Meeting Planner Careers

“Managing Travel in the New Normal” is a new report put out by American Express Business Travel (AEBT). The study focuses on changes in corporate travel plans during the economic downturn. Most participants believe travel demand will expand in 2010, but not at pre-recession levels of business.

Meeting policies are not a priority in the corporate world. Analysts found that less than 30% of their respondents formalize and enforce a meeting policy. An additional 11% create but do not enforce a meeting policy and 25% have no meetings policy at all. Meetings policy is often subsumed by corporate travel policy, which may or may not be enforced.

Company officials often mistakenly believe their employees comply with travel rules. In most cases, a first time offender is given a verbal or written warning. Subsequent failures to comply result in a fiscal slap on the knuckles; that is, offenders are not reimbursed for off policy expenditures.

As a counterpoint to the new normal report, American Express launched a new travel scorecard that analyzes many factors of travel practices. Site visitors answer a series of questions regarding travel management, company compliance for attendance, and technology requirements. The results are compiled and compared to the answers of similar companies.

According to a US News & World Report on December 28, 2009:
“A Meeting Planner is one of the 50 best careers of 2010, and should have a strong growth over the next decade.”

According to the weekly news magazine's report, the employment of meeting and convention planners "is expected to grow faster than the average for all professions over the next decade or so" thanks to the "growing importance of meetings to increasingly global companies."

Because the recession caused a contraction of the meetings industry in 2009, U.S. News said today's meeting planners have to be "tougher," "willing to negotiate for lower costs and better perks," and "willing to face tough questions on budgets and return on investment."

Despite companies' reduced meeting budgets, however — and in spite of the AIG effect, which caused an unfortunate association of off-site meetings with corporate excess in 2009 — U.S. News concluded that "most organizations recognize the value of the face-to-face meeting — as not just a perk but an imperative for companies that have greater global reaches."

Anticipate this future need for meeting planners and establish yourself by enrolling in a Meeting and Event Planning Certificate Program. This type of certificate program will give you the knowledge to position yourself for the future with a new career or enhance your current job or validate skills you are already using in your personal or professional life.

Native New Yorker, Frankie Hudak, offers you a glimpse into the not so glamorous world of professional meeting planners during the current recession, and offers some alternatives for meetings in New York.

If you would enjoy a meeting planner career but are also good at getting people together for everyone’s benefit, you may be just the kind of person that could thrive in an economic downturn.  Everyone knows that Business-to-Business contacts are important, so why not focus on helping businesses get through the end of the recession intact? Consider a career helping business groups survive.

Let’s face it–a meeting planner has to be comfortable around people. She has to be ready to talk to a lot of strangers at any time, keep things running, and create maximum benefit for all. So if you are going to start your own event business, why not create a niche that will benefit you as well? Here are some ideas on creating a place for yourself in the business world.

B-2-B Contacts. Many business are wondering about new ways to build business in a bad economy–help them by designing their networking events.

Non-Profits. You could spend a lifetime specializing in events for nonprofits. Remember, “nonprofit” does not mean “no money.” Many of these organizations would benefit greatly from the services of an event planner.

Sales Rep. Yes, you could take your education in event planning and get a lucrative position as a sales rep. Companies that sell beverages, catering services, travel and accommodations, and other services love people who understand the industry–they already know what they’re doing!

As you can see, there are lots of opportunities for you to help businesses with the right education and personality traits.

“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” – Zig Ziglar

Things are different for meeting planners in 2009 than 2007 or even 2008.  Attendance is down, there are fewer events to handle, and that’s just work. No doubt, everyone’s personal lives have had a few setbacks or downright tragedies as well.

Welcome to life.  Accentuating the positive side of a situation simply means focusing on what you can do now instead of mourning what you could have done a year or two ago.

Clients may come armed with negative thoughts and anxiety levels through the roof. You can feed into that or offer positive solutions to meeting planning. Meeting planners have always had challenges to overcome; the speaker didn’t show, the audio visual system went haywire, it rained every day of the event and no one was able to use the gorgeous golf course close to the convention center. It wasn’t the end of the world then and it isn’t now.

Tough times have valuable lessons to teach. Meeting planners are more creative, inventive, and hard working than ever before. Be proud of every successful meeting you host and give yourself permission to learn from mistakes. You have probably discovered suppliers and host sites that you never heard of before the recession kicked in. You stayed the course and you’re better for it.

Careers are made or broken on the backs of return customers. The recession has some impact on just when clients return, but your skills as a meeting planner will determine if they remember you name as the economy returns to normal.

Building customer loyalty is tough. You can’t depend on charm and one good experience. The client needs to feel valued as an individual. It’s important to keep good records and create a client profile. Did you book a cruise for the client’s wedding anniversary? Keep that date in mind. If he booked a family vacation, make a note of his children’s names and ask about them when he calls the second time.

If something went awry with the business meeting, note that in the files. Jot down solutions that will prevent the problem in the future. Was the trip or conference a good experience for your client? Make notes during your follow up call. You are making a follow up call after the conference, aren’t you?

Responding to feedback and personalizing your services makes planning future event easier and lets your clients know that you appreciate their business. A difficult client will often respond positively when they know you doing your best on their behalf. Return customers are money in the bank.

Many of these blog posts have been about the various meeting planner careers that are available to you. It doesn’t matter whether you want to plan events for nonprofits, weddings and honeymoons, corporate meetings, or incentive travel for top employees–there is a career to match your creative streak.

However, do you know what the job prospects are for your chosen profession? The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook has many of the answers you’re looking for. Even with the recession and government frown in the direction of meetings and planners, it says that this profession is expected to grow faster than average between 2006 and 2016.

It also says that some of this will be due to natural attrition–some people will retire, some will move on to other professions, and some may switch professions within the planning category. That said, the handbook also tells us, “Unlike workers in some occupations, meeting and convention planners often can change industries relatively easily, so they often are able to move to different industries in response to the growth or declines in particular sectors of the economy.”

This is important to consider when choosing your specialty. Think about the days when you might want to switch, or pretend that you are only planning a five-year-long career. If you think about where you want to go, and it’s within the meetings profession, you can start planning for it while you’re working and training now.

Thinking ahead should be one of your strong points as a meeting planner–use it for yourself as well, and be on top of things when you need a change.

Lots of people have offered advice on how to handle the recent turmoil during the world economic crisis. Some are saying, though, that there are signs it is letting up. Although it’s easy to jump back on the profitability bandwagon, some businesses may be holding back just a little. What will you do when things start looking better? Here are some ideas to get you started thinking about it.

Pricing

So your clients are making more money and you should, too. However, would your clients appreciate a bit longer reprieve from escalating costs? You can help them by continuing your pricing structure from the recession months.

Ask for Favors

Once you have determined that you are going to keep prices down even though clients are making more, you are in a position to ask a small favor–that they let others know what you did for them. At the risk of sounding like you have Ayn Rand managing your business, you can be straight with them on this. “I’d be happy to keep my rates where they were during the recession if you wouldn’t mind offering some word-of-mouth advertising for me.” You might also ask them to link to your website–backlinks are a great way to add respectability to your website.

Value

If you find that you cannot keep recession era pricing, offer a little more value whevever possible. If you can book a hotel with a spa available instead of a hotel without one, get it for them. If you have a choice between a beachfront property and one a little father away, choose the one near the beach. If all things are equal, go the extra mile to get little extras for your clients.

One of the first things that happened when the economy crashed and the government issued bailouts was that meetings and events were canceled. The companies on the public dollar are now worried about how they will be viewed if they hold events and meetings.

While this leaves the meeting planner with a vague near-term future, it can also mean opportunity for those willing to face the challenges. Here are some ways you can protect (and enhance) your meeting planner career regardless of the stage it’s in.

Learn to Restructure

This applies to your business as well as meetings. As far as you are concerned, learn to automate as much as possible so you can save time and money. There is no reason for you to be working the way meeting planners were working ten years ago. Automate and survive. Read more…