80: Building a Culture with Freelancers with Meg Fasy

We are thrilled to finally have the opportunity to talk to Meg Fasy from eventsGIG! Meg is a star in our industry! She is a long-time member of the industry and has a vast amount of experience.

Meg is joining us today to talk about the freelance economy, the changes happening in our industry, and opportunities for the future.

We hope you will enjoy listening to Meg’s inspiring story today!

Meg Fasy’s bio:

Meg Fasy’s career spans several markets, including hotel, CVB, industry associations, event technology, and strategic partnerships, where she has been a successful sales/marketing leader. She has worked for, and with, some of the biggest brands you know. 

This idea for eventsGIG came about as Meg was trying to find a way to help the Events Industry recover from the devastating impact of the pandemic. With so many of her peers out of work and many organizations struggling to figure out how they rebuild their service levels, she wanted to create an opportunity for each to connect. To further that end, it was important to Meg that a portion of our proceeds benefit Meetings Industry Fund to help our industry recover fully and thrive.

Meg is well known for motivating sales and marketing teams, driving strategy, and connecting people. Meg is an energetic leader who has been a featured speaker at most major event industry conferences including CEMA, PCMA, MPI, IAEE, Cvent Connect.

When not focused on making great connections, you will often find Meg on the water, training for her next dragon boat race.

Meg’s story

Meg has been in the events industry for twenty-five years. Like most others, she fell into the industry. While at college, Meg took a job in catering at the Grand Hyatt and fell in love with the hotel business. She stayed with Hyatt for almost a decade. She eventually reached a point where she wanted weekends and holidays, so she left catering and got into sales. 

The bigger picture

With all her jobs in the hotel business, Meg was interested in the bigger picture. She always wanted to know why the meetings were happening.

Meg’s experience

Meg worked in hotels, the Convention Visitor’s Bureau, and for event technology companies before deciding to start a business of her own. 

FazeFWD

Meg has been running the sponsorship management company, FazeFWD for the last six years. She works with organizations to create and sell their sponsorship packages.

Growth and experience

Throughout her career in the industry, Meg has always known which direction to take. It has always been about growth and gaining experience.

Emotional rollercoaster

Most entrepreneurs do not realize the emotional rollercoaster ride they will go through when they start their first company.

Meg Fasy on why mentorship is a must

Meg believes strongly in having mentors. Throughout her career, she has always had someone to mentor and advise her. Now, she is always mentoring six or seven women.

Face-to-face versus hybrid

Meg believes that virtual meetings will never take over face-to-face meetings because people want to be face-to-face. 

Two different events

Face-to-face events are very different from virtual events. They have different budgets and different levels of content.

The next six to nine months will be tough

Although Meg doesn't know exactly what will happen in the next six to nine months, she knows it will be a tough time. Staffing and events will have to be looked at differently. Organizations will have to prioritize who can attend their meetings and focus their content around those attendees.

Between a rock and a hard place

Many people have been furloughed or laid off recently. On the flip side, event service companies and agencies do not know what to do because many of their staff members have left.

Freelancers

Currently, 36% of the US workforce are freelancers. If the rate of growth does not change, it is anticipated that it will grow to 50% within the next five years. That is why it made sense to Meg to connect the freelancer creator community with organizations looking for people.

Meg Fasy on creating new opportunities 

Constantly hearing the two sides of the story motivated Meg to help out in some way. That inspired her to start a new company that could create opportunities by bringing freelancers and organizations together online. She had 150 freelancers sign up within the first two weeks!

Preparing for the future

It can be hard, emotionally and psychologically, to change from being securely employed to working as a freelancer. To start as a freelancer, think of your value and make a list of the skills you have to offer. Also, consider what you want to do and how many hours you would like to work.

Building a culture with freelancers

Companies should understand that freelancers can be part of the team. To build a culture with freelancers, companies must communicate well and bring the freelancers into the fold by introducing everyone and keeping the conversation open. 

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Connect with Meg Fasy

Email Meg: meg@eventsgig.com

Call Meg at her office: (702) 232-1337