This is my favourite time of year as an event producer. The big rush of summer is over and all my large annual projects are behind me and I can focus on the non-urgent but very important items of business that just don’t make the “A” list during the busy times. This coincides with the best time of year for me: Fall. Autumn is not only beautiful in Vancouver (warm, sunny, and colourful trees) but it’s also my wedding anniversary so it’s nice to have some downtime. I’m a pretty wired guy though and have a real hard time winding down so it’s during this hiatus from managing events that I focus on building my business. To give you a sense of what this entails I thought I’d list a few of the ways I do this:

Connect With Existing Clients. I spend a lot of time reconnecting with my clients through simple little gestures like sending a post-card, inviting them out for an organic free trade coffee, or treating them to lunch. I find this invaluable because it’s during this time that we often have the freedom to brainstorm about the next event project without anything actually on the line; it’s very freeing.

Reach-out to Potential Clients. I don’t advertise. My business is built exclusively on relationships. Each October I send out referral letters (actual letters on paper, not an e-mail) to all my business contacts. This letter is simple, it highlights a couple past projects and let the recipient know how my company can help make their next event highly successful. Not all my contacts have events but they are suppliers or know of a company that could use my help. This is a great way to build “word of mouth”.

Establish Processes and Documentation. This is the boring stuff of business, sort of. I like to review all my previous projects to see if there’s any deliverable that can be turned into a template or that needed some tweaking so that next time it can be more streamlined. This exercise helps me make more money – plain and simple. The faster my company gets at delivering excellent service the less time it will take to accomplish the project goals. This inturn gives me more time to work on new projects and generate more money. It’s not rocket science.

So, in the end… October is MY TIME of the year. I love it. I would definitely encourage every event professional to carve out a bit of time (maybe even smaller chunks twice a year) to step off the event-train and spend some time building your business. I highly recommend it.