IAM1147- Business Owner Creates the Best Events Possible

Tiffany Woodard is the owner of Events by Tiffany, which is an event planning business that specializes in social and corporate events as well as day-of coordination for weddings and now newly added, balloon décor! Events by Tiffany services the DMV area and has been in business for just about 2 years. Tiffany has a passion to not only create the best event possible for her clients but to create long-lasting relationships with her clients as well.

• CEO Hack: Not being afraid to ask questions
• CEO Nugget: Don't be afraid to fail
• CEO Defined: The world to me

Website: https://eventsbytiffanyllc.net/

Instagram: @eventsbytiffanyllc

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Transcription

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00:26 – Intro 

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships? Generate sales and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview. If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:54 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Tiffany Watered of Events by Tiffany. Tiffany, it's great to have you on the show.

01:03 – Tiffany Woodard

Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

01:06 – Gresham Harkless

Definitely excited to have you on as well and happy to have you here. Before we jump into the interview, I wanted to read a little bit more about Tiffany so you could hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Tiffany is the owner of Events by Tiffany, which is an event planning business that specializes in social and corporate events, as well as the day of coordination for weddings and now newly added balloon decor. Events by Tiffany services the DMV area and it has been in business for just about 2 years. Tiffany has a passion for not only creating the best event possible for her, and for her own clients, but for creating long-lasting relationships with her clients as well. Tiffany, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:45 – Tiffany Woodard

Yes, I'm excited.

01:46 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:55 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, so I'm a typical Virgo. I'm super organized and super detail-oriented. So I was always the friend planning the trips, planning the parties, planning everything. So it just made sense for me to just jump into it and start really making money off of something that I'm actually good at and just, it's just a natural math for me. So in 2019, I decided to finally take the plunge and create events by Symphony. Unfortunately, with 2020 being a complete bust, I wasn't able to do a lot of events. So I kind of shifted into doing more virtual events or virtual baby showers and things of that nature. So that was interesting. But now that things are opening back up, I'm really excited to really do all the events I had planned to do for 2020. So I've definitely been busy for the earlier part of the year.

02:42 – Gresham Harkless

Nice, yeah, I definitely imagine. And those events are just kind of put on hold, they're put on ice, they're not completely done. So as things are to open up and you get to do the virtual events, but now get to do more of those in-person events, I imagine that things are interesting.

02:57 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, it's been fun. It's been a lot, but it's been a lot of fun.

03:01 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. Absolutely. So I know when I read your bio, I'll touch a little bit upon how you work with your clients. Could you take us through a little bit more on what that looks like and how you serve the clients you work with?

03:11 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, so I have a wide variety of clients as I said, or as you said, I have a lot of days of wedding coordinators. So I have the brides. Thankfully I haven't had any brides' villas so far, fingers crossed. The baby showers, anniversary parties. I have a wide variety of clients. So working with a plethora of people from different backgrounds has honestly been amazing.

Meeting a lot of these amazing people and then networking and going from there. If they really liked my work, which thankfully they all have, they then ask their friends and they ask their coworkers if they have any events and then I kind of get referred to like that. But I love the clients that I work with. They've been amazing. Honestly, I haven't had any bad clients so far, so I'm so excited.

03:53 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I love, and I don't know if this is a big part of that. You mentioned that relationship piece that you kind of talked about, I think, so many times when people are in business they can look at it as a transaction, okay I just need the next client, but when you actually get to build a relationship you feel like a part of you know that event that experience I imagine that really creates those great you know great relationships and experiences.

04:14 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, it definitely does especially because I have open communication with all of my clients. I think that that's number one of building a relationship, just emailing, texting, calling. They can honestly contact me at all hours of the night and I'll get back to them within a reasonable amount of time. But I think that's definitely the foundation of how I'm able to create such a great bond with all of my clients.

04:34 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think especially during events and those special occasions, people want to be seen and heard and appreciated, and to have those open lines of communication, I imagine, makes that a lot easier.

04:45 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, it definitely does.

04:47 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself personally or your business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart what makes you unique?

04:56 – Tiffany Woodard

Honestly, I think that I'm really relatable. I've been through a lot in life. I've done a lot of things in life in terms of like events and you know work wise. So I'm super relatable just to my clients whether it's work or just personal and I bring that to all of the relationships that I have with all of my clients and I think that they can see that and we can't only have to talk about business, like it can be something personal as well, and connect in that level. So I think that's helped me, you know, gain the client base that I've had, what I've had being so tough thus far.

So it's it's worked. I'm gonna Hopefully keep you know, keep it up. But I definitely would suggest that for everyone just to try to be relatable and just understand where they're coming from You know, especially with bribes, you know, they're going through a very stressful time in their life It's obviously going to be a beautiful thing, but it is stressful planning a wedding So Just being able to relate to someone in terms of like, you know, hey, I know that you're going through a lot, like you need to friend event to, like just forget all the client stuff. So that's definitely been helpful for me.

05:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love that. And you know, we were talking about, of course about the relationships, but I say so often if people forget about the human aspect of business, the human aspect of life at that, where you, like you said, is sometimes if you're having a stressful time and many things are coming at you, sometimes you just wanna vent, you wanna have somebody that will listen and to understand that and have that relatability to be able to do that and understand when that's needed is absolutely huge.

06:18 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely find that to be a great push factor, just for me in general. And it's worked just in my personal life. And also, I've definitely carried it over into my professional. So I'm going to keep on.

06:31 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, keep on keeping on. That's what I said. So that makes perfect sense. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple Book or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

06:46 – Tiffany Woodard

I think that I'm not afraid to ask questions. So one thing, you know, with having a business and it was trying to flourish during COVID, you know, we all were kind of in a funk just because of how the world was. So I think I had to just revamp and I had to think like, you know, how can I have my business still continue to flourish? And what I noticed is that during the pandemic, it was a lot of, you know, the drive-through graduation parties and baby showers and things like that.

So I was thinking, how can I revamp my business even though it just started? So I asked a lot of questions and I actually ended up learning a new skill during the pandemic, which is learning how to do all the balloon decor. So like the arches and the garlands and things like that. So I think because I was able to think outside the box, because I was willing to ask a lot of questions to friends and other CEOs I was able to keep my business to even sustain and even flourish during the pandemic.

So that's obviously helped me get clients during the pandemic. When I thought, honestly, I was like, 2020 is going to be a complete bust for my company. But it's definitely a CEO hack for me. And I definitely would suggest for other CEOs just to ask questions. I mean, there's no such thing as a double question, especially if it's going to help your business. Ask all the questions you can.

08:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing that. And sometimes you never know where those opportunities and those moments where growth will come from. But I think I always say, like, you know, being a CEO, entrepreneur, business owner, whatever side we give, it's kind of like being on a balance beam because you got to have the confidence, got to have the belief that I can do something great and can make somebody's experience really, really phenomenal. But you gotta have that humility on the other side too, to say, hey, I don't know everything or I can learn more. And not only does it help us during these times, but I imagine it'll help out in the future as well.

08:32 – Tiffany Woodard

Right. Definitely. A hundred percent. I learned that last year.

08:36 – Gresham Harkless

I think we all did in some form, shape, or fashion. And I don't know if we took the steps towards it, but it was important for us to kind of take it as a learning experience. That's for sure.

08:45 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, no, definitely.

08:47 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you can tell your younger business self if you were to hop into a time machine, or you might also tell a client that too.

09:00 – Tiffany Woodard

It would be just don't be afraid to fail. Honestly, we're all gonna fail. I mean, whether it's at something so small or something really big, that's a part of life and it just creates who you are and it definitely will help you personally and professionally. So I think just not being afraid to fail and saying like, hey, maybe I just need to reconfigure what I'm thinking or reconfigure what I'm doing in order to get to where it's really supposed to be. But I think that that's the biggest thing for me.

Like I said, for 2020, I took 2020 for me professionally as this isn't gonna be something bad for my business, gonna be something different. So maybe I can go into the balloons and it actually ended up being good because now I can offer the balloon services. So I wasn't afraid to fail. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I did mess up a few times on some balloons when I was learning, but that's all a part of the process of just learning and being able to learn, being okay with failing with yourself.

09:52 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, and it's so funny that you say that because I think, you know, I saw something, you know, some time ago about, you know, a kid like learning how to walk. And a lot of times when a kid's learning how to walk, they'll fall down and everybody's encouraging him, hey, you can do that, you can make this happen. But nobody's yelling at you like, you kid, you're not cut out for walking. So maybe just sit down and crawl. That's what you're cut out for. But we do that to ourselves.

I think I love that nugget that you said, because when we're going through, you know, less than ideal times, or when we're learning something new, trying to do whatever it might be, you kind of have to give yourself that grace to continue to be okay with quote-unquote failing when really it's the opportunity to kind of learn to get better.

10:31 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, for sure. I think you really have to look at the glass half full as opposed to half empty. So that's definitely helped me, especially as I get older, just learning it's not the end of the world. It's going to be OK. You'll figure it out.

10:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I tell myself that often. It's not a bad life. It's just a bad day. It might be a bad hour, a bad climb. A lot of times it's not as bad as we sometimes can build it up to be.

10:53 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, I definitely wish I had known that years ago.

10:55 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. Yes. Yeah, if you bump into my younger business self, tell them that as well because that's a really great magnet as well. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're open to having different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Tiffany, what does being a CEO mean to you?

11:12 – Tiffany Woodard

Tiffany Smith Honestly, it means the world to me. I mean, I am a black woman. So just being a black woman and having my own business means the world. And I know that other little black girls or black boys or just minorities, in general, can look up to me and say, she did it, I can do it. I think that that's the biggest thing for me, especially in this day and age with everything that's going on in the world. I think it's important to see other black women, you know, Excel and be CEOs and business owners. I think it's amazing. And I and I hope that I inspire other people as well.

11:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love that definition, that perspective. You definitely are inspiring people. And I think, especially when, you know, sometimes the narrative or the belief isn't that we can do certain things, but we see somebody doing it. We see somebody that's okay with trying things and it may be not going perfectly, but they're still getting better and they're continuing to kind of chop at the tree, so to speak, it's something that, you know, becomes our world, but we sometimes forget it becomes other people's worlds as well too, as they start to see us and emulate us.

12:09 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's also important just to see, you know, other people that look like you in their owning their own businesses, doing their own thing and just really being successful. So you just never know whose life you may change just by one conversation or a friendship or what have you. So I think it's really important.

12:28 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. You never know who's watching as well too and the impact that you're having upon their lives. So Tiffany, truly appreciate you for taking some time out. Of course, appreciate you for making an impact on us. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

12:50 – Tiffany Woodard

Yeah, so everyone can follow me on Instagram at events by tiphonyllc. As you said earlier, I'm open to social events, corporate events, anniversary parties, baby showers, and days of coordination, you have it. I will do it. I'm not afraid of things I haven't tried before. So if I didn't name it, I will definitely try it. But it's been a pleasure being on the podcast. I absolutely loved it. I had a good time and I hope to work with everyone soon.

13:16 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. Absolutely. And to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes. Thank you so much for providing so much insight and light into everything that you're doing. But also, like I said before so well, making sure to inspire others as well to remind us that the way we get to become experts and really great at what we do is by trying things. So being okay with, you know, taking that first step is absolutely huge. So thank you for doing that. Appreciate you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

13:44 – Outro