I’ve been running events for over 3 years now and I hate to tell you it doesn’t really get any easier! I’ve learnt a lot along the way and made lots of mistakes (and am still making some).
I’ve learnt that the nature of events is some sell well and others will flop. This isn’t all to do with you & your event. BUT there is a lot you can do to give your event the best chance of success. So in this blog I’m sharing some steps to help you plan your next business event; whether you’re delivering a workshop or planning an evening of relaxation these steps will hopefully help.
These steps focus on arranging in person events; online events have many similarities but there are also some key differences so be mindful of that if reading this with an online event in mind.
TL:DR
I won’t apologise that this blog is fairly lengthy – it’s packed with detail for you to use when planning your event. But if it’s too long for you then here’s the quick version (& links to each step):
- Step 1: Why are your running your event? It’s important to be clear on what you’re hoping to accomplish from this event.
- Step 2: Who is the event for? To plan a successful business event you need to be clear on who your audience is.
- Step 3: When to start planning? As soon as possible.
- Step 4: What is on the agenda? Remember you why and who to plan the content & agenda for your event.
- Step 5: When to hold your Business Event? Consider the needs of your audience to plan an appropriate date.
- Step 6: Finding A Venue. Contact many and make sure you understand all the costs involved.
- Step 7: How much to charge? You need to work out a price that suits your audience and that you feel you’re gaining value from.
- Step 8: How to Sell Tickets. You can sell tickets via your own online shop, a ticket sales platform or through direct invoice.
The Detailed Steps
Step 1: Why are you running your business event?
It’s important to be clear on what you’re hoping to accomplish from this event. Here’s a few examples why you may be running an event:
- To showcase your offerings to increase your sales (lead generation)
- To offer your services at a lower price point in a group setting
- To meet the needs of your audience
- To support your business’ goals and vision
- To socialise and thank a group of people
Your business event may be for another reason or be a combination of the above. It is helpful to know why you’re doing it before you start planning. This will help you shape who it’s for and what you’re going to include (& how much to charge).
Step 2: Who is the event for?
So this is the core for planning, creating and promoting anything for your business, not just events but that’s what I’m talking about here.
You need to be clear on who this event is for. Here’s a few questions to ask yourself:
- What are the demographics of your audience? (Age, gender, family, profession, etc.)
- What problems or needs do they have (that your event can meet)?
- What tone & style of events do they enjoy?
- What barriers may prevent them from attending an event like yours?
Once you know why you’re running the event and who you’re creating your business event for, it makes some decisions easier.
Step 3: When to start planning?
The quick answer as soon as possible.
To give your event the best chance of success you want to give yourself as much time as possible to plan and promote it. If you think you’re not going to have enough time then you will need to make some compromises. You may need to push the date out, or change the style of the event.
Step 4: What is on the agenda?
Deciding what to include in your event can be the easiest or hardest part depending on what it is.
There can be a tendency to over deliver and put too much in. This is often true if you’ve not run many events of this type before.
Remember that things often take longer than you think. Plus one of the key features of any in person event is the opportunity to be with others, to chat and mingle so you want to allow a bit of ‘free time’.
The best thing to do is first write out everything you want to include and then build it into a timetable/ agenda.
You can then review it against the following:
- Does your audience actually want everything you’re offering? Have you included anything extra that isn’t necessary?
- Does it meet your “why”?
- Does it suit your “who” and meet their needs?
- Have you allowed enough time for everything, including welcome and close?
- You could consider starting 15 minutes early to allow people time to arrive.
- If you have different activities, is there enough time for people to change from one activity to the next?
- If you’re having speakers have you built in time for questions?
When you’re planning the agenda you also want to consider the tone and vibe of the event. This is harder to plan in, but definitely worth trying! If you want a relaxed and informal atmosphere then having a tight agenda is not going to work. Or if you’re delivering a value packed workshop then content and detail is key.
Step 5: When should your event take place?
So this depends on the type of event and who it’s for. If it’s linked to a specific occasion or date this makes it a lot easier. For example each year I hold a ‘Brew Monday’ small business networking event on ‘Blue Monday’ (the third Monday of January). If you’ve got choice over the date and time then here’s some things to bear in mind.
Deciding the Day & Time
This will mainly depend on who you are hoping to attend.
Here’s some examples:
- A business networking event. Generally this will take place during the week when people are ‘working’. The type of people you want to attend can help determine what time of day to hold it. Eg: a Breakfast Meeting can suit those who work a traditional 9-5 day, but it won’t suit a group of working mums.
Bonus: I’ve learnt that Mondays are generally bad for these type of events. - A Yoga Retreat. For maximum potential of attendees this is likely better to be held at a weekend when more people won’t have work commitments.
Finding the Right Date
Make sure you check what else is happening around that time. Eg: if your audience is a group of mums a date in the school holidays is probably not going to work. Consider what else is happening for your audience; summer & Christmas are generally times that people have less availability. Also check your own diary; will you have time to do all the preparation and to promote it?
Give Everyone Enough Notice
You need to give people enough notice about an event and give yourself time to promote it. How much time will depend on how hard a sell the event is going to be.
Let me explain. If it’s a short, low cost event for an existing engaged audience, who have attended events with you previously, then they probably don’t need too much notice and it’s a fairly easy “yes” for them. (There’s no guarantee on this, and I know from personal experience that even when you think it’s an easy sell it isn’t always.)
If it’s an event to attract a new audience, is an all day event, and/or at a high price point then you need to make sure you are giving plenty of notice and have time to promote & sell the event. These factors can make it harder for people to commit to so you need time for them to consider it and for you to sell it.
Step 6: Finding a Venue
If we’ve ever chatted about events you’ll know that venues are the part of events I find the hardest! Finding the right venue for your event can be a bit of a challenge.
Things you need to consider:
- How many people are attending
- What space do you need for speakers/ activities
- What technology do you need (if any) – eg: visual/audio equipment, wifi, etc
- What catering do you need (this doesn’t have to be from the venue but needs consideration as you may need to bring something additional)
- Any other facilities you need
- What are the accessibility and parking arrangements (think about your audience here and what they may need)
Contact any venue you think may be suitable (& some you’re not sure about!). Also use your network and ask around about where others have held events – there’s often some hidden gems that aren’t well known. Make sure when you’re getting prices that you know what is and isn’t included – you don’t want to be hit with a bill for unexpected extras at the end of the event.
Step 7: How much to charge for your business event?
So this is the big one and the one many of us find the hardest! You need to find a price point that is appealing to your target audience but that you also feel comfortable with. This will be different for everyone, and again depends on a few things!
How much money do you want to make from it?
One thing to consider is how much money you want to make from this event (profit). If the event is to showcase your offerings and increase future sales then making money may not actually be a main factor. Your event may be part of your overall marketing plan, therefore you may be willing to spend money on it, or just break even. If this is the case then a lower price point can work really well.
Warning about free events! You may be tempted to run the event for free to attract people in and this can work really well. One word of warning however is for free events the commitment from the attendees is generally lower – you are more likely to get last minute cancellations and no shows. So if your event is for a small or limited number of people and/or it would be difficult to hold a wait list & fill any short notice spaces, I would warn against a free event. You can never completely prevent cancellations or no shows (life gets in the way!) however people are more likely to think twice if they’ve already paid money.
Calculate Your Costs
To work out your price you first need to calculate your costs (make sure you don’t forget anything!), this would include things like:
- Venue hire costs
- Catering costs
- Speaker costs
- Equipment and materials
- Anything else (note: if you’re offering goody bags you may hope to gain some freebies but I would advise budgeting something for this)
- Marketing costs (are you going to pay someone to help with marketing, are you going to place ads either online or in print, etc.)
Add In Your Time
Now comes the hard bit – your time! Remember your time is valuable, and it isn’t just the ‘on the day’ time, it’s the preparation and promotion time too.
You may want to treat yourself as a “speaker” and work out what your cost for the event would be – what would you charge someone else for you to attend and run their event? And then add some more on for the preparation and promotion time.
Your preparation time will also depend on the type of event. If you’re running a workshop for example then you need time to plan out all the content, put together any slides or workbooks etc. If it’s a more informal event with less content then there’s not as much prep time required.
There’s no right or wrong here and as I said earlier you may decide this event isn’t about making money directly.
Divide It For a Ticket Price
Once you’ve worked out all your costs (including you!) you’ll have a total figure which you then need to break down into a ticket price.
You can simply divide this by the number of people you’re hoping to attend. Eg: £500 total divided by 20 people would equal £25 ticket. But will you sell all 20 tickets?
A better approach can be to work out a minimum number. How many people do you want / need to attend to make the event work? This is about both working in terms of the right number of people to create the style of event you want, but also to make the costs work.
Eg: Minimum number of people 15, would make the ticket price £33.50. If you sell all 20 tickets then you’re making more profit.
Having a minimum is also a good idea. You may decide that if you don’t reach the minimum then you’ll cancel so as not to lose money. Warning! When booking venues make sure you understand any cancellation fees involved.
Is it the Right Price?
Once you’ve worked out a price there’s 2 things to consider:
- Are people going to buy? Does the price work for your audience?
There’s a few factors you can use to help here:
- What have you sold other similar events for?
- What do your competitors sell events for?
- Seek advice & opinions. Talk it through with others; would they pay that price for an event, do they have experience of selling events and at what price point?
- How does the price compare to your other services or products? (This is more relevant if you’re offering this as a lower cost to 1:1 service)
- What feels right for your community?
- Are you getting value from the event?
Let’s be honest you’ll be putting a lot of time and effort into this event, so the amount you’ve budgeted to pay yourself – does it feel right?
Value doesn’t have to be all about money. If you’re running this event to generate leads for the future then the value of gaining people’s contact details and their engagement at the event may be worth a lot more than a monetary value.
You may also feel you’re getting value in other ways – building customer relationships & loyalty or strengthening your community for example. Don’t just consider the money but equally don’t disregard it!
Step 8: How to Sell Tickets
You can sell tickets via your own website (if you have an online shop facility), via a ticket sales platform or direct.
- If you have an online shop where you can sell tickets this is probably the easiest way to do it – you’ll already have payment gateways etc set up and it’s easy to add it in.
- Ticket sales platforms make the process really simple as they’re set up for exactly this reason. Whichever platform you use it will have fees, so do your research and make sure you factor these into your pricing.
Most platforms allow you to choose whether to pass the cost on to the customer or absorb the cost yourself. Again there’s no right or wrong here. If you’re going to absorb the cost yourself then just make sure you’ve factored that into your pricing (you may want to increase your ticket price to reflect this, or accept that it will impact your profit).
Ticket sales platforms can also add the benefit of your event being found by other people who are searching, however I wouldn’t rely on this (I’ve never speculatively searched on Eventbrite have you?!). - You can sell events by invoicing directly after people contact you. This can work for higher price events with a small number of people. One way I’ve done it in the past was by creating a specific contact form on my website for bookings and then sending an invoice (this was for an event with 5 people priced at over £200 per person).
If your event is for a larger number of people or is low cost then this may not be the right way to go. It does create additional administrative work, plus people like the convenience of being able to book & pay at the same time.
Planned your Business Event and Ready to Sell?
Once you’ve made all these decisions then you’re ready to sell!!
I know it feels a lot but it is definitely worth going through these steps to ensure you create a valuable event both for your audience and you. The next big challenge is selling the event and no, I’m afraid one social media post is not going to cut it.
I’ll be sharing more soon with tips for promoting and selling your event but in the meantime do reach out if you’ve any questions or comments on these steps for planning your event. And if you need help planning your event then I’d love to support you, book a Business Boost session with me and we can work it all out together.