‘We Inspire Teams to Take Action to Reach their Customers in the Right Place, at the Right Time, and with the Right Message’ – Kimberly Schmitz, Founder & CEO, Spin Event Management

"As with any new adventure in life, taking a leap on your own is a big step and each day presents new challenges and victories. Every day I learn something new and try to make the best decisions I can. When I fail, I take the opportunity to learn from it."

Organizing events is a lot of work. For businesses looking to organize events for lead generation, brand awareness and/or relationship building/appreciation might have a hard time as they do not normally have the resources and the in-depth understanding so as to what goes into planning a successful event. Events like user groups, client advisory, customer appreciation, tradeshow/conference participation, and roadshows affect the future of the business as they are mainly organized in order to attract the general public and/or grow the business for the firm.

In light of the above, a Denver-based event management company called Spin Event Management is taking the marketing and event management industry by storm. It is a woman-owned nationally certified enterprise (WBENC) founded by Kimberly Schmitz in 2017. They started by managing and planning corporate events like, annual sales meetings, internal leadership offsites and participation in tradeshows/conferences.

Kimberly Schmitz, Spin Event Management Founder & CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Why was the company set up? And how did you expand your company and its offerings over the years?

While managing events for nearly 20 years in different corporations, I had partners, colleagues, and friends ask me for advice about their own events. What could they do differently? What are some ideas to help drive attendance? Then they would ask, “Why don’t you do this for yourself?” and I would always say, “Maybe someday”. Well, that “someday” came. What drove me to take the leap? My decision to start my own event management and marketing business really came from deciding to be responsible for my own destiny and success. Our growth has been a direct result of our clients and their referrals.

What was your first project like? Share the experience.

The first project for Spin Event Management was for an event in Atlanta, Georgia. We had done the site visit and selected the final venue. Two weeks before the event and after communication had already gone out to invitees, we were told that there was duplication in the venue’s booking that day and unfortunately, our contract was signed after the other, so we didn’t actually have the venue. To my dismay, I immediately got on the phone and contacted other locations, hopped on a plane within two days, visited a new site, flew back the same day, recommended the new venue to the client, negotiated a new contract and had it finalized. In my 20 years, this had never happened, and it was ironic that it was my first project as an entrepreneur. But I had the experience, knowledge, and contacts to do what was needed and take care of it for my client. They didn’t even sweat it!

“Earning trust and respect of consumers all around the world is through consistent focus on delivering high quality in all of our actions.” How do you interpret this statement?

We earn the trust of our clients by not making promises that we can’t deliver which builds mutual respect. Our clients want realistic expectations that are deliverable. It’s easy to promise excellence but failing to deliver harms that relationship. All problems have solutions and working together can build that respect and relationship. Even though our clients have their own opinions about how they want a project to progress, it’s our duty to listen, and then respond respectfully and work through the logistics.

If you have to list five factors that have been/are the biggest asset to your organization, what would they be and why?

Spending time where our customers spend time – Staying relevant and engaged, we make sure we are getting the right information about needs, wants, expectations, etc. from our targeted audience. This means spending time with them at events or virtually.

Engaging with our clients – Communication is much more about engagement as opposed to a one-sided stream of information. Engaging with our audience, develops a sense of trust and builds a meaningful flow of conversation or in other words a two-way flow.

Continue developing new services – We are part of a business that loves everything new and innovative. So, as a B2B company, we always need to be coming up with either new solutions or services for our clients’ events. We don’t take our position with our clients for granted.

Embrace cross-industry innovation – At times, we’ll look outside of our industry to find innovative ideas to adapt and use inside our own.

Welcome critical thinking – This is so important for our business model because it includes; adopting different perspectives from clients to business partners; communication and making overall better decisions.

How do you stay relevant to the consumer interests in this highly volatile market?

By not only being aware of what our competitors are doing and knowing our differences but also utilizing partners with different solutions and services to expand offerings to fit a client’s needs. Our industry is pretty saturated, so we differentiate ourselves with our marketing capabilities in addition to the event planning, but we also utilize our partners to meet the needs of our clients that may go beyond our scope but help complete the big picture for our client.

What factors make your company lead the current market?

Not only do we plan niche events, but we also develop and execute effective marketing strategies for those events. We help clients gain more awareness and attendance at their events and the events they participate in. We inspire teams to take action to reach their customers in the right place, at the right time, and with the right message. Not to mention, we build excitement to engage attendees.

As a question of sustainability, where do you see your company a couple of years from now?

We have already started small and have gone paperless at our clients’ events. Instead of mailing out invites or agendas, we create an event page or have an app for attendees. We also offer online registrations and have online schedules at events.

With the rise of sustainability within the event industry, our goal is to continually choose event venues that make sustainability a high priority. We try to select locations where there would be less use of transportation and have attendees walk to events or use public transportation. We are also looking at ways to ensure that food and drink aren’t wasted and using recyclable and/or eco-friendly products is preferred. To avoid unnecessary use of resources is the main goal of our future events.

Kim Schmitz – A Prolific Leader

Kimberly Schmitz, Founder and CEO of Spin Event Management, has over 20 years of marketing communications experience working for large corporations and organizations where she managed marketing programs and teams. Within that marketing realm, she also planned and oversaw various corporate events all over the world that generated leads to build awareness and grow relationships and business. With events as her passion and belief that in-person events make a big impact on marketing and business results, she set out on her own with Spin Event Management.

“We inspire candid conversations, which strengthens trust and opens communication through transparency. We have found that it enhances productivity, boosts morale, and shows not only our clients but our employees that their opinions are valued.”