Her Story
About Evelyn
I've been doing event planning for about 25 years, but I only started my own business 3-4 years ago. I come from a family of business owners - my father has a construction company, and all of my siblings have some type of business like childcare, trucking, concrete, or even a dog daycare. That was kind of inbred in us - we saw Dad succeed and he taught us how to go out and work and stay on the grind. I spent 20 years in the U.S. Army, which taught me discipline. After the military, I went back to school and started working at an elementary school where I've been for 23 years. I started as a teacher assistant, then taught computers, and now I'm the data manager handling all the school's data - grades, discipline, attendance, compiling and presenting data. I'm four years out from retiring, so I thought building something I can do after retirement would work for me. I started with simple event planning - my parents' 30th and 40th anniversaries, events for friends. Then I took an event planning class and a corporate event planning course, and I realized corporate is the avenue I want to take. I'm confident doing weddings and all of those things, but corporate just makes you feel like you accomplished so much more and they recognize you as an actual player. When I looked at my area near Fort Bragg, I found there were four major players monopolizing everything here doing basic event planning - weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries. Vendors told me it would be hard to get into this space. So I had to do something to make my event planning stand out. Corporate is what I gravitated to. I'm really working hard on marketing and networking to get myself out there as a player. I don't have to be a major player, I just want to play a little bit. I'm taking more courses, looking at organizations like MPI to help me meet corporate event planners, business owners, and vendors. I'm also looking at QC event planning courses. I'm trying to get certificates and credentials to let people know I'm serious about this thing and that I belong in this industry.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Evelyn
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think my success comes from my willingness to learn and my willingness to adventure out. I'm not scared to take chances. I also think it's from the military and from coming from a family of business owners. My father has a construction company, and all of my siblings have some type of business. We saw Dad succeed, and he taught us how to go out and work and stay on the grind. The military taught me discipline, and my father taught me work ethics. That discipline keeps me focused and keeps me out of a lot of stuff. Sometimes ambition can lead to doubt, but that doesn't last long. I just keep thinking, okay, let me try this and see if this works.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I think the best advice would be once you commit to something, just keep your eye on that something. Everything else is going to come your way, and it's going to try to knock you off your path and distract you. But if you keep your eye on the prize, it's gonna happen.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell her to get that foundation first. A lot of time, what I found is it's not how well you decorate if it's just event planning. Basically, they want to know what you know. Get their foundation first, and then again, keep your eye on the prize and stay on the grind. Don't wait too late. Don't do like me - don't do 20 years or something and then say, hey, I wanna do this. But I know that you're never too old to grow and you're never too late to try something else. You always have to look at where you're at, and you have to be honest with yourself. We all wanna be just that rock star all the time, but you have to be honest with yourself. There's times where you have to say, okay, this isn't working, let me try that. But if you're not disciplined, you're not gonna know that it's time to pivot. Even for a young person who's just starting out, you have to realize that things change. Nothing stays - what works today might not work five years from now. So you have to be able to make that turn and decide, okay, this isn't working anymore, I'm willing to step out on faith and try this. What worked for me is just don't give up.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
At work, I think that I'm disciplined. Discipline is so important because if you're disciplined, you're gonna stay focused. All that outside stuff - once you have discipline, you can get to it. My discipline comes from the military. I think that the military taught me this. My father taught me work ethics, but the military taught me discipline. And discipline kept me out of a lot of stuff.
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