Let's face it: Most of you have been knocked around in the business arena for the better part of three years. Even if an organization didn't drastically cut the number of meetings it held, it's unlikely that the staff responsible for planning those meetings survived intact. Jobs disappeared, and those who remained continued to worry about themselves.
The carnage that corporate and association planners have witnessed is clearly affecting their opinion of how they would fare as independent contractors in this economic climate. To wit: 54.4 percent of 204 planners surveyed by SM last month said that they don't think they'd be able to make an acceptable living as an independent today.
The good news is, they're probably wrong.
"I agree that people are still being laid off, but I disagree that there are fewer meetings -- there are simply different types of meetings," says Michael Shannon, vice president of sales and marketing for Executive Meetings and Incentives (EMI) in Somerset, NJ, who merged his own independent firm with EMI last year. "In lean times, the 1,000-person annual meeting might well go away, but the smaller, drive-in regional meetings take their place. And perhaps the incentive programs aren't happening on a cruise this year, but firms might settle on a program in Arizona instead. Companies that are looking to the future already know, or can be persuaded by a creative independent planner, that face-to-face meetings are more important than ever right now, because they see their business is about to turn around. The successful independent will work his or her way through organizations to find the people who are thinking about this."
And there might just be a lot of opportunities for independent planners looming on the horizon. According to SM's 2003 State of the Industry Report, the average number of full-time meeting planners in organizations dropped from seven in 2000 to four in 2002. These skeleton staffs will likely need help as the economy recovers, which may be sooner rather than later. Recent data shows that the national economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter of 2003, the strongest showing in nearly a year. And "as different industries recover, firms are going to have to have meetings and product launches, but they likely won't have full-time staffers back in the fold just yet," says Terri Breining, president of San Diego-based independent planning firm Concepts Worldwide and chairwoman of Meeting Profes-sionals International (MPI). "So those firms will need people with expertise to run their events. It's an opportunity for independents to get in on the ground floor of the recovery and set themselves up with business for many years."
Shannon and Breining are not alone in their hopeful assessments, if the swelling ranks of self-employed planners are any indication. MPI counts nearly 1,400 independents among its 8,200 planner members, or fully 17 percent of planner membership. That figure is the highest it has ever been. Even more telling is the result of FutureWatch 2003, a survey conducted by MPI and American Express, which contains 2003 growth projections from both meeting planners and suppliers. It found that independent planners control the largest event budgets for 2003, each with an average of more than $4.8 million in annual spending -- nearly $800,000 more than the average budget for a corporate planner.
A Foot in the Door
Opportunities clearly exist for self-employed planners to land contract work -- if they know where to look. As Shannon says, independents must find the people in organizations who know that meetings are valuable. Fortunately, those folks often include managers at the firms who used to employ the now-independent planners. "It's not unusual for people to get laid off, and then hired right back on a project basis for their former company's events," says Carol Krugman, president/CEO of Krugman Group International, an eight-person firm based in St. Petersburg, FL. "As a former employee, you know the culture, and you know which departments need help because their systems for meetings are not as good as they can be."
And regardless of whether an independent is working for his or her former organization or for some other firm, first impressions are paramount. News of your excellent service and good results -- or the opposite -- with regard to a meeting will spread to other people in that organization. Remarkably, Krugman has done almost no marketing in her 13 years as an independent who specializes in international events, but referrals both from clients and from impressed attendees have provided her with countless leads. "Ten years ago, I began a relationship with one department in one medical supply company; today, I work with six of that firm's departments, and also with companies that sent people to the events I've put on for those six departments. Never be afraid to ask satisfied clients to refer you along to others who could use your expertise."
While Krugman planned international events for a pharmaceutical company and other medical-related agencies before going it alone in that niche, not all independents come from such an advantageous background. Linda Mansouria, president of Make It Happen LLC, a two-person shop in San Francisco, was an HR director at a small company that declared bankruptcy in 1995. Through research at a local career center, she realized that meeting and event planning fit her skill set. But "I broke into the industry cold turkey, and it wasn't an easy go," she recalls. "I started by doing little jobs with my mentor at the career center, and by doing weddings on my own. Fortunately, some people who attended these weddings told me afterwards they were impressed by my work, and that their companies could use me for their events. The many ways you can get noticed and land business are pretty amazing," and include easy-to-find possibilities such as volunteer work with school and community groups.
Mansouria's big break, however, came from an even more unexpected source. "One day, my mentor got an RFP from Hewlett-Packard. She didn't have the expertise to handle a whole corporate event, but I had some knowledge from my previous job. So we responded together and they selected us. Having Hewlett-Packard on my resume opened up lots of doors after that."
One for All, and All for One
In fact, banding together to plan a single event, as Mansouria and her mentor did, is a central component of most independent careers. "There is a lot of strategic partnership, and we look out for each other," Mansouria says. "For the last program I handled, I called two people who I knew were out of work and could use the business. Others will call me to say, 'I have a whole meeting on my hands, do you want to help?' " What's more, some of the leads she gets are from people she hasn't seen in years. One example: "A woman who met me at a local MPI chapter meeting five years ago called me recently, and as a result I worked on a 1,600-person event at city hall," she adds. "The networking through the planner associations really helps."
And the network of independents is such that they will not only call each other to share business, but even to hand off entire projects. "Sure, we get into competitive bid situations with other shops, but there are some potential clients who can't afford us, or they are in a market segment we generally don't service," says Breining, whose 16-year-old firm began with just her but now employs 23 people. "We'll refer such business to a smaller firm. On the flip side, we get smaller independents calling to say, 'This project is too big for me -- do you want a crack at it?' " Michael Shannon, for instance, recently referred a lead for an event on the West Coast to a firm located out there, reciprocating on what that firm did for him a few months before with an East Coast event. "It's all based on the relationships you develop," Breining notes. "You have to trust the people you're referring business to, because their work will affect your own reputation."
All this teamwork and camaraderie underscore the most critical point regarding the market for self-employed planners: The universe of potential business available is far larger than just the number of events up for bid to independents, because every meeting has so many components. "These days, associations worry most about their core competency of delivering quality education to members," says Rod Abraham, president of the 700-member Professional Meeting Planners Network in Durham, NC. "As a result, you can snatch the elements of a meeting that aren't central to that core competency. And within corporations, an independent can even persuade internal people that he or she is not seeking to replace them, but trying to help them look good. The independent can say, 'Offload to me the meeting elements which bog you down, so you can focus on controlling the central parts of the event and prove your value to your company.' " In this vein, Carol Krugman has been a hired gun in almost every individual area of event management, from site selection to contract negotiation to VIP relations to contingency and emergency plan coordination.
In the end, if you are truly happy and satisfied with planning meetings and events, the state of the market shouldn't be a factor in your decision on whether or not to become an entrepreneur. "When you have the commitment and the passion in your heart, then it's time to start your own firm," says Michael Shannon. "You can't try to time it to the economy. You do it when the timing is best for you."