Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Annie Meinberg. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Annie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How has Covid changed your business model?
Just as business was growing and receiving bookings every day, I recall a week went by and the phone wasn’t ringing. Then I received a phone call from a client requesting to cancel their party. That’s when I realized the coronavirus was going to affect Dream Scene. What I didn’t realize at the time was how long it was going to affect business. I refunded parties, postponed others, and waited patiently. When the stay at home order was extended, I couldn’t wait patiently anymore. I needed to pivot by business. Kids’ birthdays are still happening, but their parties are not.
What started out as a two-week learning pod to assist with virtual schooling, transformed into something I could only imagine in my dreams. It became a school that students begged to attend on weekends, a community that instead of being separated by plexiglass and six feet distance, we embraced one another and shared smiles, and it became a big family composed of students and teachers.
I pivoted my birthday party business to a private school!
In the summer of 2020 when school districts were putting together their plans of what the fall would look like, some families decided to take a proactive approach. I had multiple phone calls from families inquiring about in-home tutoring and even helping out at home when schools might go virtual. I kept thinking to myself that I could turn this into a business. And let’s face it, my birthday party business was dead because no one was gathering. I needed to bring in revenue and keep my business growing.
The idea was that you could drop off your child for a half day at Dream Scene and certified teachers would be here to help out. I hired two certified, retired teachers and we hosted an Orientation, amped up my internet to accommodate several laptops accessing wifi simultaneously, and began to create a culture here with nine students.
So why does it work at Dream Scene? What you can accomplish in a small classroom and with individual attention is what makes all the difference. I threw everything I knew about curriculum out the window and used my professional experience to teach what I thought was best for each of my students. And do you know what happened? We fostered a love for learning and taught character building where we practiced life long skills of kindness, communication, and positivity.
These kids never want to leave school because they love their classmates, teachers, and the engaging learning environment. One student even cried in Disney World because she was missing a week of school. So it’s official: Disney is now the second happiest place on Earth. As one parent said, “It’s not conventional, it’s exceptional.”
All in all, what came over this country and how it negatively impacted my party business, turned out to be the biggest blessing for my business, my dreams, and most importantly my students. We get to teach and learn in a magical environment with the best people.
We are now in our third full school year with three certified teachers while I manage the business. We’ve had a total of 21 students part of our program.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Leaving my elementary teacher profession to become an entrepreneur was like buyer’s remorse. The largest investment I’ve made with no guarantee that it would be a success, and I had to go after it. Maybe it was the moment the contractors began demolishing a wall and my mother saying, “It’s happening…” or when I led my first training day with my inaugural team while the building was in shambles with less than three weeks to the Grand Opening, but I had to forget the fact that I left a career that I loved to then champion an opportunity that was going to be solely up to me to grow. This buyer’s remorse was acknowledging that I’m choosing a new and unknown path that’s costing me my life’s savings from a teacher’s salary, and with all of that I was confident that business would be a success because I was prepared.
I was an elementary school teacher in Royal Oak, and after two years I left the profession to begin my business: Dream Scene Parties located in Troy. I put pen to paper in April 2019 when I was also scheduling field trips and grading math tests. 40 pages later, with an office building and a dream, I applied for my LLC.
My name is Annie, but my friends call me Plannie! I am an enthusiastic entrepreneur who hosts the best birthdays with my team! Imagine going into work where the walls are sparkly, everything smells of cotton candy, and you get to listen to Taylor Swift songs all day long. And that’s just the weekdays. The real party happens on the weekends when little girls get to celebrate their birthdays here at Dream Scene.
In my free time, I coach a Dale Carnegie leadership course, work out, travel internationally, and spend time with family and friends. Though 99% of my time is dedicated to the success of Dream Scene. And I love it.
While making party wishes come true is part of our mission, so is instilling confidence in young girls. We foster an environment full of sparkles, laughter, and friendship. The Birthday Girl and guests are made to feel extra special while they’re in Dream Scene.
My business goal is to expand our private school with more students and teachers and also expand more locations for the birthday party side of the business. Whether it’s a franchise model or opening more locations and still managing them myself, I will begin market research into nation-wide locations where Dream Scene will succeed. We are still a new business having opened October 2019, so I see a lot of potential in the coming years. In 2020 I made it to the final round before filming of Shark Tank and was working with a casting producer. While I’m unsure if I’d be interested in having investors and giving up complete ownership, I believe the sharks could launch Dream Scene into new heights.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
On the party side of business, I have a team of 14 enthusiastic teenagers and young adults. They are the secret to Dream Scene. And because of that, I invest a lot of my energy into maintaining the positive culture that we have. I’ve transferred many of my skills that I used as an elementary teacher into leading my team of teenagers. If I can motivate 27 fifth graders to love math, then I can motivate a team of teenagers to hustle, smile, and take ownership of their position. While I’m firm, fair, and consistent, I flood them with compliments of their work ethic, so that when I need to coach them on specifics, they have the prior support from me to know that I’m there to help them. They know that they need to step out of their comfort zone and make mistakes to learn and get better. I often throw them out there to try something new…and sometimes they doubt themselves, but it provides us with conversation on how we can get better. I push them and give them a lot of responsibility for their age, and they love it. They are so ahead of their peers when they move into their second and third jobs and their careers. Though they all have claimed the city they want to open another Dream Scene in, haha. There are subtle ways I improve one’s job performance, one of them being giving them a fine reputation to live up to. In other words, I take what they’re lacking, and quite literally tell them they’re so good at it…they’re the best one on the team at doing that specific responsibility! It’s funny to me when they agree, but the strength of that comes from when they truly believe I believe that in them and they start performing better. Just like as a teacher, I would take my students’ weaknesses and tell them they are the King of Dividing Fractions! You know what happens? They suddenly love dividing fractions and work really hard on them. It’s all about giving these young adults confidence.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
There’s always hoopla with owning a business, and it’s so fun. Whether is threats of a law suit, disgruntled employee applicants’ mothers yelling on the phone, or a roof leak, things always work out if you just stay positive and focused on your business plan.
Contact Info:
- Website: DreamSceneParties.com
- Instagram: @dreamsceneparties
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annie.meinberg/ and https://www.facebook.com/dreamsceneparties
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dream-scene-parties/
- Twitter: @anniemeinberg
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/dream-scene-parties-troy
Image Credits
Emma Pirtle Photography Becca Messner Photography