A virtual events planner is a person who manages and develops comprehensive event budgets, registrations, and event inquiries. They also oversee on-site registration. An events planner ensures smooth planning and running of forums, conferences, expos, and technical workshops. A virtual events planner doesn’t have to be present at the event, but rather, they can be anywhere (can be worldwide) at any time, provided they can produce results.
Be Specific on the Services Offered
For one to become a virtual events planner, they first need to choose what they want to provide. An events planner should organize, plan, and manage events. However, you need to determine the services you’ll offer and in what capacity they will be offered. Also, you should indicate your area of emphasis. For example, is marketing events in your area of expertise? Then perhaps you would be good at event competitions, promotions, and running social media pages or online accounts for a particular event.
Is it possible that you are good at getting in contact with attendees, clients, and sponsors? Are you effective at persuading customers to hire you? Can you engage people and ultimately provide results? If you can talk sponsors into procuring funds or creating opportunities for yourself, then marketing should be your area of emphasis.
One could also focus on administrative tasks or invoicing, while another person’s strengths could be in the legal realm. For instance, you could deal mainly with terms and conditions and contracts. A creative person could focus on offering design services for publications, event logos, and promotional materials.
Setting Prices for Events Planning
This part can be tough, especially if there is little to no experience under your belt. If you haven’t set a rate before, there is a higher chance of setting your rates too high or too low by accident. When your prices are too low, potential clients will think that either you lack confidence in yourself or your services aren’t worth it. This means that you’ll work yourself off to survive on the peanuts offered, or you won’t get any clients at all.
On the other hand, when your prices are high, your clients will have high expectations, since they’ll be paying highly. The problem comes when you can’t meet their needs since you are just starting. Consequently, it affects your customer feedback and ratings, which are detrimental. So, to be on the safe side, you can charge hourly for events, which will be determined by the time input and service. Or, you could charge per project for clients that need a specific job done.
Work Discipline
Now that you know the services to offer and what to charge, you need to adjust to virtual working. This means you’ll be working from home, which includes added benefits like flexibility, working in your pajamas, no commutes, etc. However, this kind of setting comes with its cons, such as fewer human interactions, more distractions (if one has children or pets at home), and odd working hours.
So, for a person used to a traditional office setting, you need to organize yourself and be highly disciplined to deliver. Have a spot in the house with a desk and chair to work at, set routine hours in which you’ll work, and create and stick to deadlines, as well as use a calendar.
Conclusion
Lastly, look for jobs. You can easily access job search websites and boards that allow you to filter by company and location online. These can be found through social media, work networks, demand media, freelancer platforms, and other similar sites, such as Upwork, Fiverr, Craigslist, and so on.
Also read – How To Start An Event Planning Business
Also read – How to Write a Business Plan for Any Start-Up Business