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Planning and Preparing

For Your Next Event

DO YOUR RESEARCH!

After 10 years of planning Chocolate Nights I had a folder that
I collected the good and bad and improvements on. Each year
starting a little earlier. I cannot express how critically important
the planning part is. I tell every single client, and every employee I
have ever had… “If we fail to plan… we planned to fail.” Now that
doesn’t mean to make you afraid of planning events… it just means,
make sure you put some order to your plan. Whether it is a Holiday
Ladies Night event or an Artist Event or even a Store Anniversary
Event, you will want to begin the process of gathering details to the
celebration. What kind of event should you host? The best way to plan ahead to attend and aren’t first reading about your event on
answer this is by turning to your customers. Who do you cater to? the day-of.” John and I learned early on that ANY event, even the
Do I partner with other businesses…What types of activities do they small ones, could not be done after Thursday evenings from Easter
enjoy? Address these questions first to get a general idea of what to Labor Day. We live in the south and most folks in our neck-of-
kind of event would work for your store. Sit down with your staff the-woods start heading to the beach at the first sign of a warm day
and ask them their thoughts ~ Don’t comment about their ideas or after Easter Sunday. We are literally 2 hours to the beach and about
opinions, just take in their thoughts and ideas and write them down 3 hours to the mountains. Folks love their weekends and if I was
for you to review. going to get a good showing… I had to make sure to schedule my
events away from these weekends.
On top of that, here are other factors to consider when deciding on
an in-store event:
Historical information – Look at previous in-store events that PLAN (WAY) AHEAD OF TIME
you’ve organized. Which ones were a hit and which of them didn’t “Retail events should never be last-minute — always have a
gain much steam? Needless to say, you should stick to the types that minimum of 30 days for planning and execution of an amazing
proved to be successful. While, in my case Chocolate Night was event and 60 to 90 days is optimal!
the most successful annual event… I did still continue to explore Planning a successful event requires managing several moving
other events throughout the year to keep it fresh and exciting for parts and sticking to a budget and timeline, all while running the
all types of jewelry lovers. Don’t have a lot of experience hosting regular aspects of your store. Things can get hectic, and plans can
events? That’s ok. Take notes and treat it as a learning experience fall apart if you’re not organized.
and certainly, I can provide you with some tools to help you through
your event. If you have written yourself notes about previous I tell folks to “Plan, plan, plan, the better prepared you and your
events… you can often see in your notes what went right and entire staff are for an event the better the day of execution will go.”
what went wrong and consider these to be just points in which you In the past 13 years I have done over 100 store events either
navigate your plan accordingly. personally or by helping folks with the planning of their own

Competition – Do some research on your competitors and see if event. I make lists for my lists, write a calendar and follow up on
they’ve thrown any events in their store. Figure out what made them the activities I have placed on my calendar. To be more specific,
successful and find ways to incorporate those elements into your “We create to-do lists organized by one month ahead, two weeks
own functions. If you are like me, I make a mental note of things I ahead, one week ahead, one day ahead, and day of tasks.” I used a
like and dislike at every single event. Now is the time to dig deep Google Calendar and have added all of my employees to a specific
and think through some of those things you have experienced. marketing calendar of which I add tasks for the event on. “Then
those tasks are delegated out to different employees. As the owner, I
Timing – Take into consideration the season or time of year when
you’re planning to run the event. If you’re throwing it in February circle back to make sure each task is being accomplished in a timely
manner.”
for example, you may want to incorporate Valentine’s Day. Having
an event later in the year? Consider a holiday theme.
SORT OUT YOUR FINANCES
You should also factor in seasonal changes as well as the schedule
of your target market. “Be mindful when picking your date that Figure out your finances early on. The last thing you want is to
it’s not too close to a holiday, in the snowy, or rainy season, or on overspend on the event or run out of funds when you’re about to
summer weekends when everyone travels to their beach homes.” launch. Think about what you’ll need to host a successful function,
“If parents and kids are your target market, carefully plan around including inventory, staff, fixtures, marketing materials advertising
seasonal kids’ sporting activities. If you want to appear in monthly campaigns and invitations and more. Take note of the prices of the
magazine calendars, opt for an event around mid-month, as opposed required products and services, total the amount, then add 10-20% to
to the first of the month, to make sure folks seeing the magazine can
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