Business, General Tips, Your Event Career

How to Define The Objectives for Your Event Planning Company

If you’re reading this article, you’ve likely completed your event planning certification training. Now, you’re ready to start your very own event planning company and take the industry by storm. If this sounds like you then you’ve come to the right place! Today, we’re going to break down some top tips for successfully navigating one of the most important steps for starting a business: defining its objectives.

What Are Company Objectives?

The objectives for your event planning company are basically the goals you want your business to constantly achieve. They make up the vision of your company; the reason why it was created in the first place. You never want to launch an event planning business without having a clear set of objectives in mind. Otherwise, you’ll be going in blind. As a result, you’ll find it difficult to set yourself on a path towards success – simply because you won’t really know what it is you’re striving for.

Now, there are many who believe that the top objective for all businesses is quite simple: to make a profit. This makes sense, since without profit, your business is unlikely to succeed in the long run. However, we advise you NOT to focus solely on this objective alone. Remember: the event planning industry is service-based. Your job, after all, will be to work with others and make your clients’ dreams come to life. If you approach your business only wanting to make money, the people around you will quickly pick up on this. And trust us, the impression they get won’t be a good one.

So, while making a profit is definitely a priority to strive for, your event planning company should definitely have other objectives as well.

Defining Objectives For Your Event Planning Company: Questions to Ask Yourself

The best way to determine the kind of objectives you want your event planning company to have is to first understand what you want your ideal business to be. So, grab a pen and paper, find somewhere cozy, sit down, and do some brainstorming! Here are some insightful questions to ask yourself, in order to get a better idea of the kind of business you want to run:

• What kind of event planning services do you want to offer clients?
• Who is your target clientele?
• Do you want to strictly operate locally? Or would you like to expand your client reach and work beyond your local area, too?
• Do you want your business to have a niche? Moreover, do you want this niche to be reflected in your services, your mission statement, etc.?
• What do you want your brand to be?
• What is it that you want your business to achieve, both on a personal level and for your clients?
• Would you like to hire on staff someday?
  • If so, what steps would you need to take in order to do this eventually?
  • Would you ever want to eventually invest in a business office/location?
• How much money would you like your business to generate on a yearly basis?
• How do you plan to market your event planning company?
• Are there any social justice issues that you feel strongly about and would like to incorporate into your business somehow?

Common Company Objectives

Now that you’ve gone through these questions and have your answers in mind, it’s time to categorize them! This way, you can group similar goals together and better understand how (and why) they’ll benefit your business.

When it comes to “common company objectives”, it’s worth it to point out that one business’s goals might very well be different from another’s. After all, it all comes down to YOU – what you want your company to do, which services you wish to provide to clients, and the overall impact you want your business to make. That being said, there are definitely some standard objectives that most companies have in common. According to Your Article Library, the 5 most important business objectives can be broken down into the following categories:

1. Economic Objectives 
2. Social Objectives 
3. Human Objectives
4. National Objectives
5. Global Objectives

First, Economic Objectives can be seen as the goals that help your company itself to thrive. Making a profit, client acquisition and retention, and the quality of services you offer would all be examples of this objective. Second, Social Objectives are considered the goals that help your company provide the best possible service for the public. Next, Human Objectives would be the goals that help your company provide the best possible experience for employees (if/when you begin hiring employees for your team).

Fourthly, National Objectives are goals that help your company fulfill national goals in some way. For example, by providing your services to all clients equally, fighting for social justice, etc. your event planning company would be fulfilling this kind of objective. Lastly, Global Objectives refer to the goals that help make your company’s services accessible on a global scale. One prime example would be offering virtual planning services in order to make your business accessible to international clients.

Of course, you don’t HAVE to create all of these 5 kinds of objectives when starting your event planning company. You can pick and choose the ones that best tailor to your business. But there are some real gems on this list, so they’re definitely worth considering!

4 Tips for Achieving The Objectives of Your Event Planning Company

Once you have a clear understanding of the objectives you want your event planning company to have, the real work is successfully achieving them on a consistent basis. So, how can you do this? Here are 4 tips to keep in mind!

Tip #1: Create a plan of action for each goal.

An objective is all fine and dandy, but without an actual action plan to make it happen, it’s nothing but a concept. So, go through each of your objectives individually. Ask yourself what you’ll need to do in order to achieve each goal successfully. From there, write your roadmap to success for each objective. This way, you can refer back to it along the way and make sure you’re on the right track.

Pro Tip: In your plan of action, don’t forget to set deadlines for your objectives. Deadline are critical! They’ll help you better remain on track and focused. If your goals don’t have deadlines, there’ll be a greater chance that you won’t succeed in reaching them.

Tip #2: Flex those self-discipline skills.

When setting a goal, the easiest trap to fall into is losing steam along the way and eventually giving up on it entirely. We’ve all been guilty of this at least once in our lives (New Year’s resolutions, anyone?). But it’s very important that you stick to the objectives for your event planning company, so don’t give up! Keep yourself motivated, in whatever way is most effective for you. Remember: running your own business means that you’re your own boss. So, stay on top of yourself and hold yourself accountable if you ever notice that you’re starting to slack on your goals and letting them fall by the wayside.

Tip #3: Get an accountability buddy.

To build on Tip #2, maybe an accountability buddy will help you stay on track. This can be anyone in your life who you trust to check in with you on a regular basis, support and motivate you, and push you to stick to your goals. Tell your accountability buddy when you’re putting a new goal into place, and let them know when you wish to have this objective achieved. Together, you can then determine how they should be involved in your plan of action (i.e. how often they should check in with you, what they should do/say if you aren’t on schedule, etc.).

Tip #4: Celebrate your victories.

Starting a brand-new business isn’t easy. There will be times when things will feel so stressful, confusing, or difficult that you’ll entertain the idea of giving up entirely. DON’T listen to this little voice! You DO have what it takes to make your dreams a reality; you just need to keep pushing and not give up. To combat against the stressful times, balance the experience with regular positivity. Any and every time you achieve a goal, no matter how big or small, reward yourself and celebrate! After all, you more than deserve it! 🙂

Now we want to know: do YOU have any additional tips to add to this list? How have you defined the objectives for your event planning company? What are you doing to put these goals into action and achieve them?

Tell us in the comments below!

Learn more about setting objectives for your event planning company by getting professionally trained and certified with QC Event School! Enroll today and be ready to start your business in as little as 3-6 months!

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