EnTrends

Imagine this scenario. Your high school age
daughter wants to buy an expensive dress
for the prom that you can't afford. However,
while you are away on vacation she decides
to throw a party. She gets the high school
band to perform the music, her boyfriend,
who is the captain of the football team, to be
the bouncer, and she charges people at the
door to enter the party.

She not only makes enough money to buy
her dress, but also makes enough to pay for
a limo and dinner for all her friends! As a
parent, you would probably be upset that
she threw the party. But what if you knew
that it would be the start of a career that
would bring in several million dollars each
year? Well that's exactly what happened
when Jennifer Gilbert threw a party to raise
money for her prom dress in high school.

After graduating from college, Gilbert used
$500 and her love of hosting parties to start
her business in 1994. Now in her thirties,
Gilbert is the President of a successful
company called Save The Date. The
company is a non-traditional event-planning
service for companies that are looking to
host events. Gilbert calls her service the
"planner's planner."

Gilbert has great expectations for her
company. She would like Save The Date to
do to the event-planning industry what
Martha Stewart did to entertaining. But
while Stewart is all about doing it yourself,
Gilbert is all about outsourcing.

Save The Date is unique because it
provides a service free to its clients. The
company has a database of thousands of
spaces and venues that can be used for
large events such as company parties,
conferences, non-profit group meetings, etc.
Save The Date is then paid a retainer, or
marketing fee, by the venues.

Save The Date currently has headquarters in
New York and just recently opened an office
in Chicago and San Francisco. Gilbert is
working on opening up other offices across
the country and in Europe. Gilbert says that
she is constantly receiving requests from
clients for her services in places other than
where she currently works. She says that
one of her biggest challenges is growing her
company at a comfortable rate.

Gilbert says that because she is a woman in
a "fun" industry, people do not always
take the business aspects of her company
seriously. However, she says that having
20 million dollars in sales does not make
her company "cute." In fact, Gilbert was
awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur
of The Year Award in 1998. She says that
the award legitimized both her company
and its industry.

Gilbert says that she likes the freedom
that comes with being an entrepreneur.
She also enjoys, like other entrepreneurs,
being a part of something that is bigger
than herself. She is committed to her 17
employees and the overall operations of
Save The Date.

In her free time, Gilbert is very active. She
likes to travel, ski, run, and be outdoors in
general. On thing Gilbert says she does
not do is cook. She has become a master
of outsourcing, so she has things catered.
She has a traditional sense of style and
some of her favorite clothing designers
are Armani and Missoni.

EnTrends asked Gilbert about some of the
things her success as an entrepreneur has
afforded her. She says that one of her
favorite things is a piece of beach front
property in the Bahamas. There is no
electricity, water, or roads leading to it. It
takes two planes and a boat to get there.
Gilbert says that on a hectic day she can
sit back and imagine herself there. She
hopes to someday build a home on it.

As for advice to other entrepreneurs,
Gilbert says, "Love what you do and stay
with it. The money will follow!"