Stellar Changes With Times

For the past ten years Marjie Wells has steadily grown her business Stellar Events, which is exclusively devoted to planning large meetings and events for corporations. Corporate incentive trips, her favorite to plan, have taken her to Cabo San Lucas, Las Vegas, Laguna Beach and as far away as Amsterdam and Machu Picchu in Peru, where she planned itineraries and coordinated activities and meals to the smallest detail for groups as large as 400 people. A photo of the Inca ruins perched high on the Andes Mountains in Machu Picchu, where she took a group of 40 people in 2007, hangs proudly on the wall of her small office in Calabasas. “It’s hard to imagine what really goes into getting all the people there in the right place at the right time, helping them with activities, and holding these great parties that are memorable,” she said. In a business that’s all about relationships, her avid negotiating skills help maximize an event experience, getting the most value for a company’s budget, she said. Ranging from $50,000 all the way up a $1 million per event, it’s been her accumulated industry knowledge and roster of contacts what has grown Stellar Events into a $3 million business by 2008. Companies like Entravision Communications Corporation have relied on her services for years to plan events both big and small. Last year Wells planned the company’s incentive trip to Buenos Aires. “It feels like you’re doing business with somebody who works for your own company, she’s that invested and committed to your interests,” said Penelope Wakeman, executive assistant to the president of the radio division of Entravision. “She’s very flexible and very insightful, we’ve used her for years and we just love her,” she added. But the event planning industry has taken a hit. The collapse of the economy and public backlash against excessive spending by corporate giants such as insurance company AIG, put a halt on most incentive trips and even impacted once routine meetings and conferences, Wells said. “AIG had the most unbelievably devastating effect on our entire industry,” she said. It happened in September 2008 when Congress found out that AIG spent $443,000, including $20,000 on spa treatments, for about 70 top-selling insurance agents and a few AIG executives at a luxury California resort, just days after accepting an $85-billion federal bailout. Just like that, the incentive trip – a decades old industry practice used by companies to reward top producers who met sales goals, a proven way of improving business productivity, and a trip that in theory pays for itself- was considered excessive and lavish. Almost immediately, hotels and event planners felt the impact as an estimated $1 billion worth of conferences were cancelled in the first two months of 2009. Others cut back due to the recession. Entravision, for example, scaled back on their incentive trip this year, and Wells planned their smaller event in October. “Everybody in my industry would agree that there are not as many meetings, that they are smaller than they ever were, and in a way it’s more competitive [for event planners] and quite a few companies have gone out of business and given up.” Like others, Wells has lost clients and annual revenue has decreased, but she has no intention of giving up. Instead, she’s honing her strengths looking for opportunities to diversify and adapt to the changing market. The company already launched a strong marketing push that included upgrading their web site. Now, Wells said she is beginning to redirect efforts towards helping companies raise sponsorships for their meetings as an additional service. “If you want to survive you’ve got to think ahead and be realistic,” she said. At a time when everyone is looking to save money, pursuing the sponsorship concept would allow Wells to help businesses who understand the value of meetings as a way to build moral, create employee loyalty and build relationships, to also get a return on their investment. With her years of experience Wells could offer businesses concerned about wasting money and staying within their budget, an opportunity to also get “more bang for their buck” she said. As a way to test the ground, Wells recently launched a mall sponsorship campaign for one of her clients and in a very short time was able to raise enough money to pay for about 25 percent of their meeting. “We had a really good response,” she said. “I’m thinking about pursuing the sponsorship concept because it doesn’t matter how good you are, if people don’t have the money to pay for an event, it doesn’t matter,” she said. Even though incentive trips are not so big or popular anymore, there’s also an opportunity for Wells to help plan those more strategic meetings that help employees increase their sales and learn about marketing, for example, which she said are more needed in the current economy. Wells, who majored in theater arts and started her career in the entertainment industry as an assistant director in film and television, excels at managing large crowds of people, something she learned in her earlier career, and is determined to continue to grow the business in the future. Moving forward she plans to continue to stand strong behind the business principles that got her where she is: don’t get into debt, and don’t spend more money than you have. Stellar Events Year Founded: 1999 Revenues 2008: $2.9 Revenues 2009: (projected) $1.9 Employees: 3 “We have no debt and we never have,” Wells said. “I think if you need to commit to a lot of debt to start a business you should really wait or think about it because it’s going to be your downfall. If you don’t have cash flow it’s very difficult.”