We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kendal Norris a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kendal , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think it takes to be successful?
Resources. I don’t just mean capital, I mean support from your family, friends and community. Getting the people you love behind you means you always have a fan club, people to lean on. Early in Mason Jar Event Group days I reached out to the people in my circle who knew people in the circle I wanted to be in. Those early introductions were crucial to our standing success.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Growing up in the South, the Mason Jar is a cultural symbol of holidays, good times and the things that bond together new friends and old. For parties and holidays, friends often exchange gifts in Mason Jars from food to plants, to arts and curios. It’s a vessel of sharing and of the unity that connects us around food and fun.
At Mason Jar Event Group, we combine a blend of Colorado’s finest indulgences for experiences that unite a community of discerning individuals in unique urban and rural settings—our preferred venues truly inspire the senses.
We offer services for a plethora of event concepts from trade shows, corporate conferences & meetings, wellness retreats, destination concerts, small intimate gatherings to large scale farm-to-table meals crafted by James Beard Award Winning Chefs and as of late we have added Weddings to our list. Mason Jar Event Group tends to every detail so our guests and our clients can indulge, relax and enjoy.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Pandemic! Everyone was having to pivot, not sure I even used the word pivot very often in the before times. But during the pandemic we got creative and moved from in person events to online events. A concept no one was even thinking about before or since. Although we have kept virtual meetings, the days of online events at least for us have come and gone.
For Mason Jar the pandemic was as scary as it was exciting. Scary for obvious reasons but exciting because we had a concept that we put out into the world at the right time and it worked. We partnered with musicians who were home from tour, chef’s whose restaurants were closed for in person dining and cannabis retails stores that were wide open for business.
As a guest to our “Take & Bake” events you purchased a ticket from us, went to the restaurant, picked up your chef’s prepared take and bake meal and went to the partnering dispensary to pick up your pairings. Then at the designated time you signed onto one hour of live content, usually including two sets of music, and a roundtable chat with the chef, musician and Me (Kendal Norris, founder of Mason Jar Event Group).
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
Word of mouth has been our best source for getting new clients and for starting new concepts. Weddings for instances is new for us. We only began doing weddings because a past corporate client wanted us to design her wedding. One thing lead to another and now weddings are about 35% of our business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Masonjareventgroup.com
- Instagram: @Masonjareventgoup
- Facebook: @Masonjareventgroup
Image Credits
Dog Daze Photo