There is a specific skillset you must possess to be a successful event manager. So, what are the 10 skills that every event manager needs? Moreover, how can one develop such skills and rise to the top of the field? These skills can help with everything from managing the employees to understanding the unique requirements of individual clients.
Every event manager needs a powerful skillset to be successful. This skillset includes interpersonal skills, masterful organization, and excellent communication skills, among others. You can use a digital app for a meticulous organization, and brainstorm multiple ideas for maximum creativity.
From handling and communicating with various crowds to formulating innovative solutions within the deadline, every event planner needs to develop these skills. Today, you will learn why these skills are of utmost importance for event organizers and learn the how to develop them with ease.
What Are The 10 Skills Every Event Manager Must Have?
Every event manager must deal with a hundred different scenarios for organizing one event. They have to communicate with vendors, get permits from city officials, organize the tables and guest seating arrangements, and make everything memorable.
This will not be possible without a powerful and resourceful skillset. Here are the top 10 skills that every event manager must-have for success.
- Excellent Interpersonal and People Skills?
This is the number one attribute and quality that every effective event manager must have in their arsenal. Interpersonal and people skills are of absolute importance for all managers.
They ought to be willing to interact positively with:
- Senior managers
- Government employees
- Event sponsors
- Colleagues and employees
- Company representatives
- Clients and their families
- Vendors
- Event Guests
To effectively interact with a wide variety of individuals, an event manager would need to be able to handle disputes nimbly. Moreover, they would also have to be positive yet friendly leaders and retain a sense of flexibility and serenity under duress.
An event manager must work and collaborate with a wide variety of people in order to ensure that the event is a success. The high level of collaboration demands the ability not only to understand others but also to listen to them without any hassles or frustration.
Therefore, it is crucial for the event manager to consider what the clients want and then identify innovative solutions to satisfy those requirements or explore new alternatives.
The acquisition of excellent interpersonal and people skills is a must-have for every event manager. While some people are born with these skills, others must work hard to earn this skill.
How Can You Acquire Interpersonal Skills?
The first thing you need to do is ensure a positive attitude and outlook when dealing with others. A positive attitude and a calm personality is the first half of having great people skills.
Moreover, you will have to show genuine interest in your clients’ requirements and offer a well-balanced emotional response to all situations. Active listening and showing genuine interest is the second half of having amazing interpersonal skills.
Lastly, you will have to understand your employees as well. This means that you not only have to remember their names but also remember their traits. This will show that you are a caring boss, and you will be able to better communicate with them.
- Why Is It Important to Understand the Unique Requirements of Your Clients?
This may be an obvious one, but every event manager must understand the unique and individual requirements of their clients. If you try to use the “one size fits all” ideology, you will lose clients left and right.
Just because one client wants to free doves at their event doesn’t mean that every client would like that. Therefore, you need to have an open mind when dealing with clients. You need to treat every client and their requirements as a new set of information and try to offer tailored solutions for every event. If you start recycling old ideas, clients will move onto another planner.
Moreover, you have to remember that the little stuff and details matter. Sometimes, the clients can dislike your ignorance of little things and choose someone else. Going over the details and requirements and repeatedly glancing at specifics will help you understand what the clients want.
A sharp sense of intuition can prevent minor issues from blowing up and transforming into major problems. Attention to detail and unique requirements allows you to guarantee that you are fully prepared for the event, and everything is in place.
How Can You Prepare Yourself to Understand What the Client Wants?
Listen to the client with maximum attention. Pay attention to the details, and do not hesitate to inquire about the details as many times as you want. Moreover, if you want to be a successful event manager, you need to use notes or digital schedules to make sure that you jot down everything that the client wants.
Some event managers make the mistake of paying attention to the big stuff and not to the minor details. This can cause a problem. Therefore, you need to keep detailed notes of everything big and small.
If the client wants the centerpiece with ten roses and one lily flower, you need to ensure that these requirements are met. If the client wants to use a specific set of glasses for their event, pay attention to that.
Some requirements may seem insignificant at the time but will matter in the long run. Therefore, note down everything and also hire an assistant who will also be present during these meetings. This will ensure that if you miss something, they won’t.
- Why Is the Art of Organization an Important Skill for Event Managers?
The art of organization is important not only for an event manager but also for all managers and professionals. An efficient organization is the key to success, and every event manager needs to master this skill.
As an event manager, you need to be able to tackle and handle multiple things at the same time. Without proper organizational skills, you will be lost and will ultimately drop the ball. Multi-tasking will serve as the core element behind your success, and organization skills will help you achieve multi-tasking effectively.
The majority of modern event planners rely on the use of modern technological tools and digital apps for a step-by-step checklist. Moreover, they have more than one plan in their arsenal and are prepared to deal with any unforeseen circumstances.
Additionally, organizational skills help you see the big picture with clarity and allows you to dedicate and allocate the resources respectively. Rather than spending and blowing away the entire budget on unnecessary things, the art of organization allows you to divvy up the budget among different things and requirements.
Multi-layered event management offers you the opportunity to concentrate on the larger picture while maintaining track of all the little requirements. Therefore, to avoid burnout, you need to learn the art of management, organization, and proper delegation of time-consuming tasks with ease.
How Can You Master the Art of Organization?
There is no simple way of mastering this particular skill. Everyone has their organizational mechanisms and procedures. However, there are a few things that you can learn to enhance your multi-tasking and organizational skills.
- Understand the art of making a list of everything.
- Have more than one plan in your arsenal. Always make a plan “B” in case the primary plan goes off the rails.
- Schedule everything and rehearse before the actual event.
- Organize and manage a proper filing system with digital apps.
- Formulate strategies to deal with unforeseen circumstances.
- Delegate tasks to the right employees.
These are just a few of the things that you need to familiarize yourself with if you want to master organizational skills. You need to make a list of everything and prepare more than one plan. Moreover, you cannot take on everything by yourself. Therefore, you also need to understand how to delegate tasks and manage the resources.
- Why Do You Need to Learn How to Communicate with Others Effectively?
This is different than interpersonal skills. Effective communication minimizes the risk of unforeseen circumstances and ensures that everyone is on the same page.
Simple, strong, and meaningful contact defines you as a team member. Moreover, a powerful and clear communication keeps others on board and assures that the event’s priorities are transparent to all the parties involved in the event.
Effective and transparent communication also helps you express your mission successfully and get other people pumped. This ensures that everyone is on the same page, and therefore, minimizes the risk of any unwarranted outcomes during the event itself.
You need to ensure that you communicate in a way that values everyone involved and lets nobody down. Moreover, you need to make sure that your communication skills are excellent, and everyone understands what you want.
You need to be open to positive critique and give yourself up to fresh thoughts. Everybody is playing the role of an event’s success. Just make sure that you connect with them in a straightforward, positive, and inspiring manner, and make the event a success.
How Can You Learn and Use the Power of Communication Skills?
Communication skills go hand in hand with interpersonal skills. However, there are specific attributes unique to communication skills only. In order to effectively communicate with everyone involved, you need to:
- Understand the art of non-verbal communication
- Communicate& enough that everyone understands what you want
- Use simple language to ensure that everyone is on the same page
- Opt for honest feedback and criticism from others
- Listen to others and their ideas as well
- Have open meetings
- Elaborate upon key points when necessary
- Reiterate the details whenever you can
You need to listen to others if you want to be a good communicator yourself. Listening to others and valuing their feedback is one half of the conversation. Moreover, you need to be opened to mold your opinions and practices according to the positive feedback from others.
<- Why Do You Need to Stay Calm Under Duress?
The next skill is yet another important one. Staying calm under duress and facing all odds with a positive attitude will help you with life and successful event management.
No matter what happens, your employees and clients will always look to you for innovative and creative solutions. The last thing people need in times of tension is a weak and indecisive chief that makes bad decisions when people crumble under strain.
Successful project organizers and event managers stay level-headed and politely approach others. You need to try to stay cool, calm, and collected when dealing with other people, even if you are chaos on the inside. A positive exterior calms the sea inside you.
Staying calm under duress also helps you make the best and rational decisions. Rather than getting jumbled up and making irrational decisions, you need to find the time and clear your head of all negative thoughts.
How Can You Stay Calm Under Pressure?
Everyone faces tension and stress at one time or another during their professional career. It helps to develop skills to cope with stressful events and manage your tensions levels with ease. Here are a few tips for developing this skill for your event management career:
- Take a deep breath and clear your head.
- Focus on the positives and eliminate the negatives.
- Get plenty of sleep before diving into the event management process.
- Keep everything organized and have a plan B.
- Ask others for a rational opinion and value their feedback.
Moreover, you can also practice meditating in your free time, and practice calmness under stressful situations. This will help you in the long run and will keep you calm during the event and the situation itself.
- Why Does an Event Manager Need Quick Problem-Solving Skills?
Who doesn’t? Whether you are an event manager or not, you need to have problem-solving skills in your arsenal to conquer your respective field. Modern era problems require modern solutions. Moreover, no client is going to wait for you to come up with a solution in hours. People need fast answers, and an event manager needs to be fast for creating useful solutions.
From hunting down any extra centerpieces or flowers to or reworking a last-minute client request, you need to be resourceful about what you must accomplish. Quick and powerful problem-solving skills will get you there, and help you achieve whatever you want.
No matter how much you prepare, there is going to be something that goes awry and throws the entire plan off the rails. This is where your problem-solving skills will come in handy and save the day. If you love seeking innovative answers to the problems that emerge, it’ll be far simpler to tackle.
How Can You Develop Problem-Solving Skills?
While some people are born with these skills, some have to develop them. If you are an event manager, you will have to develop amazing and quick problem-solving skills to tackle any problems that may arise during the event. Here are a few key points to help guide you in the right way.
- Identify and isolate the problem.
- Quickly brainstorm some positive ideas and listen to others as well.
- Analyze the risks, pros, and cons associated with each idea.
- Develop strategies to mitigate the risks associated with each idea.
- Decide upon a final solution that offers more perks than cons and satisfies the equation.
- Apply the idea successfully and execute it with masterful implementation.
You need to understand how to identify the problem and then brainstorm some ideas. This is the quickest route to developing problem-solving skills for any situation. Come up with a few ideas and implement the best one to take care of the problem.
- Why Does an Event Manager Need Accurate and Excellent Decision-making Process?
Event organizers must be in a role to make many choices at once and to execute them efficiently. A perfect and harmonious combination of multi-tasking and accurate decision-making process is a must-have for every event manager.
What is even more important, is to have the strength to stick by these decisions, and make sure these work. The Decision-making process is among the best tools an event manager can have.
You need to be able to lead the team and make profitable decisions for the clients at the same time. Good event planners embody outstanding organizational capabilities, decision-making skills, and consistency inherent in guiding employees.
These decision-making capabilities are essential not just for an event, but also for the whole team’s progress. It takes time to learn how to become an event manager. Still, it can be more readily achieved if the person already possesses or has amazing decision-making skills.
Only a good leader and decisive manager can guide a team to achieve its shared goal and make the event a success.
How Can You Learn and Develop Decision-making Skills?
From isolating and identifying the possible options to finalizing a profitable decision is a journey. You can learn to master this journey and prove yourself to be a good and decisive leader. Here are some core elements behind a good decision-making process:
- Isolation of options
- Pros and cons of options
- Prioritization of the problem
- Research, research, and more research
- Comparison of different options
- Thinking of the future
Once you have narrowed down the options and evaluated their respective cost-benefit ratios, you will be better prepared to make a well-informed and positive decision for yourself and for the client.
- Why Does an Event Manager Need to Be Flexible?
Flexibility and leniency go a long way in event management. Stringent principles will leave no room for improvement, and others will outrun you before you even realize it. Therefore, you need to show flexibility and loosen the leash on your strict adherence to personal preferences. It pays to be flexible as an event manager.
When you are planning events, nothing is set in stone. One day the client may want red roses, and the next, they may want to switch to lilies. Everything is in a constantly dynamic state, and everything can easily shift within a matter of minutes. You need to develop a flexible personality in order to deal with sudden changes.
Therefore, it would be versatile for an event planner to consider such adjustments in-phase and function accordingly. You need to be willing to tackle any scenario, so you need to be able to move quickly on your feet. If you are one of those people who have always been versatile when it comes to jobs, you are perfect to become an event planner.
How Can You Develop a Flexible Personality for Event Management?
A sense of flexibility in one’s personality demands quick changes to the plans and last-minute modifications. This requires a calm-headed mindset and leniency. If you have always been a strict person or want to develop a flexible personality, here are some tips for setting the foundation for that:
- Understand places where you can easily compromise.
- Give way to implementing flexible actions.
- Listen to others and try to evaluate the pros and cons of their statements.
- Understand that failure is a part of the journey.
You need to listen to others, shut off your personal prejudices, and implement strategies that are beneficial to the client. Leniency and flexibility demand the elimination of your personal opinions and opting for the best decision for the event. So, evaluate the outcome for every decision, be flexible, and then make the final call.
- How Are Creativity and Innovation Important Skills for an Event Manager?
This is yet another obvious skill that every event manager needs. This is, in fact, a must-have for all event managers. A creative and innovative mindset is compulsory for survival in the industry and to entice clients with out-of-the-box ideas.
Often, your clients may know what type of experience they want to plan, but don’t realize how to arrange it innovatively. This is your time to shine and liven up the place with your edgy and cutting-edge ideas.
Event managers need imagination and creativity in order to succeed and stand apart from the competition. For example, if a customer demands full media attention at their event, you will need to formulate exciting, realistic, and economic strategies to accomplish that aim.
How Can You Learn to Be Creative and Innovative?
Well, this is something that will not only take time but will take a lot of practice until you reach perfection. However, with the right plan, you can learn to be creative and innovative as soon as possible. Here are some tips for embedding creativity inside your processes:
- Brainstorm a lot of ideas.
- Fuse and merge different ideas to create a new one.
- Play the outcomes in your head and try to optimize them.
- Learn from others and get your inspirations from previous events as well.
- Foster a co-working space for ideas.
- Connect with creative minds for fresh opinions.
You cannot become creative in a month or two. The process takes time. However, with the right tools, environment, and dedication, you can learn to foster innovative solutions and ideas to age-old problems, and offer something unique to your clients. Creativity will boost your event management career, and you will find success.
- How Is Time Management an Important Skill for Event Managers?
Time management is an important skill for all professionals, including event managers. If you don’t obey time, it will betray you and throw you at the bottom of the barrel. Clients do not want someone who doesn’t value time, and they will quickly move onto the next event planner.
There are always a lot of elements associated with event management. There may not always be ample room for accommodating everything at the last minute. Therefore, time management is a valuable attribute to practice as an event planner.
A professional project planner understands how to bring multi-tasking to the full use of their resources. Around the same period, they often assign slots throughout the day to work solely on a specific mission. Time management plays a vital role in keeping everything running smoothly.
How Can You Learn Time Management?
This skill goes hand in hand with organizational skills and requires the same level of dedication and effort in order to be mastered. Here are some tips associated with mastering the art of time management for event planners:
- Keep a list of activities.
- Sort them according to priorities.
- Set realistic goals and assign a time slot to all these activities.
- Focus on one task as a time.
- Keep the distractions to a minimum.
- Get rid of procrastination and do the chores on time.
- Plan everything ahead of time.
You need to make a list of everything and assign time slots. Moreover, eliminate procrastination from your life, learn to get up on time, and do the activities as planned. This will help you manage time and resources when planning an event.
What Do We Have to Say?
Being an event planner is not an easy job. However, with the right skills in your arsenal, you can conquer any mountain and make your events a success. You need to:
- Communicate effectively with everyone.
- Timely and successfully manage resources.
- Understand the requirements.
- Pay attention to the details.
- Be calm under stress.
- Offer creative solutions.
- Learn to handle failures and tackle with the quick decision-making process.
Once you equip yourself with the skills mentioned above, you will be better prepared to handle anything life and event management throw at you.
Below is a video and some recommended reading that we hope you will find useful.
Take a look at this article on the most common questions event planners ask themselves before entering the event planning profession. And this one to find out what an event planner is and what their responsibilities are.
