By Jenny Clarke, Associate

Staying ahead of the curve in the face of an emerging pandemic has been key to survival for most businesses, and for the events industry this has been particularly true. In this week’s “Lessons Learned” we are lucky enough to hear from someone who determinedly re-shaped the way her business operated through changing circumstances and saw it flourish; Lucy Hall, the inspirational and hugely successful owner of Lucy Claire Events.

Party planning and events specialist Lucy has 15 years’ market leading experience under her belt and has been running Lucy Claire Events for five years – with a focus on unique private parties, large-scale corporate events and personalised experiences. 

DigiKind Director and Co-Founder, Kathy Kyle Bonomini spoke to Lucy as part of our comprehensive business innovation training programme, sponsored by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (link to https://myroyalborough.com/). I watched the playback of Lucy’s brilliant Breakfast Briefing (link to video https://vimeo.com/665166802) and caught up with the insightful expertise and tips that she shared.

Here are my top three take-aways from Lucy’s talk on managing a successful business:

1.     Delegate what you need to. To build resilience into your business – and create more time for yourself – delegation is key. Look at your business goals and priorities, and ask “who can help with that?” Lucy outsources her marketing to the wonderfully talented Karen Campbell Marketing, and this year is looking to also outsource SEO (we work with the amazing Lorna Lawrence, who provides our highly-rated SEO training).

2.     Find your niche and differentiate yourself from others. To ensure you get the clients and engagements that suit you, it’s important to let people know who you are, why you do it, and what you specialise in. Lucy’s Unique Selling Point is that she offers a personal, honest and authentic service. The type of events she loves specialising in are retreats, team off-sites, and unique, personalised experiences.

3.     Adapt and keep learning. During the first lockdown when all events were cancelled, Lucy saw that she needed to rapidly change approach and used the time to train in all available online meeting tools so that she could help the events world go virtual. Lucy then helped to gently educate her clients in what was possible and helped them to successfully take their events online, using innovative ways to make to make meetings engaging and interactive, with all the energy of in-person gatherings. I particularly love the idea of a breakfast box containing a mystery gift to be opened at a certain point in the meeting as a way of bringing virtual attendees together in real-life.  

This is what our attendees had to say about Lucy’s talk:

“The guest speaker was very open and honest about how she engaged her clients before and during the pandemic and how creative she had to be, especially during lockdown. It was amazing and I learned a lot.”

“The host is incredibly engaging and knowledgeable and I have already told many people about these Breakfast meetings. It is great to feel like I belong. Thank you Kathy!”

Don’t miss the next motivational interview with an exceptionally accomplished CEO, Christine MacKay, Founder of Salamandra.uk (link to https://www.salamandra.uk/). Kathy will be interviewing Christine on 19th January at 10am. You can RSVP here.

Be sure to check out Lucy Claire Events.

Watch the playback and catch up on other Breakfast Briefings here.

Sign up for our free training sessions here.