Seven Steps to Success for Event Professionals

Seven Steps to Success
1) Make a commitment to grow daily.
2) Value the process more than events.
3) Don’t wait for inspiration.
4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity.
5) Dream big.
6) Plan your priorities.
7) Give up to go up.”
– John C. Maxwell

John C. Maxwell is known for his innovatively strong leadership abilities, as well as his capabilities of transforming ‘non leaders’ into leaders.  He attributes much of his own success to 7 steps. These 7 steps are just as applicable for event professionals!

 1.) “Make a commitment to grow daily.”

You don’t have to be a student to learn – and that’s especially true for event professionals (though websites like coursea.com, Lynda.com, as well as the influx of universities offering free online class audits, you can be a student in your spare time too…)

Commit to learning something new – spend a portion of your time daily researching, staying up to date, networking. Take time to grow yourself as an event professional.

2.) “Value the process more than events.”

This might seem incredibly hard for event professionals, but it’s so true.  Think of your events as the dessert that is an added perk and bonus to the process that may not have been smooth, but was accomplished and resulted in success – your event.

3.) “Don’t wait for inspiration”

Create. Create. Create. Do. Do. Do. The more you do, the more you will find inspiration along the way. If all event professionals waited for the inspiration to get going when planning an event – well, there might not be many events, and even less well planned events from beginning to end (or that include before, during, and after engagement).

 4.)”Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity.”

Event planning is hard work – every event professional knows that. And sometimes you have to work outside the box. Sometimes you have to pull hard long hours. Sometimes you have to miss happy hour drinks with friends, to stay and finish a RFP to get to vendors ASAP. You might have to skip a shopping trip on Saturday to work on your event agenda outline. Sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice pleasure for the opportunity – but what comes from this? A successful event.

5.) “Dream Big.”

Not every dream that event professionals can imagine is going to happen. Many event professionals are stuck in the rut of  #defendthespend to their higher ups. But by dreaming big – you find opportunity and motivation, and often times can find a creative or unique way to make a portion of your event as big as you dreamed – just by thinking outside the box.

6.) “Plan your priorities.”

As an event professional, what are the most important aspects of any event? What are your priorities? Start with those – and then begin your planning. If your priorities include event engagement – before, during, and after – Stova’s mobile event app can help, and should be on your list of priorities

7. “Give up to go up.”

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices (which we covered in #4) to grow. Sometimes you have to be willing to let go of those “can’t do with outs” to discover what you COULDN’T have done without.

Be willing to give up the things that could be holding you behind. Whether it’s giving up the false assumption that your attendees won’t use a mobile event app – or they won’t use an app for their agenda and need a paper one. Odds are – you will discover you can gain more (and with Stova’s highest in the industry adoption rates for our apps – you can give up the cost and waste of paper agendas – all while measuring and proving the success of your event with Stova’s real time reporting & analytics.)