Meeting Planner Careers

Businesses that are successful almost always find themselves at a point where they need to start organizing events. These events could be company gatherings, sales promotions, seminars to inform certain members of the press and/or industry-insiders about new products/services, or something else entirely. It does not necessarily matter why a company eventually needs to have meeting/events planners, but it is almost a certainty that such a position will need to be filled at some point in time. Here is how to hire a meeting planner:

Meeting planners should be outgoing, honest, and self-motivated – After all, the business needs to get on with whatever it is doing and be able to trust that meetings and events are being scheduled.

A meeting planner will need tools – A meeting planner will need access to a phone (preferably a cellular/mobile smartphone), a computer with access to the Internet. A desk to work from is also helpful, and a laptop or netbook should also be considered.

A budget – Meeting planners need realistic budgets to work with.  While a good meeting or event planner can usually pay for herself, you need to have funds available for those events.  Be sure to track your ROI on meetings and events to justify the plan, but do not hire a meeting planner without the ability to give them a budget.

Trial basis – It might be a good idea to start a meeting planner on a temporary or part-time basis just to see how things work out.

ASAE, the American Society of Association Executives, and The Center for Association Leadership, now known as ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership, will stream live video from its three general sessions plus 24 seminars at its August annual meeting in Los Angeles this year. The video-taped sessions will be archived for 90 days, allowing virtual attendance at a 20% reduction in the real time attendance rate for three additional months. Eventually, the general sessions at least will probably be posted at the ASAE YouTube channel.

On top of that, ASAE has a page at their site http://www.asaecenter.org/ titled “Social Media.” With links to in-house blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and more, they are a textbook example of an organization using social media for internal and external two-way communication.

If you want to use social media to publicize and/or invite participation in your next event, a case study on ASAE will go a long way. Another site you’ll enjoy visiting is courtesy of our wry friends in Scotland. “Contently Managed” writes a valuable contribution titled “25 Social Media Engagement Tips for Event Organizers.” If you need a primer on Twitter, check out Nancy Marmolejo’s short video.

Oh. And since the ASAE’s membership is comprised of thousands of executives planning events for the thousands of associations in America, it might be worth listening in on their public conversations.