We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dionne Bishop. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dionne below.

Dionne , appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

Initially my short answer is I surrounded myself with good people who are good at the things I’m not.

7 years ago I took the leap of faith and went out on my own finally as a freelance Event Manager and proudly called myself “a Clipboard for Hire” – The Services I offered was focused heavily on Same Day event coordination, on site management, Talent Wrangling and Stage Management. This was a scary and bumpy time as I felt like I was “bouncing from gig to gig” and in order to make more revenue I had to work around the clock. This put me in a position where i was simply taking any gig that came my way because I needed the money.

Unfortunately I found myself dissatisfied with the outcome of my work and the type of events I was working on and wanted to switch things up but didn’t necessarily know how.

When the Pandemic hit in 2020 I was at a cross roads – with major events cancelling every month, I had to take this moment to finally get serious about learning how to scale and expand my service offerings, team size and over all client experience. I needed coaching, systems and help finding quality team members to join me on this venture. I participated in an intense 3 month accelerator from a mentor that is a leader in the Luxury Global Event Space. From there I got a corporate Sales coach who taught me how position my service based business for larger deals. I knew my craft really well, I just didn’t know how to package it, sell it or articulate it well, so i asked for help.

During the pandemic, I did a lot of virtual event production and I more than doubled my revenue the following year. The success was great, but I realized that without any systems or processes in my business for staff to follow (including myself) the business was going to fall under the weight of the additional client business I was booking. If I was going to scale, I knew I needed a strong foundational system. I hired a Operations Management Agency and let those brilliant women look at the way I was working, the way I wanted to work and the things I kept assuming “everyone just knew” and created a fantastic Operations system in ClickUp for Events by Dionne Inc. – this has positioned us to have a much more sophisticated method to serve our clients from Onboarding to Off boarding and leaving space for me as the creative event strategist to really stay in my space of ideation and creative planning for our clients.

As we fast forward to December 2022, Events by Dionne Inc is now a full time incorporated agency that serves clients in Arts & Entertainment, Hospitality & Tourism and Marketing for Corporations, non-profits and small businesses across Canada, The United States and the Caribbean. We’ve crossed into 6-figure revenues, headquartered in Toronto, Canada and are happy as a go-to Event Agency for international clients activating in Canada as well.

All of the decisions I’ve made to get the Agency to where it is today have been exciting, nerve-racking, scary, difficult and simple all at the same time but the biggest learning has been patience, trusting my own voice and knowing when to ask for help from passionate professionals in their own right.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ve been in the Marketing and Events Industry for 20 years. I’ve worked with clients in industries such as, sports, music, entertainment, marketing product launches and tourism. Whenever asked what’s my niche? I honestly answer “Companies who do cool things” We value Hospitality, Creativity and Diversity and intentionally seek out suppliers who don’t normally end up on the “short list”.

We offer concierge style- full service Event Planning, Event Production and Event Design for both virtual and in-person events. The way we execute is an extension of a companies Marketing Plan versus simply celebratory parties. We help drive business goals and help develop a strategic case for the event we design for clients. We have a framework for how we develop the experience that lands authentically every time and provide analytics for the metrics we can capture on behalf of the client. Our events are beautifully designed, smartly planned and creatively produced.

What sets us apart is that we understand integrated marketing campaigns and know how to deliver tangible results through the power of live event experiences and not just stand alone activations or pop-ups. Building community is Marketing’s future and there’s no better way to build community both online and offline than with live events. We work with our clients and believe in quality client relations – we see ourselves more like their partner where our success is ensuring our clients success in whatever avenue they are focused on. Increasing membership? Increasing sales? Educating Staff? Development of quality content that can be repurposed for social media campaigns? You name it, we help clients get it.

Something I’m really proud about is for approx 7 years I had to create fresh new experiences within the exact same venue to a very repetitive audience and every year my creativity was displayed and the audience wanted to ensure they stayed on the “target” list in order to continue being invited year over year. All of this buzz was great for the client who was of course recognized as the host of it all. This is the kind of energy Events by Dionne brings to every project. I want our clients to be the talk of their industry.

Typically event types include Conferences, Summits, Live InStudio recordings, Galas, Tournaments, Sporting Opening Ceremonies, Awards Shows, Wellness Retreats, Expos, VIP Experiences, Cocktail receptions to name a few….

We plan events remotely, online and in person in various major markets. We’re members of our local DMC , Destination Toronto, and other industry associations such as MPI Toronto Chapter, Tourism Industry Association of Ontario (TIAO) and NCBMP. Our brand is also based on integrity, strategic thinking, creative design and whistling while we work.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I had a bumpy road hiring employees in the early days. Before I understood what my patterns were and/or my “busy season” I found myself in a position where I had just not renewed my contractor due to lack of business and then within a couple of weeks I booked 5 events to all take place in the Spring/Summer – Happy for the business but I panicked and thought the solution was to hire 3 full time staff and get them up and running within the following month. It was wild because I had never hired full time staff before so I didn’t ask the right questions, pick up the cues or have an eye for talent that didn’t sound like myself. I was also under pressure to hurry up and find people which is never a good position to be in.

Within weeks of each other and within 1 month of the first events, all 3 of those staff members were no longer with me. I was back to just myself with 5 events and at least 2 very demanding clients. It was overwhelming but I took a breath, spoke to my clients about going back to me as their main point of contact and put out an SOS for a colleague to help me. We did online working sessions on Zoom, we divided the tasks and conquered. There were late nights and early mornings but the clients were happy with their results and barely noticed the fact that, like a duck, I was calm above water but beneath my feet were paddling at top speed. When things go sideways I’m always taking a breath and figuring out a new way to get through.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Absolutely, the time I had to pivot from in person event manager to virtual event producer. When the pandemic lockdown happened every single contract of mine was cancelled as it was a government mandate to ban all large public gathering of people. If I was going to survive this next chapter I intuitively felt that I needed to learn more about virtual production. Some colleagues thought the lockdown was going to be short and they’d “wait it out” but I just knew I wouldn’t be doing any events in 2020 and possibly not even in 2021. No events meant no income, so I took courses online, ran test events, and brainstormed with audio visual professionals I used to work with to better understand digital online production and gamification.

I was right and the lockdown stayed longer than originally thought and Events by Dionne exclusively did virtual event production all through 2021. Iin 2022 it was about a 50/50 split between virtual event production and in person, but because of the knowledge now gained for virtual event production, our in person activations are a lot more digitally inclusive so that pivot back in 2020 has only increased our skills and service offerings for the better in current day.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.eventsbydionne.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/eventsbydionne
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/eventsbydionne
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/eventsbydionne
• Other: www.linktr.ee/eventsbydionne

Image Credits
George Matthew Photography The Digital Storytellers