We recently connected with Joanie Teaken and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Joanie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

My whole life, people always had a hard time pronouncing my name. I’ve always gone by JoJo. I’ve been called JoJo for so long to the point when someone calls my real name, I have to think twice..and say oh they are calling me lol. I wanted to own a business that had my nickname as part of my business name. I am a Glitz and Glam type of girl. I wanted my business name to represent who I am, so I came up with JoJo’s Glitz & Glam Event Planning.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My career is in Human Resources Management. I’ve been in HR for over 8 years. I love HR, but after I lost my corporate job during the pandemic, I decided to take my event planning business to the next level.

Outside of Human Resources, event planning has always been my passion. I love the idea of looking at an empty space and turning it into something magical. I get satisfied when I see the smile on my client’s, family, and friends’ faces when they see how I transformed their vision into reality.

JoJo’s Glitz & Glam Event Planning offers a variety of decorations to suit the needs and event style of our clients. We can create a custom package and include everything the client’s party needs. We take into consideration the client’s personal style, event theme, event type, and we design decorations that would perfectly complement the client’s special day. Our motto is ” Pick your venue and leave the rest up to us.” In addition to creating beautiful design decor setup for our clients, our clients have the ability to directly rent their party items from us and don’t have to worry about a third party vendor. We rent chairs, tables, 360 photo booth, throne chairs, dessert cart, and many more items to rent. We also specialize in creating beautiful balloon backdrop.

I am proud of myself because I stepped out of my comfort zone and became a business owner. I’ve always thought I would just continue to climb the corporate ladder but here I am a business owner doing what I love.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first started my event planning business, my goal was to have my own venue. I wanted to have my own venue to make it easier to have everything in house and I didn’t have to worry about going to the client’s venue with short little time to setup, have to rent uhaul to transport items, have to house my goods in a storage. I wanted easy access to my goods and the convience of setting up without the stress of time constraints.

I did ended up having my own venue but I had to let it go. After spending so much money renovating the venue and paying a high rent, business wasn’t turning around quick enough. I had to pivot.

I was devastated at first because I spent a lot of money, time, energy into the venue but I was determined to not allow that to stop my business from movomg forward. After spending sometime rebranding of how I wanted to go about my business, I came up with my motto: “pick your venue, and leave the rest to us.”

I now offer my clients rental services on top of offering full design and decor packages. My clients don’t have to worry about going to a third party vendor to rent tables, chairs, throne chairs, 360 photo booth, etc. They can rent an empty venue, and I bring everything else.

This was a win for me. Sure it’s not originally what I wanted to do but this is what’s best for my business for now. I will work towards owning my own venue in the future. I don’t want to rent a space, but want to own my own event venue.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I would have to say worrying about what people are going to say or that you are a failure. After I lost my building, I was so scared and worried that people were going to say that I was over my head and that I was a failure. I had to remember who I was. I am a child of the most high God, and there is no failure in him. He had my back no matter what, and he was going to direct my path.

What helped me also was the fact that I was once scared to even start a business and never saw myself as a business owner. I had to look back at my journey and realized how far I’ve come and how much I have accomplished so far. I went after my dreams and had my own venue, with my name on it, that was an accomplishment by itself. So what people talk. People will always have something to say, regardless if you’re doing good or not, they will talk. At least I got out of my comfort zone and did something I was passionate about, I opened my own business, and I’m a boss!!

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: Jojosglitzandglam
• Facebook: Jojosglitzandglam
• Yelp: JoJos Glitz & Glam Event Planning
• Other: TikTok: jojosglitzandglam