What Skills Are Needed to Be a Meeting Planner

To be a meeting planner involves wearing many different hats. Anyone that’s been involved with hiring people will tell you they often look at a potential candidates skill set to determine if they’re the right fit for the job. Sometimes when you look at all of the different job tasks required for the job you may wonder if the job can be done by one person or whether you need several people to perform the tasks required. Well the same can be said for meeting planner.

Meeting Planners Need to Be Good Negotiators

One of the primary functions of a meeting planner is to negotiate and secure hotel rooms (and meeting room facilities). In addition to the hotel contract, meeting planner also negotiates many supplier contracts. And meeting planners often don’t take their first offer as the final offer. A good meeting planner understands that the art of negotiation can have a dramatic impact on their overall budget.

A Meeting Planner Is Very Aware of What Time It Is

Let’s just say if you want to know the time it’s a pretty safe bet that if you ask a meeting planner they pretty much will tell you the time down to the minute of the day. Much of their meeting planning checklists is assigned a due date. When a meeting planner plans a conference or event there are crucial dates that come into play. Venues need to be determined, suppliers need to be blocked and contracts need to be signed by specific dates in order for their meeting or event to proceed.

Meeting Planners Are Good Jugglers

A juggler is typically someone that can have more than two things in the air at the same time. A good meeting planner is a very good multitasker. I’m reading more and more that multitasking isn’t necessarily good for you however it is a reality of what a meeting planner’s job requires. At any given time a meeting planner will know what’s happening regarding; hotel negotiations, what venues and tours have been selected, where the registration levels for the conference stands as well as what must be done to address the overall budget.

Meeting Planners Are Good at Math

Ironically, for me, the subject I hated most in school became one of my strongest skill sets for the job of meeting planning. Budgets are extremely important for meeting planners when executing events. They have to be aware of what they are spending long before the conference or event begins. It’s funny that, for me, math was a very difficult subject until it became relative with what was happening in my work life. Meeting planner needs to know, down to the dollar, where they are allocating their financial resources towards.