We were lucky to catch up with Debbie DesJardins recently and have shared our conversation below.

Debbie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How do you think about cost-management? Growing a business is always exciting, but often businesses run into issues when costs grow faster than revenue – have you experienced such an episode? Any advice for other operators around how to keep costs in line?

The internet age that we live in is fraught with people and businesses out to steal money and manipulate small businesses into spending money on products and services that often won’t actually help their business grow. The mindless and addictive scrolling and clicking in our personal lives can make it habitual to do the same as a business owner. With just a click a day, you can easily run your business into the ground. It’s extemely important to thoroughly vet any potential business aid that is meant to help expand on your services.

I have found success by utilitzing my amazing local network of small business owners. The people that have been there and done that before us, rightfully, have a wealth of knowledge and referrals to help guide new business owners. There will always be new products and services that are helping industries evolve, but for small business owners, the risk of being the first to use these will often outweigh the potential benefits.

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

I’ve owned Prismatic Planning for 2.5 years now but spent over 5 years in corporate and private event planning all along the west coast before that. While living in Los Angeles, I wound up running the office of an event planning company that handled everything from small backyard birthdays to massive million dollar quinceaneras. As my career evolved, I discovered my love of spreadsheets, coordination and communication really lended itself to what I was doing and decided to pursue it for myself. After launching Prismatic Planning, I gained my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification which really helps to emphasize the organization and people management skills that I bring to event planning.

Event planning is such a personal experience for my clients as each client and vision is unique. You will never see the same event twice with Prismatic Planning. I’m great at pulling vague ideas and desires from clients and helping to transform them into a cohesive vision. There really is a personalized and caring touch to everything I do. It has been such a blessing over the years to see so many visions come to life and be able to look back on the photos of smiling clients and to have even become great friends with a number of them.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Part of the reason I felt comfortable creating Prismatic Planning was the low cost entrance factor. The main things I needed to do was create my LLC, my logo, my website and some business cards. From there it was a matter of reaching out to friends and family to assist with any upcoming events to get me started and to decide what first advertising steps would be most productive. All in, I think my first few months cost me $400 which I had previously saved up for something special. I ended up more than doubling this amount of income (post expenses) in the first year.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Something I learned in my very first event planning job was to remember all of the major details of your clients. Notate all birthdays, family members names and ages, life milestones like graduations, etc. That when these life events happen you can send an email or give a phone call to congratulate your client/their child. If you run into them at another event you can ask them about how their dog it doing. Tracking and remembering these personal details that have nothing to do with the event that you planned for them helps them remember not only you, but your company, when the time comes for their son to graduate: even if that son was 12 when you first met him.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.prismaticplanning.com
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/prismaticplanning
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prismaticplanning
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/prismatic-planning-and-coordination-colorado-springs