If you are also wondering “How to Start Event Management business” in this cut-throat competitive environment and in this dire economy where everything is falling apart, you can build a stable business. Consider this economy as a new opportunity as people are more dependent on the internet and technology.
You can see this as a cup-half full situation and our advice is if you want to start an event management business in India from the comfort of your home in 2021 then it is the right time.
It is the perfect time to use your social networking skills and business development skill from your event planning start-up kit.
The benefit of starting an event management business from your home is you do not have to worry about looking for office space and paying expensive rent. Your sole focus can be to develop and grow your event planning business checklist.
There are a few important factors and steps that you need to consider before you put all your energy, effort, and time into starting an event management business in India.
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Starting an Event Management Business?
Event planning business requires a lot of focus and commitment, it’s not the right profession for everyone. Before you invest in it, you need to know all the pros and cons of starting an event management business.
Pros of Event Management Business
- No formal education required to start and maintain the business.
- Short contract work is available.
- Great job prospects.
- Can grow your business based on your potential.
Cons of Event Management Business
- Long and anti-social hours required.
- Stressful work
- Must deal with difficult people.
- Jobs can be affected by recession periods.
Essential Tools Required for Event Management Business
- Cell phone and a good network provider
- Laptop/computer
- Business cards
- Fast and reliable router and WiFi and/or reliable mobile internet.
- Printer for printing labels and pamphlets
- Event planning emergency kit (see through plastic box + Name tags
- Permanent/temporary markers + Mini sewing kit + First aid kit etc.)
- Tents
- Decorative lights
- Designer chairs
- Pergolas
- Gazebos
How To Start Event Management Business – Facts to Consider
To start your own event management business is quite a challenging task in this economy but still staying in business and following your passion with discipline and hard work is more difficult. An event management business checklist not only needs business development skills but also requires social skills and public relations.
We have step-by-step laid down all the facts which you must consider and fulfill before you embark on your journey to start an event management business. We have prepared a “How to start event planning business PDF” only for you.
- Experience Matters
Before investing large sums into starting your own event management business and losing that money. You should accumulate the experience of the industry. The best way to acquire experience is by working with a well-known event management business in your area. You can gain experience on how the industry works and how to deal with clients. Once you think we have gained enough experience, start planning towards starting your own business.
Before you leap to start an event management business independently you must experience the high and lows of the industry, learn about your strength and weakness, and establish contacts so that you do not have to start from scratch.
- Do a Thorough Market and Competitors Research
Not just start an event management company but before starting any business everyone must do a thorough search about the market and their competitors. There is no point in starting a business if you don’t know who you’ll be competing against in your area.
You can follow in the footsteps of your competitors, do a thorough competitor analysis, and try to understand the things they did that made them successful. Researching will help you to clear your vision and give you a clear path to achieve your future goals.
- Understand Business Working Realities
Just thinking about starting an event management business and working on starting an event planning company are two shores of a river. You start understanding the real complexities, legality, financing, and marketing stuff deeply.
We would suggest you create monthly plans and arrange funding to survive and pay your bills. Do as many savings as you can to run your daily operations smoothly.
5. What Type of Event Management Business You Want to Start?
To start an event management business, you must decide what type of event planner you want to be. There are different types of event management business, and they all require different skill sets and knowledge. The legal requirements of the company depend on them as well.
Your investments, marketing, financing, legalities, insurance, advertising, and tax liabilities will depend on this decision. For example, you can go for the free-lancing event management business or set up a whole event planning company for different needs. Event management is a huge industry, there are countless working opportunities you can get. Here are the most common event types:
- Seminars and conferences
- Trade shows
- Employee retreats
- Team building events.
- Birthday parties
- Private events
- Weddings
- Receptions
- Engagement parties
You can even specialize in a particular niche like corporate events. This niche specialization can help you define a goal for your business.
6. Come Up with a Catchy Business Name
You need to think carefully while deciding on a business name for your event management company. It will stick with you forever. Therefore, find a suitable smart business name for your event management business that everyone can remember for a long time. Avoid any kind of abbreviations and short names to sound cool. Once you decide on a name check that no one else has a similar name or you could face legal charges as well.
7. Create Your Business Plan
Creating a business plan and writing them down makes it more real and gives you a clear vision to achieve your goals. Write your future goals for the company, state your mission statements, have an in-depth analysis of your strength, weakness, opportunities, and threat. Also, write your plans to incorporate them into your strategies.
In the business plan, you should also state your current and future financial and marketing plan. A business plan helps to create a structure for your dreams and encourages you to follow them. Many banks and investors also like to know about your business plan so prepare it with this point of you as well.
- Arrange The Finances
It is not possible to start and run your business if you do not have required funds. Before you started arranging funds, you need to know what amount you require.
Here is a cost breakdown of starting an event management business from home:
- Basic equipment (computers, utility bills, official telephone numbers and other devices required for working): $5,000 – $17,000
- Inventory (based on the size of the business you’re planning to start): $0 – $500.
- State licenses: $250 – $350.
- Payroll (if you hire outside help and part time workers): $0 – $4,000.
- Advertising & Promotion (these costs can include social media advertising, local advertising etc.): $500 – $2,000.
- Miscellaneous expenses (this can include equipment and extra expenses etc): $750 – $1,000.
This is a basic breakdown; your actual costs may vary on different situations. According to our breakdown, you can start an even management business from home in between $6,500 – $24,850.
Check out from where you can get the funding. You can either approach your family and relatives or take a loan from the public or private financial institute or banks to get them ahead with your event planning business.
You can also try the non-conventional method of funding such as crowdfunding, donations, auctions, or collaboration with other companies or financiers. Make a list of the viable options and then choose among them based on the loan amount and repayment terms.
9. Incorporate Your Business
Once you have figured out all the initial research and decide on a business name then find out how you can register or incorporate your company legally to start them with other aspects of the event planning business checklist.
You can do this online and offline as well by filling out a simple form. Complete, sign, and return the forms to get incorporated. The registration process is very easy. You will need the signature of the partners and Directors of the company as well if you have any other.
10. Design a Logo and Work on Brand Identity
Creating a corporate identity is the decision for a lifetime. Thus, once the registration is done start working on your brand logo and identity. Brand rules ought to be made, specifying the right utilization of your logo, textual style, shadings, arrangement, etc.
You need to consider the fact how your logo will imitate in various circumstances, for example, online and offline media, business cards, templates, badges, and websites. You can hire an expert to do this work for you according to your needs or if you have the knowledge of digital marketing and website development and designing you can do it yourself. You will require your logo in various arrangements, for example, .eps, .jpeg, and .png.
11. Create Business Website and Social Media Accounts
Creating a business website and social media accounts is essential for your business. If you don’t have a business website and proper social media account, you can never have an online presence and people might not consider your business legit.
Establishing a website and social media accounts is a great medium to increase your social networking and promote your business. It allows interested parties to come to you and populate your website and channel with inquiries. It is the best way to establish your brand value before officially launching the business.
12. Safeguard Your Business Intellectual Property
you need to protect your business ideas, name, and logo as well. Protect your brand via trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Whichever option is suitable for you. You are pitching your ideas to a stranger or maybe your rivals or a potential competitor as well. It is not unusual for people to steal the concepts, brand name, logo, and so on. You can take legal advice on protecting your intellectual property or you can even ask people to sign the non-disclosure agreement for safeguarding.
13. Set Up Your Event Planning Business Account
After registering your company your next step should be opening a business account to start an event management business. Shortlist your banks according to your business needs and visit every bank with your documents and see what your best option is and then open a business account for future use.
14. Decide on Your Fee Structure and Pricing Strategy
Pricing and fee structure for the services is one of the decision-making factors for the customers. No matter how much money a client can spend they will still never be overpaid for the services which they can get from other established event management companies at the low or same price.
You need to research the market and competitor’s price strategy and how they charge for their services. Every event has different requirements so whenever you get any queries or when you are creating your fee structure charge according to services provided. Many say the devil lies in detail so don’t forget to ask questions on every query and take every detail possible. Compare your prices with your competitors and try to quote lower prices or higher services at the same price as you are just an event planning start-up kit.
15. Marketing Does Wonders
Marketing is one of the crucial aspects to start an event management business. Without effective marketing, your business can never fly. The event management business falls under the service industry. You are not selling the product, but services and people see what they buy. You need to start early for implementing the proper marketing strategy and establishing new contacts through several social networking channels.
Always be ready when you meet your new clients like creating business cards long before launching the event planning and management business. Practice your elevator pitch for online and offline marketing tactics and meetings. Start with online and offline networking and set up as many contacts as you can to receive the response and then work accordingly.
Always remember planning is a long and continuous process therefore keep in touch with your potential clients by sending gift baskets and cards on holidays and festivals. It ensures your brand loyalty and maintains strong bonds with clients.
16. Insure Your Business
Every business needs insurance, especially at the beginning. You only have limited funds and you cannot bear any kind of losses in the starting. Take whatever kind of insurance is necessary to keep the threats away and secure your future.
You can take professional advice on the type of insurance you need to cover your business. Check out from various insurance companies and get the best coverage in your budget. We would also suggest you carefully get the insurance and make a list of your pros and cons before you get the insurance.
17. Select an Office Location
Even though you have started your event planning business from home and it comes with many perks such as no tension of paying office rent and other bills. Working from the comfort of your home and whenever you have to meet your clients face-to-face you can book a hotel or restaurant or coffee shops for working people.
Eventually, the time will come to decide on your office location as it gives authenticity to your business and people will trust your brand more as they have a location to reach you. You do not require a luxurious office, in the beginning, you can rent a small one or two-room office as you need which is affordable and at the center of your geographical service-providing area.
It will also bring the local vendors and potential clients to come and check out your services and support you whenever you need them. Working with local vendors will increase your business reputation.
If you do not have the funds for renting an office space, you can go around it by working from home and getting a rented warehouse to keep and manage your equipment. Having a rented warehouse can be an affordable solution.
18. Invest on The Business Tools You Need
To start an event management business, you only require your skills and knowledge. It is a service industry you supply what people demand therefore you don’t require many tools for an event planning start-up kit. As long as you have your computer, WiFi, phone, email address, and contacts. As you are starting your event planning business from home you only need a proper Wi-Fi connection and a proper business phone number to get going according to your needs.
Later, when you shift to your office space you need to arrange all these things there as well according to your office space and human resource in advance so that you don’t face any issue when you shift your business officially. Little incentives are encouraged by your staff and keep the morale high. Try to insert the rewards and recognition tool always in place for smooth operations.
19. Get Human Resource Support
Well, it is the fact you can’t run a business alone even when you are at the planning and research stage. You can only go a little far alone in the planning process and still need the consultation of experts in your field.
Although hiring full-time staff at early stages will burden you with salary and office space management responsibilities. In the early stages, you can hire freelancers or part-time workers to get help such as getting registration and license, creating legal contracts, copywriting, developing and designing websites, and other works.
Therefore, make a list of the local vendors, freelancers, and part-time workers that are available every time whenever you need some help, and their rates and skills are what you require and can afford. It is also the best way to know with whom you would like to work full time when you start an event management business officially.
20. Time to Start Event Management Business
You have done all your studies to start an event management business in India. You have all your tools ready, market and competitor research is complete, the pricing structure is finalized, marketing is done. Now it’s time to officially launch your business but then the question arises how to start an event management business officially?
Well, it is simply getting your first official client. It could be a long and tiresome process, and this is where your social networking skills will shine. It is time to contact all the interested parties which you had talked to earlier via Facebook, email, Whatsapp, website chat, and so on.
Invite these contacts to your official launching party and let them witness your skills and knowledge in person. An official launch party will help you to sign many contacts and create more opportunities.
21. Stay on Top of Accounting And Paperwork
If you have done all the above steps right soon you will start getting a business after the official launching and your admin department will be overloaded with paperwork such as accounting, taxing, legal requirements, and so on. Instead of drowning, you need to be on top of the paperwork to get work done effortlessly and focus on event planning and developing new opportunities.
To get a system in place you need to prepare in advance. Set up a proper accounting and admin department. Create sample contracts in advance to reduce the workload on time, make notes of the deadlines on your calendar, set up your accounting books simply and easily and you can also take the help of the accounting apps. Create invoice templates to avoid any hassle after the official launching.
22. Work on The Development And Creating New Opportunities
Do you know many start-ups easily survive their first year of business but only half of them stay in business after 5 years? The reason behind this is people lose their passion and stop looking for further business opportunities and stop developing their business product according to time.
It is one of the important aspects of an event planning start-up kit. Keep developing your business opportunities. You can set up an alarm system to check your business website, meet new people, create public relations, and encourage social networking. Develop your product and services, revise your fee structure or you can take the help of a pro to help you get through the beginning period efficiently.
How To Start an Event Management Business – Finale
Above we stated all the necessary steps that you need to take to start an event management business in India. This step-by-step guide will help you achieve your goals and clear out all the confusion of what, when, and how to follow your passion. We hope our guidelines on “how to start an event management business?” will help you to go ahead without any tension and create your event planning brand.