If You Can’t Find Events Make Your Own

A year ago, finding events where you could network, get some personal exposure in your community, build your brand, and speak directly to your audience, that was easy. They were a regular occurrence probably. But now, given the circumstances of this year, that’s changed drastically. In some areas, gatherings of any kind or over a certain attendee number are still not allowed and for many, the end of that isn’t yet in sight. But don’t think that you’re only limited to what’s available in your community. If you can’t find events, create your own. 

So, all those events that you normally attend to build up your business and gain some new clientele aren’t really happening, right? Well, what’s to say that you can’t make up your own events? Now, before anyone sends me hate mail, yes, obviously abide by whatever your local regulations are, and take the necessary precautions that are required and those that you feel are safe. So, having said that, what are some event types you can create instead of just waiting around for some other people to put stuff together? 

You’ve got… 

Open Houses 

Client Appreciation Events 

Community Events 

Charity & Fundraising Events 

Small Business Holiday Shopping Events  

All of these can allow you to get in front of new potential clients, build up your brand, and get more active within your community. It’s also a great way to highlight those local small businesses like yourself – all of you who have been hit so hard by shutdowns this year. It doesn’t have to be anything huge and extravagant. It doesn’t have to be something that 800 people are going to attend – you probably don’t want that right now anyway, right? You could do a simple open house where people can simply come see what your business is about. And if you have a large enough space in your office, or you can rent an event space (the owners of those could probably use the revenue right now too just like every other business that’s been hurt this year), or even use your parking lot or a parking lot somewhere local to you (considering the open air space of this, this is probably the preferred method for most), you can use that parking lot to set up tables and stalls for local businesses, bring in some food trucks, have some local bands perform (Lord knows the music industry has been hit hard too!). And you can do all of this to help not only get some revenue in for yourself and build your own brand and clientele, but educate the public on how hard hit every one of these small businesses has been and how the support y’all get at events like this can help keep you open.  

A lot of people are making a concerted effort to shop small right now, and especially with the holidays coming up, this is a fantastic way to help push that big time! And make sure your logo and branding are on EVERYTHING! If you’re the one doing this – if you’re the one putting all this together and all the work that’s going into it, you want to be sure you’ve got big “organized by” or “sponsored by” or whatever, and your logo all over everything about it. Don’t be shy here…let people know that it’s you and your business trying to make this difference in the community.