We were lucky to catch up with Emily Labdon recently and have shared our conversation below.
Emily, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
I’ve learned that in order to be successful it takes a few key skills….
Discipline – Over the past two years I’ve built my business from the ground up while maintaining a competitive corporate job in IT at a top healthcare company in NJ. I invest my lunch breaks, PTO time, and weekends into working on my business. Even if I can only spend 30 min a day working on businesses tasks, the compounding effect pays off.
Fearless – Success doesn’t come without taking risks. Business owner’s shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes or looking silly. Embarrassment & failure is the entry ticket to success, you have to be willing to be bad at something in order to learn how to be good at it. Anytime something doesn’t go the way I wanted it to with an event, I force myself to be grateful rather than upset because it is an opportunity to be better. If you use your set-backs as stepping stones for success and learn from every mistake, there is a clear path for exponential growth.
Have a Recipe – I’m grateful to have an amazing mentor through the SCORE program. One of the first things she told me was to have a recipe, instead of reinventing the wheel each time I start a new event or take on a new client, I needed to make things easier for myself by having a method to the event planning madness.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My love for event planning started during my time at Marist College where I pursued a degree in Fashion. In school, I got used to being in a constant grind. While taking classes, interning in NYC, and working on campus, and commuting between all of it using public transit (I didn’t have a car) I learned quickly how to use my time wisely. While interning for Oscar de la Renta and working for IMG (International management group) during NYFW (New York Fashion Week) as a production assistant I gained valuable insight into the events industry. I was able to continue refining my skills through event planning classes at Marist, planning events for the fashion and alumni community in the NYC Metropolitan area.
In spring of 2020, I was all set to graduate and chase a career in fashion, when Covid hit. We were sent home from school, graduation was canceled, and no one was hiring in the fashion world. In a strange twist of fate I landed a role in IT training at a major healthcare company in NJ, here I honed in on learning how to work in a corporate setting, professional communication skills, and leadership. During my time at my corporate job I also co-founded and co-chaired a business resource group advocating for people with disabilities. Overall, my corporate experience although not aligned with the event industry has been equally important in forming my identity as an entrepreneur. I think every business owner can benefit from understanding the corporate world.
Emlabdon Events – We offer bespoke event planning services, we do anything from baby showers, corporate holiday parties, networking nights, birthdays, and more. We make sure that each event is unique with it’s own branding, a lot of what we do in terms of decor and overall event design is custom. This is what sets us apart, clients come to us when they want something different than what they see all over social media. We sweat the details, there are so many little yet important things to coordinate for events and our clients trust us to take care of every thing from start to finish.
Have you ever had to pivot?
In the first year of business, there was so much I didn’t know! I had it in my head that if I could DIY a large part of the event (hand making centerpieces & decor, providing my own table cloths/photo backdrops/party favors) then I would get a higher profit margin with each event. This turned out to NOT be the case. When taking into consideration cost of supplies for DIY projects, and adding in the time and labor it took to complete, I realized quickly it was not sustainable to take ownership of basically everything except the food and drink.
I put a lot of thought and did research into how i could make things easier, and not have to create something from scratch or tackle it on my own each time. For example: I realized that renting table cloths from a party rental service was actually much cheaper and much easier than buying them on amazon, setting them up and ironing them at the event, then dry cleaning them. I look back on when I did that for a 75-person event and think how crazy it was that I made things so hard for myself!
I found power in knowing that as a business owner I don’t have the be the best at everything, I could outsource balloons, photo backdrops, linens, and other things to vendors, while my team focused on the thousands of little details that help bring together the look and feel of the event. We still DIY a lot in order to maintain control of the design and look and feel of the party.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
There are two main sources of new clients – word of mouth, and social media. Social media is one of the most valuable tools for business owners. It is easier than ever now to get your services in front of potential clients, social media is literally free advertising! When it became time for me to take on interns in order to scale the business up, I knew that having someone on the team dedicated to social media engagement and increasing brand awareness was key to bringing the company to the next level.
Organic growth is just as important, I am grateful to have amazing clients, some who have become recurring clients, that refer me to their family and friends.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://emlabdonevents.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emlabdonevents/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/emlabdon/100086253794910/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emlabdon/
