As an event booker, organizer or talent agent, your world revolves around coordinating many individuals and many moving parts. And WAY too many details. Streamlining your booking management and handling events simultaneously will give you more daily successes, and make your events go much more smoothly.

Prep With Your Team In Advance

Prepare for your upcoming events with your talent and team members individually, and together.

Undeniably, the gig will be more successful without the last-minute rush. Details won’t be overlooked or forgotten if they are taken care of ahead of time.

Communicate A LOT

Don’t under-communicate. Customers always have many questions in the days before their events. Your expertise (even if you’re new) can help them a lot at this point. Communicating a bit more will always help out in these situations.

Jonnie, one of my regular customers, seems to get the details wrong each time we do events for her. “I thought you were to have extra staff here today” and “Weren’t you supposed to be here an hour ago?” have been some of her mixed-up comments. You bet that I’ll put in a couple extra phone calls to her in order to prepare for her next event and avoid any confusion or mistaken understanding of our contracts. She’s wonderful and sweet, and there’s never been any problems at her events. I can only imagine that she simply just has a lot of details on her plate when she coordinates her events.

Watch All The Details Closely

Missing an important detail can signal the end of your event. It could spell disaster, small or big. You may end up losing a regular customer, a new customer, or worst yet – one of your beloved team members. Conflicts emerge from misunderstandings and they tend to bring out the worst in people when the stress goes up. The solution? Pay attention and don’t ignore small details. Yes, we need to weigh a lot of problems simultaneously at gigs. Sometimes we don’t see the ones that may have larger consequences.

Use a CRM Contact Manager Software

Fast new booking apps and CRMS (customer relationship manager software) are an agency’s best friend for staying connecting with customers, their team and vendors. Old-schoolers still prefer using desktop applications like Filemaker or Act!, which may have been anchored to their PCs for a decade (or two!). Though there may still be benefits to using old systems, the slick new Customer Relationship Manager apps make your contacts accessible anywhere. Other larger systems like Salesforce won’t be streamlined for events and gig work, therefore making it harder to use. We have put years into hiring others and refining our booking system. Our GigBase booking app has a built-in CRM and customized workflow for booking special events, and manages events concisely to make your events successful.

photo credit: macy’s thanksgiving day parade via photopin (license)