EnTrends [ahn-trends]

Taking a Look at How Modern Entrepreneurs Work & Live!

Imagine this scenario. Your high school aged 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."

Save the Date is unique because it provides a service free to its clients. The company has a database of thousands ofspaces 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 finds the space, entertainment, R.S.V.P. services, web registration, and full-service production for each event. Gilbert is always aware of the newest and hottest places that are open for events.

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 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 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.

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!"