Lessons from Event Management
After 15 classes and 4 rounds of office hours, the capstone project for the Event Management Course is a live presentation of a Six Month Strategic Plan. Booksellers reflect on how what they've learned has already changed their practice, and set data-driven, actionable goals for the next six months.
So what are these take-aways and plans? The best way to tell you is to show you! Here are slides from our students' final presentations.
from Nichole Bryant at Bryant Books and Music in Hastings, Nebraska, which has been open less than a year. One important lesson we teach is when and why to say "No" to events. Every event you reject because it isn't right opens up space for an event that will work!
from Brie Taralson at Lykke Books in New Ulm, Minnesota, which opened during our spring course. In the course, Brie realized that having a dedicated event staffer is urgent for her store, which shares space with a nonprofit serving teens.
from Izzy Mumm at Off the Beaten Path Books, Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Like so many of us, Izzy came into the course overwhelmed by the vast amount of details and numbers that go into a successful event program. As we teach a data-driven decision process, all of us laughed with glee at Izzy's "Numbers are Friends, not enemies" speech.
from Tracey Hackett, Plenty Downtown Bookshop, Cookeville, Tennessee. Plenty has been running an active event program, and Tracey was here to learn how to make that program work for the store rather than creating more work for the store.
from Julie Swearingen, Roundabout Books, Bend, Oregon. One valuable approach we offer is that "growth" is not the only path forward for a successful events program. Sometimes moving toward success means tightening, pulling back, matching frequency of events to current levels of staffing, and taking time to evaluate which types of events best serve your goals.
from Annastasia Williams, The Bottom, Knoxville, Tennessee. Annastasia came to our course as a novel model store, combining a bookstore and a community-based arts center. Their small staff was doing everything all at once, and lessons from our course helped them learn new tools, sit down and make concrete plans and, as she stated so clearly, learn the CONFIDENCE to center and move forward.
from Jess Mannhupt at Theodore's Books, Oyster Bay, New York. Theodore's also had an active events program in place, with access to big name authors and celebrities through their store owner's connections - but their staff was being stretched too thin and details were being dropped. Jess left the course with a solid plan for tracking event information and making every event smooth and polished.