How an Event Planner Creates Once-in-a-Lifetime Experiences

We might do something that you wouldn't expect

“and something you couldn't plan on your own.”

You can't describe this unless you're actually here. So it's like giving people those kinds of experiences is truly what warms my heart. And that's like what I'm passionate about in what our company loves to be.

- Anju Lin is an entrepreneur, event strategist, and the founder of Explore Marketing. She helps organizations create impactful meetings, incentive programs, and travel experiences that inspire teams, strengthen relationships,

and drive lasting business success. - If you make it work every time, we do. We just regret a way and figure out a solution. And that's kind of like the mentality. We don't take no for an answer.

Like if someone's like, oh, that's not possible.

Like my team knows never to come to me

and say like they said it can't be done. 'Cause I'll be like, what are you talking about? Of course it can be done. Get 'em on the phone. Let's figure this out.

There's always a way if you have the well. - For the audience out there, what would you say is like your number one key to success? - Understanding that. ♪ ♪

- It spans the goal, like a super high school. - Into the hell this? - Ready. - All right. - Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.

- It's not over. - I'll tell how we're. - The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. - That's a sweet way.

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♪ Paul is the fox is not on the planet ♪ ♪ You can live your dream ♪ - Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. Today, I am joined by Ms. Anju Lynn.

How are you? - I'm good, how are you? Thank you for having me. - Of course, of course, welcome to the show. - Thank you.

- Now, you just finished recording your episode of Women in Power.

First of all, how do you feel now?

Now that you're on the other side of it. I feel less nervous. Now that I'm on the other side of it, but it's good. - Yeah, little bit of those like jitters go ahead and tell us.

- At the beginning, but your team was awesome and they made me feel really comfortable. So I feel like by the end it was good and I'm gonna trust that the editing team is gonna make me look even better.

- I put all my faith in my editor. - Absolutely. - And you interviewed with Kofi, which he's really, really great. And I'm not just saying that

because he's within your shot. (laughing) But what would we say is the number one thing that you want people to be able to learn or take away from your story?

“- Well, I think there's, it's probably too full.”

I think one is to learn and understand what we do as an event planning team and really are incentive market and what that's all about. And I think the other thing is for other women

who are trying to start out as business owners if I can drop a little knowledge, help them in any way with their business, that would really be the two-fold, right? Like, so something for our company, but then something

to help other women out and support other small businesses. - Now, event planning, if funny enough, working in production, I've worked hand in hand with a lot of different event planners 'cause production like video, audio visual production

is usually like a piece in the puzzle that is planning an event, right? - Yep. - That is not an easy world to get into. So how did you get into this world?

- Yeah, so I watched this show which you're too young to remember, but it's called Hotel and it was like on ABC at 9 o'clock and my parents will let me stay up late when I was a kid and watch it

and I always wanted to own my hotel

and be the next Leonahalmsley. And she was just this boss babe, you know, they didn't have that term then, but she just was awesome and everyone, she just ran this hotel and she did it with so much grace

and I just thought it was the coolest job ever. So from a really young age, I wanted to get into hotel restaurant management and that was my major in college and that out of college got into the business

and realized there's absolutely no work life balance. It was just a different, it's a hard industry to be on and so, you know, a couple turns, you know, in the road and then I was able to kind of end up on the event planning side of it,

which still has the hospitality element,

“which is what I think I was in what I enjoyed about it”

but it also gave me more work life balance. And so I ended up in event planning and then that's kind of when I fell in love with it and then my passion for travel kind of combined and you know, I was able to kind of start my own company

that did both. - Gotcha, gotcha. And so I wanna, you know, you mentioned that the hospitality part of it was kind of what drew your in.

What would you say is like, you know, it's a people business, right? And like, I think if you're anything like me, like I enjoy being around people, I enjoy seeing people happy.

Is that like a big thing for you? - Yeah, I mean, I think putting on a big event, like the rush of it all, like the intensity of it all, like there's like a euphoria at the end, right? Or like a high eu feel, something like that.

- When you get to see a plan. - Yeah, but you see it all come together

and then knowing that like you brought all of these things together, it, you work so hard and it's crazy and you've know because you've been in the production side of it, there's just so much to it.

“So that part I love but I also love making people happy, right?”

And like pleasing people and having clients say how, you know, they couldn't do it without us. Like those are all just things that just, I don't know, are like my love language, I guess. - You know what, we got to add that to the list

of long, long, long love languages. But like a similar way to in film, like it's seeing like a production is getting to see a plan come in to play and then you have that sense of euphoria

when you actually get to go and see it on the big screen or I guess nowadays you see it on your phone. So it's like a little screen. - No, for sure. And it is, it's creating that like once in a lifetime experience

like on our incentive travel trips. We're not just saying like, hey, this is any trip that you could, you know, go online and pay, you know, $2,000 and go on tours. Like this is like really cool entertainment.

We have that, you know, at the welcome events and then, you know, we might do like a something that you wouldn't expect and something you couldn't plan

“on your own because we know the destination.”

We know the area, you know, we had like African dancers on stilts come to a dinner one time. Like we do just crazy stuff like that to give like the wow factor. And just to see the look on people's faces like when they're seeing stuff and they're like,

how did you know about like, we would never have found

this on our own or we would have never done this. Like we took people just last year where we were in Thailand and we took them to an elephant sanctuary and people were like, you can't, you can't describe this unless you're actually here.

So it's like giving people those kinds of experiences is truly what like warms my heart. And that's like what I'm passionate about and what our company loves to do. - So I wanna get into just kind of the nitty gritty

of what your company is and does. - Sure. - So just talks me about first like the founding point when you, or maybe not the founding point but the point where you realize like this

was gonna be your, your baby. - And then just what the day-to-day looks like now. - Yeah, so I worked for another company.

“You know, I think is a lot of young entrepreneurs do.”

And then I worked at that company for quite a while, learned the ropes and then kind of got to the place where I wasn't gonna go any higher than I could. But I still had big dreams and aspirations for what I wanted to do.

But it wasn't until I met my husband where I really felt like I had the support,

somebody who always had my back and just not afraid to fail.

Like it's something with that relationship when you find your person and you have that relationship where you feel like it doesn't matter. Like who cares if I try this business? If it doesn't work, we'll figure something else out.

So like having that really gave me the confidence I needed to feel like I could go out on my own and start something. I had done some small wedding planning and some smaller other low-risk businesses

but this was kind of like the big, the big rest. So we kind of cashed it all in, moved Florida, started our own company. And then we just kind of started really boots on the ground. Like reaching out to people,

keeping relationships at a non-compete agreement. So for two years, I couldn't touch any events. So we were doing branded merchandise. Like other things that touched events, like you're saying, but not actual event planning.

And then yeah, the opportunity finally presented itself to us where we could start planning events again. And then once we started doing it, word of mouth kind of started spreading and we kind of knew we had like a cool niche

and something that was really working. So it's been like, it's been a while. I was saying on my show, it's been a wild ride.

- I feel like that, that's always the case.

You know, I've interviewed a ton of people in these chairs and even in the episodes themselves. And one of the things that I've seen travel carry across from all of their stories is that for no business owner out there is it not a roller coaster.

It's always a wild ride. - It is. And especially in the event planning world, right? Like you're talking about travel, right? When does travel ever go smooth?

It doesn't, right? - It was a logistical night. - Yeah, it really is. - Every single time, 'cause I do a lot of travel gigs where I'll build a film crew

and we'll go travel out to the location and we have to build out our set in that location and getting film gear on a plane. I had no idea until I had to do it for the first time how much of a plane it is.

- Yeah, I mean, we ship pallets all over the US. We, you know, trying to get, you know, items into Mexico. Stuffing in our suitcases, hoping, you know, nobody finds out. Like it's just, you know, it's hard, logistically super hard. I'm actually working on a trip to Tanzania right now

and just the logistics of getting, it's a small group, it's like 30 people. But the logistics of getting them all there in time because they have to take this private little puddle jumper plane into the Serangetti, we're all, you know.

There's not an international airfare in the Serangetti, right?

coordinating all that.

“I mean, it's like an orchestra that you have to eat.”

- You feel like a composer as you're putting it together and then once it comes together, then you're like ah. - And then all of a sudden, everyone's like, I don't know how you did it. We're like, we don't, sometimes we don't know how we did it.

- I don't know how you got there. I don't know how you got there. - But somehow we make it work every time. We do, we just figure out a way and figure out a solution.

And that's kind of like the mentality of, and I think it's one of the biggest advantages, like there's plenty of meeting companies out there, right? But like one of the advantages to having a small team and being a small business is that we can pivot really quick.

We can be super flexible. You know, if we don't take no for an answer, like if someone's like, oh, that's not possible.

Like my team knows never to come to me and say like,

they said it can't be done. 'Cause I'll be like, what are you talking about? Of course they can be done. Get 'em on the phone, let's figure this out. There's always a way if you have the will.

That's such a strong point. And it brings me to what my next point is, which I wanted to get from you like, for the business owner out there, you know, our audience,

they're super entrepreneurial, they're super business minded. For the audience out there,

“what would you say is like your number one key to success?”

- I honestly think not being afraid of fail. I do. I mean, you have to take risks. And what's the worst thing that happens? You know, I said to my husband when we first started business,

what's the worst thing I have to go bar 10 for a year and to like, get back on our feet? Like, there's no shame in any of those jobs, right? So like, not being able to not being afraid to fail, understanding that if you work hard,

I'm a huge like karma person. Like I think you put, you get out from the universe what you put into it. So I think if you work hard and you are true, you're honest, you take care of your clients,

all of that stuff will come back in tenfold. It really will. Our clients, you know, they took care of us during COVID. We had a couple clients that truly saved our business during COVID because we had taken such a good care of them.

You know, and we've had conversations with clients before we're like, hey, you guys are getting a little expensive. We might need to, you know, put out an RFP and see what else is out there.

And I'm always like, do it.

Because I promise you won't get the level of service, the detail, all of the stuff that you're going to get from a service. - The hair. - And the hair. - And the hair is like, and I tell business owners,

you can, you should never have a moment where one of your competitors cares more about the client. - It's easy.

“- I think that's like a super important thing”

because a lot of people, you know, there's the glitz in the glam, starting a company and it's like, oh, the financial success, you know, time for you don't, I'll be able to make my own schedule, no, you won't, but I think the biggest thing

is don't get into a business if you don't care about the results that you're getting. - That's exactly right. - I think that's like the number one thing. And I think one of the things you also have to remember

as a small business owner is like, no one's gonna care about your business as much as you do, and that's okay. - Right. - But finding the right team and having people that do care and they work hard

and they respect you, that to me is also a really like key component, having people around you that are smarter than you, having people that aren't afraid to tell you if you're making a mistake.

I dragged my best friend into our company right after COVID, and I was like, I need somebody that's not afraid to tell me what I'm making a mistake. And that's what she does, you know, and we'll fight, we'll fight,

- What is the, what is the job description for us? - Right, I need you to tell the CEO when they are screwing up. - That's exactly right, like just be my friend. You know what I mean?

And she never says it with like ill intent.

She always says it with like, think about what you're actually saying. Think about the message you want to deliver. I know you, I know who you are at your heart. So sometimes if I'm frustrated or I, you know,

like I'm angry about something, she's like, okay, let's take a deep breath. Let's not say exactly what we mean. Let's figure out how we're gonna say this in a way that is gonna be productive.

And so she's able to kind of reel me in sometimes. And I think I think in any good business, you need like that balance. You need somebody, and I'm just all my team, like we can have real conversations.

We're almost like a family. More than we're like, you know, boss and employees. Like we spend so much time traveling on the road together that you just kind of, you know, get this good bond with the team.

And so our team members have been there forever. Like nobody really leaves a lot because A, I mean, it's a cool job, you know, with the travel and everything. But also I think because they do have a really good work life balance.

Like, you know, they can pick days and times. They work. They have Fridays off if they don't want to work on Fridays as long as they put in 40 hours a week. I trust them, you know, to do their job.

And so, you know, there's perks to that. So I think also, you know, back to your original question about being as successful as small businesses. You have to be flexible. You have to understand that your employees

are going to have a life outside of, you know, well, this is my whole life. They have other lives. And you have to give them time to do those things and to understand it.

And you have to have a lot of trust in your employees.

You know, there was a quote that my most recent client gave me.

“And I think it plays to exactly what you're talking about.”

He said, how can you expect to get 100% out of someone out of an employee if you only care about 50% of their life? Right. And the other 50% is really, really important. And a lot of businesses don't focus on like,

hey, your employees are also your customers. Right. And they have feedback for you. Right.

If you only care about your client feedback,

but you don't care about your employee feedback, you're not getting the full picture. And you don't, you won't understand how to grow from that point. No, I mean, I think that's such an excellent point. It really is, it's like, if you don't care about them,

what makes you think that they're going to care about you back, right? And it's, you know, they're also the face of your company. They are also client-facing. They have interactions with your clients.

So there are an extension of you, right?

“And so that's why I think it's really important”

to treat them the right way. Now, for you guys out there, if you're still tuned in at this point, I want to make sure that you guys check out on Jews episode of Women Empower, which will be coming out shortly after this podcast

episode drops. So make sure you guys tune in for that. You're going to get the full breakdown on her story. We only covered this a little bit here. But for the people who are watching,

where can they find you if they want to learn more about you on social media, where's your website? - Yep. So it's exploreank.com. No ease, XP, LOR, iNC.com.

“And also we obviously have a social media,”

lots of cool pictures on there. So go check out our social media at exploreankaswell. And then, yeah, we're around. It's easy to find. You can Google us.

You can find us. And we would love to talk about opportunities. - Perfect, perfect. And I'll make sure we throw those little taglines up somewhere here on the screen.

But guys, for y'all out there, this has been another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast. Thank you guys for tuning in. And, Andrew, thank you so much.

- Thank you. - It was great chatting with you. - It has been a pleasure. It has been a pleasure. - Awesome.

- All right, guys. This has been another episode. I am your host, Jason Tyler, and I will catch you guys in the next one. (upbeat music)