• October 1, 2024

Interview: Karen Small on her new venue finding venture

Interview: Karen Small on her new venue finding venture

Interview: Karen Small on her new venue finding venture 1024 683 micebook.

Karen ‘Kitty’ Small has launched a new bespoke venue-finding service for business events called MYVA – My Venue Assistant.

She plans to use her 17+ years of industry expertise which includes agency roles at Sleek Events and mccglc, working with hospitality brands such as Hilton and Marriott during her time at global research consultancy BVA BDRC, and a decade client side at a Nationwide Building Society leading the events team.

We caught up to find out more…

Congrats on your new venture. What made you decide to launch your own business and why venue finding?

It’s been a long time coming and something I have often thought about doing throughout my career, but now just felt like the right time. From my experience of being the client, the agency, and a venue consultant, I’ve learned that finding the perfect venue is key to creating unforgettable experiences.

When I worked at BDRC running customer experience programmes for hotel groups like Hilton and Marriott, I learned found it fascinating and loved learning about the different hotel brands and how they all work.

Working agency side, the thing I was most passionate about was supplier relations. I really enjoyed giving my time to suppliers and realising the benefit that can bring. When you’re working on a client brief, knowing your suppliers well can make a huge difference in terms of being able to suggest different and unique venues and coming up with innovative ideas and new angles.

What’s different about MYVA?

The venue finding market has changed a lot with the automated systems like Cvent and platforms like Hire Space, which are fantastic. But my niche is my connections and experience and offering a bespoke tailored service.

It’s more about understanding the brief and having a deeper connection, with the client and the event, and drawing on those contacts that I’ve built up over the years. I know I can venue find in such efficient way, because, because of my experience. I have just closed my first piece of business, and as soon as I saw the brief I immediately knew the right venue for the client. Of course, I did look at some other options, but then I said to the client I really think you should go and look at this one, because I know 100% from listening to your brief that this is the right venue for you. And it was, so cur out weeks of unnecessary work going backwards and forwards with lots of different venues.

My experience and connections that help with that efficiency and time saving, but the number one, most important thing for me is taking a clear brief. I’ve written a quite an in-depth but efficient brief document, and whether I’m working with a freelancer, the end client directly, or an agency, I will go through that briefing document with them. It covers more than just location and numbers and is all about the client, and what they’re trying to achieve with their event.

Are you targeting any particular clients or sectors?

With my previous experience of working with banking, tech and pharmaceutical clients, I can turn my hand to lots of different industry sectors and types of events.

I’m working on two different models. Clients can work with MYVA as a free venue finding service where I work on the commission-based model like many other venue finding services. But there is also the option for event agencies or other freelancers to work with me on a freelance day rate basis.

MYVA is already on the books of some agencies as freelance, so I’m excited to see where that goes.

One thing I have noticed in the last couple of years is that lots of event agencies are focusing more on creative and content services because its more profitable. So, if they’re investing more in those skills, they may decide to have less of the traditional event management services like venue finding in house. So, there could be the opportunity for me to step in and provide those services for agencies that want to move away from those overheads.

 

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