With lockdown lifting and restrictions on events being relaxed there is starting to be some light at the end of the tunnel for the events sector. However, there are still quite a few hurdles to jump through for those who are self employed. With many companies trying to get staff off furlough as a priority, and sporting events operating with reduced entry numbers (and therefore reduced budget) the demand for contractors is yet to bounce back to normal.
This guide aims to equip freelance event managers with the knowledge and skill set to market themselves and stay visible in the sector.
1) Build Your Portfolio
Your portfolio is essentially your CV in the world of events, it's your unique selling point and the best way to convey the specialist skills and knowledge that you can bring to the table.
A portfolio should focus on the projects you have worked on and evidence positive relationships you have built through testimonials and other feedback, all in a visibly attractive format (you are selling yourself after all!).
Your target audience and the amount of time and money you want to spend on your portfolio will dictate which delivery format you choose. The most flexible and effective of these is a website, however this comes with development and maintenance costs. To reduce these costs you can alternativly create your portfolio as a PDF deck on PowerPoint or Keynote.
2) Social Media
How did self employed people ever promote their services before the era of social media?!! If you only utilise one point on this guide, social media should be it.
Use social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram to connect with like minded event managers, companies you would like to work with and your public audience. Through social media you can funnel all content outlined in this guide, increasing the amount of impressions for your content and directing them to the correct audience.
Social media can also be used to ask advice from colleagues or specialists in certain areas. Through the pandemic the event industry has pulled together and people have generally been keen to connect and offer help where they can, so please go ahead and utilise this. Knowledge is golden!
3) Further Training (...and shouting about it!)
Take this new found time to undertake further training that you may benefit from in the future. Do this by brainstorming all the skills that you may need during future projects and then identifying all the gaps in your skill set. From this you can then search for courses or opportunities that will help fill these gaps, clearly this will need to take into account financial and time constraints, but going through this process will allow you to create your own structured personal development plan. Once you have completed courses, don't forget to shout about it, you may find an employer that is looking for that exact skill set at that exact moment.
4) Blogging
Blogging is a great way to get ideas down onto paper, share your valuable knowledge and keep yourself visible in the sector.
If you have built your portfolio online you can also kill two birds with one stone, because blogs built into websites will drive new traffic to your portfolio website and boost your search engine optimisation.
5) Touching Base with other Event Professionals and Sharing Knowledge
If you are working as a freelance event manager it's likely you already have a number of years of experience working in the sector and therefore have lots of great contacts and friends to touch base with. As mentioned above, during the ongoing pandemic people have been very open to touching base, sharing knowledge and bouncing opportunities off each other.
You can also touch base with other event managers through one of the great webinars that have been made available free of charge, many of these can be found on LinkedIn or similar platforms.
These are just a few of my learnings during the pandemic, if you would like to touch base with me and discuss some of the strategies outlined above, or just want a chat about my experience as a freelancer please message me on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram (@allabout_sportsevents) or email me at josh@allaboutsportsevents.co.uk.
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