Meeting Planner Careers

Meeting planners are in demand, but there are different paths to success. Some people choose to start at smaller companies as a meeting planner with modest job requirements and salaries and have the option to grow into other possible roles later or to move on. Others plan on working directly for major companies that offer lucrative salaries right off the bat in exchange for competent meeting planners that are willing to give it their all.

For new meeting planners this might almost seem like there are two completely different jobs in two completely different industries, but it is not a choice unlike those faced by paralegals, bookkeepers, or other office professionals.

There is no reason that a new meeting planner could not start small and work their way up, but not everyone aspires to spend years as a meeting planner. Some change that view after a few short weeks on the job, and may even launch their own business as a freelance meeting planner. Others start in the corporate meeting planning field only to feel as if they have attached themselves to shooting comets or raging tempests of information, appointments, facts, protocols, etiquette, and rules. Some start on the low end of the spectrum with smaller businesses and dislike the requirement that they were so many proverbial hats, but that is how small and medium sized businesses tend to be in order to get by.

Ultimately the choice can be a fateful one, but a little tenacity can go a long way.

When a company calls you to plan a meeting or  event for them, they are thinking, “I don't have much money to spend!” They know the expense of a meeting is more than the checks they will write for the event–it may also include the employee-hours lost at their company and a host of other charges that can nickel and dime them.

However, far from putting pennies on the eyes of their meetings, you can help them save by doing what you do best–finding the right way for the company to gather the number of people necessary for the best results.

One way you can help them is to streamline your own business. Make sure you are automated, and that you have online access to everything you need to save time and money. Find all the real-time booking sites you can, and open accounts on meeting planner websites. Find all the online instruments you can to make your own operation run smoothly and efficiently.

Next, you may be able to serve your client best by suggesting a virtual meeting. This is especially true if some of the participants have to travel long distances. See if VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) can help you. There are lots of high-bandwidth sites out there with very high quality VoIP service. Find them and make them your friends. Also don’t rule out the idea of web conferencing–if your clients need to be able to share files, this is your answer for high tech virtual meetings.

For face-to-face meetings, make sure your automated Internet contacts give you the best prices and service for your clients. If you need to plan meals, try the ideas behind Banquetology, which is a way of a greater variety of food at smaller portions. This has the added benefit of appealing to those of us who are watching our girths as well as our bottom lines.

Do yourself and your clients a favor, and trim your own cost of planning as you help them trim their meeting costs. You will both benefit in the long run.

Crises are always followed by change. It’s not only necessary, it’s inevitable–humans want to fix things that are broken. However, when the crisis is on a global scale, the change has to be in proportion. For the modern meeting planner, this means that other people may try to steer your business until you have little to say.

Whether of not they succeed is up to you. For instance, the recent government regulations on meetings may have caused the demise of small meeting planner businesses. Those business owners may have simply felt like they were not only swimming upstream, but up some giant waterfall. Read more…

Meeting and event planners working in larger cities will  have higher income potential than those working in less populated areas. Areas like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles have larger populations and more large corporations based there, so they tend to have more demand for event planners.

Event planners who start their own business  may struggle getting started, but those who are good at what they do, and who have good business sense, will see their income rise with no “ceiling.” However, working for a  hotel or other venue or an event planning company will give stability.  Depending on the metropolitan area, a meeting and event planner salary can range anywhere from $30K to $80K.