You’ve been planning big events since the time you were a wee tike. You fired your mother from birthday party plans when she had the gall to suggest a pizza package at the greasy neighborhood joint. Instead, you went to work on party favors, decorations, and a homemade cake. You invited the entire first-grade class, and your basement party was a blowout. You knew you found your calling.
Now, you’re ready to take a chance on your dreams and open your own event planning business. Kudos! Don’t forget to add a mentor to the list of things you need for event planning success. In this article, we share five reasons why having a mentor will help you achieve your event planning goals.
1. A Mentor Increases Your Business’s Chances of Survival
Mentoring will help your fledgling event planning business survive its critical first years. SCORE, a nonprofit that offers free mentoring to entrepreneurs, reports that 87% of their clients are still in business after one year. Compare that with the national average of only 75% for businesses without a mentor.
Mentoring increases your odds of entrepreneurial survival by giving you the benefit of another’s experience. Your event planning mentor has been there and done that.
They’ve experienced event staffing shortages, toppled wedding cakes, and intoxicated clowns at children’s parties. They’ve navigated the pressures and self-doubt that go along with event planning. Your mentor can provide guidance and support when the realities of event planning hit home.
2. Mentoring Helps You Go From Struggling to Growing
SCORE also reports that entrepreneurs increase their odds of growing their business when they meet with their mentor at least five times.
Your mentor can give you practical advice about the ins and outs of operating an event planning business. You save time when you don’t have to sift through dubious information about everything from accounting to marketing strategies to business loans. Having a reliable source of information regarding the intricacies of launching a business means you can focus on growth more quickly.
3. Get Relationship-Based Support
The relationship between mentor and mentee is different from your other business relationships. The most prominent difference is that the relationship isn’t financially based. Typically, mentors volunteer their time with their mentees.
That doesn’t mean mentors don’t get anything in return for their efforts. Instead, the mentor/mentee relationship is a bond in which both participants find meaning and satisfaction.
In other words, your mentor is emotionally invested in your success, and their advice and guidance tend to be holistic. Sure, your mentor will help you set and achieve specific goals. But they’ll also be there to offer their wisdom in other areas of your event planning business.
4. Your Mentor Can Grow Your Network
Your mentor has been in the NYC event planning scene longer than you. As you grow professionally, your mentor will help you make connections that will help you along with the next step of your career.
For example, you’ll probably begin your event planning business with small events, such as birthday or dinner parties. Your mentor happens to personally know a top baker with typically long wait times and offers to make introductions. As you demonstrate your event planning prowess, your mentor will continue to make introductions that help your career.
5. Your Mentor Will Help You Grow Personally
When you begin your event planning business, many of the people around you will treat you like a newbie. Caterers may be dismissive. Venues will push you aside for larger events. Even your clients may sneer at your naivete. Slights, both large and small, will make you feel small and insignificant. Not so with your mentor.
Your mentor will treat you with respect from the get-go, which also means your mentor will expect more from you. Your mentor won’t accept excuses. They’ll expect nothing less than your unequivocal success. And you’ll break through your comfort zone, shatter the mirror of your self-doubt, and in all other ways, move Heaven and Earth to avoid disappointing them.
Unlock the Next Level with a Mentor
Starting a NYC event planning business is an exciting adventure like none other. How else can you create outlandish parties on someone else’s dime and eat cake an average of four times a week?
Make the dream a reality with a mentor’s trusted guidance. Your event planning mentor can help you navigate the ins and outs of planning stellar NYC events, all for the price of a cup of coffee.
And when you’ve unlocked the next level of life with a little help from your mentor, keep the momentum going by attending The Event Planner Expo. There, you’ll connect with more than 2,000 of your peers and learn the latest from dozens of speakers. Get your Expo tickets today!
