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How to Start an Event Management Business from Home?

Do you want to start an event management business from home? If you are reading this, you might be interested in starting up your own event management business from home. An events business involves a lot of planning and proper execution to be successful especially if you are starting it from home. Many people step back in this attempt as they don't know where to start. To help them all, we have come up with a detailed guide on how you can set up an event management business from home.

How to start an event management business from home

Before diving into the main topic, let's find out why it is beneficial to run a home based event management business. You might be working as an employee in this field and trying to create your own client base or you just want to be your own boss, knowing the benefits of initiating an event planning business is worth it.
  • Low cost:
An event manager technically can work from anywhere under the sky with the help of a high speed internet connection, laptop or mobile. Using your home as an office can be a cost saving option as you do not need to spend a huge amount on renting or purchasing an office for your business. Besides this, you do not need to get involved in a long term renting contract if you start an event management business from home.
  • No travel related stress:
Commuting to the office regularly on time can be stressful especially when you are at the initial stage of your business. Besides stress, time is another important factor here. You can easily save the time you would spend on traveling everyday that you can utilize in other productive business activities.
  • Flexibility:
The biggest advantage of adopting the home office culture is flexibility. Event planners remain under constant pressure of meeting deadlines due to which they often have to spend sleepless nights. For such long hours of work, no other place feels as safe as your home. You can stay up and work as long as you want without being worried about reaching your home.
  • Client meetings:
Most clients prefer to meet at the office. However, if you are running an event planning business from home and your home is not a suitable place for client meetings, you can always initiate such meetings in cafes or hotels.  What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.”  –Dave Thomas, Founder, Wendy’s. Apart from the above mentioned things, here are the things you need to consider to move ahead with this plan. Starting up something new needs a lot of planning and skills. So where to start? Well in this article we will discuss everything in detail about how you can start your event management business from home and how you should proceed with this idea.

How to start an event management business from home: Detailed guide

detailed guide

1. Learn event management skills

No matter in which field you are going to start your business with, you must have a clear idea about it. Similarly, if you want to start your event business  from home, you must know what it is all about. The path to establishing a business passes through many challenges and you must know how to overcome them. When it comes to an events business you need to have the right skills and experience to handle an entire event. Your clients would also rely on you based on your skills and experience. If you want to ace the event management skills you can:
  • Take up a course in the event management. 
  • Work as a volunteer or freelancer in an event.
Once you gain sufficient knowledge about this field, it becomes easier for you to start up an event business from home.

2. Market research

It is essential for you to know if the kind of service you are offering in your event management business is in demand or not.  Instead of having faith in your business idea, you must go out and do practical research to get the answer. Well, it might be a bit difficult as you need to consider various sources to see the real picture.
  • Talk to as many people as possible regarding the same.
  • Find out public data, analysis and other reports. 
  • Try to interact with your target audience through phone calls or emails to understand the need of the service and more.
  • Online research can also be very helpful here. 
Market research is an inseparable part of every business irrespective of their size and age.

3. Competitor’s research

Once you are done with your market research, the next step is to conduct a thorough competitor's research to understand their business movements and activities. Consider the following things:
  • Identify your competitors first and find out the number of competitors present in your locality. 
  • Make a competitive study between your business ideas and their offerings. Do not forget to point out the similarities and differences. 
  • Communicate with a few of your competitors to know what are the challenges they are facing in this industry and what services are they lacking. 
  • Try to find the exact number of businesses that operate in your area.
Competitors research helps you recognize your business strengths and weaknesses. This can also alert you about the challenges you may face in the future and let you be prepared to overcome them with proper planning and execution.

4. Create the structure of your business plan

Having a solid plan will always help you in starting up an event business from home. It always keeps you in a better position to handle your company easily.  You must start planning for your business even before giving it a proper name.  Here are the things you need to include while creating the structure of your business plan: 
  • Outline your company vision. 
  • Be specific about your company mission. 
  • Analyze your business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges.

5. Consider legal formalities

Whether you are planning to start a business from home or office, completing the legal formalities is crucial to avoid any sorts of legal troubles in the future. When it comes to the legal formalities of a new business two most important things are:
  • Giving a name to your business. 
  • Registering your company.
While naming your business, consider the following things: 
  • Consider the type of service you are offering through your business. 
  • What is the uniqueness of your dream business? 
  • Find a name that is simple and easy to remember. Keep it short and crisp. 
  • Before finalizing a name, do not forget to check if the domain name is available on the web.  
Once you are successful in giving an identity to your event management business with a proper name, the next step is to register it. Here, it is to be mentioned that a business registration process varies from country to country. Different countries have different rules. So you must be aware of the process that is followed in your country. Consider the following things while you register your business: 
  • Research and gather details about the actual process of business registration in your country. 
  • It is important for you to determine the basic pattern of your business. This includes determining the kind of legal entity you will be using to operate the business. You might be the sole owner of it or you have one or multiple partners and this has to be decided before you are submitting your application to the government. Make a research to find which structure will be beneficial for it. 
  • Assemble all the important documents that are needed to complete the formality.

6. Decide the type of services you will be offering in your event business

Another crucial part of building your own events company from home is to determine the type of event services you want to provide your clients with. The event industry is huge and contains an endless number of services. So as a business owner you need to decide if you have the strength or capabilities to offer all these services or you want to pick up a few from the list that you have a thorough knowledge of. For example, you can be a wedding planner or manage birthday parties or business meetings or conferences or more.

7. Make a fee structure of your event management services

This is another important aspect of an event management business as you must know how you can earn through your business. The three most common and popular types of fee structure include the following.
  • Per hour charge.
You can charge your clients based on the hours you have spent on their project.
  • Flat fee and.
Under the flat fee system, you can charge your customers with a one time fee for an entire event.
  • Fees based on percentage.
In the percentage based fee structure, you can charge your clients a certain percentage of the total cost that has to be spent on the entire event. After analyzing the above mentioned fee structuring method, we have found that the percentage based fee structure is the most popular one. However, you must determine the fee structure based on the type of target audience you have.

8. Promoting your events business

Every business needs promotion, as you need to reach out to the maximum number of your target audience. The promotion method usually relies on the type of people you target for your business. However, you must utilize both online and offline methods of marketing your business. Online business promotion includes:
  1. Creating a website. 
  2. Creating social media pages. 
  3. Email marketing. 
  4. Adding your business to local business listing portals.
Offline business promotion includes:
  1. Host a business launch party and invite everyone you know. 
  2. Go for partnerships. 
  3. Marketing through word of mouth.

9. Use the right technology

If you are planning to step up a business in the world of events make sure you have a striking online presence for your target audience. This is because your visitors can easily find all the details about your business through it. Adding event management functionalities to it is something that makes the entire process smooth and simple. Whether you are a beginner or you have already established your business, WP Event Manager adds the right ingredients to the success of your event management business. It is packed with some useful features that let you showcase your events through an interactive calendar, manage registrations, sell tickets, display event location through Openstreetmap, Google Maps and more. When it comes to an event management plugin, the market offers countless options to you. So what makes WP Event Manager better than them? 
  • The features that WP Event Manager offers truly make it superior to others. 
  • It provides many powerful features for free to its clients. 
  • The paid addons are worth the price. 
  • Addons are very much affordable and they also offer plugin bundles that have made bulk plugins easily available to everyone. 
  • When we are talking about the strengths of WP Event Manager, we simply can not avoid its support system. They are sincere and always answer quickly for their queries and issues. 
  • It has also received several awards and recognitions that speak for their quality and credibility. 
So what else do you want for your event management business?  Discover the plugin now.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How does it cost to start an event management business?

The cost of starting an event business from home depends on various factors. However, you might need around $600 to $1,200 to cover the initial cost.

2. Is event management a profitable business?

Yes, with strategic planning and dedication, an event management business can be highly profitable for both freelancers and full-time event planners.

3. How do event planners make money?

There are different price models based on which event planners make money. Some of these pricing structure include: 
  • Flat fee system: event planners charge clients a fixed amount as their fee. 
  • Percentage of the total event budget: in this system, event planners charge a fixed percentage of the total budget of their clients. 
  • Hourly payments: many event planners set their cost on the basis of the hours they have spend on planning for a specific event. 
  • Commission based payment: some planners may also opt for earning a percentage of the fees that are spent on vendors and other service providers.

4. What is the profit margins for events?

According to researches, the profit margins in event management usually vary from 20 to 60%. 

Conclusion

We hope that the above mentioned tips  will help you kickstart your event management business from home with a minimum investment. Each and every step mentioned here is crucial for your business including, the market research, naming your business, registration and its promotion.  If you follow these steps with the support of an event management plugin like WP Event Manager then the journey to success will become easier for you in this industry.

About the Author

Prachetshi Basu

Prachetshi Basu is the face of our editorial team who looks after all the activities of the content department. Starting from topic generation to editing, she scrutinizes every step to ensure the creation of excellent content.

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