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Welcome to the GuiltTrips podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Lockhart. As a goldsmith and

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gemologist, I'll be speaking 24 carat on all things jewelry, metals, and gems. Join

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me plus a few friends to demystify both materials and designs as your private jeweler. Let's

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tune in on these topics and get golden. As we enter spring here in Chicago, there is naturally

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going to be an uptick of social opportunities, both within the industry and ones that are

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adjacent to it. Having been the artist, the salesperson, the director, and either the

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producer or co-producer when it comes to events, this is a topic I'm looking forward to discussing

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and sharing my wisdom because there are more ways to do this wrong than there are to do

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it correctly. While this may be specific to my trade, it's not too far off to borrow the

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ten steps that I've created for myself and apply it to whatever opportunity that you

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need to put on as a function, whether that's an art show, an in-store sales event, a networking

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opportunity, or simply a big open house that may even be off-site, somewhere like the country

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club you belong to, a fundraiser for the local firefighting department. So let's jump in.

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The place to start is timing. I highly recommend subtracting three months from your ideal date

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that you want to put on the calendar. You're going to have to realize that it's not just

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your schedule, it's like an airport coordinating quote unquote the flights of your attendees,

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your potential VIP list, any sort of catering opportunities that may already be booked at

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this time, picking where it's going to be located, and seeing if it falls near or on

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top of personal or cultural holidays. The three months out rule gives you grace and slack

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around any errors that are going to show up, any dropouts, any plan Bs, any last minute

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restitutions, any staffing emergencies, any blindsides, you know, the classic plot twists

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where you hear that Murphy's Law of if anything can go wrong, it will. On the flip side of

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that, to argue for luck and fortune, wouldn't it be great to know that it's all buttoned

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up and that it was smooth sailing and gives you time to decompress and internally prepare

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instead of cramming the night before the exam. Next comes picking a theme or having a vision.

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Why are you putting on an event? And let's say it's for a cause, or you're introducing

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a new collection. Great. Answer the next question at least three other times. So that what?

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So that it raises money for the local firefighters union. So that what? Perhaps you can cultivate

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new clientele. So that what? Here's my big one for my business. So I have a template

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and a portfolio to approach other non for profits for future collaborations and community

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intersections. So do you see that what you're trying to do by picking a theme and having

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a vision is stretching potential to fall into the short sightedness of any type of event

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or styling for your business, for your clientele, for your new product, for your community,

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and so on. Next is making a budget. And the reason we want to make a budget is to take

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this from an open loop and having the bills stack up without your attention on it. You're

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creating a closed loop and a parameter, which also gives you a baseline for how successful

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this event was monetarily. If I'm throwing a $5,000 event is my goal to have $10,000

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return on investment $15,000. Am I okay with breaking even? And simply having the assets

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from it, the pictures, the news feature, the social media responses that I can turn into

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testimonials or reviews. So you have to come up with a budget because immediately your

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mind will start figuring out how to allocate it. Is this enough money to have full appetizers?

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Is this enough to have drinks, sir? What would I need to do as far as staffing extra security?

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How about if I'm paying my employees time and a half to work after store hours? Does

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anybody need to have a stipend for any sort of uniform or depending on the type of theme,

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a costume? It gives you room to have what I call a crash pad just in case you're running

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too close and it might show up in the quality of what you're attempting to produce or that

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you're short changing your ability to choose contractors and vendors. Without a budget,

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it's pretty challenging to stay grounded and make clear decisions on your creation. From

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there, you're going to move on to choosing the location. If you're doing this in-house

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and under the roof of your showroom, what is the maximum capacity as far as attendees?

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Will that dictate your invitation list? Or does it make more sense to do this offsite

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and have amenities such as I doubt anybody has a full kitchen, the way that a different

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venue might or multiple bathrooms and it's not so much of a security risk to take people

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into the back of house if your bathroom happens to be private and for employees only? The

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reason why you might want an offsite location is your store might be located in an area

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with terrible parking and now you're going to congest that with 300 more attendees, you're

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going to cause a shared frustration between yourselves and them. It's important to discern

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and you've heard it a million times in real estate, location, location, location. You're

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going to need to draft your marketing plan or campaign or sprint. It's going to be congruent

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with any sort of theme or vision you have and it's going to anchor your why. It's your

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potential to sell this, to PR this, to market this, to circulate this, to get it visible

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and possibly shared and discussed. Are you going to reach out to publications? They have

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publishing calendars, which is why again, you want to be 90 days back. We had a window

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and a cutoff of six to eight weeks of submission for being published in what to do in Chicago

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if we were having an event and that was critical to stay within those parameters because they

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were non-negotiable. I couldn't be eight and a half weeks. Eight means eight because I'm

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on somebody else's timeline as well as deadlines. Is the marketing going to be your email list?

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Are you going to vet your VIPs and incentivize them coming because you know that they're

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more likely to show appreciation in a potential purchase? Would you like to use the party

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angle of it to personally thank them for their past patronage? Or is this more democratic?

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Is this going to go out on the socials and come one, come all, which obviously doesn't

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need a whole lot of budget, but because the social media is just that and a little less

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formal and a little less professional and even a little less transactional, is it harder

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work? Is it more labor to get those RSVPs? Unlike a fundraising event where I usually

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receive an invitation in the mail with an RSVP card that I have to mail back. I already

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have made the commitment of going down to my post office and putting my hat in the ring.

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Congratulations, you're halfway there. Now it starts to go from that invisible to the visible

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and the conceptual into the tangible. Your next step is to invite the talent. Are you

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going to be showing the work that you make yourselves, such as a new collection? Are

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you an authorized dealer and can get on memo, have a rep, bring in some special pieces so

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that there's a flavor of urgency? You snooze, you lose. If you don't come to the event,

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it's no longer available, which you'll see in some of the branded designers. Is this

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more collaborative where your address is hosting a variety of local artists and talent? So

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once you decide the type of creations that you'd like to feature, consider how you want

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to highlight it and also consider which pieces or artists have work that's easier to obtain.

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Remember, even though you're booking this 90 days back, time flies. The next step is

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to onboard the participants. Is it going to take significant money, time, labor, or contracting

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to get them here? If they are local talents, how have you juried them to participate? Are

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you taking a deposit? Are you creating a contract where they are obligated to participate

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or give you X amount of days or weeks notice if they bail or fall through? How I ended

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up meeting my co-producer, Liz, from Artopia Chicago, is that an artist who pulled out

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of a show down in the Pilsen neighborhood was responsible for replacing himself. She

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wasn't going to do that. She was busy doing things that only she could do. So my photographer

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friend called me and said, I've already paid for my spot and my table. The invitations

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have already gone out. I have a wedding conflict. I need to go shoot. Would you like to take

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my place? Absolutely. It was that easy. So make sure you have that kind of insurance

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in place as far as who is occupying your available spots. And now you're going to want to stage

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the event and the collections. If you have a one of a kind piece next to all the other

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one of a kind pieces, all at one case, you're going to create gridlock or bottlenecking

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as far as the attendees footprints in your showroom. So this is where people who are

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really good at planograms and maybe even somebody who is that genius at doing the seating arrangement

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at a wedding can be your secret weapon. You're going to want to make sure that people migrate

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in groups with a threshold to them. Otherwise, it's going to become comical as well as uncomfortable.

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There's nothing worse than trying to squeeze through people or wait too long to see what

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they're all trying to look at. Or if you're a salesperson, the ratio of instead of one

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to four, one to six, it's one to 20, all asking you the same thing. And it also becomes a

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security risk, especially if the items that you've got are extremely high value. Good

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luck keeping track of absolutely everything if you're just plain outnumbered as well

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as having to function through some situational claustrophobia. In addition to staging your

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collections, now you're going to plan the layout. Are you going to need extra furniture

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in? If you have people who are part of the ADA, if there are people who are compromised as

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far as their ability to stand too long, or require any sort of assistance to come to

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your event, do you have rest areas for them? Are you considering accessibility? Now, obviously,

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you can't accommodate absolutely everything, and that probably should be disclosed in any

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sort of invitation or instructions that you're sending out. But consider it because you really

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don't know who will show up. Not everyone is full disclosure and transparent about any

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sort of special needs. So make sure that if this is the case, that you're putting it

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in areas that are the shortest distance between A to B for them, it will alleviate some of

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your regular flow as far as walking the showroom, the floor, the collections, the stations,

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however you plan this. And it's also a convenience and a courtesy to them. And you never know

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sometimes the tiniest bit of compassion comes back threefold to you. And last, but certainly

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not least, where is your POS station? That stands for point of sale. Will you have employees

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walking the floor with remote checkout abilities, such as they have a square reader, they have

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wireless credit card adapters, they're using their phone, they're using an iPad for the

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inventory, they've got software that allows them to be mobile checkout units, or is there

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going to be a table with multiple salespeople, or is it just one man or woman show at the

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quote unquote cash register? This is important because if you are going to go with that many

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more people than usual in a room, and you are working either with an end time to the

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event, and having to figure out how many people are going to buy, and when you plan to end

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and close your doors, is their alcohol our people under the influence? Do they need to

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get home is this running late in their impatient? Do they have babysitters? You have to make

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it a smooth wrap it up as it was to enter the event. I hope this decoded the mystique

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and magic of planning an event or a sales show. Of course, I wish you the best of luck.

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And more importantly, I wish you the best of plans. And I'll leave you with a bonus.

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There are five C's to event planning concept, context, content, coordination, and communication.

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The mirror of that is the five P's of event planning, product, price, place, promotion,

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and people. Wishing you a lot of success. Go get them.

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Thank you for listening and learning with me. I would love you to share this project

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with people finding rare beauty in today's world and throughout our times. Until the

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next episode, keep your own stories sparkling.