Expect The Unexpected.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as both an executive event producer and a mother of a toddler, it’s that you should learn to accept that the unexpected is likely to occur, and often at the worst possible time.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as both an executive event producer and a mother of a toddler, it’s that you should learn to accept that the unexpected is likely to occur, and often at the worst possible time.
For all of us who are running around trying to make everything work, here are a few tricks I’ve learned to be always be prepared for anything that comes my way!.
Take A Deep Breath And Change Your Attitude
I always dread waking up to a text from my nanny saying she’s been up all night with the flu and can’t come in that day. It means instead of my stress-busting morning run, I spend my first waking hours trying to cobble together a care plan between my Dad, sister, Mom, husband and me, shifting meetings and sending a team email that I’ll be working from home to “manage” the child care parade that day.
I used to fear this like nothing else, until I learned to reframe my mindset…now instead of stressing over missed meetings, I take it as a rare opportunity to get to spend a weekday with Jack, out and about at the park, away from my desk!
By reframing our attitude when disaster strikes, we are not only better equipped to process and handle the situation at hand, but people around us also respond in a more calm manner.
Pay Attention To The Words You Use
When producing events, I often swap out the word “challenge” for “opportunities for success” and find that it not only makes people smile, but also manifests the concept of a great solution even before one’s been found.
I’ll never forget one very high profile event - it was a high end reception to kick off the White House Correspondent’s Dinner weekend, and not only were many VIP guests and policy makers going to be in attendance, we also were partnering with HBO on the event bringing added pressure (and A list celebrities!)
My team, production agency and I were working around the clock and every weekend to pull off the event and two weeks before the event, I had a strange feeling that something was awry as I hadn’t received a single email from my agency. And then it hit…
Monday morning, I received an email that the production agency had been dissolved over the weekend, emails were deactivated, documents gone, budget vanished!
Nobody on my team had ever had this happen - who could have predicted this from one of our preferred agencies?
Be Proactive … There Is Always Something You Can Do
Rather than lose my cool, and before sharing anything with my stakeholders, I worked on a solution. I called the VP of another one of our most trusted production agencies and asked if her team could take on the other agency’s team as freelancers for the completion of the event so we wouldn’t lose all the work and knowledge the team had built.
After a really long day of negotiating, they agreed, and while we lost a day ramping the new team up in their new setting, we also gained additional resources from the new agency which helped make our event even better!
What more, some of those team members went on to be full time employees for the new agency, so I was able to continue partnering with them in the future. They were not only grateful, they went above and beyond to make sure the event was flawless.
So I challenge you…
The next time you arrive at the airport at 9am when your flight is actually 9pm (yes, this has happened to my husband and I once), will you complain, or make the most of an extra 12 hours you have free?
Expect the unexpected and you’ll live a less stressful life!
Setting A Goal For Your Social Event
Whether you are planning a major corporate event or a social dinner party, there is one question you need to ask yourself before you start planning: How do you want people to feel?
Whether you are planning a major corporate event or a social dinner party, there are three questions you need to ask yourself before you start planning:
What do you want people to Think? How do you want people to Feel? What do you want people to Do?
Set A Specific Goal
Even in social settings you have to get clear with yourself about what the goals are when you’re thinking about what to serve
Is your goal to show off new dishes because you’re a budding chef?
If so, put thought into the complexity of the dish. I once set a goal that I wanted to learn how to braise shortribs in wine. Once I perfected this skill, it was a perfect opportunity to prepare them for a New Years dinner party!Maybe your goal is you want to engage with people you haven’t seen in a while?
Come up with a menu you can put in the oven while guests arrive or make in advance then spend just 10 minutes to finish up. This way, you won’t be stuck behind a stove and can offer each guest a glass of wine and catch up with them. #superhost!
Prioritize Your Goals
Before planning an event, I always lead a prioritization exercise to get clear on the experience we want to create.
People usually want an event to accomplish a lot, but guests have so much competition for their attention and mind space, you can really only take away three things from an event. I know, I know, you want them to remember so much more, but trust me on this one!
Think about the last time someone asked you about an event. How did you describe it? How much detail? Most people are never going to say more than three things, so when I work with people or even when I’m planning my own events I list all the things I want people to think or feel.
After all those ideas are down on a list I can start to prioritize each one. Once I know the three most important things, I can start to put attention on those.
Questions To Ask Before Your dinner party
1. What do you want attendees to feel while here?
This helps you get into the mindset of your guests and reminds you of the reason why you’re hosting the dinner party! If you want them to feel loved, what are you doing to show them this while at your dinner?
2. What are two things you must have and two things you would like to have if time and budget permit?
This helps you prioritize where your focus should be before you allocate time and budget to all the ideas you have.
3. What is the most important part of the environment?
If it’s mood, think through your lighting, scent, music. If you want people to connect, think of your seating plan strategy.
4. How much effort, time, and money do you want to spend?
Paying a venue but means you don’t have to clean your house and they’ll handle the food so you can focus on other details like gift bags, music, speeches, etc.
5. What can you outsource?
Figure out how you can get help, because no matter how awesome you are - no one can do it all.
Want to capture photos at your social event? I started hiring task rabbit photographers to come to my events and take photos with my phone that way I make sure I capture everything without burdening your guests.
My mom has her housekeepers come to dinner parties so they can do the dishes and she can spend time socializing with her guests without worrying about the clean up between courses.
Pro Tips for Planning Women's Events
Women need events where they can access role models, support one another, and hear success stories specific to women.
"We are linked not ranked." - Gloria Steinem
Hosting women’s events helps companies retain female employees, acquire new talent, make new business connections, and increase female employee morale and career development.
Making Equality The New Normal
Women need events where they can access role models, support one another, and hear success stories specific to women. There are many things we can do to make events more women-friendly in addition to hosting women-focused conferences:
Consider setting a goal to have 50% speakers and 50% of your attendees be female
Consider the marketing and graphics you’re using on your event site. Is there good diversity and inclusion represented?
Consider offering travel grants or subsidized tickets to under-represented groups like women to encourage them to attend.
A great way to create a baseline of diversity within your event is by adding questions to your event registration form. Take into account cultural sensitives and labor law based on your the location of your event. Doing so will help you capture needed information.
How do you plan a women’s only event properly?
There is a lot of debate around whether women-only events perpetuate segregation or benefit females. Personally, I feel the offer a valuable experience for attendees to safely share and connect with others like them, make career connections, get inspired, and speak openly.
When planning women’s only events, you should consider whether you are making the event exclusive to women, or women-centric, allowing males allies to attend (and hopefully learn how to support women).
Ask yourself questions around what the goals of your event are which will help guide you to a decision. Some other best practices around hosting women’s events are listed below:
Add a mother’s room so that nursing mother’s can attend your conference.
Consider the hours of your conference and adjust them to accommodate pick up / drop off times for parents and/or offer childcare or a childcare stipend.
Offer pronoun stickers she/her, he/him, they/them, ze/hir, and blank field for people to self-identify.
Choose your colors and vendors mindfully
For a women leadership summit I planned, we were careful to select all women-owned businesses as our vendors and were also mindful not to lean into gendered stereotypes (like focusing on shopping, manicures, and pink/purple).
We featured women-owned businesses in a market place where we served up confections, coffee and healthy treats throughout the day.
Our production agency, videographer and photographer were all female and our female musicians even complimented us that we’d hired female sound technicians!
Without leaning into stereotypes, we featured content relevant to women like a VR experience that featured women in different industries including America Ferrera and other inspiring and diverse females.
We created networking activities like postcards featuring work by female artists that attendees could post around the room with inspiring messages, or mail to someone (postage and adorable mailbox provided by us)
Making Room At The Table For Everyone
In industries that skew heavily male, the male to female participant ratio is often unbalanced and the topics addressed can make women feel excluded from the conversation.
By tailoring an event to a group with shared experiences, attendees can discuss and gain advice without judgement – addressing challenges women face in their respective industries.
Should You Throw An Oscar's Party?
By setting a goal before you start planning an event, you can better prioritize your resources and end up more pleased with the results.
If you pull up Pinterest, the first thing you’ll see when you type in “Oscar’s” is “Oscar Party Ideas” and instantly your screen is full of square after perfect Pinterest square of clever, adorable, insta-worthy ideas.
If you feel overwhelmed, read this NOW before spending another minute or dime on preparations!
As a new Mom, I have found myself getting smarter as an event planner mainly because I simply don’t have the time and budget to do everything I used to for events. This has forced me to change my event planning MO to be goal-oriented.
The results? When you set a goal before you start planning an event, be it social or corporate, you not only are able to better prioritize your resources, but you end up more pleased with the results.
At the end of the day, events should serve a purpose, bring people together, and hopefully create memorable experiences that are worth the investment.
Most people I chat with who plan social events fail to start with a goal in mind. This is where my 10 years experience producing ROI-driven results for Google kicks in and helps me apply this lens towards every event or social function I plan, even if it’s just a casual dinner party.
For those who aren’t use to starting with goal setting, I’ll share some examples below:
1. You want to promote or sell a product:
Believe it or not, Oscar’s parties (like any event) can be a great medium for providing hands on exposure to a new product, so long as it makes sense and ties into the theme of the Oscars.
Have a new product to promote? A friend of mine is promoting a new jewelry line by having a pre-Oscar’s party on Saturday where people can purchase fun new costume jewelry in advance of Oscars parties where people often dress up as glam as possible.
Trying to sell your house? Host an open-house viewing party! People will get to know the home more intimately and envision what their life would be like if they were to purchase it.
2. You want to meet new people:
One of the best ways to meet new friends is through friends you already have. Consider attaching a rule to your invite: each guest must bring a +1 that the host doesn’t know. With new people at your event you’ll likely need some icebreakers or activities to break down barriers.
One fun adult event activity I love is blind wine tasting. Take it up a notch (and your budget down one) …
Ask people to bring: a bottle of champagne, prosecco, cava, or their favorite sparkling wine, covered in a paper bag.
Conduct blind tastings as a fun way to learn something new about your guests and their wine preferences that isn’t too personal.
3. You want to test out new recipes or open some special wine
If you’re a professional chef, or just a home cook, having a party is a great way to practice and perfect some fun crowd pleasing treats. One of my favorites is gourmet grilled cheese (think bluecheese melted with dried figs or buffalo chicken with spicy jack cheese and jalapenos). Or maybe you just need an excuse to try out champagne jello! My husband and I used to go to Napa every weekend and ended up collecting more bottles of wine than we could store in our wine fridge and back up fridge. Having a social event is a great opportunity to open special bottles and share them with friends. This way, you get to taste multiple bottles and get an idea of how they’re aging in your cellar.
4. You want an excuse to dress up
If you’re a new Mom like me, you don’t have as many opportunities to put on the red lipstick, sequins and long gloves that depict Old Hollywood Glam.
Social events like the Oscars (or burning man!) are a great way to play make-believe if only for a few hours. I sometimes ask people to dress up as their favorite celebrity, or their favorite Oscar winner of past Academy Awards and it’s always fun to guess who’s who. And you don’t need to shell out thousands to look red-carpet worthy.
Do what the Celebs do and borrow your couture! Rent the Runway is one great option when it comes to renting jewels and a gown but there are many other options. Bonus points for providing awards for the best dressed or the most close resemblance to a celebrity doppleganger.
5. You just want to have a friendly competition with friends or family
Americans thrive on competition. What’s better than having a few friends over so you have people to compete against when it comes to picking best picture and best actress? If all you’re craving is a little social interaction without too much effort, simply print out Oscar’s Bingo to use as the game.
No time to cook? Pull up the Postmates app and order up award-worthy food delivered straight to your house for free tomorrow!
Forgot the champagne? Postmates will deliver that too!
Need paper plates? You can also have a Postmates courier pick those up for you so you can spend those 30 extra minutes finishing your red carpet look.
For decor, don’t waste money on florals. Simply collect everything you have in your home that’s gold and use it to decorate your “screening room” (pro tip is clustering things of the same color together is an effective decorating tool!), and you don’t even have to cook.
Don’t Forget To Have Fun!
Take some pressure off yourself and hone into what’s most important to you and then focus on the important details to meet your goals. When you are focused, your guests will take note and actually have a more engaging and memorable experience because of it!
Do you have any really great Oscars Party stories or event tips? I’d love to hear from you!
Xx,
Gianna
Key Factors of a Successful Proposal
As event planners, we’re expected to write proposals at a relatively high frequency. Most vary from each other, but I’ve taken what I’ve learned along the way and improved my overall proposal strategy dramatically over the years.
As event planners, we’re expected to write proposals at a relatively high frequency. Most vary from each other, but I’ve taken what I’ve learned along the way and improved my overall proposal strategy dramatically over the years. This has culminated in my pitching to a number of fortune 500 companies for partnership on the launch of my book, The Art of Event Planning.
Last week I wrote a proposal for a potential collaboration with a company I’ve gotten to know well over the years. I sent my new contact all the information I knew she would need to make a decision. We’ve all dealt with potential clients or stakeholders who don’t follow up, but this meeting quickly materialized. Our conversation was a great one, and I felt thankful for the expertise past mentors had imparted. Now, I am sharing my strategy with you, and I hope you hone it to represent your own voice and move mountains!
Establish a level of understanding first
When we collaborate or pitch to new people, we try to ensure that they understand the role we will play in helping them create a goal-oriented event. However, I do think it’s easy to overlook how little a new client might know about the event planning process. Think about it this way, what seems obvious to us, most likely wasn’t fresh out of school.
Maybe the new prospective client assumes that they will sell a certain number of seats at their ticketed conference, at an exact price point, and this bolsters their budget. However, we understand that there are comps and discounts and affiliate codes to be shared, and these affect net numbers. These additional discounts must be accounted for, since the overall budget will likely be less afterwards.
If we can educate our clients on basic strategies in talks before the proposal hits their inbox, then we have already cleared up any foreseeable confusion and we can seal the deal in a prompt manner.
Differentiation
The CEO of Advanced Nanotechnology Solutions, Inc.Hector Ruiz, once said, “Fair and open competition is the only course we know that can lead to meaningful innovation.” This much is true, and studying competing agencies will only help you glean information on what’s working tech wise. While there is an abundant amount of tools at our disposal, knowing which ones to use to sustain a client’s strategy is key. In addition, whether you’re great at reducing budgets or very interested in engagement or have unique strategies for sharing messaging— I implore you to share your super strengths within your proposal. List them first and make sure to leave some points open ended so that you can talk to your client and provide supporting evidence, and avoid overwhelming them with the printed word.
Transparency is key
Finally, sometimes, our clients ask us for things to include in our scope that we don’t have practice with. It’s fine to say no, or ask more questions, or propose a different solution that your agency can handle. The truth is, there is a fair amount of risk in overpromising to a client. We must always air on the side of caution when we go about listing our services, when they are outside of our typical scope of work. Whether it’s a 30,000 person event you’re trying to win, or a fully integrated AI concierge service you’re trying to implement— always remember that your “yes’s” should be truthful. Take your time in answering, and if you realize you can’t accommodate their proposal, it’s okay! The great thing is, there is always a way: it just takes some brainstorming to get there.
Finally, I’d love to hear your tips for scribing winning proposals. Since I am learning everyday, I will continue to share. I hope you do too!