Business At A Glance
Startup Costs: Under $2,000
Home Based: Can be operated from home.
Part Time: Can be operated part-time.
Online Operation? No
Business Overview
As a reunion organizer, you’ll be a combination event planner andprivate detective, hunting down missing members of high school andcollege classes, large families, groups and associations, then planningand organizing the bash of the decade.
To find those missing members,you’ll pore through phone directories and computer databases andcontact school and civic records departments and friends, neighbors andrelatives. Reunion-organizing is a growing field–with all those babyboomers being joined by Generation Xers just reaching high schoolreunion age, there’s no dearth of potential customers. And since justabout everybody is out in the workforce these days, no one has the timeto spend on tracking down former classmates or associates and thenattending to all the details of the event. Which leaves lots of workfor you. The advantages to this business are that you can work at home,it’s creative, challenging and rewarding–you get to help people havefun and renew old ties every time you plan a reunion. As a reunionorganizer, you’ll have to be obsessive about locating attendees, aswell as creative about ways to broaden your search. You’ll also need tobe extremely detail-oriented and organized–people will be travelingfrom all over the country to attend events you arrange and counting onyou to pull it all together.
The Market
Your customers can be the Class of X for high schools and colleges,groups and associations, and large, far-flung families. Your best betfor selling to these groups is to establish yourself in your community.Introduce yourself to and leave brochures with vendors inevent-planning industries who can refer people to you–caterers,hotels, florists, printers and photographers. Find out who’s in chargeof the reunion committees for your own high school or college class orthose of your friends and relatives, then call and introduce yourselfand your services.
Needed Equipment
You’ll need a computer with the usual office software, a laser printer,a fax machine, a calendar, a planning book and a phone.