Meeting Planner Careers

The economy has certainly closed many doors of opportunities, but it has opened plenty of windows too for the right people. Meeting planners are one career choice that may actually experience far more new opportunities being open to them than opportunities denied, and this leaves the door open for a little moonlighting. There are a few things to be aware of before moonlighting as a meeting planner:

• Your day job may not be too happy about you moonlighting, even if you do it on your own time. Discretion is the key word here, and learning how to exercise it could be the difference between getting along and putting a few thousand extra dollars in the bank each month.
• Some of the most successful moonlighters have discovered that they can make the time zones work for them. If they live in a region on PST then they try to find work from home meeting planning opportunities for clients as far east as possible and arrange to come in a little late and leave a little late at their day job. The opposite is obviously true of those living clear across the county.
• Leveraging your existing connections and knowledge is ultimately what will make you more attractive. It might be difficult for caterers or concierges to keep things straight when they don’t know that you have two sets of clients, so be sure to let them know that you are semi-freelance and that discretion on their part is rewarded with more business.

Are you looking for exciting, new venue options that offer a completely unique environment and have not been completely overdone? If so, it is time to look outside of the typical resort, hotel and convention center options and explore the world of meeting venues that lies beyond these common options. In every major city, almost all mid-size cities and even most smaller towns you will find a variety of unique venue options that will impress your guests and show your clients that you can think outside of the ballroom.

Holding meetings at zoos, aquariums and museums is becoming a hot trend and has broadened the array of meeting venue options available to meeting planners. For example, elegant galas and fundraisers are held at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in beautiful Balboa Park each year and meeting, event and wedding planners are planning weddings, award ceremonies and fundraisers at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle on a regular basis. A wide variety of events also take place at the Miami Science Museum each month, including holiday parties, fundraisers, movie screenings, corporate events and meetings, cocktail receptions and weddings.

Planning your next event or meeting at a museum, zoo or other attraction is an ideal way to offer your clients new venue options and provide an interesting backdrop that will appeal to attendees. Many of these venues work with caterers and other vendors that are well-versed in working with the space and facilities available, making event planning a breeze.

If you are considering a career in meeting and event planning, you will need to understand how the profession is divided up. This means your market segment, or broad-spectrum specialty. For instance, if you want to plan events for businesses and other organizations, then your market segment will be corporate.

Why should you be concerned with this? Because it will determine how you market yourself, how you market your company if you go it alone, and how you network. This means that if you work solely for non-profits your networking sphere will likely encompass a good deal of the political world, grant writers, public relations personnel, event facilities, caterers, and hotels and motels. If you go for-profit, your sphere needs to include the properties and caterers, but you may have less interaction with politics and grants.

Make sure when you choose your event planning specialty that you understand the market segment it falls into. Talk to your business professors to see how they can help, and join a professional organization as well. Ask a lot of questions; people who are truly inclined to teach and to help others will be patient with your answers, but also make sure you do a good amount of your own research.

The end result will be a better understanding of your job and target areas. This could translate into a more secure position at a company or a more stable customer base, and less time spent creating it.