#WINNING
#WINNING
Crystal MacLeod Choreographing Success in Event Planning
Imagine transforming a profound personal loss into a beacon of hope and a thriving career. That's the story of Crystal MacLeod, a dance teacher who danced her way into becoming a national award-winning event planner. Our latest episode takes you behind the scenes with Crystal, as she recounts her journey from the depths of grief to the heights of entrepreneurial success. She has orchestrated nearly 800 events, earning a stellar reputation in the events industry. Tune in to get intimate with the resilience and raw passion that shaped Crystal's life and RSVP Event Design, her acclaimed business.
When you think of event planning, it's not just about the glitz and the glam—it's an intricate ballet of logistics, creativity, and hard work. Crystal sheds light on the emotional heft of weddings and the splendor of galas, all while navigating the tumultuous waters of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her tale is not just about surviving but thriving through adversity, adapting to change, and holding onto the dream that sparked her journey. This episode is a masterclass in the art of event planning, revealing the tenacity and versatility needed to succeed in this dynamic industry.
But what is success without balance? Crystal's business savvy shines through as she shares the strategic choices that led to a more manageable and fulfilling work-life balance. She walks us through the tough decision to downsize and streamline her operations, focusing on what truly matters. Our conversation dives into the meticulous construction of her team and the refinement of business etiquette—a testament to the finesse and professionalism at the core of RSVP Event Design. For aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs alike, this episode promises a trove of wisdom on aligning business with personal joy and the power of creating enchanting experiences for clients.
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Winning is your guide to making it in business. Join our award-winning host and entrepreneur, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and special guests in casual conversations that will educate and inspire you on your business journey. Winning will help you learn the hard lessons the easy way, with guidance from celebrated entrepreneurs and business leaders. It's fun, it's informative, it's inning Hello.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Welcome to Winning. I am your host, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and today's guest is Crystal MacLeod. Hi Crystal, hi Mackenzie, happy to be here. I know I'm so excited to have you on. We always talk before and Crystal and I are like we should have press record twice probably. So here we actually go. Crystal is a five-time national award-winning event planner whose work has been featured in a magazine. She's also given her expert advice on CBC radio, c news, Global News and in the Star Phoenix, which is Saskatoon's newspaper. When I read this she has executed over 600 weddings and corporate events I actually almost fell over, because 600 is a lot. Yeah, that is a lot. And her creativity and the wow factor that she brings into every event is really what sets her apart, and I've been to so many events that Crystal has planned and I can tell you there you think of every little detail. I guess that's experience.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, absolutely, when you've done. It's actually now closer to 800 events. Actually, I should have updated.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Well, I will update that.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, it is getting closer to 800. And yeah, when you've done that many events for sure, details that you're repeating over and over again, they just come to your mind, that's so cool.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Crystal, I gave you a little bio, but really why don't you tell the audience a little bit more about yourself and how did you get to doing 800 events? Because that is amazing.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, my entrepreneurial story is well. Actually it's a little bit dramatic. So I was a dance teacher and I taught dance for 10 years I guess. But I always wanted to be an event planner. That was always in the back of my mind as like my dream job. I just didn't think it was an actual job. I didn't think it was something I knew it was a job, but I didn't think it was something that you could do as a career in Saskatchewan. I didn't think you could actually get paid to do that. So another interest of mine was broadcast journalism. I was ready to leave the dance world and wanted to be an event planner. Didn't think that was a thing. Other thing I considered was broadcast journalism. So I applied to broadcast journalism school in Calgary. I was accepted. I was ready to move to Calgary.
Crystal MacLeod:I was engaged at the time and my husband was diagnosed with sorry, my husband to be my fiance was diagnosed with cancer. So we had to rethink what we were doing. So he's going through treatment. We postponed our wedding. Well, he was supposed to be going through treatment and getting better and then he became terminally ill. So we got married really quickly. He passed away a month after we got married and I was supposed to be moving to Calgary at that same time.
Crystal MacLeod:I was in no position to move to Calgary at that time. I was trying to figure out my life and a new life without him. So they held my position at the school in Calgary for the year. I was going to kind of take the year and then I was going to move to Calgary, go to school the whole time in the back of my mind I'm thinking I actually want to be in a band. What am I doing? Still not thinking, yeah, still not thinking that this is an option.
Crystal MacLeod:So the year comes and goes and it's time for me again to move to Calgary and I just couldn't do it. There was just something that was stopping me. So I cold called Tammy Forrester, who was the owner of our RSVP event design at the time. We met and hit it off instantly. You know when you just connect with somebody. We just connected immediately. She hired me on the spot, started working for her. A year later she invited me to be her partner. So we became business partners. Eventually Tammy left the company. She's now the CEO of Ronald McDonald House Saskatchewan. undefined. o .. of .
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I never knew this. Okay, first of all, I've known you for many years. I never knew this story, so I'm just like, I'm like listener, just really. I never knew this. That's so cool, Tammy's awesome.
Crystal MacLeod:And Tammy's an incredible, incredible person. She has taught me everything that I know about being a business owner and being an event planner. I learned so much from Tammy. She is my mentor and we are still very close. I still reach out to her, sometimes in tears Tammy, what do I do? And she hasn't officially been a part of the company for many years like 12 years or something but I still keep her picture on our website as our founder, because she just deserves that recognition, because she is the one that created RSVP. So yeah, my entrepreneurial story. It's dramatic. I guess it was me. It was taking something very difficult. It was taking something very sad. It was taking something life-changing to make me step out and fulfill my dream. Again, it sounds very dramatic, it is kind of dramatic, but that is how I came to be an event planner.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, it's just so kind of crazy, I think to, when a huge life-changing moment like that happens. You can kind of take two paths right. You can take the I'm just staying where I am and never doing anything because grief can kind of take over your life. Or you can go the path that you took and you knew that the broadcasting wasn't really for you, even though you were interested in it. You knew right and look what you've done. I mean, you have, like you're nationally acclaimed, like clearly this is the path you were supposed to be on.
Crystal MacLeod:This is the path that I was supposed to be on and it all unfolds the way that it is supposed to unfold. So, everything you know, there are certainly a lot of skills in the dance world that were transferable to event planning. Putting on a recital or a show is putting on an event, yeah. So a lot of the skills were things that I utilize all the time in events, and also the you know creating, because we create experiences right.
Crystal MacLeod:Yes, and we create moments for people and I love creating beautiful things. Like I loved creating beautiful dances and beautiful shows, I love creating beautiful events. So it all leads you to. You know the place that you're supposed to be. So I am remarried and I'm happily married to my husband, Mark, and we have two children, Ellie and Anderson. And after my first husband passed away, I said three things. I said I wanted to be married happily again and I wanted two children. I even said I wanted a boy and a girl, and that's what I have. And I said I wanted to own an event planning company. And I'm here.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, exactly, you know, usually what you put out into the universe, you get back. We were talking about that before. But it is true, right, when you envision something and you could have said, no, I can't do the event stuff, I have to go to become a broadcast journalist and went that path and probably you wouldn't have met Mark and had you know like your life would have been so much different. But you're where you want to be, which is really what entrepreneurship is about. Right? It's the lifestyle that you want and you're doing something you love every day.
Crystal MacLeod:Like I truly am, I truly love what I do. Like my husband and I will joke around about, like if he won the lottery and like what would you do? And things like that, and I'm like I kind of feel like I would still want to do a lot, but like maybe, maybe not as many, or something, but like I cannot, I cannot imagine a life where I'm not doing this and you know we were talking before the, before we started recording. But it's the relationships, like events have brought so many incredible people into my life and I get to celebrate moments with people. And how kinds of moments, right, like we do weddings and we do corporate events and we do galas.
Crystal MacLeod:And you know, doing the nonprofit gala for the nonprofit organization, that everything it means, it means everything to that organization, right, raising funds for their organization that they believe in, that they care about so much, is just as important as helping a bride get down the aisle to get married on one of the most important days of her life, right? So all of these moments I get to celebrate and help people celebrate beautiful moments in their life, you know, we've got to do even some like memorials not necessarily funerals but memorials and what a privilege that is to get to create a beautiful experience for people as they are honoring somebody. So I just, yeah, I love my job. I still love my job. If I get to the point where I don't love my job anymore, then I will absolutely have to stop, because it's too stressful of a job. You have to keep doing it if you don't love it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Well, I was going to say, because I've planned events nothing to the scale that you have done although I did say it could be a wedding planner because I did have to replan my wedding because I got married during COVID, so I had to be planned my wedding about 10 times. But if you've never planned an event, honestly, you have no idea everything that goes into it. It's not just, you know, some pretty floral arrangements and tablecloths. That is a minuscule, little, tiny portion of it, right?
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, we say that people think our job is about the pretty and it's 10% pretty, 90% logistics and spreadsheets. Yeah, I spend just as much time on delivery schedules as I do picking out flowers for a wedding, Like it's just as complicated as the flowers. Yeah, more so probably right. And when I think of the glamorous side of it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That's right. People wouldn't think about it, because all they're thinking is oh, you get to go and you get to pick out the flowers with the bride, and then the flowers just arrive and you put them on the tables or whatever it is, but really they don't just arrive. You have to plan that too.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, that's jokingly. hat I say to brides is like you're not going to know how they get there, or what time they got there, or how we got them through the door or how we moved them from one place to the other. You're just going to show up and they're just magically going to be there. But it takes a lot of planning to magically get them there.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, 100%, and I think that's the thing. People see you at events and they see you, you know, making sure that everything's as it should be, but they don't realize everything, not just that day, like months ahead. Right that you're working on it.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, absolutely. It is the planning of everything. So it's not just what does a wedding? You know, when I meet with a couple for the first time, I say to them like what's your vision for the day? But not just aesthetically, like not just what you want it to look like, what do you want it to feel like, what do you want your guests to experience? What are those moments that have meaning to you? And that's more than flowers and a pretty tablecloth. Right, there's other elements that are a lot of other elements that are involved there.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, exactly, and whether it's a wedding or a corporate event, it's all the same, right? Because at your corporate event, whether that's a gala or that's, you know, a big event that a company's doing or something that's as important to them, right?
Crystal MacLeod:Absolutely. And I say like I get asked all the time like what do you prefer? Weddings or corporate events? I love like galas, I love the glitz and the glam and making things beautiful and just making a beautiful experience for people. I don't do a lot of conferences, that's just not my area of interest for events, but a gala is very similar to a wedding, like all of the elements are there, you have people, you have food, you have music, you have flowers, you have like they're very, very similar and the emotional part of it is just as significant, sometimes right, or again the nonprofit, the. They are invested 100%, just as you know the family is and the bride and the groom or the grooms or the brides or whatever. Yeah, exactly.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, once again, before we started recording, we talked about COVID. I owned clothing stores. No one was shopping. You have an event planning company. I shouldn't say no one was getting married, because there was events and there was things. But that would have been so difficult because you kind of had to press the pause button, didn't you?
Crystal MacLeod:We did. Yeah, Covid, it kind of feels like this, like this fog of like, oh right, what happened, like? And you came through on the other side and it was like you were in battle and we survived. But it was, it was, it was scary, it was just the uncertainty that that was the part of it right of.
Crystal MacLeod:I remember I was i in Vegas actually for an event planning conference when the like, the shutdown first happened. And I'm in the airport and I'm getting a. I had an event, a gala, the next weekend and I'm getting phone calls that it's going to be canceled and I'm like, what, what, what are you talking about? Like, what do you mean? And then more phone calls are coming in and more emails and I'm like, oh, wow, like this is actually real, this is happening. And I remember saying like, okay, well, if you know we're just shut down for you know, kind of my, my projections for the year. And it's like, okay, well, if just these months shut down, then we're fine. And then it's like, oh, and this month and this month and this month, and you keep adding on.
Crystal MacLeod:I will say that I thought there were a lot of initiatives in place for small businesses that the government helped out and that really, that really helped me tremendously. For a very long time, though, I didn't have to lay anybody off and I kept them at their full salary. It wasn't until, like the second lockdown down down kind of happened. I think again, this is kind of a blur, so trying to remember how it all went down so we were able to do like a few events and weddings, you know, came back first, I think, the corporate events.
Crystal MacLeod:Those were a little bit slower, and then 2022 happened, and it was insane because we had all of these contracts to fulfill of people that had been, like yourself, postponing their wedding three, four or five times, you know. Yeah, so 2022 was just off the charts. It was crazy. It was so great to be back, be back celebrating with people again, and we did like a Friday wedding, Saturday wedding, Sunday wedding. We were just like busy, busy, busy, and then corporate events in 2023, I feel like really came back strong. So now it's just we're just kind of back to normal, whatever normal.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I know it's like the other day was talking to someone and I'm like it's like it was. If you've ever had surgery and you wake up from surgery and you're like where, I know I'm here, but what up, where am I, whatever? That's kind of what COVID felt. Like you know, it's like you remember it. Yeah, like you remember it, like I remember it, but I'm like I can't tell you what happened there. Like I'm the same as you. I was so fortunate to get the rent subsidies and the employee wage subsidy a subsidy for myself, because I still that's my income, right being myself and, to be truthful with you, if those things wouldn't have been there, I really don't think my business would have survived, and I think that's the same for many, many people.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, absolutely. For me it was day to day life because we have two children. So my husband is a teacher, so he was teaching from home, trying to do the online teaching, and we had our son was in grade two so we were trying to teach him be his teacher and then our daughter's daycare shut down, so we had no childcare and I was postponing and canceling 50 something events so it's, and we had no, no help with our kids.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, so it's like both Mark and I having these full time jobs. Our daughter was three, so it's not like you can just, you know, say go do something, no three, right. And then our son we're supposed to be teaching him, we're supposed to be doing the online school thing. So it felt like we had like five full time jobs. Yeah, so, the day to day life, that that was really difficult, maybe even more so than the uncertainty of of everything that was happening with my business. But yeah, yeah definitely.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I think many, many people worked harder in that COVID year. I'll say year, but you know it really was a year until things came and I don't even know what normal is really anymore. But that COVID year, I think, was harder for many people than when they first started out. Right, because when you first start out, you don't know what's going to happen, so you just take everything as it is. Okay, this happened, what are we going to do? Right, good or bad. But then once you're like you're a really well oiled machine, right, Like you, you knew what you were doing. You had done it for many years and all of a sudden it was just like a hard stop, right.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:And then, you have all these other things that you have to do, but for you to like, you still had to maintain those relationships with people. You still had to answer questions. You still you know people are like, okay, well, maybe we're not going to do what we initially said. We're going to change now because we just want to be married and that's that, or whatever it is right.
Crystal MacLeod:So you had a lot, a lot happening, yeah, and the emotional part of it as well, for for all my couples, like just trying to trying to be there for them and I don't have the answers they knew just as much as I did. It's not like the government was like giving us the you know heads up of anything that was coming, Like it was. I was planning one wedding when the second lockdown happened and we found out the week before that we couldn't serve food in the area that we needed to. So it was like okay, or it was like five days out from the wedding or something like that. So it's like okay, the rules changed again. Let's figure this out.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So yeah, a lot of problem solving, for sure, I feel like you probably do a lot of problem solving and I don't know that people even realize it. But when you are dealing with weddings and big events, there are things like that that come up right and you have to figure it out, because you can't go to the bribe and say, oh, we can't serve food there. So I guess, sorry, you know you have to. You have to figure it out.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, it's really problem solving. I think over the years but I also think it is a part of my personality I don't get panicked very easily. I know there's always a solution for everything. There really is. There's a solution for everything. So, as long as you can and experience too, I mean. Sometimes I say, just when I think I've seen and done it all, then all of a sudden something new happens and it's like, oh boy, well, like a pandemic, like didn't see that one coming. Yeah, exactly, it's just being able to pivot and at the end of the day, that's what it is. It's solving problems.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, exactly, and in all reality, all entrepreneurs and small business. That's what, that's your job. It's just solving a problem or taking something and making it an opportunity, right.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, absolutely.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I want to chat a little bit about downsizing, because I know that you've talked about this before, that you actually did downsize, so let's talk about that. And first of all, why did you choose that path? And yeah, let's start there. What, like what did you do to downsize and why did you choose that?
Crystal MacLeod:So years ago. I mean, we are in our well now, going into our 26th year of business as RSVP. So a lot happens, right, in 26 years. You evolve, when you change and your focus changes. You know, when I came on board, we were a big company. There was, you know, six full-time planners. We had a storefront, we did rentals and there was, you know, we did corporate events and we did weddings and we did conferences and we did like all kinds of events.
Crystal MacLeod:So when Tammy, when my business, one of my business partners, chose to leave the company, it was like, okay, let's figure out what I want the company to look like and what do I want my life to look like. Yes, so I don't enjoy managing people. It's not one of the parts of owning a business that I really enjoy doing. So now I have a manager to do that aspect of the business. So it's like we were having all these full-time planners and we were planning all of these events and we had this huge storefront, this huge space, we were doing all of this rent and I'm like I don't want to have all of these employees because that's not the part of my business that I like. I don't want to plan things like conferences and outdoor festivals, and we were doing that. Tammy was great at it.
Crystal MacLeod:It was not what I enjoyed doing. I was doing events to pay staff. I don't necessarily want to have to be in a space where I have to have, you know, nine to five hours, so I have to have somebody there and so I don't have the flexibility either. It's like this is not, this is not working, and I have a young family, right, yeah. So it's like how do I work smarter and not harder? So, really focusing in on the events that I loved doing I love doing weddings, I love doing gallows, I love the glitz and the glam and making things look beautiful. I don't love doing conferences. So let's stop doing those kind of events.
Crystal MacLeod:Let's downsize our staff, because if we're, you know, booking these events to pay the staff I don't necessarily want to have, well, now that I don't have those events, I don't need this staff. So we can downsize that. And then having the storefront with the rentals. So the rentals are still a part of our business, but now we only rent to the clients that we're planning events for, whereas before we rented to the general public. They could come and rent a cake stand from us or whatever. So now I didn't have to have this storefront and these hours and I got an offsite storage unit and bought an office downtown in the Second Avenue lofts. So now I had an investment instead of, you know, paying the rent and we were paying a lot of rent at the time. So, anyhow, all of these things happened and I was working less and I'm like I have less overhead now and I'm working less and I'm making more money. Yeah, this is amazing, like this is amazing.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Before you did it, were you scared, were you, were you like I want to do this. I think we have to, but I'm terrified, yeah.
Crystal MacLeod:Terrified, absolutely terrified, because it was like we're going to start saying no to events, we're going to start saying no to business. Like that goes against everything as an entrepreneur in your core. You don't. You don't say no to potential business right Now. I say no all the time, like even more so than that, like now it's even from when we downsize to where we are at now. Now it's like if, sincerely, if I feel like I am not a good fit for an event, I am the first person to say I don't think I'm the right person for this event, but I know some other people that are more than happy, and I do it all the time.
Crystal MacLeod:So I'm not the right person for this, I'm not your girl. I'm not your girl for this.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Isn't it crazy how, like, yeah, you learn that right. Like when you first turn out, you're yeah, I'll do this, yeah, I'll do that, yeah, for sure. Because you, just you, become kind of a yes man, because I can't say no, because then they'll never ask me again or I'll lose that group of people or whatever it is. You realize, like you said yourself, you were more profitable and you worked less. That's the dream of every entrepreneur, right it?
Crystal MacLeod:i. It was like you know where we're at now and where we've been at different points. It's like, oh my gosh, this is what I wanted my life to look like, you know. So, taking it even then the next step further, I sold my office downtown in the Second A Lofts and then my husband and I built the home that we're in now, with a separate entrance for our clients. So I moved the office and I said I would never have a home-based business. I would never do that. Never say never.
Shauna Foster:Yeah because I was.
Crystal MacLeod:I am. I had this Exactly. So I had this office, which was downtown. So I'm, you know, w we e r . Doesn't take that long to drive, but I'm driving, you know, back and forth downtown and only 50% of my clientele is really coming to the office, so it was just my wedding clients, because I'm always going to the corporate client. Yeah, of course I have this, as you know, expensive space and I'm driving back and forth, yet I'm only meeting with wedding clients there. Like, let's think about this. How could we downsize, you know, even further? Yeah, so we did. So we built this house. It has a separate entrance, it's a really nice big, big office and it has worked brilliantly. So downsizing again. Covid hit a year and a half after we moved into this space and into our home and I was like, oh, I didn't know that that was even a better move. I didn't know there was a pandemic coming.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So really glad I did that when I did Interesting a enough. I remember when he moved h because Crystal and I actually lived not even a block from each other. And I remember when you said we're building this home and moving and I thought that was so exciting and yeah, like I mean, had you never would have known COVID was going to happen. But imagine if you still had that space and I mean you're still paying your mortgage for that space and you couldn't even have any events.
Crystal MacLeod:Like, yeah, that would have been, yeah, we could have been in a very different situation. Your podcast, my old, your podcast well, we could have been in a in a really different situation than what we ended up in. So it again it is. It all works out the way that it is supposed to work out in the end.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Exactly, and I love how I mean so many people too are. I know other business people I've talked to are like well, I'm going to buy a building and then I'm going to have my office in that building. And I'm like, okay, and one, for example, was a realtor on her own and I said do you need a building? Like it's just you, you know you're probably. If you want to buy the building as an investment, you're probably better off to buy it and rent it out to somebody else, because it's just you in the office and you know, and sometimes it just doesn't make sense and it might be a good investment or a good idea, but for your business model it just doesn't work. Same as when Tammy left, your left RSVP and you took over, your business model actually changed. Whether you said it did or not, it did because you didn't want to do those corporate events, you didn't want the rental space. You actually changed your entire business model. Look how well it turned out for you. Absolutely.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, business models, they have to evolve. You have to change. Things are going to change. We've been in business for 26 years. It's not remotely realistic to think that what we started out with is going to be where we're at right now, exactly.
Crystal MacLeod:And now, the quality of my life and being able to say no to events and sometimes we were talking about this again before we started recording it's like sometimes you're in the season of your business where you're like, okay, I'm energized right now, I'm given 110% and I want to really focus on this aspect or whatever, and then sometimes you feel like you know what? I'm a little bit, I don't have that energy right now. So downsizing gave me that freedom. Where it's like, okay, I'm not, I don't have all of this overhead. So if I choose to not do these events, I'm still going to be okay because I'm not paying all the things that we were paying before. Yeah, so we're really lucky.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, so we're really lucky also in that we do a lot of repeat corporate events. So the very first clients we had 26 years ago we still do that same event. So that is. It's amazing. I'm really proud of that. Like this was obviously Tammy's first client is an event that I still do 26 years later, and the only years we missed, obviously, were the two COVID years.
Crystal MacLeod:So having those repeat corporate events are really important to me, because I kind of know what's coming, for you know, obviously, weddings are all new every year, but with the repeat corporate events it's great, and once my kids get a little bit older, if I want to grow my business, I could. Right now I could, because I don't do any advertising actually, I do like zero. You don't have to, though, because I don't wish to take on more events at this point. Growth is not my focus right now. It is just not my focus, and I don't want to bring on more staff, and I myself don't want to be doing more events than what I'm doing. When my kids are a little bit older, maybe it will never say never, but for the moment I am really happy with where I'm at in terms of as busy as I want this business to be.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:And I think the thing too is growth. Like we all just kind of have in our mind. Growth means more clients, more events for you. Right, that's not necessarily what it is, because you can grow your business without increasing your client base. Right, absolutely. Maybe those corporate events or the galas or whatever it is, maybe they add an additional event in a year right, it's still, you're still working with the same people. It's just another thing, but it's not necessarily growing your client base.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, absolutely. It's the idea that bigger is always better it is. In my experience it has been completely opposite. Yeah, like completely opposite, that bigger has not been better, not just for the bottom line, but also for me and my personal life and just really the life that I want to live.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Well, I think, too, when you're looking at events, a lot of those events, especially weddings, happen on weekends. You have a family. When do your kids events happen? Weekends, right. So for you, you still want to maintain that family life and the ability to do things with your family and kids, but you also have to maintain the events Right and that you know that that's when a lot of those happen. What other yeah, yeah, no, I was just going to ask, like with the downsizing, that did give you freedom and other benefits. If you want to talk about that a little bit, yeah, absolutely.
Crystal MacLeod:I mean people talking about like the weekends and evenings. Yeah, like a wedding doesn't normally happen on a Monday afternoon, a corporate gala doesn't usually happen at 10 am on a Tuesday, right, yeah, and a lot of people like say to me oh, you must like, you must work like every single weekend or whatever. But so my husband's a teacher so I jokingly say that was one of the best career moves I ever made, because he has the summer off. So we treat a Wednesday like a Saturday. If I'm doing a wedding on a Saturday, we can, you know, do kind of whatever would turn the Wednesday into the weekend. It doesn't really matter.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, I've also built a really solid team. Like we have an incredible team. My like most senior planner has been with me for seven years now. She's exceptional. Lauren, she's incredible. She does, you know, just as good or, you know I often say better than me. That happens sometimes. It feels like it because she's like incredibly focused and she brings things to the table and I bring things to the table. So when we work together, you know we compliment each other.
Crystal MacLeod:But we also have like an incredible contracted team. So we have about 15 to 20 staff that we regularly contract to help us just with the execution of events, and some of those people have been with us for seven, eight years, so we have, like, really good processes in place. So like, yes, events are hard and we work really hard and they're long hours, but it's not the same as when I started doing events, because I have learned so many things over the years on how to be more efficient and how to you know. So we're executing, you know, sometimes three events in a weekend, but it's not killing me the way that it used to, because we've figured out how to do it smarter and just putting you know processes in place and putting in you know company policies as to how things yeah, just all of it you know. So that really that also helped a lot with in the downsizing as well.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, I think two people don't realize behind the scenes how much policies, procedures and processes those are like. When I'm talking to people, I'm like, well, what's your procedure for this? Like, well, we don't really have one. I'm like, well, you need to get. Like you need one, because then everybody does it the same way, Everybody knows what to do, that's just what it is right, and you don't even think about it. It becomes second nature because it's just what everybody does. When you don't have that, everybody does their own thing, and that's when you have problems right, so I love hearing that.
Crystal MacLeod:Well, especially, yeah, especially with events. I mean what right Like it? It I mean the events are all incredibly important to us, but an event is an event like weddings have the same elements, right? Yes, as we talked about, weddings have the same element elements, pardon me, as a corporate event.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So follow the process, yeah exactly, and that's experience and have everything you know structured like that and that gives you freedom to have a life and to do things and to say no. Right, Like you said, you can say no to things now because you don't need to have them, which is very free. That's right.
Crystal MacLeod:And you can't be everything. I can't be an event planner to all people, right, I can't be the cheapest and the most efficient and the most experienced and the most you know all of those things, like you. There are clients that I work really well with and there are events that are just totally up my alley where it's like, oh, I've got this. And then there have been events where I'm like struggling because it's like this doesn't, this event doesn't speak to me, this event doesn't you know, it's just, it's just not my skill set, and so figuring out what that was and then not having to do those events anymore was like oh, so liberating.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, it's like a weight off your shoulders. Yeah, yeah, I want to just quickly, because I know that you do a lot of with business etiquette and I think that people don't think about it especially now we're a lot more casual but how important it is. So do you want to just kind of touch on and if people are like, what is business etiquette? Exactly just what it is and why it's important, because this it it's kind of separate from events in a sense, but we all are living these jobs, whether you're on a zoom color, you're in an office or you're going to a dinner for a work dinner, right that there's things that are really important. So just touch on that a little bit because I find it so interesting that you're you have actual like training in this, which I think is so awesome.
Crystal MacLeod:I do, yeah, so. So I would disagree with you in saying that etiquette is not with events, because that is exactly what led me to do it to etiquette training was because I was often the person on the outside of events looking in at awkward things that were happening and it was like, oh, this feels like a great added service I could offer to my clients because I see a lot of awkward things happening. I'm on the outside looking in, right, yeah, that's true. So, yeah, I did my training at the Protocol School of Washington in Washington DC and then furthered my training at the Charleston School of Protocol in Charleston.
Crystal MacLeod:So, etiquette etiquette is like a scary word for people. It sounds pretentious and it sounds like perfection and it sounds stuffy. But like, etiquette is really about kindness and respect and social awareness, and that is in business as well. Yes, right, etiquette, social etiquette, business etiquette it's all the same. Business can be very social at times. So having etiquette skills are going to it's just really going to help you elevate your personal brand and how you interact with people. It helps to build teamwork right by defining inappropriate and inappropriate behavior amongst clients and colleagues and friends. So, like, business etiquette is social etiquette.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:They're the same thing, yeah it's so true and I can only imagine some of the things that you've seen at some of these events. But it's true, I remember in university we did a. I think actually you did it, I think we figured out one time you did it. It was at the Saskatoo at at the top of the inn and yeah, and it was. I was in College of Commerce, now Edward School of Business, but it was everything from how to talk to people and greet them and eating, like eating at a dinner meeting, and the proper way to actually. Well, we don't really learn that. I mean, you teach your children to eat but not what pork to use and you don't realize how, if you don't know that stuff and someone can tell you don't know it, that could affect your career, right yeah.
Crystal MacLeod:And I like I always say to people when I'm doing the etiquette training, like okay, so there's, there are rules like etiquette rules that are suggestions. They're just suggestions so you can. You know there's a. There's two different styles of dining that I teach. There's suggestions. It is not that this is a rule that you have to follow, but, again, following you know, the using proper etiquette just knows you've covered the basis, so you're always treating everybody with kindness and respect and being socially aware, which is very important.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yep, I couldn't agree more. Crystal, do you have a most important lesson that you've learned along the way that you want to share?
Crystal MacLeod:Oh boy, how, how many lessons have I learned.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I feel like you learn a new one and you're like dang, that was important. I should have learned that a long time ago.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, exactly, I think in the way that my business life and my personal life, you know, as an entrepreneur they're so intertwined, right A business you don't just, you know, close your laptop at the end of the day and go home and I recognize a lot of jobs are like that, for sure, but when you're an entrepreneur, it's all on you right, at the end of the day, it's all on you. So for me, the biggest, the biggest lesson and wish that I had known this years ago was the learning to say no, like to things, learning that like I don't, I'm not interested in that event, why am I doing that event? So it kind of comes all back to the downsizing and figuring out in a business, in my business in particular, what are things that I can eliminate so that I can live the life that I want to live with my husband and with my family and my personal life. I work really hard, but I don't. People probably think I work a lot more than I actually do.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, I think it's. I think it's entrepreneurship is so funny, because people are either like that person works 20 hours a day or it's what does that person do every day? There's seen it right. There's seen. There's no in between. There's no in between. Is that true?
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah, you are bang on with that, where it's like what do they actually do, right? Yeah, I mean, when I work, for me it's the, it's the. When I work, I work hard. When I'm at an event, we'll put in a 16 hour day, like we will absolutely do that, but then I'm, I'm not putting in a, you know, even an eight hour day the next day. It's. You know, you, you choose those moments. So I give a hundred percent and then take a few days to not give a hundred percent, exactly.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That's awesome, and is there anything you wish you had known or wish you had known sooner? Maybe not to downsizing, but yeah the same.
Crystal MacLeod:No that I can like that. I can say no to to events and opportunities, but not every opportunity is meant for me.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah and really the saying no. And, as I say, breaking up with someone, business breaking up. I literally only learned that probably in my last two years of having a business because, really it's like I'm the same as you.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:You can't be the the cheapest store, have the nicest stuff, be open the latest hours, have unlimited return policy. Like you just can't do all those things and I really just realized it's okay to say no or it's okay to say we're not really the store for you, but you would love this place in this place. Check them out, right.
Crystal MacLeod:Yeah.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:It's a hard lesson, but it's important.
Crystal MacLeod:It's a really hard lesson and I think is maybe this is the generalization, but I think that, as women as well, we always want people to like us right.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yes.
Crystal MacLeod:We don't want to be that person. We want people to like us. We want to for people to think that we're nice all the time. And I'll say to people well, one of my favorite quotes is you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the bunch, and some people still aren't going to like peaches, and that's okay.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Isn't that true?
Crystal MacLeod:Right, I'm not the event planner for everybody, and that's all right.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, I agree. Thank you so much for being on. This was so good to connect with you again and just learn from you, and I think when people hear downsizing they get kind of freaked out, but it's not necessarily a negative thing, as you've told us. It's actually been really great for you. So thank you for sharing with us. Where can people find you? I know that, especially business etiquette. I think they need to look that up for sure. But maybe we've got some people getting married or something. Where's the best place for them to?
Shauna Foster:find you.
Crystal MacLeod:So our website. There is a little bit of information about the etiquette training that we offer, as well, obviously, as the event planning. So just RSVP event design. And our social media, same thing, just @RSVP event design. Instagram were a little more active with weddings, I would say so. People like to look at the pretty pictures. Sometimes. Corporate events don't always have all the pretty pictures, although the Galas do they do yes. Yeah, and on Facebook as well, but we do probably upload more pictures of weddings onto Instagram and Facebook.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, and you do beautiful events. I don't ever plan to get married again, so I had four weddings. This is never going to happen again, but I knew that, a Gala, you're my girl, Crystal.
Crystal MacLeod:Thank you, thank you, I really appreciate that.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Well, thank you for being on and for everybody listening. We will see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to Winning. Be sure to subscribe to get all of our new episodes. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others. Talk t on social media and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to winning To catch all of the latest from us. You can ou Winning podcast on Instagram at Winning a inning, at Winning Facebook and on Podcast at Winning pod. a Winning was created and is produced by me, mackenzie Kilshaw Music, Mackenzie created by Summer Furby, editing by Firby Seth Armstrong. Thanks to Shauna Foster for voicing our opening and, of course, a huge thank you to this episode's guest. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.
