Paul and I certainly didn’t invent event planning. Believe it or not, we weren’t even the first to recognize the opportunity and decide to seize it. Site Selection, or the Hotel Sourcing industry as it’s also known, has been around since about the early 1990s. And in 2018, the biggest player in the industry had only tapped into less than .5 percent of the market potential, leaving over $328 billion ripe for the picking.
That’s where EventPrep® comes in, a home-based, life-style franchise opportunity and full-service event planning and management company, headquartered in Central Florida. Today there are four major companies that have wrapped their heads around this opportunity and are seizing their piece of the pie. They created systems and processes for their clients and partners, and they license their name to a decentralized contracted sales force (1099s) who provide services under their brand. So someone who wants to venture out, quit their day job, and become an event planner gets a business card with the licensed company’s name on it, and they use that licensed company’s systems and processes. Most companies follow the industry standard of a 50/50 commission split with the licensee, and they offer limited support.
At EventPrep however, we’re different. We follow a franchise model in the event planning business. We want our event planners to take pride in owning their own business. The client relationships they build, they get to keep, and they reap the majority of the reward for their hard work, not us. In fact, we offer the highest commission split in the industry and additionally provide a full business model, ongoing support, and client leads as well.
But does it really work? Is approaching event planning as a franchisee too good to be true? Paul and I have actually developed a systematic way to go about penetrating the marketplace. In fact, not long ago one of our new franchisees called Paul and said the process was working so well that he generated an incredible lead. We walked him through the negotiation process, then helped him fill out a proposal. EventPrep franchisees are truly in business for themselves but not by themselves.