Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sam. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sam, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

One of the biggest misconceptions Corporate America has about our industry is that hosting a large scale event in Santa Monica is going to require a lot of time and stress to plan and be expensive, as the cost to do business in our region is so high.

Fortunately, we have designed Santa Monica Picnic Co to make planning your event easy and budget friendly, which is why we have absorbed so much of the event planning market share in Santa Monica!

Countless times throughout the booking process, our clients compliment the ease of booking and great deal they are receiving and we can tell that we have genuinely made their lives easier while completing the daunting task of planning 100+ person corporate events.

We can host a fully catered event along the waters edge for 150+ people all at a price point of ~$70 per person. This includes some of the best cuisine in LA, high end beach event inventory and excellent service. Our competitors charge 2-3x that amount per head and make the planning process overly-complicated.

Sam, 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, my name is Sam Ancona! I worked in enterprise tech sales for 5+ years until the Summer of 2020 when I saw a gap in the marketplace for a beach related catering company. I started small with inventory for up to 10 people, took bookings online and wheeled the inventory down to the beach using a wagon, up and down a steep hill and set up picnics for people. This snowballed into getting an office space, incrementally increasing our max headcount to 20, 50, 100 and currently 150+.

We partner with the top hotels in town, have amazing catering options, host clients from around the world via a network of highly rated travel agencies and have really leaned into the large corporate event side of our business. Check out the brands we work with on our website/instagram, we are very proud to be trusted by the biggest companies in the world, many of which are repeat clients at this point, and to constantly receive strong feedback from our quality of service.

I’m most proud of our ability to maintain a strong reputation and love from our Santa Monica community that has supported us so much over the years. Maintaining a constant high level of quality over time in the event space is challenging, but we love our city and our clients and are proud of what we have accomplished in such a short amount of time.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Although it sounds cliche, the key to building reputation in our niche event planning/catering industry is providing every client the same level of high quality service. It doesn’t matter if they are giving you $200 for a small 2 person date night picnic or $10,000 for their corporate summer team building event. We will lean into every picnic with attention to detail and make sure our clients are taken care of.

It’s not a secret that we have a small instagram following, we’ve had ~3k followers for many years. Most of our business comes from word of mouth, the old school way. Clients love their experience planning their event with us and tell their friends. We don’t run ads, our social media presence is minimal at best, but our services and reputation keep the people coming back!

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

My managerial advice is to lead by example, give concise instructions to your team, remain disciplined by always keeping your composure and work hard even when no one is watching. Setting a high standard for yourself as a leader will often lead to an inspired team.
To maintain high morale, we try to celebrate small and large wins together and remind each other how lucky we are to get to work at the beach and amazing event venues. Working in the picnic industry is hard work, but we try to have fun and enjoy eachothers’ company.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.santamonicapicnicco.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/santamonicapicnicco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smpicnicco
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/santa-monica-picnic-co/?viewAsMember=true
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/santa-monica-picnic-co-santa-monica