a rolodex of Limo
services, DJ companies, Bakeshops and Caterers, Photographers, Florists
etc?

4) Other personal skills to improve on: communication skills ( base on your
posts, it's pretty poor), organizational skills, negotiating skills, sales skills,
presentation skills, interviewing skills. You need to improve these to better
run your business.


Remember you are suppose to make the event easy for people. Keep your things in line so the event is stress free for your client and also keeping your vendors i.e. DJs, florists, photographers, caterers honest, reliable, and dependable professionals.

Pick your clients well. It sounds to me that you pushed your sale in desperation and you tried to recoup you loses by selling $15 pictures that backfired. They weren't paying customers to begin with. You've already lost the value of your services as soon as you offered the limo for free.

Sorry it turned out that way-but being novice and ignorant of your business got the best of you. Research and educate yourself before you go further.


LT

Well, she actually called just to get limo prices.
I was the one that told her about the pictures because she said she had a cheaper price.
I sold it as a package. She didn even had a budget.

They where expecting around 50 people for the event and only like 15 showed up.
They only wanted pictures and limo, so i couldt offer anything else.
She did the decoration herself, which i didnt know until saturday

I already have vendors for the services. The limo for example is one of them.
I worked as a fotographer for some time. I did a wedding a while ago for a friend and was perfect. So thats why i offer photography.
For the rest, i have several vendors that i can rely on.

Now, about the skills that all of us need to have to develope different business what can i tell you?
business skills in general need to be developed through the course on doing them, so ill be improving them.
Selling skills? im not the best salesman but have a couple of tricks. I sell Auto insurance now for a company.

You are right. Next time will be better.
Now i know i have to ask every single question in many different ways to get a better picture of the event.

Thank you very much for your comments

[jackdaniels]

Your main problem is that you gave everything away for free. When you say it was no cost to you... there is a cost to you, you are giving time and effort and taking on risks; one of those risks was realized. By providing the limo free, you are responsible if the service fails (which it did in a way by being 5 minutes late). If the limo didn't show up at all, you have a lot of liability. Same thing with the pictures. Even if you provide them at no cost, you have a responsibility to deliver on your promise.
And in general, I think it was an awful decision to do this event with your only premise of making money being that you needed to charge the guests. You should be making your money in this situation from the person throwing the party, not their guests.

Valuable lessons hopefully you will learn from for next time.

You are right. Free is not the best way.
Actually they didnt wanted to spend much money. They did many things very very "money saving" and the party wasnt very good
Anyway this will help me improve for the next time.
I appreciate your comment,
Thank you very much

[saurabhbhide]

You just got the wrong first client.

This happens when you don't have enough publicity. There might be many small events coming up in the town who need event managers, but don't know about you.

If there is a billboard in town, rent it and put up your poster. I'm sure you will recover the expenses, because you will get the kind of clients you are looking for (people who need an event manager - not a cheap limo+photography deal) .

And congratulations about doing your first event.

Every freelancer/entrepreneur gets clients asking for cheap deals. But once your business is established and gets regular sales, it won't hurt to turn these people away. In the beginning, you have to deal with this. Don't let it turn you down at all.

[jasaunders]

You are right. Free is not the best way.
Actually they didnt wanted to spend much money. They did many things very very "money saving" and the party wasnt very good
Anyway this will help me improve for the next time.
I appreciate your comment,
Thank you very much

If they didn't want to spend the money, you shouldn't have taken on the lcient, you really had nothing to gain here and everything to lose.

[brianaaron]

Quinceañera it is 15th year olds birthday in the hispanic culture, a very religious thing. it is like someone telling the world their daughter is a women. seriously though you did right by getting the sale. just really bad client first time. you could always have a minimum contract, say if i do not sell 10 - 15 dollar pictures, you pay me 150 for my time.

[Unreal030]

You just got the wrong first client.

This happens when you don't have enough publicity. There might be many small events coming up in the town who need event managers, but don't know about you.

If there is a billboard in town, rent it and put up your poster. I'm sure you will recover the expenses, because you will get the kind of clients you are looking for (people who need an event manager - not a cheap limo+photography deal) .

And congratulations about doing your first event.

Every freelancer/entrepreneur gets clients asking for cheap deals. But once your business is established and gets regular sales, it won't hurt to turn these people away. In the beginning, you have to deal with this. Don't let it turn you down at all.

I disagree with your first paragraph, agree with the rest. Well..the billboard thing im split on, thats a bit of an iffy one, but thats his call.

After every sentence relaying a problem in the original post..a few things stood out in my mind.

Bluntly,

1. You were not Prepared.
2. You did not think ahead.
3. You need to learn how to "talk" with your customers (albiet this comment is fuzzy at best as I was not able to hear your initial conversation, but thats my current impression)
4. You did not do your research and ask enough questions.

If you are going to have business cards, you need to set them up in places of interest pre-event. An example would be an event where there was DJ service and alcohol. You put a stack on the counter by the bartender, bar areas are high traffic, they will pick your card up. If someone requests a song, or comes up while your DJ'ing (this is merely an example, I do not know if you have DJ services) give them your card even if they do not ask for it.

Depending on the situation going out of your way to go to groups of people and try and hand out business cards could go wrong, and considering the situation I do not think that was the best route. Now if you had had more traffic at the photo booth then you would've handed out a card with every person (or couple, whatever) who left that booth.

The key to event planning is knowing your customer and your customer is two things:

The host
and the
hosted.

You should have known how religious.
You should have known how many people were coming, and if possible, how many kids and how many adults.
You should have scouted out the location for the event at least a day before the event, the layout, so you know if its big or small, and just for general referencing.

You focused your profit on a specific facet while assuming that facet would perform well, i.e. the photo booth.

You also, and this is hard to judge since I didn't hear the conversation, "bargain binned" with the woman who called and lost a lot of potential profit.

Now there could be 1 or two problems with this.

Either you need to find ways to get the same quality services at a lower price (networking, doing favors for the businesses like the limo service or saying if you give me this discount I ensure to be a long term customer and can get you a lot of business, can reference you specifically to guests, etc)

or

you need to learn how to better persuade people to your way of thinking, make the value of your services seem like a better deal then is being percieved.

There are several books I suggest you check out:

Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want
by Dave Lakhani

How to Win Friends & Influence People (Paperback)
by Dale Carnegie

Those above two are very important, your business is all about the people, social aspects, you need to know how to schmooze.



Event Planning : The Ultimate Guide to Successful Meetings, Corporate Events, Fundraising Galas, Conferences, Conventions, Incentives and Other Special
by Judy Allen


The Business of Event Planning: Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Successful Special Events
by Judy Allen

These last two are from a very professional event planner.

Some more are:

Marketing Your Event Planning Business: A Creative Approach to Gaining the Competitive Edge
by Judy Allen (Author)


Time Management for Event Planners: Expert Techniques and Time-Saving Tips for Organizing Your Workload, Prioritizing Your Day, and Taking Control of Your Schedule (Hardcover)

Start Your Own Event Planning Business: Your Step by Step Guide to Success (Start Your Own Event Planning) (Paperback)
by Krista Turner


I have purchased all of these books but the last 3 through Amazon.com in the past, they all have high customer ratings and are top sellers in their categories on amazon.com. I vouche that they are all excellent books. Otherwise, you might be lucky enough to find at least some of them at your local Barnes & Noble and you can skim through them. I believe you can also see a few select pages+table of contents online on the amazon page for that product.

Best of luck.

[syia]

there is always the 1st time.. I already make 37 mistakes.. when I got my big break

[jackdaniels]

WOW, great information guys!!
i really like to get aaall the feedback as possible.
Thanks a lot.
I need to improve many aspects of my business.
Thanks