"Goals: I asked myself the tough questions and got really focused really fast" with Melissa Park
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Melissa “Mel” Park is an award-winning Global Event Producer who has utilized her engaging personality, unending energy, and attention to logistical and design details to build a business that has her recognized across the United States and Australia. Her client list has grown from one continent to another based on referrals, recognition from attendees onsite, and clients who return year after year for her to produce their events.
New York City currently serves as Mel’s home base when she is not traveling to produce her nearly 30 annual events in top U.S. cities including San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago, Orlando, Dallas, Boston, Minneapolis, and Toronto or internationally in London, Dublin, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, and Munich.
She is the creator, producer, and host of The Mel-Factor Podcast; a contributing writer to numerous publications and a sought-after keynote speaker and panelist.
Website: melissapark.co
Can you tell our readers about your background?
I began my professional career in Australia working at Reed Exhibitions producing high profile, business, and consumer events like The PGA Golf Show and General Practitioners Conference & Exhibition. I then joined Out There Productions, and after producing some of Australia's largest special events like The World Masters Games Gala Ball and Closing Celebration, I launched my first event management company in 2008 at the age of 26.
I continued working in Australia as an event producer for six years delivering events like HSBC Bank’s Chinese New Year Gala Dinner Tour, Asia-Pacific’s Incentives & Meetings Exhibition, and more than 20 outdoor festivals before I made the move to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2014. Since moving to the U.S., I have made a name for myself in the technology space for producing large-scale user conferences, strategic sponsorships, and innovative brand activations.
What inspired you to start your business?
I’ve been driven to pursue entrepreneurship since I was young and feel like it has always been in the cards that I would make some type of venture my full-time gig, but the true turning point was when I was the Event, Marketing and New Business Development Manager for African drumming & team-building organization early in my career.
On the management side, it was a two-woman show, me and the owner, so while she was on maternity leave, I basically ran every aspect of the business. I very quickly came to the conclusion that if I was going to work around the clock for anybody’s business, it needed to be my own. So when I look back, we both had babies, she created a human and I created Melissa Park Events!
Where is your business based?
While I travel around the world producing events, I am based in New York City.
How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
I love the quote “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” I’ve always gone above and beyond and to this day will stop at nothing to exceed my clients’ expectations and deliver a kick-ass experience that is guaranteed to blow their attendees’ minds.
When I decided to launch my first business in Australia, I simply emailed everyone I had ever worked with to share the exciting news AND asked for a recommendation if they knew of anyone who required event management services for upcoming events. With that one email opportunities began flowing and as more people experienced my events, so did the referrals.
When I relocated to the U.S., I had no contacts or connections so I had to start over from scratch. To begin, I first took an in-house role and after six months was promoted to Director of Global Strategic Events. This role enabled me to showcase my expertise as I delivered the company’s Global Summit in the USA, Europe, Australia, and Asia from 2015 to 2017.
After two years of working in-house, I was ready to step back out on my own. Last year my team and I delivered 30 large-scale user conferences, strategic sponsorships, and innovative brand activations, all a direct response to recommendations and referrals from clients and event attendees.
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
I’m very fortunate to have all of my past employers and work colleagues actively promote me and my business whenever they hear of anyone requiring event management services for upcoming events.
In complement to the above endorsements, I utilize social media and PR to showcase event images, highlight reels, case studies, and testimonials.
Ultimately, my events bring in my leads and my social media and PR efforts help amplify awareness.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
Without a doubt, finding my tribe. There is so much about entrepreneurship that can be a challenge, but feeling like you are doing it alone is definitely at the top of my list. That being said, I have found a few ways to overcome this obstacle.
While masterminds are the hottest thing to be part of right now, and I absolutely believe in their power IF you find the right one, the truth is, most have an incredibly high cost of entry. So until I find my perfect fit, I’ve used the below strategies to begin creating my own community of kick-ass individuals I’m now incredibly lucky to also call friends:
Collaboration Hubs like The Wing and Luminary create gorgeous co-working spaces for women (like me) who are passionate about professional development and expanding their networks.
LinkedIn is my absolute favorite networking site. With a quick search of a job title, industry, or company, we literally have access to almost any professional we could ever want to connect with. I regularly use the inmail feature to connect with professionals and build mutually beneficial relationships.
I’m an active member of two industry associations and regularly attend their in-person events to meet and network with like-minded people.
Whether it’s industry-specific, business or personal development, I find while attending conferences I am likely to walk away with new connections as long as I take a step outside my comfort zone and introduce myself to the person I sit next to at any given session
Whenever I relocate to a new city, I find local community groups via Meetup, Facebook Groups, or independent operators. These groups host a variety of social events and offer a great way to experience new things, have some fun, and make new friends at the same time.
How do you stay focused?
Lists! I’m a person who likes to see progress so checklists are my lifeline.
Every Sunday night I make a plan for the week ahead outlining what I need and/or want to achieve for my clients, my personal development, and professional goals. I use this plan to create daily to-do lists that help ensure I stay on track and provide the added bonus of being able to highlight completed tasks. (I mean is there anything more satisfying?)
And yes, you better believe that if an unexpected meeting pops up or I complete a task that’s not listed, I write it down so I can highlight that too.
Every night before I go to bed, I review my list to see where I’m at and make any necessary modifications. I get a much better night's sleep knowing that I can hit the ground running the next morning.
How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
While I offer the full realm of traditional “end-to-end event management services”, I work in close collaboration with my clients to deliver these services, tailored to their audience, with a very modern twist aka “The Mel-Factor.”
A big part of what separates me from others is the ability to find elements or ideas from outside the industry and adapting them into fully-fledged activations or features in a corporate setting.
This means I am consistently monitoring various social media accounts and hashtags, reputable media outlets reporting on trends and forecasting, the constantly-changing window displays at high-end department stores, watching music videos, and studying marketing campaigns from cutting edge brands around the globe.
What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
While it’s not ‘my’ advice per se, there are two quotes that I live by:
“Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room.” - Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
“Be nice to people on your way up because you'll meet them on your way down.” - Wilson Mizner
Each of these captures the same sentiment: work hard but know that there are always going to be others who know more than you. Learn from them, and then pass that knowledge onto others as you rise. Then you won’t just be successful in business, but also in life.
What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
App - Instagram. It has never been easier to discover, communicate, and build relationships with people you would never have had access to prior to social media. I specifically like the ease of hashtag monitoring.
Blog - I’m more of a vlog or podcast kinda girl. I read blogs when I’m searching for information, but I don’t religiously follow any. Vlogs and podcasts on the other hand are my jam and I soak up anything that Gary Vaynerchuk releases. His knowledge of and experience in digital marketing, business, entrepreneurship, and social media coupled with his no-BS style of delivery is right up my alley.
Book - Risk & Resilience by Lisa Messenger. The back of her book explains perfectly why I love it “In this book, Lisa reveals the tough lessons she learned during the hardest 18 months of her entrepreneurial journey when scaling too quickly, hiring without a strategy and trying to please everyone almost turned her dream into a disaster. And, the courageous steps she took to survive, thrive, and prosper afterward.”
What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
The G Suite. I’m not one for a million different apps and programs and prefer to keep processes simple and streamlined with as little clutter and noise as possible. I actively use many of its internal applications but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Google Sheets.
This is where I build my master docs and event budgets. These docs are a one-stop-shop for our entire team, as well as our clients and vendors.
They:
● are easily accessible - no matter where we are around the globe
● enable absolutely every event detail to be stored in one place, which helps ensure my entire team is well-informed and up-to-date on the entire production
● are 100% customizable - we use color coding, cell formatting, and functions on every tab
● allow members of my team to tag one another, ask a question, send a quick task reminder and track conversations, without having to leave the document or rely on any other software program.
Who is your business role model? Why?
Lorna Jane
A fellow and uber inspirational Australian, Lorna Jane’s mission is to “empower women to live a life that they love through Active Living™ and the daily practice of Move, Nourish, Believe.” In addition to producing the absolute best quality and cutest activewear on the market, which you’ll find me sporting when I’m onsite for events, in the office, working out, traveling - or truth be told, anywhere besides a wedding.
Whether you are visiting a store or the website, receiving an email, viewing a post on your social feed, or reading a piece of collateral, every aspect of her brand is consistent, beautifully designed, and thoughtful. That’s a solid aspiration and inspiration for any woman in business.
How do you balance work and life?
Many say, “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” I subscribed to that too until last year when I suffered from severe burnout. While searching for solutions, I discovered a video by NYC-based Burnout Coach, Caitlin Donovan who said, “In order to avoid burning out, you need to love your life as much, if not more, than your business. If your business is your way of escaping from your life - you’ll burn out every time.”
Hearing this was a defining moment and absolute game-changer for me as I realized at that moment that like so many entrepreneurs and incredibly career-driven people, I had built my entire life around my business and brand, and if for any reason it all disappeared, I would be left with nothing. Instantly I knew some significant changes had to be made. This is how I did it:
Goals: I asked myself the tough questions and got really focussed really fast.
If it’s not a “Hell yes!” it’s a no: Now when an opportunity presents itself, if I cannot clearly see how it will enable me to get one step closer to achieving one of my goals, I respectfully decline.
I conducted a human audit: If someone in my life made me more unhappy than they made me happy, they had to go.
What’s your favorite way to decompress?
I love to binge reality TV for a quick escape from my own reality. When I’m completely overwhelmed, I either go for a walk in Central Park or visit a beach, which is a little harder now that I’m in NYC. Another favorite is to just pop on my headphones, blast my latest playlist, sing WAY too loud to be living in an apartment, and dance like I’d die if anyone was watching!
What do you have planned for the next six months?
In 2019, I witnessed an alarming number of clients and event organizers struggling to drive attendance to their events. When I jumped in to help, I noticed many of them were making the same simple mistakes over and over again. I want to build a platform that enables me to inspire and arm upcoming events and marketing professionals with the tools and tactics they need to fast-track their success.
To that end, I am currently developing a digital masterclass series based on my 7 Steps to Event Success and my first e-course entitled “The Ultimate Event Marketing Guide.” I’m hoping this will lead to me not only being able to continue producing large-scale user conferences, strategic sponsorships, and innovative brand activations for my clients but also live events for my own educational series as well.
How can our readers connect with you?