We recently connected with Layla Nassar and have shared our conversation below.
Layla, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
Turning Passion into Profit: The Key to Event Planning Success – My Take On It
As an event planner, success isn’t just about organizing flawless gatherings—it’s about transforming your passion into a thriving business. When you truly love what you do, every day becomes an opportunity to create, innovate, and bring joy to others.
From a personal point of view – I bounced around in my life trying to figure out what I liked and didn’t like in job positions and it all narrowed down to my main goal. My Main goal was to work with people, make a difference, and be apart of something beautiful and memorable for peoples lives. I never wanted to feel like I was working a day in my life because I wanted to find something I love.
Personally, I have always had an entrepreneur mindset and knew I wanted to run my own business, with my own team and creativity. From learning how to do balloons, create branding, do scheduling – this is how I jump started my event planning business. Success is not measured on how much money someone has, how big their office may be, or how many people they have working for them – its about the work you provide and what people have to say about you and how you treat others.
My main business goal is to do everything with honesty, an open heart, and kindness to show clients that they are important and im honoured to be apart of their lives. This is how I built my success.
That’s the true measure of success in the world of event planning.
If I could give anyone looking to start a business any advice or words of wisdom, is that you are trading your 9am-5pm stable job, for a 24/7. This is the hardest thing you will ever do but it will also be the most rewarding. On slow months know this is your time to push harder and you will live and breathe your business. The first 5 years is the biggest life rollercoaster with success and challenges and just know it will all be worth it. Focus yourself, prioritize what you want and reach out to everyone and anyone you know. No one will know about your business if you don’t talk about it or run ads on social media. Push your business in every single way you can think of and you will watch how things start to grow quickly! Be kind, be honest, be thankful and it will all work out the way it’s supposed to. Money always comes and goes – just stay true to your motive and values of your business.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
About me:
From a personal experience point of view – I honestly knew this is what I wanted to do but I didn’t know in what capacity. I dropped out of University after my second year in Business Management knowing I wanted to run my own business and me sitting in a calculus class was not going to help me in that very moment of time.
I was working at Joey Don Mills at the time doing the small and large party requests and trying my best to ensure that every guest who walked into that building felt special and important. Thats when I realized that working with people and making them happy needed to be something in my future.
Fast forward to a year before Covid, I was working downtown as an event manager doing more corporate things and I loved organizing and doing the logistics – but I was missing the creativity aspect. After being in this position for about a year – covid came around and all events came to a stop and I ended up leaving my event planning job downtown.
I decided to look into mortgages and did that for a little bit but it wasn’t a passion of mine – i just knew it was good to have and I loved the aspect of problem solving and helping others. I had the most amazing mentor who I love dearly, but I had to make the decision to move on and do what was best for me financially and personally at the time.
About half way through Covid is when I started a balloon business – this was the first step into the event planning world that I took. I truly believe that everyone needs a niche – because even till this day, some clients ,might just want a balloon display and not need full planning – So we still get to help in some capacity which makes me happy!
This went on for a couple years and then I got the opportunity to do my first wedding. It was a couple referred from one of my best friends and I was so excited (and nervous) for this challenge. From there it went beautifully and thats when I figured out the niches I like and wanted to pursue. 2023 was the year of growth and change and experimentation of different events and different settings that opened up a lot of doors for Layla Nassar Events.
I went from only doing balloons for two years to a whole different world of Weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Baby Showers, Bridal Showers, Proposals, Engagement parties, Private events, Corporate events you name it – I have done it all. I could not have been more appreciative and thankful for all of this and this really challenged our diversity of what we are capable of doing as a business.
Anyone who works with Layla Nassar Events knows that we greet everyone with open arms and kindness and respect – as we remember they CHOOSE us to be apart of their event and how exciting that is. Creating a memorable day takes a lot of organization, meetings, site visits, consultations, vendor sourcing, design, coordination, and scheduling. As we go through these steps in our specific method, making sure we don’t forget a beat!
We are moving into our 4th year of business at Layla Nassar Events and we have learned A LOT, adjusted our backend, tweaked our front end, searched high and low for the best vendors, and excited for the journey ahead. Everything wouldn’t have been possible without my friends, family, clients and supporters and it makes my heart so full to be in the position I am in today. Anyone who knows me – knows I always say “Im busy! but busy is a blessing, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Lead with love, lead with passion, lead with determination and always step out of your comfort zone to grow. XO
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
I was always the friend who was in charge of everyones birthdays – I think everyone has this friend in a friend group – anyways it happened to be me lol. This started years and years ago by baking cupcakes and making a dessert table and doing some DIY signage and balloons. One year I threw a Super Bowl party at my dads house and was given a budget to go to party city and the dollar store. I had football balloons everywhere, touch down signs, table decor, a football field table cloth and a bunch of other cute things I found. Needless to say I think it turned out pretty good, a little creativity goes a long way!
From small projects like this, to sitting on my couch telling one of my friends “I really want to have a balloon business and do event planning, ” I knew I could make something out of my passion for entertaining family and friends.
As mentioned before – during covid I opened up a balloon business hoping that family and friends would support my passion ( which they did thankfully hahaha) and it worked out because we started doing balloon drop offs for Valentines day since everything was on lock down – same for birthdays or any celebrations. This was our little loop hole to celebrating while social distancing.
Social media is a wizard of free marketing – and that I can for sure say helped a lot! Posting constantly , doing events or balloons for basically free just get content and get people talking is really how I scaled my business the quickest way. And of course talking about it to random people 24/7.
Fast forward to a year or two later, people just started asking me for other things like “do you know some who has a flower wall” or “do you know where I can rent table and chairs for a table set up.” Opening things up to a whole new world of expanding the business. People fell in love with the business because of WHO I WAS – asking for me to stay and coordinate the event because they knew it would be organized and one less worry.
And thats how my side hustle turned into my career – trusting family and friends, word of mouth, a kind and hard working heart takes you a long way.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Honestly this has changed over the years for me. As we are approaching our 4th year of business I must say word of mouth. Nothing beats it and i’ll explain.
Social media is an amazing marketing tool – its basically a spot to display your work and show what you are capable of. You connect with people on there hoping to build connections and mutually benefit each other. The only problem with social media is that sometimes it’s not what it seems. Word of mouth is so important because people trust what other people have to say from their personal experiences.
Thats why i’m VERY BIG on being kind, being responsive, and talking to clients or vendors like i’ve known them for 10 years but I just met them 10 seconds ago. You want to create a brand for yourself through your personality, through your activeness on how responsive and organized you are, and how you treat the people around you.
How people talk about you will grow your business faster than any platform there is.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.laylanassarevents.com
- Instagram: @laylanassarevents
