Making Something From Nothing: Victoria Reid Of EventWell Collective On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

It’s not going to be perfect. When it comes to my work, I am a perfectionist to a fault. I was slow in setting up my websites. I spent too much time examining the colors, fonts, and questioning if I was offering the right services. What was worse was I was paying a virtual assistant to help me. Until I could give her the information she needed, she could not move forward. This impacted her financially. The advice I tell myself continuously is it won’t be perfect. Do the best you can and make adjustments along the way.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Victoria Reid.

Victoria Reid, CMP, CMM, RYT, is an event expert and founder of EventWell Collective™. Known as the Logistical Gangsta, Victoria has thrived in the meeting and event industry for 20 years fueled by her love of creating something from nothing. Her speciality is curating experiences that attendees walk away from as better human beings, feeling informed, educated, and motivated. Through EventWell Collective™, organizers are able to incorporate wellness, inclusivity, and sustainability into their events, through movement, healthy food options, limited waste, cultural diversity, and more. As a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) who holds an International Certificate in Meeting Management (CMM), Victoria combines the goals of events with the well-being of those attending to deliver an unconventional experience where everyone feels seen, heard, and nourished. Victoria has a bachelors in communication and is the director of education for the Kentucky Bluegrass Chapter of Meeting Professionals International. She focuses on her own wellbeing as a registered yoga teacher (RYT) who also loves hiking, cycling, and tennis. Victoria views traveling as an important part of her personal growth and has trekked Kilimanjaro, Machu Picchu, and is currently training for the Himalayas. When she’s not hard at work, you can find her spending time with her family, putting her motorcycle and sailing licenses to use.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I loved my childhood. It was spent pretending and creating. I can remember being four years old, taking my record player out to the garage, wearing a poofy slip and pretending to be a ballerina. My mother recognized my love for physical movement and enrolled me in dance. It was then that I discovered a love for tap. Even though I was shy, I loved to perform and am the same way today. I dislike being in the spotlight, but once I share knowledge with others, I feel fulfilled.

I was a Girl Scout. There I found friendship, autonomy to create things to earn badges, business skills, and discovered nature. There are two particular lessons I learned that have stayed with me, communication and love of nature. First, selling cookies taught me how to sell at a very young age and helped me come out of my shell. During cookie season, my father would walk with me from neighbor to neighbor allowing me to pull my little red wagon up to their porch. He would stand at the end of the driveway, give me a little loving encouragement and allow me to sell on my own. I had comfort knowing he was standing behind me. This experience helped break me out of my shyness. To this day, I believe this single act of support gave me the confidence to connect with others. The second lesson learned was a deep appreciation for nature. This was my first experience walking in the woods. At the time I didn’t know why I loved it, I just did. As I’ve grown older that love has strengthened and grown deeper. As a business person who spends a lot of time working in the field of wellness and well-being, I now know why there is a strong bond. The relationship between wellness and nature satisfies our wonder, it reduces stress, and helps us to be happier. This love of nature has helped me explore different areas of the world, spending eight days on Kilimanjaro, a week trekking Machu Picchu, and soon to spend three weeks trekking Nepal. My love of nature and all of the benefits I can contribute to my time spent in Girl Scouts.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My life lesson learned quote is, “If you come to me with a problem, come to me with a solution. The solution doesn’t have to be the right one, just bring me a solution.”

Yesterday I was sharing with my son-in-law this lesson I learned from my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Bottom. My classmates appointed me to ask Mrs. Bottom if we could have a band play at our special year-end event. When I got up to Mrs. Bottom’s desk, my shyness came out and I asked something like, we want to change the party. I never mentioned adding the band. It was then that she said, “If you come to me with a problem, come to me with a solution. The solution doesn’t have to be the right one, just bring me a solution.”

This one very short, poignant conversation, shifted my thinking to well… making me think! Not only did she give me permission to solve a problem, she genuinely wanted to hear my solution. From that moment on, I began to seek solutions for everything. This is more than likely why my life’s path took me down the road of an event strategist. I feed off creating something from nothing, solving problems, and creating alternative approaches to the status quo.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

While traveling through an airport, I stopped to look for something, anything, that would help me to understand what was wrong with me. Stress, long hours, travel away from home, and a demanding job as an event professional left me drained and thinking something was wrong with me.

In that bookstore I discovered a gift — Essentialism, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. As I read the book, the stories and supporting facts made sense. I literally have coffee stains dripped down the pages and wrote next to them, “coffee stains were worth it.” My book is marked and marred with my personal insights and stains. It resonated with me so strongly, I have gifted it to several people whom I felt needed to read it.

The reasons I feel so strongly about McKeown’s book is it helped me reposition my thinking about life, family career, and personal well-being. It was instrumental in me paring down my life to focus on what is essential and ultimately led me to establish my own events company that incorporates well-being. The book is filled with stories and insights on how to determine what is important in life. It’s when we select what is important that we can begin to live our lives to the fullest.

The last two pages of the book, the section titled, “The Essential Life: Living a Life That Really Matters,” really drove home the preceding pages in an incredibly powerful story about a father’s loss of his three-year old daughter. While the father was putting together a video of her, he realized that he had recorded her in places where they had taken her — experiences, vacations, out to eat, etc. But what he had not done was to record just her up close — her essence. Reading this poignant story brought about a strong awareness within myself that we need to choose what is essential. Sometimes there isn’t an opportunity to do it over.

There were two learnings McKeown discovered from this. I can wholeheartedly identify with them. The first was that family is everything. Without them nothing else matters. Period. The second lesson is one that I have spent the last 20 years hanging onto — our time on this earth is limited. I am in my third quarter of life, and providing there isn’t another plan, I have few more years of quality life left. As you read this you might be thinking, this is morbid. I agree. But the bottom line is we don’t know when the story of our lives will conclude. So, it’s in our best interest to look at every aspect of our lives to determine what is essential.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

I tell people all the time, it’s okay to make pickle ice cream. Someone is going to love it.

I was teaching yoga at an international conference. During a down dog, my two passions collided, yoga and events. For the last 20 years, I have been planning major events for corporations, entrepreneurs, and organizations. After experiencing extreme burnout, I gave up my career in events to focus on my personal well-being and became a yoga instructor. It was in that down dog that I began to see the event world from a different lens, one that incorporates wellness into events. When we acknowledge the uniqueness of each individual participating in an event, from dietary preferences and restrictions, physical movement, religious observances, how they take in information, etc., engagement is boosted and each person leaves feeling seen, heard, and happy.

At first, the concept of integrating wellness into events was not received well. In fact, I was told several times that it won’t work. I didn’t listen to them. I had witnessed time and time again, when wellness was considered during an event and when it was not. For example, at one event there was a panel of five unknown individuals who were asked to take the stage. What I did not know was that one of the panelists lived in a larger body. When that individual got to the chair on stage, they were unable to sit in it. What was heartbreaking was the other panelists decided to sit, leaving this person to stand during the presentation. My heart broke then and continues to do so today. What drives me today is my convection to design events that allows participants to feel equal and included.

The advice I would share with someone who faces challenges with getting your new ideas up and running, have a knowledge about what you are doing, define your niche, do market research, and be flexible.

Have a solid understanding of what you want to accomplish or get to know someone who has expertise in the field. As a veteran of both events and well-being, I knew I had a solid knowledge of both to explore the possibility further.

What helped me foundationally, was to define my niche. If you have an idea for a product or service, define what makes your product special, how you will solve a problem, and what your specific market will be. My advice is to write it, test it, and refine it. I’ve rewritten my niche statement five times. It’s evolution has helped me shape my product and market. It helped me find my voice to tell my story. The more I speak and refine it, the clearer the solutions are for the problems I am trying to solve and who I am helping.

Do market research — continuously. Using my initial niche statement, I started having conversations with colleagues in the events arena and those with a wellness background. I conducted research with total strangers who were willing to have conversations with me. What I learned was people want to help and if you approach it as a conversation versus using the term “market research” they will be more open to sharing their opinion.

Be flexible to change your original idea to one that the market needs. A colleague offered me advice that was given to him — sell to the market. I have pivoted and shifted from my original idea more than once. Being flexible has allowed me to shape my offering that solves more problems and serves more.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

If you have an idea that will solve a problem, no matter how far out there it might be, search the internet to see if it already exists. If the product exists, approach the problem from different angles. You may discover that with modifications you have a sellable offering.

When I had the idea to offer well-being in events, I thought “WOW! I’ve come-up with a unique idea that nobody else is offering.” I was wrong! In searching the internet, the majority of event companies offer their clients wellness. I learned that my idea was not unique. I wasn’t ready to give up on the idea. Instead, I began to look deeper into the problems I was trying to solve.

What I learned is that other event companies were able to offer wellness activations; e.g. yoga, mindfulness, etc. What I found is that there was an opportunity to incorporate pillars of wellness beyond the physical. When I began to look at wellness in events from a 30,000-foot view, I could see that to truly offer wellness and consider the attendees well-being, I needed to design events that included the social, mental, physical, values/spiritual, and environmental aspects too. To expand this further, I want to educate others on how to include wellness in their events.

If you know there is a problem that your service or product will solve, don’t be afraid to research it. Other than time, it will cost nothing to do the research.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

The businesses I have launched are services. The internet will be my “store”. I am happy to outline the considerations and steps I took to start them for your readers. The journey to get where I am today was not clear or easy. Sharing my frustration with an accountability partner, she said “You want a road map to tell you where to go. There isn’t one. You are BUILDING the map as you go along.” In some areas, I have put the cart before the horse. I have awakened in the middle of the nights, with an oh sh*t moment thinking you haven’t thought about XYZ! Frustrating and unclear as it is, there are wonderful people who have offered to share their resources, which has made me move forward.

In infancy it was important for me to define my niche and do market research. This resulted in me dividing the offerings into two entities. EventWell Consulting™ offers consulting and soon education. EventWell Collective™ offers event design. This division makes a clearer and cleaner customer experience.

After the niches were defined, everything else came about simultaneously and rapidly. I would love to share a step one, step two, but that wasn’t my journey. The other elements of my journey included, legal, insurance, websites, financial, marketing, and public relations.

• Legal. When I had enough information to make the businesses viable, the entities were filed with the state, I protected my intellectual property. Contracts are a consideration if you plan to do businesses with others, this includes the website.
• Insurance. I needed insurance coverage for the experiences I offer and to be hired to teach yoga.
• Websites. Building websites has been interesting. What I was told is that your website is your brochure. Tell people who you are, what solutions you offer, and how to reach you.
• Financial. If you don’t have a solid understanding of bookkeeping or taxes, hire someone! Talking to my accountant was one of the first things I did.
• Marketing & Public Relations. One of my core values is connection. I cannot express how much I enjoy meeting people. The top marketing effort I use is word of mouth. My networking net is always growing. Holding a Certification Meeting Management, being a Certified Meeting Professional, and serving on the board for the local Meeting Professionals International has helped with my marketing efforts. Industry partners have been great in helping me share my story and introduce me to people I may be able to help or work with.

There are other marketing and Public Relations efforts I use; e.g. Social Media, Drip Campaigns, Writing, and Speaking, but 1:1 connection is at the top of the list.

My recommendation if you are beginning is find out what resources are available to you. Find a mentor who can help guide you along the way. Find your advocates. They will be your cheerleaders and help spread the good news about your business. Set realistic goals. Most importantly — give yourself grace!

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Plan on taking detours. It isn’t a straight path, be flexible.
   I mentioned earlier that I had pivoted several times before getting where I am today.
   Initially, the plan was to help event professionals deal with stress and the unpredictability of events. That evolved into helping event organizers learn how to incorporate wellness into their events and consider an attendees’ well-being which led to requests to do yoga and 5k fun runs at events, which has led to requests to help design events that include wellness. The paths are straighter than in the beginning, but I’m willing to adjust when needed.
2. Expect to work long hours. Initially I thought it would be great to set my own hours. It is great, but when I’m off having an afternoon lunch or playing tennis, I have to work at night to keep the train on the track. What I did not fully grasp was that I am now responsible for the business side. There are two websites to maintain, social media calendars, content creation, continuous marketing, and marketing research. To top it off, I serve on a board, and teach yoga at a local studio. I was wearing rose colored glasses thinking that being in business for myself would give me the freedom to do what I wanted, whenever I wanted to. What I love about it is I have the freedom to make the choice to play when I want to and work when I want to. If I work hard, I get to play hard later.
3. It takes time to build a book. My background was in corporate events. Now I am planning events for others. From planning stages to execution, the income can take months and the timing fluctuates. This morning, I was working with a client who has an upcoming summer event. I’ll receive deposits along the way, but the final payment will be in the summer. You need a lot of events in the pipeline to receive a steady income.
4. It’s okay to hear ‘no’. Working in the corporate world for years, I developed a tolerance to being told no. What I did not expect was the sting when someone rejected something that I created. Recently I had a client who wanted my planning services and did not want to incorporate wellness into their event. In fact, they didn’t want to hear my wellness ideas. Ouch! I try to take these painful situations to look for the opportunities to adjust to grow.
5. It’s not going to be perfect. When it comes to my work, I am a perfectionist to a fault. I was slow in setting up my websites. I spent too much time examining the colors, fonts, and questioning if I was offering the right services. What was worse was I was paying a virtual assistant to help me. Until I could give her the information she needed, she could not move forward. This impacted her financially. The advice I tell myself continuously is it won’t be perfect. Do the best you can and make adjustments along the way.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

The first few steps would be to define what problem you are solving and who you are providing with a solution. With this information, you can form your niche statement. Next, do your research to see if the product exists. When you determine you have that next great idea, conduct market research. Have conversations with colleagues and strangers. What’s interesting is those who help with the research will be your advocates in the future. Seek advice if you do not have a background in business start-up. In the long run, it will save you time and money.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

If your idea is for a product that would need to be manufactured, and you have no manufacturing background or knowledge on how to design it, then I would recommend hiring a consultant. They would be able to help you with prototype, patent, license, and help you get it ready for market. This is similar for any idea you have where you don’t have the skill set.

If the finances are available to hire someone to help you, whether it’s a product or a service, hire a firm to help. Comparatively, if you have the knowledge, resources, and time, then I recommend trying to do it yourself. If you find the development stage isn’t going well, you can always hire someone later.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I think it depends on the business and the situation. I’m a smaller company that has and will continue to use bootstrapping as my financial strategy. If I were a larger company, I would consider venture capital. Before going that route, I would have to look at the variables before deciding. For example, loss of some control, how much risk I’d be willing to expose the company to, and growth size.

To decide to bootstrap or go with VC would depend on several factors. For example, development cost to get up and running is something to consider. If the market opportunity is there, a small piece would be worth it. If my skills are not being used because of operations, I would consider VC to hire people to manage that aspect.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

It’s difficult think of this as a success. I consider it a continuous journey. All the time I share in a light-hearted tone that — I design events for life. However, I am passionate about the statement.

How do I use this success to make the world a better place? I use it to include the human experience in events. Events as we know them are great, but they can be better. I want every single human that attends one of my events to feel included and equal. It’s when we begin to look at the needs of the individuals who participate in events, that we can feel confident that they will leave seen, heard, and happy.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I never thought of myself as an inspiration, but I do want to inspire a movement. As stated in the preceding question, I want the events industry to begin to look for ways to incorporate the pillars of wellness into events, not just serving smoothies for breakfast or doing a fun run in the mornings. Those are great, but it’s expanding our programs to include the social, physical, mental, values/spirituality, and environmental pillars into our events that will matter more. When we do, we will see boosted engagement, attendees feeling cared for, and a richer return on our investments.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would love to have a coffee with Mel Robbins. She is upfront, candid, and works with people to reposition their current thinking. Her goal is simple — to send your audience back into the world with actionable tools and confidence to fully step into the leaders, collaborators, and changemakers your company strives to create. There are times that my confidence isn’t what it should be. I can only image sitting across the table from her and her laying truth bombs on me. Her candor leaves you wanting more. Love her!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.