If you want to be the best event planner in New York, you need to be the best of the best at promoting your business. And if you have a team of sales professionals or business development representatives, you’ll want to be sure they’re armed with the most effective sales tools and sales training initiatives. You might be your company’s solo salesperson, too. No matter what your event planning business structure is like, what you really need is advice from the absolute best event planners in the business to inspire new ideas you can leverage today to land more clients and book more events.
1. Use Tools to Help Sell Your Experience
You’re not just looking to land new clients and plan more events. You’re in the business of creating incredible event experiences. And to sell those experiences, you need a suite of visual engagement tools that help you portray all the looks, sounds, tastes, and feelings of what you can provide. Sales training should instruct how to use videos, walkthroughs, and images from past events you’ve planned, with permission, of course, to promote some of these soft sell benefits of working with you. Whether you’re generating leads on social media, with email campaigns, or you’re pitching a proposal to a specific prospect, help your audience feel the experience you ultimately have to sell.
2. Cold Calling Is Not Dead
With the digital movement, you might presume that traditional cold calling methods are no longer efficient ways of generating event planning leads or landing new clients. However, cold calling in the form of actual calling, via in-person stop ins to area businesses, or cold emailing is still a very much proven way of building your prospect pool. And the best event planners still encourage it. If your target audience is primarily businesses that may need your event planning help for company outings, product launches, or conferences, cold calling strategies will always get you in front of the right people with your expertise.
3. Networking and Sales Go Hand-in-Hand
Part of your sales training and strategy should include proper networking objectives. Meeting someone or getting an introduction to someone presents an opportunity. Without a strategy in place to maximize those networking and warm prospect encounters, you could be missing valuable bookings. The best event planners in New York are always looking for new connections to maximize direct conversions but to also build a network of referrals. Make sure your sales teams, yourself included, are carving out time to include networking opportunities.
4. Prioritizing Leads and Prospects
It’s important to include a prioritization tutorial as part of your sales training efforts. Not all of your potential leads are going to be “hot” leads, and some will require more nurturing than others. Sales funnels continue to be great assets for sales teams to assign follow up priority within relevant timelines. There may be a timelined sense of urgency for some and a more long-term strategy of engagement required for others. Incorporating a sales funnel will ensure everyone responsible for landing new clients spends the most efficient time working those leads and closing those ready to be closed.
Training yourself or a dedicated sales team means providing all the tools and strategies needed to generate leads and close new client events. As an event planner, juggling a million tasks and wearing many hats, focus on some of these industry insights from the best of the best. And for more sales and lead generation inspiration, meet some of the best event planners in New York at The Event Planner Expo 2022 this October! Get your tickets today and get all the actionable intel you need to grow your event planning business to new heights!
