Cover Story: How to Be a Successful Event Planner?

You know those people – maybe even at your workplace – who are more often than not all over the place, constantly checking their email on their phones, suffering from anxiety attacks from time to time, communicating with countless people whose information they must filter, often saying how they’re fed up, but despite everything, they always have a mysterious smile on their faces?

Yep, those are event planners. They’re doing a very stressful job. In fact, according to CareerCast’s survey, their job places fifth on the 2016 most stressful jobs list. One spot
above – just for comparison – are soldiers, firefighters, pilots, and policemen. You’re probably wondering why in the world anyone would choose this line of work?

They usually use exercise to blow off steam after work, and many enjoy extreme sports and/or have a hedonistic streak. Their strong suits include organizing, analyzing, communicating, and taking responsibility. They also love challenges. Despite all the hard work and stress, which are not always evident or appreciated, the job of event planner offers a great deal of personal and professional satisfaction, when done right. The more complex the project, the bigger is the satisfaction after success. And if something goes wrong, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate how quickly you identify oversights and learn what must never happen again. If this opportunity to learn a lesson is missed, the game of being a successful event planner is over. The rules are strict, and the expectations are high.

In this issue of SEEbtm, you can read about what it takes to be a successful event planner, how to prevent the most common errors, what you need to know about the VIP protocol, what healthy communication actually means, how to deal with stress, and much more.

A good event planner – whether in employment or hired as a consultant – is priceless for any company or organization. He handles company events and activities; balances between the expectations of clients, superiors, other employees; and ensures alignment with company policies and reputation, and – last but not least – company budget.

All these things make the job of event planner very dynamic and create many opportunities
to network, visit places and hotels, travel, and encounter myriad different experiences. How could one resist, really?

Miona Milic

Editor-in-Chief