We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Desiree’ Thornton-Swiney. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Desiree below.

Desiree’, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with 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?

In April 2022, we celebrated 12 years in business. Often times people tell me how easy I make it look, but I quickly correct them by saying it has been and still is the most difficult yet rewarding journeys of my life. There is so much that goes into starting, maintaining, and growing a successful business. Just within the past two years our business faced a numbers of challenges. During COVID we had to learn how to keep our business afloat despite everything that was going on around us. We focused more on our creativity and craft, We focused more on building and maintaining our vendor relationships. We also devoted time to strengthening our customer management systems to created a more streamline day to day operation. We also continued to focus on our customer relationships, which has always been a really big part of our business. I believe that all of this truly played key role in the scale of which our business has grown. We are now working on with some of the biggest budgets we have along with some of the biggest projects we have ever been a part of and we are truly grateful!

Desiree, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hello new friends, My name is Desiree’ Thornton-Swiney and I am the owner and lead event designer of A.M.E.E. Event Planning, a social and corporate event agency based out of Atlanta, Georgia. We specialize in creating once in a lifetime memories, one event at a time. We provide event planing, event designing, balloon decor and classes, and some event rentals for metro Atlanta and beyond.

I started this business in the Fall 2009 and we were incorporated in April of 2010. I am always the friend/family member who believes in celebrating all of life’s special moments. “Extra” is truly my middle name. After encouragement from friends and family I begin my business and as they say the rest was history.

We have an amazing team of staff members and vendors. Throughout the years I have invested a lot of my time, effort, knowledge and resources into growing in my craft. Over the years I have also learned some of the hard lessons, such as under budgeting my craft, an unbalanced work/life scenario, working with clientele that did not always fit in my “ideal Client” box but also things like staffing and financial constraints. I am grateful for the events and the clients that motivated me to continue growing and learning.

One of the things I am most proud of are the relationships I am able to build with my clients throughout the planning process. I am extremely professional but at the same time I am incredibly relatable and personable. This in turn provides my clients with s secure foundation that encourages trust and peace of mind. I appreciate that my clients are comfortable with me and that they trust me to over deliver for them.

I would love for our followers and future clients to know that we are dedicated to continuous growth, both in knowledge and creativity. We welcome the opportunity to produce something special for you!

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I am a true believer that I am nothing without my team. When I first started my business, I did EVERYTHING! Although that provided me with the opportunity to learn and master each role of my business, it was also extremely tiring and left me feeling less efficient in the areas in which I needed to be the strongest. I will tell any and everyone, a major part of being successful is having a good team, Somethings I do to try create a good work environment is to to pay well. allow room for growth and errors, and also to really make your staff feel like their voice and opinions matters. I love that I have spent time investing in mu team and now they can fully operate and handle some events without my presence. I love receiving feedback events from clients saying how well they did and how well they represented our company!

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Customer relationships as HUGE for us. We literally talk to our previous clients all of the time. We send gifts around the holidays. We also try to go the extra mile with each event with the hopes that they will keep us in mind for future events. We try to make sure we keep up with special dates in reach out to our clients to show that we really appreciate having them as clients and also some of them as friends as well!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ameeevents.com
• Instagram: @AMEE_events
• Facebook: @AMEEEventPlanning
• Linkedin: Desiree’ Swiney
• Twitter: @AMEE_Events

Image Credits
JoV Captured By Inspire New Lens On Life