Wouldn’t it be weird to see a normal, healthy 10-year-old child still in diapers? We think so. Then why do some of us still have businesses that appear like they’re in diapers even after three, five, seven, or ten years? In other words, they are not mature.
Well, don’t despair. It is a little challenging to grow your business to maturity if you do not fully understand what a mature business looks like. And even if you do know what it looks like, you are unaware of what it entails.
Chuck Blakeman, in his book Making Money Is Killing Your Business, mentions two qualities of a mature business.
- The business owner is not the producer within the business.
If they are it’s because they choose to and not because they have to. This means that you, as an event planner, do not plan events within your own event-planning business. Wouldn’t that be amazing? This means that other planners handle the planning for you and your clients. Thus, you have time to offer vision and guidance as well as deal with things you enjoy, such as design, concept development, creating your own events, etc.
- Mature businesses are system dependent and not people-dependent.
It makes little difference whether it’s You, Sarah, Jane, or Peter. The system, not you, is what controls the business. As an illustration, when a prospective client contacts Majestic Events:
Majestic Events: Hello, how are you?
Client: Hello, is this Majestic Events?
Majestic Events: Yes it is. How may we help you?
Client: I was told by someone that you do wedding planning.
Majestic Events: Yes we do.
Client: Okay, well I’m planning to have my wedding in February 2021, and I was wondering whether I could secure your services.
Majestic Events: Absolutely. First of all, congratulations on your wedding engagement. It will be an honour to plan your wedding for you.
Client: Great, how much do you charge?
Majestic Events: Well, it’s a little bit difficult for us to give you a quote over the phone because we always do bespoke weddings which are tailor-made to suit the particular couple.
Client: Okay, cool!
Majestic Events: So allow me to send you our meet and greet form. It has enough questions that would allow you to share your wedding vision with us. Then, we will be able to give you a complete proposal that includes some of our ideas, the wedding budget and our planning fee.
Client: No worries. Here is my email address…
The point is, it doesn’t matter who you call or when you call Majestic Events—whether it’s me, Diana, Grace, or Othniel—the response will always be the same. The meet and greet form must be the outcome of that phone call. That is what we refer to as a system.
So what does that mean for you as an Event Planner?
We would suggest that you take some time to sit down and list EVERYTHING you must do to organize a good event. For instance, you must perform A, B, C, and D when this occurs. You’ll need X, Y, and Z to finish this stage. Once you put it in writing, you can train others and they will start using it. And before you realize it, it becomes a system and a part of how you conduct business.
“Your business is run by systems and your system is run by people within your organization.”
