As an events planner – sometimes you fall back into doing the same thing over and over…

Have you heard the saying ~ if it’s not broken…don’t fix it?

Do you fall into this category?

If you do something new that has never been done before (or at least you haven’t done it before) are you really nervous and scared?

Did you know that being scared is a really good thing?  It means that you are out of your comfort zone and are growing.

Here are some tips from Vivanista blog- they help non-profits and foundations with fundraising.  They offered some excellent tips to event planners on taking risks.

1) Reinvent Tradition: Create a new tradition! As long as the newly created tradition underscores the goals and objectives of the event and speaks to the brand and culture – the directions and volume are unlimited: Quirky, cleaver, brazen, indulgent.  Breaking free of repetition and instigating original traditions can do spectacular things to differentiate activate, and deepen your event and brand.

2) Break Something Unbroken: Just because something is working doesn’t mean it can’t benefit from disassembly and examination in order to work infinitely better.  We tend to leave these perceived functional elements alone, especially during times of economic unrest (or just too busy getting the work done).

3) Invite a Little Well-Crafted Controversy: The key here is small, calculated, and executed with great skill and thoughtfulness.  Simply by refusing to capitulate to the lowest common denominator keynote or shy away from critical (yet touchy) content, or perhaps by brining competitors to the table with grace and integrity, you can ruffle just enough feathers to increase attendance in the right target market and/or garner admiring attention from media.  Make your controversy work for you – it should be inspired by and tied to your goals and objectives.

4) Navigate by Gut: Event professionals tent to be hardwired as control-driven, detail-oriented leaders.  However, we also have the innate ability to work well collaboratively, so we often must concede concepts and changes if challenged by committees waving analytics.  Bit there is a time and place to fight for factually unproven concepts and even (when given authority) attempt unilateral decisions just because you believe deeply in something.

5) Give Something Great that “Failed” a Second (or Third or Fourth) Change: The one caveat here is that you need to believe this element has value and potential and you need to be willing and able to convince other stakeholders.  Some of the best ideas just need some redesign – or the time and the opportunity to evolve.

So here is my challenge to you…take a little risk.  Start off small and see where that take you.

These tips were originally posted on the Eventbrite blog.

~Caryl