For the past few months, I’ve been working with Chef Christopher Sayegh on the Cooking with CBD event, debuting in Philly this Thursday. Here, he discusses his background and path to becoming one of the top Infusion Chefs in the world and Founder & CEO of The Herbal Chef.

I have the pleasure of working with Carina and the HerHeadquarters team on an activation for summer 2019! Of all the experiential marketing & pop-ups I’ve done, this one is so aligned with my values. I’m delighted to interview her this week on the blog!

On a normal day in 2019, I’ll receive anywhere from 10-15 “Event” invitations. From Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Meetup and networking groups I belong to, I could literally fill my entire month’s calendar in the span of a week. Less, if I took into consideration all of the articles I read concerning local events and happenings, and personal invitations. There is, quite literally, not enough hours in the day. There is, though, enough so-called “events” in the day.

If your website is done well, it should make you feel like you have a salesperson on your team, working her tail off as your own personal hype woman. You don’t even have to have a super fancy, custom-built website to make this happen. In fact, I’m a huge fan of Squarespace and all of its built-in features. But you do have to have well planned content that guides your potential customers through your site and encourages them to take action before they click away.

Schendy Kernizan is one of the founders of Lasserre’s Own Hands, a nonprofit bringing unprecedented education to the small village of Lasserre, Haiti. We’ve known one another since college, and I’ve been following the nonprofit’s journey for years. I’m happy to be helping with their fundraising efforts in 2019.

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I value a collaborative business approach, as well as  an abundance mindset that leaves room for multi-dimensional and mutually-beneficial partnerships. 

When Carina Glover, founder & CEO of HerHeadquarters, reached out to me following a recommendation by Eric Michael, it was as if a dream project had fallen into my lap. HerHeadquarters is an app which encourages women business owners in (5) industries to connect, collaborate and find their ally.

If you’ve been following my journey, you know the importance of community in building the person and businesswoman I am. From my tenure with Professional Women’s Roundtable; to Party Partners of Philadelphia (now The Industry Formula); to entrepreneur networking groups like Wellstruck Lady Boss, finding or cultivating a community of people who support one another has been instrumental in my success.

I’m delighted to interview my friend, fellow entrepreneur/cannapreneur, and strategic partner , Eric Michael. He and I are partnering on a number of events and campaigns, and he’s one of my all-around favorite people.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Kristina Daniele on the Expo-Sed Conferences podcast!

Kristina read my blog post about contingency planning and how to make sure you plan ahead for all of your events. Give it a listen below, I hope you enjoy! Thank you so much to Kristina for having me; I had a blast speaking with you.

You can tell busy season is here when I don’t have time to blog (note to self: pencil in time to blog).

Throughout the year, I receive dozens (sometimes over 100) emails or messages asking to “pick my brain.” Furthermore, judging by my conversations with other entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals, I’m not alone. messages flood email and social media inboxes, and introductions seem to fly at you and before you know what happened, you’re scheduling a meeting.

If you’re anything like me, your Facebook notifications are full of events you can attend throughout the week. From Painting with a Twist parties, to themed nights at local clubs, to special chef’s events at restaurants. A quick look at your inbox, I bet, would reveal the same thing: invitations for things to do with friends, family and brands. It seems like there’s always “Something to do.”

When I graduated with my degree and experience in event planning, I happened to step out into the worst economy my generation had known. Every major company was shying away from events, cutting their event planning teams and giving any event-based tasks to either the marketing department, Human Resources, or an administrator (who all had pretty hefty workloads of their own!)

As the economy started to get better, budgets started to once again be allocated to events. Emphasis on marketing events, celebratory events, incentive trips, and the like began to come back into the forefront. However, the sentiments of the post-market-crash lived on. Budgets were cut for events, and planners were expected to deliver the same quality of events with a budget that was slashed in half. Vendors had to begin “getting creative” with their pricing and offerings, and many planners expected an incentive to book.