It’s Lonely At The Top | Calling All Event Business Owners

Owning and running a small business is a lot like being President of the United States. Just about everyone can envision the power and stature that come with the job, but the only people who can really appreciate how challenging and stressful it is are the ones who’ve actually done it before. This is why you see past Presidents with seemingly diametrically opposed political viewpoints, like Bush and Clinton, forging very tight bonds with each other. Nobody else knows what they’ve been through. They’re in the smallest club in the world.

And so it is with business owners, particularly in the event industry, where you’re more likely to be known for your creative or logistical skills than for your business acumen.

Making Decisions In A Vacuum

If you own an event company, even if you have a partner, you make key business decisions in a virtual vacuum, because you have no idea how your peers are dealing with similar situations.

Worried about how much of your ideas to give away in a proposal? Struggling to figure out how to keep your staff motivated and loyal? Wondering how to break into the next, bigger level of events you know you’re ready for? Still competing on price and losing jobs to someone who charges less? Event business owners all wrestle with these issues at one time or another, and they wrestle with them alone.

Announcing the Business Owners’ Roundtable

It’s against this backdrop that we are excited to launch our Business Owners’ Roundtable series, a closed-door forum exclusively for owners of event companies. This is a unique opportunity to be in a room with your true peers to discuss common challenges, explore solutions and brainstorm strategies to help each other grow your businesses.

The Roundtables will be half day sessions in New York (June 8), Chicago (June 19), San Francisco (June 22), and Washington DC (June 29). And they’ll be moderated by someone who’s been there, me. I ran an event company for 20 years and I’ve lived through just about every success and setback you’re likely to be dealing with.

We’ve run exclusive roundtables with targeted peer groups before (heads of in house event departments, creative directors, and even business owners – for a shorter session) and in every instance participants practically refuse to leave the room when the program is over. There’s something uniquely therapeutic, inspirational, and rewarding about being in a room with your true peers, people who are in the same boat as you, that is virtually unmatched in value.

In most instances, participants report getting as much value out of the advice they give others as they do out of the advice they receive. The community component becomes very deep, supportive and lasting.

It’s Lonely At The Top

A few years ago I was having breakfast with Rachel Gross, svp of event marketing at Univision. She had signed up her team for a corporate plan with the Event Leadership Institute, and I wanted to know what class topics would be of value to her personally, at her level.

She paused for a minute and said, “To be honest, the most valuable thing for me would be to put me in a room with my peers, and I mean my true peers, other heads of event departments in corporations, so we can openly exchange ideas and discuss common challenges we face. If you can do that, it would be tremendously valuable!” 

So we created the Department Head Roundtable, which meets twice a year, and it’s been hugely successful.

If you own an event business, we invite you to join us for one of our upcoming Business Owners’ Roundtables, and participate in what we know will be a transformative experience, and an opportunity to forge relationships with colleagues facing similar situations.

We know it’s lonely at the top. But it doesn’t have to be.

Howard Givner (@hgivner) is the founder and executive editor of the Event Leadership Institute.

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