How do you learn all those facets of the job?
You have to schedule the time, and go and do the job that your team does. You can’t schedule it one time. You have to constantly schedule that. It has to be a part of your calendar.
So if I decide I want to go in and work with the chefs because I want to know a new recipe, I need to schedule that with them. Get in, talk about first where is it ordered, how much it costs, what’s it being sold for, how do we prep it, how do we hold it, will those temperatures hold in a setting where we are. Same with the floral division — going in and saying, ‘Let’s talk about where in Colombia are these flowers coming from? What is the process for getting them here? If we run into a problem, what is our backup in how we will take care of the opportunity?’ [It’s the] simplest things with our team — making them stop and think through the logistics of what we do.
How do you effectively listen?
It’s listening and then repeating that question and stating, ‘If I’m hearing you correctly, what you would like to do is this and this and this. Am I correct? If I understand you correctly, you would like this to be a bright orange instead of a light orange, and I’d like to show you a couple photographs, so we’re making sure we’re on the same level.’
It’s not just listening but following up with that listening and then coming back to that client or employee and saying, ‘In this, did I answer your question, and did we achieve what you were trying to accomplish?’ so you’re really taking it full circle. If they say, ‘No,’ we haven’t solved that, so we go back through that process of coming to an agreement. You have to make sure that you’ve heard them correctly, so ask the question, shut up and let them talk.
We do 2,500 events a year. I can’t remember everything that a customer tells me, so we keep an incredible database. We repeat what we talked about. We send a note and say, ‘It was great meeting with you today, and it was great we talked about this and this and this.’ We’re building this trust and building that understanding.
How to reach: A Legendary Event, (404) 869-8858 or www.legendaryevents.com
