So I've been a very bad blogger and have not written on this thing enough so from now on I am making sure I do this at least twice a week. Today I am making the list of the five people I'd like to interview for my project.
1. Lyndsey Hamilton of Lyndsey Hamilton Events: I love lindseys work and she was one of the first people I knew of in the business. Her prices are (and can be) very high because her demand is so high... so I'd like to learn about how she got to that point.
2. Darcy Miller of Martha Stewart Weddings Magazine (Chief Editor)- this may be hard to do but she spoke at a showcase I went to and seemed very approachable so ya never know! My plan is to go to the next event she is at and talk to her there.
3. My old boss Lisa Hoffman of Ceci NY. I feel a little silly on this one since she is so busy and I am always calling her for things but maybe she wont mind. We'll see.
4. Barnaby Draper (Photographer) my new photographer friend who I met with a few weeks ago. Him and his assistant nicole are so great and I am so impressed by him. He has done album covers for DMB and taken shots for so many A list celebrities (dave, john mayer, etc)
5. Someone at Preston Bailey Design. There is no way I could get a phone call with Preston. He is so busy and a huge diva. but i could still talk to someone who works for him. I bet they'd like having someone else interested for a change.
Thats it for today... I hope I have some success...
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
My Ideal Day
My ideal day is a summary of what I am hoping my life will be within the next few months when I move into Manhattan. It will go something like this:
I wake up at 730am at my Upper West Side apartment with my cat Ziggy laying on my chest looking up at me for food. I feed her, eat some sort of cereal for breakfast in my stainless steel applianced kitchen with a great 30something floor view. After breakfast I quickly get dressed in my gym clothes to do my morning workout at the gym in my building.
After an hour at the gym I head back to my apartment to shower and get dressed for work. I then head out on the subway to my office in the west village/soho area where I rent desk space for my one person event planning company, Polka Dot Events. The office is a bright white loft space that I share with other small creative companies... we each have our own desks and spaces and share the conference room. When I arrive at the office around 9:30 am I say hi to all my office mates and sit down at my desk where I take the first hour of the day to go through my voice mails and answer E-mails from the night before on my beautiful iMac.
The rest of my day is spent researching new wedding sites for my clients, speaking with clients through E-mail and phone, having consultations at the office with clients, and visiting venue sights or other vendors like photographers, invitation designers, etc. to meet for an upcoming event we are collaborating on. Some time of the day is also spent designing an event space on my Viven Software for an upcoming event. Sometime in the middle of this I take a break to go get a nice sandwich for lunch. My day ends around 630-7 as I hop on the subway back to my apartment.
On my arrival back to the building I give a wave to the doorman and get greeted at my apartment door by Ziggy who wants food...again. I feed her lay down for a few minutes and start dinner. I eat dinner with my boyfriend Tom and change into comfy clothes. The rest of the night is spent watching TV and eating yummy snacks until I fall asleep around 11pm and begin my day all over again the next morning.
I wake up at 730am at my Upper West Side apartment with my cat Ziggy laying on my chest looking up at me for food. I feed her, eat some sort of cereal for breakfast in my stainless steel applianced kitchen with a great 30something floor view. After breakfast I quickly get dressed in my gym clothes to do my morning workout at the gym in my building.
After an hour at the gym I head back to my apartment to shower and get dressed for work. I then head out on the subway to my office in the west village/soho area where I rent desk space for my one person event planning company, Polka Dot Events. The office is a bright white loft space that I share with other small creative companies... we each have our own desks and spaces and share the conference room. When I arrive at the office around 9:30 am I say hi to all my office mates and sit down at my desk where I take the first hour of the day to go through my voice mails and answer E-mails from the night before on my beautiful iMac.
The rest of my day is spent researching new wedding sites for my clients, speaking with clients through E-mail and phone, having consultations at the office with clients, and visiting venue sights or other vendors like photographers, invitation designers, etc. to meet for an upcoming event we are collaborating on. Some time of the day is also spent designing an event space on my Viven Software for an upcoming event. Sometime in the middle of this I take a break to go get a nice sandwich for lunch. My day ends around 630-7 as I hop on the subway back to my apartment.
On my arrival back to the building I give a wave to the doorman and get greeted at my apartment door by Ziggy who wants food...again. I feed her lay down for a few minutes and start dinner. I eat dinner with my boyfriend Tom and change into comfy clothes. The rest of the night is spent watching TV and eating yummy snacks until I fall asleep around 11pm and begin my day all over again the next morning.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
The Birth of Polka Dot Events
When I tell people I own an Event Planning & Design company the course of events that follows is typically the following
"what?"
"I own my own company, I do weddings and sweet 16s and corporate events"
"wait so what do you do?"
"I design, I plan it, I pick the venue, I make sure everything is perfect and my clients have the perfect event"
"How do you own your own business? You look like what, 17?"
I'm sure you can figure out how the rest goes. I usually explain that I applied for a sole propertiership license by the state, hired a friend to do my website, designed my business cards, and contacted everyone I knew and all of a sudden business just started to happen.
But how did it start before that?
To save some time and boring information it basically goes like this:
Since I was old enough to think I was always putting on shows, making up dances, doing arts and crafts, trying to invent things, creating unique birthday parties for myself (one year I had a zoo birthday party in my backyard, another year was a "make your own music video" party). My mom is a landscape deisgner her family always built things I spent every minute at my grandmas house trying to invent things in my grandpa's workshop. I loved the concept of making something beautiful out of something ugly.
I grew up as a dancer dedicating all non-school moments to dance and I eventually became very good at choreography. I wasn't the best dancer but I was a natural...I loved the feeling of creating something from nothing.
So that's my paragraph about my creative gene.
When I went to Fordham and transferred to the business school I originally did it to go into management for event planning. Everyone told me to go into it after my success in planning proms and parties in high school and my love for everything weddings and decor. But when I got to Fordham... they starting roping me into THE TRACK. It made me feel like if I was not in accounting or finance I was going to be poor and a loser the rest of my life. So I decided I'd forget the "starving creative life" and go into finance.
After hating every waking moment of the first two weeks working as a financial advisor trainee at a well respected Investment Bank, I knew that if I did finance the rest of my life I would clearly be miserable... and probably not that succesful as I had no interest in reading Barron's and the only sections I read in the Wall Street Journal were the one with fun topics like interior design or new innovations in the art world.
I reevaluated my life and had a tiny breakdown. The final conclusion was that I am a great worker and a natural business person. No matter what I did in life, I would succeed, and I would succeed even more if I loved what I did. So from that day on I knew I had to go back to my original event planning plan!
Most people would then look for a job in even planning... but I already had that experience. I worked under the owner of a small event planning company for a year and I saw everything she went through in the beginning. I also worked in a design firm that also started out small and I saw what she did to be prosperous and be so succesful. That design firm is now in every wedding magazine every single month. Shes incredible.
So I started my own company. My business launched pretty much when my website went up whcih was september 2007. A month and a half later I had my first client booked for a 300 person wedding. She found me through a recommendation from her photographer I met that summer. The wedding went so well I was so unbeliveably proud of myself that work. Now it's January and I get new inquries every single day, a new client booked and signed, and 2 or 3 still in negotiations. I truly feel that I will be highly succesful in this business and I have the abilities to make an impact on the event planning industry. I hope my future clients feel the same way.
"what?"
"I own my own company, I do weddings and sweet 16s and corporate events"
"wait so what do you do?"
"I design, I plan it, I pick the venue, I make sure everything is perfect and my clients have the perfect event"
"How do you own your own business? You look like what, 17?"
I'm sure you can figure out how the rest goes. I usually explain that I applied for a sole propertiership license by the state, hired a friend to do my website, designed my business cards, and contacted everyone I knew and all of a sudden business just started to happen.
But how did it start before that?
To save some time and boring information it basically goes like this:
Since I was old enough to think I was always putting on shows, making up dances, doing arts and crafts, trying to invent things, creating unique birthday parties for myself (one year I had a zoo birthday party in my backyard, another year was a "make your own music video" party). My mom is a landscape deisgner her family always built things I spent every minute at my grandmas house trying to invent things in my grandpa's workshop. I loved the concept of making something beautiful out of something ugly.
I grew up as a dancer dedicating all non-school moments to dance and I eventually became very good at choreography. I wasn't the best dancer but I was a natural...I loved the feeling of creating something from nothing.
So that's my paragraph about my creative gene.
When I went to Fordham and transferred to the business school I originally did it to go into management for event planning. Everyone told me to go into it after my success in planning proms and parties in high school and my love for everything weddings and decor. But when I got to Fordham... they starting roping me into THE TRACK. It made me feel like if I was not in accounting or finance I was going to be poor and a loser the rest of my life. So I decided I'd forget the "starving creative life" and go into finance.
After hating every waking moment of the first two weeks working as a financial advisor trainee at a well respected Investment Bank, I knew that if I did finance the rest of my life I would clearly be miserable... and probably not that succesful as I had no interest in reading Barron's and the only sections I read in the Wall Street Journal were the one with fun topics like interior design or new innovations in the art world.
I reevaluated my life and had a tiny breakdown. The final conclusion was that I am a great worker and a natural business person. No matter what I did in life, I would succeed, and I would succeed even more if I loved what I did. So from that day on I knew I had to go back to my original event planning plan!
Most people would then look for a job in even planning... but I already had that experience. I worked under the owner of a small event planning company for a year and I saw everything she went through in the beginning. I also worked in a design firm that also started out small and I saw what she did to be prosperous and be so succesful. That design firm is now in every wedding magazine every single month. Shes incredible.
So I started my own company. My business launched pretty much when my website went up whcih was september 2007. A month and a half later I had my first client booked for a 300 person wedding. She found me through a recommendation from her photographer I met that summer. The wedding went so well I was so unbeliveably proud of myself that work. Now it's January and I get new inquries every single day, a new client booked and signed, and 2 or 3 still in negotiations. I truly feel that I will be highly succesful in this business and I have the abilities to make an impact on the event planning industry. I hope my future clients feel the same way.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Goals For Innovation & Entreprenurial Mindset Class
As my first blog entry, it is important to know why this blog is being started in the first place. So I will now answer what I hope to get out of the class that assigned me to make this website:
1. To see if I'm on the right track. I already own a business but I did it all my way, was I right? Did I forget anything in the process? Have I set a good foundation for a company to grow?
2. To hear how other entreprenuers made it and their personalities. It would be nice not to hear about the "right track" for once at Fordham.
3. To build upon my existing business model and tweak and add new ideas and functions to it to help the business grow and be more profitable.
That's it for tonight!
1. To see if I'm on the right track. I already own a business but I did it all my way, was I right? Did I forget anything in the process? Have I set a good foundation for a company to grow?
2. To hear how other entreprenuers made it and their personalities. It would be nice not to hear about the "right track" for once at Fordham.
3. To build upon my existing business model and tweak and add new ideas and functions to it to help the business grow and be more profitable.
That's it for tonight!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)