Are you organising an event?
Are you feeling overwhelmed with the administrative tasks you’ve to complete?
Are you having nightmares that the venue double books you?
Are you afraid that your exhibitors or speakers will cancel last moment?
Are you anxious that people turn up who haven’t registered or worse of all no-one turns up at all?
With every event, comes a lot of admin! There is the back and forth with the venue, the exchange and negotiations with participants on the night, drawing up email lists, collating information for marketing material, getting information out to the public and pulling the agenda for the night together; so you need someone with strong organisational skills to coordinate it all.
In my work as a Virtual PA and in my own community, I’ve been involved behind the scenes relieving the admin pain across a wide variety of events. You name it I’ve helped in the background! Everything from Strictly Dancing fundraisers, to the launch of new networks, anniversary events, bake-offs between community leaders, helping at farmers markets and chairing monthly meetings.
Whether it is inaugurating a new building or making sure people know the difference between the Argentinian Tango and the Viennese waltz, there are several factors common to the management of all events.
Delegation
You may think you can, but the truth is you CAN’T do everything! You can’t be on top of the marketing, the administration and have the headspace to plan what it is you really want to do. Focus on the things that you are good at and OUTSOURCE the rest.
Communication
Make sure you have a system in place that no matter how many people are involved with the planning of an event that you ALL have access to the same information, so that means not saving essential updates to your desktop!
You can share documents in Google Drive or have a shared Dropbox or use or a collaborative tool such as Trello, Asana or Slack. Regular updates to whomever you are collaborating with are also important, so you are all on the same page.
Have regular meetings with all players either face-to-face or via one of many online video conferencing platforms that exist such as Zoom, Skype for Business or GoToMeeting.
Preparation
Think of all eventualities! Have a backup plan in case your speakers don’t turn up on the night, in case there is an emergency fire drill, in case the next storm arrives in full force. By hiring a virtual assistant, you can outsource the time consuming nitty gritty admin work to someone else leaving you the time to concentrate tasks that you are good at.
5 Reasons to Budget For a Virtual Assistant At Your Next Event
- You can ask a VA to research availability and rates of venues and liaise with providers over contract details, catering, special requests and final numbers.
- You can rely on a VA to streamline the way you are selling tickets for your event – by suggesting ticketing platforms such as Get Invited which simplifies how you sell tickets and interact with your customers.
- You can task a VA to help with the marketing and advertising of the event, helping you to write a description of the event, create flyers, source advertising streams and schedule posts on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter etc.
- You can leave the time-consuming tasks of coordinating people, organising meetings and gathering all necessary information to someone else.
- Communication after the event is as important as before and during, and a VA can also help you send out a satisfaction survey or collate the results of surveys taken during the event.
What Skills Can a Virtual Assistant Can Bring to Your Event?
By hiring a Virtual Assistant, you are assured that you will have someone on board, who:
• quickly gets up to speed with what is happening • has the experience to know what questions to ask in advance and is able to predict problems • you can bounce ideas off
• you can hire for a pre-set number of hours or days a month to help with the planning
