30 golden rules for event planning!

What are the key points in event planning ? Here are 30 golden rules for your reference.

01. Change the rules of thinking

Planning is a complex, interdisciplinary and marginal subject, and its essence is the science of thinking. Its subtlety lies in the application of different ways of thinking.

Planning is to transform single-line thinking into complex thinking, closed thinking into divergent thinking, isolated and static thinking into dialectical and dynamic thinking, and traditional thinking of living within one's means into thinking of living within one's means.

When you feel confused, change your way of thinking and often you will suddenly feel enlightened and have a broader vision.

02. Innovation rules

The value of clones is limited. The key to planning is innovation. Only innovation can maintain competitive advantage. This is an era of innovation. The only thing that never changes is change itself. However, innovation cannot be imagined out of thin air or taken for granted.

If you are too advanced, you will jump off the building; if you are not advanced enough, you will be eliminated. How can you be moderately advanced? This requires a very deep understanding of the characteristics of the enterprise and China's national conditions, as well as a grasp of social and industry trends. Innovate based on mastering the laws.

Innovation has different types and levels: product innovation, service innovation, technological innovation, marketing innovation, management innovation, institutional innovation, brand innovation, and concept innovation, from the outside to the inside, from the shallow to the deep.

Conceptual innovation is the soul and commander of innovation at other levels. Concept innovation is to break the framework of prescribed actions and create optional actions. What is developed based on innovative ideas are not industrialized and standardized "industrial products", but tailor-made and original "handicrafts".

The key to conceptual innovation is originality. It is no exaggeration to say that conceptual innovation is the source of all innovations and the foundation of all innovations. It determines the development and success or failure of various other innovative activities. It is both the cornerstone and the compass and pointer of other innovative activities.

If other innovations are only tactical innovations, then concept innovation is strategic innovation. Strategic positioning determines the development of tactical actions.

Therefore, conceptual innovation is more difficult. It is a higher level of innovation challenge. If other innovations are just the manufacture of conventional weapons, then conceptual innovation is the activity of manufacturing nuclear weapons. Innovation in concepts determines the success or failure of future competition.

03. Rules for choosing your own actions

The studio should be the creator of self-selected movements. The scope for optional movements is the widest because you can perform as you please; the difficulty of optional movements is great because you have no established rules to refer to.

But free-choice actions should still be people's goal, because whoever creates free-choice actions creates a new rule, becomes the maker and interpreter of the rules of the game, and has the right to speak. The essence of optional movements is innovation.

04. The Law of Three Natures

How to achieve uniqueness, authority, and exclusivity is something that must be considered in project and product planning. Projects or products with these three characteristics can be in a non-competitive state for a period of time.

Uniqueness is the result of a differentiated competitive strategy. Authority and exclusivity are closely related to strategic thinking, resource integration objects and scientific innovation.

The unity and completeness of the three can ensure that the competitive barriers are impregnable, can keep pursuers out of the city, can effectively resist the magic of cloning technology, and can win the market's attention.

05. Moderately advanced rule

Planning must be based on the current situation. If it is too advanced, it will not be accepted by the market and will lead to failure; if it is too behind, it will miss the opportunity and have no benefits; if it is synchronized with the market, the profits will be spread out and it will be easy to be imitated, and the benefits will be short-lived.

There is a lot of knowledge on how to guide and create the market in a moderately forward-looking manner. The first-mover effect generated by moderate advancement can maintain a non-competition state for a relatively long period of time, thereby obtaining excess profits.

06. Sorting out and analyzing rules

When doing planning, we must first consider three issues: first, the boss’s judgment. The type of person who leads an enterprise is the key to the success or failure of a plan. Because the entrepreneur is the personification of the enterprise, and the enterprise is the materialization of the entrepreneur.

Any good idea or plan can become a reality only if the boss understands, grasps, fully agrees with and affirms it, and creatively implements and operates it.

Second, enterprise diagnosis. Where did the enterprise come from, what state is it in today, and where is it going tomorrow. Existence determines consciousness, origin determines style, and the control of the "origin" of the enterprise is the prerequisite for designing its "destination".

Third, inventory of resources. What resources does a company have? In addition to tangible assets, more attention should be paid to its intangible assets and invisible resources. For example, special advantages such as public relations, preferential policies, and support from superiors.

07. The principle of dialectical treatment

Western philosophy is to treat people as machines, breaking them down into their individual parts and considering problems, which inevitably results in treating the symptoms rather than the root cause. Traditional Chinese medicine treats the human body as a whole, considering whether the yin and yang are balanced and whether the blood vessels and meridians are unobstructed.

Based on rich clinical experience, we observe, smell, ask and palpate to grasp the root cause and treat the disease based on syndrome differentiation. Our planning is closer to traditional Chinese medicine, grasping and solving problems from a holistic perspective.

08. Systematic operation rules

Planning is not just one or two ideas but a systematic project, which includes: investigation and research, enterprise or project diagnosis, enterprise or project strategic positioning, concept innovation, strategy design, resource integration, operation implementation, consulting supervision, dynamic adjustment, summary and improvement and many other links.

09. The “stepping stone” rule

It is unrealistic to achieve any planned goal in one step. We tend to break this process down into a number of manageable steps, each with phased results. Just like crossing a river, if you want to keep your shoes dry, you need a stepping stone with every step.

Enable the enterprise or project to successfully achieve the final goal through these intermediate fulcrums. This not only greatly reduces the risk of failure, but every small gain lays the foundation for ultimate success, making final success inevitable. Thinking big and starting small is the eternal basic rule for business development.

10. Core Advantage Law

No matter it is for a region, a company or an individual, the most important thing in planning is accurate self-positioning, that is, finding out one's core advantages, developing and utilizing such advantages to the maximum extent, and designing a set of practical development strategies tailored to achieve the greatest gains with the least investment.

11. Tailor-made rules

Every inch has its own strength and every foot has its own weakness. How to maximize strengths and avoid weaknesses is the essence of corporate strategy. Planning should be adapted to time, place and people. The planning object should be placed in this coordinate, accurately positioned, and helped to sort out and integrate the resources and elements it has in order to achieve the best effect, that is, tailor-made.

Adapt to the times: that is, assess the situation, place the object in the context of the times, find out its yesterday, today and tomorrow, and grasp the trend and context of social and industrial development from a macro perspective.

Based on the location: tap into the resources and cultural heritage of the area where the target is located, and make full use of the various environmental advantages of human geography to gather popularity, local energy, and wealth.

Tailor-made strategies and tactics based on the characteristics of the enterprise and its owner. A planner is the equivalent of a fashion designer rather than a tailor. Fashion designers need to create unique pieces based on each person's body shape and temperament, highlighting their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses, and referring to social fashions and trends.

12. The principle of strategic supremacy

The most important thing in planning is strategy. Before the strategic direction is determined, no tactics can be considered good or bad. As a famous English saying goes: "For a ship sailing blindly, any wind is a headwind."

13. System Positioning Principle

Accurate market positioning is the key to successful planning. A sophisticated grasp of major social trends is the prerequisite for accurate positioning. When we plan, we first use a completely new way of thinking to help companies determine their position.

This kind of positioning requires placing the enterprise in a three-dimensional coordinate system of region, industry, and enterprise development status, so as to determine the enterprise's position in the industry, the product's position in the market, and the brand's position in society.

14. Reserve the “Pipeline” Rule

Planning should not be limited to the present, but should take into account the long-term and be broad-minded. We must reserve sufficient space for future development, lay the groundwork for future development, leave docking points for future industrial grafting, and cultivate embryos for future profit growth points. Figuratively speaking, it means reserving "pipelines".

Reserving pipelines requires planners to have a long-term strategic vision, so it is not something that can be done by those who are generally centered on immediate interests. The reserved pipeline rule requires that we not only ensure the success of the current project, but also foresee the future development trend of the project and try to align the current successful strategy with future success.

Therefore, this law actually makes the current successful strategy an open rather than a closed system. The openness of this system is future-oriented. Therefore, the reserved pipeline rule requires planners to plan not only the present of the project, but also the future of the project.

15. Chip replacement rule

The entrepreneur is the brains of the business. He is not only the source of power, but also the main source of corporate wisdom.

Planning a business, to a large extent, is about planning an entrepreneur, helping him to enrich his knowledge and wisdom, as well as upgrade himself.

In a sense, planning activities mainly involve the coordination and mutual influence between the minds of planners and entrepreneurs. If the planner cannot successfully influence the entrepreneur and change his or her mindset in the right direction, there will be no successful planning activities.

Therefore, we insist on direct communication with bosses and also insist on helping entrepreneurs upgrade their methodology and knowledge and wisdom. To use the fashionable language of the digital survival era, it means changing chips for the boss.

16. Digest the boss's rules

If you want to plan for your boss, you must first understand your boss thoroughly. To become a boss, one must have extraordinary experience and wisdom, and is generally not an ordinary person. In other words, he possesses the qualities of a planner, just as a good director is often also a good screenwriter.

The reason why he can continue to move from one success to another must be that he has grasped certain laws of reality. But why do they need us? This is due to the division of labor and cooperation, and also due to the knowledge economy with information explosion and frequent opportunities and risks. As an external brain agency that companies highly value, one important reason why we can be relied upon by entrepreneurs is that we have the privilege of standing on the shoulders of giants.

The first lesson we learn when working with entrepreneurs is to digest them. Because of our special profession, we are often able to absorb and digest the essence that entrepreneurs have worked hard for decades with their flesh, blood, and soul in just two or three hours, and then transform it into our energy.

Digesting entrepreneurs and recreating entrepreneurs may be a distinctive feature of our studio when connecting with the market economy. Therefore, planning is actually a process of teaching and learning from each other.

17. The rule of grasping the general trend

“All roads lead to Rome, and planning is about finding the shortest way.” “Shortest” means following the general trend, conforming to the laws, and avoiding detours as much as possible.

The undercurrent of trends is just beneath the calm surface of reality. Planning is to find its direction and, through innovation, allow the ship of the enterprise to adapt to its direction moderately and ahead of time, take advantage of the situation, leverage the power, and be pushed by the tide.

Only then can you stand on the crest of the wave like a surfer and become the rule maker. In the face of rapid changes in the times, whether an enterprise can develop continuously and become a century-old business does not depend on its temporary technological leadership or market share. The key lies in whether it can judge the situation and adjust the course of the enterprise in a timely manner at the turning point of one era after another. "Good wind will help me soar to the sky" is the optimal state of corporate strategic operation.

18. The Law of Cultural Heritage

Behind famous brands is culture. The most fascinating aspect of planning is often reflected in the grasp, development, utilization and expression of each local cultural heritage.

A major feature of the studio's planning methodology is that it places greater emphasis on the analysis of regional cultural background. On the basis of respecting traditional market research methods and conclusions, we pay more attention to sociological-style perceptual surveys and sampling through communication.

Pay attention to capturing the regional cultural personality, socio-economic structure and consumer psychological preferences formed under the influence of specific historical and cultural factors. The key is to grasp the pulse of social operation. Once the pulse is clear, the regional cultural heritage can be injected into the project's concept (concept) development and marketing strategy, which can often achieve the effect of accumulating strength for a sudden breakthrough and breaking the earth.

For example, Shunde Country Garden borrowed the image of “terrible Shunde people”; Kunming World Expo launched the new image of Yunnan as “the land of green and colorful clouds”; Wuyi Mountain applied for the World Natural and Cultural Heritage Year, which was condensed into “thousands of years of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and eternal mountains, rivers and tea”.

19. Regional decoding rules

There is an old Chinese saying that goes, "The land and water that surrounds you shape your people." This profoundly reveals a simple truth: every region has its own unique culture, and every city has its own unique character.

When engaged in real estate development, in addition to the necessary professional knowledge, how to "know the nature of fish near the water and recognize the sounds of birds across the mountains" and accurately decode the regional culture is a matter of life and death for real estate developers.

20. The law of intuition

Market research is 80% data and 20% intuition. Especially in the era of knowledge economy, the market is changing rapidly, and the data obtained from statistics is difficult to accurately reflect the dynamic market changes. If not done properly, it will be like trying to find a sword by looking at the mark on the feet.

Especially since the Chinese market is an immature market and not as well documented as Western markets. So, I said that market research is like boiling water. It can be boiled to 80 degrees, but the last 20 degrees must be controlled by intuition and experience.

21. Follow the melon and the vine

The role of market research, like any intelligence work, is to find out the unknown and to verify existing judgments or assumptions.

As a result of grasping the general trend, there should be a basic conclusion. Based on this conclusion, we can explore the ins and outs of market demand. Knowing the cause and the reason behind it is called following the melon to find the vine. Its idea is different from general market research and can often achieve twice the result with half the effort.

22. Taste the market rules

Food culture is an important part of regional culture. We have always advocated the exploration and utilization of regional culture in planning practice. Eating is a basic need wherever you go. We call it the "taste market rule" to taste, feel and experience the local cultural characteristics and heritage through eating.

The local food culture is closely related to the local customs, consumption habits and preferences, living standards and style of a region, and other aspects that planners need to understand. Therefore, getting a feel for the local culture and market through eating has become a very effective research method. The food does not have to be expensive, but it must represent the local characteristics and charm.

23. Follow the market rules

The market is created. There are three stages in an enterprise’s market operation: “waiting for the market”, “finding the market” and “doing the market”. The so-called "waiting for the market" is the practice during the planned economy period and the embryonic stage of the market economy, focusing on production and internal management, neglecting marketing, and waiting for the market to come to you;

The so-called "finding the market" is the most common practice at present. In the process from shortage to surplus, enterprises are forced to start paying attention to the external environment, researching the market, positioning and segmenting the target market, and starting to pay attention to marketing strategies. However, they generally follow the trend in their usual way of thinking and rush into it. The homogeneous competition is extremely fierce, which often leads to "price wars" and "advertising wars" and other vicious competitions, which are often life-and-death struggles and both sides suffer losses.

The so-called "doing market" means breaking out of isomorphic competition, conducting strategic innovation, jumping out of the three realms, not being in the five elements, changing the rules of the game in the industry, being unconventional and anti-traditional, creating new demands, and entering a relatively non-competitive realm. "Doing market theory" is different from various marketing strategies and market management techniques (such as 4C, 4P, UPS, integrated marketing, etc.). It is not aimed at a certain part of the business operation, but emphasizes the innovation of the overall business strategy of the enterprise. Its essence is to change the rules of the game, raise the threshold of competition, and establish a competitive advantage position with "uniqueness, authority, and exclusivity."

24. The law of element integration

Planning is to reintegrate various factors and resources of productivity through new concepts and ideas to produce 1+1>2, or even atomic fission-like market and economic benefits. These factors include economic, political, social and various other relevant visible or invisible factors. Planners are masters of integration, people who organically combine culture and business, knowledge and profits.

25. Breakthrough and Detonation Law

During the project planning process, the studio places particular emphasis on the importance of finding and designing market breakthroughs or detonating points for projects, while taking overall strategies and considerations into account. To ensure that customers can obtain short-, medium- and long-term returns.

26. Compound Grafting Rule

The composite grafting method is the result of integrative thinking. It is especially suitable for real estate, a special industry that spans the secondary and tertiary industries, covers a wide range of areas, and has a huge and astonishing industrial driving force.

From a strategic perspective, composite grafting can create new products, business models and markets, shape a new corporate and project image, enhance the attractiveness of projects and products, and reflect the company's extraordinary competitiveness, thus reaching a whole new level.

In an era where innovation is the key to success, composite grafting is an important method of real estate innovation and an essential weapon for developers to stand out in the fierce competition and participate in the "big crocodile game".

27. New “Barrel” Rule

The traditional barrel theory holds that filling in the gaps is the key to solving problems. The new wooden barrel theory holds that the market economy is an economy of division of labor, cooperation and resource integration. If you can make the original long board longer and maximize it, making it an absolute advantage, and based on this length, look for other long boards that are in short supply in the market, and through the combination of advantages, form a new wooden barrel, you can not only eliminate the troubles of the short board, but also maximize the role of the long board, and also achieve good benefits.

Because as far as enterprises or projects are concerned, some shortcomings can never be made up for, but it is easy to extend their strengths. Under this situation, the new wooden barrel theory is very effective.

28. Principles of Multi-Service Coordinated Operations

Planning cannot be done by one person alone. To solve complex and diverse problems, after the overall strategy and tactics are determined, it is necessary to integrate and utilize relevant resources from all aspects. The coordinated operations of multiple "arms" are the guarantee for the success of planning.

29. Dynamic Supervision Rules

Planning is not simply formulating a plan and submitting a report, but it is to dynamically grasp the entire project operation process, respond accurately and quickly to various problems that arise, and capture fleeting opportunities.

Consultant supervision is the process of discovering and solving problems, revising and adjusting planning schemes, and integrating resources in a dynamic process.

30. The front and rear carriage rule

This is a metaphor about the choice of competitive strategy. Being a leader means being the leader among industry competitors. Be the market forerunner and market leader.

In a sense, not every company can choose to be the front of the car. This depends not only on hard indicators such as enterprise size and market share, but also on soft indicators such as enterprise strategy and the vision and ability of enterprise leaders. A company that lacks strategic vision cannot take the lead.

To be a carriage means to be a follower, following the leader to get benefits. The leader has worked hard to create a path, and the followers move forward quickly and effortlessly on this path. This is the advantage of making a carriage. It can save a lot of R&D costs and market development costs. But it can only follow behind others forever.

The strategy depends on resources and capabilities. Whether to build the locomotive or the carriage can only be decided after a comprehensive analysis and inventory of the company's resources and capabilities.

Author: Planning skills improvement

Source: Jianshu