Green Trends in the Event Industry | Part 1

Everyone talks about being “Green” and "environmentally friendly" nowadays.  You may be wondering how your business could also be more sustainable by adopting some Green Business Strategies like these:

First, reduce your carbon footprint.

How? Try to use less paper in your office, add a note to your e-mail signature that invites the reader to consider twice before printing your e-mail.  Be sure to follow what you preach, do not print web documents unless absolutely needed. Even most legal matters, like contracts, for instance, no longer require faxing or mailing the paper version; with Inspherio you can send an electronic version of your contract and your client can e-sign it online from anywhere. The best part is that Inspherio keeps all the records for you. So you don’t have to keep bulky shelves made out of wood or other labor-consuming material.

Use modern means of communication to reduce commute. Skype is a great option if you need to speak to your client and, maybe even show samples of your work. A quick meeting that lasts 20-30 minutes is usually not worth sitting in traffic for 30-40 minutes. Think of the gas and parking expenses you would save if you could eliminate most of your in-person meetings. If you are a Wedding Planner, you can make a video of the room setup to keep your bride’s mind at ease, and e-mail it to her to confirm the details. See? She did not have to drive across town! What a great service you have provided!

Stay tuned for more Trends every Wednesday.

For more ways to be "green" in your business visit our website and blog, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook!

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8 Features You Could Use Now to Run Your Business

Wouldn't you like to have all your business information in one place?

The answer is obviously: Yes! The perfect solution is Inspherio!

So, what is Inspherio ?

Inspherio is an all-in-one Cloud based Business Management solution for the Event Industry professionals.

 With Inspherio you can:

• Manage your leads and all your communications with clients
• Instantly send pricing and packages with just a few clicks
• Collect information from your clients in real time with our exclusive KYE form.  You can customize the KYE questions as you want and also apply end dates for each of them.
• Generate contracts automatically with information from KYE form
• Put together payment plans for your clients and set dates automatically
• Send the contract directly and your client can view and e-sign the contract. You also have the option to print and fax the contract if needed.
• Manage all your finances from one place
• Stay on top of networking by using the exclusive Market Place to promote your business to other vendors

Here is the best part, with Inspherio you can custom create a website and it is included with your subscription!
You can program your current 'contact' form on your website to import incoming leads directly into the leads in your Inspherio account.
At the end of the year, or at any other time, see where your business is and how it is doing by taking advantage of our extensive reporting section.  Now being ready for tax season is a breeze!

For a quick tour of these features, check out our video above.

We have only included a few of the features Inspherio is capable of, it is a very extensive program, so click on the ‘Try’ button now to get started & learn more!   There is no credit card required to try it out!

Check out our Popular posts: 

How to Organize your Business

8 Things you are not doing if you cannot get your Work done

7 Better Business Tools

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4 simple steps you can take NOW to Organize your Business: How to Manage your Files for Event Professionals

Let’s continue our topic, “How to organize your business."

In previous blog we recommended that you divide your business into departments/divisions listing all the activities that keep your business running.

Now that you have a list of all departments, create a folder/drawer/shelf (depending on your business volume) for each department.  Keep it neat, too! By creating a designated space for each of the activities, you can streamline your search process.

Make it a habit to go over certain files in regular intervals.

When you go through the file whether a paper file, or digital one;  get rid of old documents, papers, invoices etc. To file and dispose responsibly, you could use a shredder and recycle old paper.  Even better - stick with digital format; this saves paper and space.  Also, make sure that all invoices have been paid, contracts signed, meetings arranged, supplies ordered, etc.

If there is more than one person involved in your business,this will be a good time to share the responsibilities.  Sit down and go over what responsibility will be performed by whom, if you haven’t done so yet. Divide and conquer together! Feel free to delegate, but be sure to follow up that all tasks are completed to your satisfaction. We will talk more about delegating responsibilities in our future posts.

Also, use a scanner and transfer all old contracts, leads,receipts and magazine clippings to digital format. To prevent data loss use cloud data storage! See what Inspherio has to offer!

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8 Things You Are Not Doing If You Cannot Get Work Done!

We are continuing the talk about the Time management; saving your Time and effectively managing your work load is what ultimately makes you efficient and successful.

We have come up with these tips to help our fellow Event professionals in their day-to-day struggle with time.

Before you start your day, make a plan, prioritize. Start by working on the most important tasks first in case if something comes up and you will be called away from your office, that way you can ensure that the most vital parts of your business are taken care of making you ready for whatever day brings ahead. 

Combat the procrastination; do the tasks you enjoy the least first, paperwork for example.

Needless to say your priorities should be ranked: Clients first, all other business next, but be sure to dedicate some time every day to build relationships. Call a client that you had an event with 3 months ago, ask how he/she is doing, speak to your employees and get feedback from vendors. It will help you stay in touch with reality and build collaborative relations with your team and clients.

Categorize your e-mails. There is nothing more frustrating than searching through hundreds of e-mails for that one e-mail you need right now to finalize the contract. It is especially hard when the subject line was not about what you are looking for. So, make it a habit to create special folders in your in-box. Usually by the event’s or client’s name, try to stay away from notorious “miscellaneous” folder. (If you are using Inspherio , you can paste the details from your e-mail into your client's page “Confidential information” tab to keep all the info at your fingertips.)

Before heading out to the meeting or making a call, make a list of what you need to say and ask, that will save you time of having to call back or reach for people to get or deliver the important information.

Always save your work on the computer every 10-15 min. Even better, use Google Docs that way you have your documents saved even if the computer crashes. 

Keep away from your e-mail. Make a habit to check your e-mail at regular intervals, say at 8am, 11am, 2pm, etc. Try to resist the urge to constantly checking your mail box constantly, it will save you time in a long run. Trust me; it takes on overage 10-20 minutes to return you back to the concentrated state of mind you were in before you received the e-mail that there were doughnuts in your break room.

Keep visitors out. Make your coworkers aware that you will be working on important tasks at particular time of the day, researching leads, for example, and you should not be bothered, the exception is your clients. Customer Service should be your number one priority!

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Why a Cloud Based Solution?

Every day we are more and more involved in the IT revolution. Our phones now talk to us, TVs can order movies, refrigerators can tell your power company how much power it used in a day while ordering groceries from a supermarket nearby, and those are just a few examples. Yet, everyday there is something new appearing on the market. Now more than ever we need to keep up with the growing demand of the customers for that famous “I want it now!” kind of service. The only way to keep up with it is to stay mobile.

However, according to the research conducted by Mark Fieldeman, contributor of Forbes magazine, it’s not that easy as it seems. 84 percent of traveling executives and managers report that they cannot work effectively on collaborative projects while on-the-go, despite increased enterprise adoption of iPads and smartphones. Of the executives surveyed, more than half (56 percent) admitted to project delays or missed deadlines because of poor mobile collaboration, and 38 percent missed business opportunities altogether. Half of all respondents reported difficulties in getting input from colleagues in a timely manner with 41 percent working off potentially out-of-date documents.

Clearly, there are several challenges for our increasingly mobile workforce that need to be addressed. Our effectiveness in the future workplace depends on us getting it right. Ignoring the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) mobile trend is only causing employees to circumvent the rules which places your organization at risk.

Inspherio is a completely cloud based software solution. Give yourself an edge over the competitors! With Inspherio you will never have to tell your potential client that you will get back with the quote, send a quote right from your phone, tablet or any other device, receive the response and lock in the contract without any downtime or without calling your assistant. This is just a one of the things you can do to stay ahead of the competition. Please, check out our website to see more: www.inspherio.com.

For more about Trends in Cloud Data storage click here

Photo courtesy of All Things D.

Source: Mark Fieldeman blog 06/13/12

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