23 Jul 09 Doing Your Part for the Economy–Stay a Planner!

With meetings being canceled left and right and critics pointing fingers everywhere but at themselves, it’s hard to justify sticking with it. Planners in every field are suffering, including festival and wedding planners. The world is a hotbed of anxiety and judgmental voices seem to take up residence in everyone’s head these days.

However, if you are a meeting planner who wants to make a difference, the best thing you can do is stay where you are and help our industry regain its rightful place in the business world. There are some things you can do to motivate yourself to stay with it through the tough times.

Strengthen Current Relationships

Find ways to hold on to the clients you have by making special offers. For instance, if they want to cancel a big meeting you may be able to earn more of their admiration to finding ways for them to hold valuable meetings more cheaply. Even offering to moderate a web conference or VoIP meeting is better than no meeting at all.

Be Ready

They already know the value of meetings, but you should point out some that are not so well known. Meetings can actually increase employee retention, and even a small percentage of that is worth a lot of money. They are critical to employee education even when the meeting is not necessarily education-based–that means more productivity.

Help Companies With Transparency

The government has asked companies–especially the ones that received bailout money–to be transparent with their operations and responsibility. You can help by offering to help the company provide information on its meetings to the government in some way, even if it’s providing an account of activities on your end that are in line with government expectations.

Know the Guidelines

The government-provided guidelines are your key to developing and maintaining successful relationships with your clients. Only planners who know and understand them will be able to help their clients show a positive image to the public and government.

If you educate yourself and implement a more streamlined and transparent approach to your planning, your clients will take notice and realize that canceling meetings may not be necessary–as long as you are in their court.

Tags: Admiration, Anxiety, Bailout, Business World, Employee Education, Employee Retention, Government Expectations, Help Companies, Hotbed, Meeting Planner, Pointing Fingers, Positive Image, Productivity, Special Offers, Successful Relationships, Tough Times, Transparency, Voices, Web Conference, Wedding Planners