"If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that we have to be flexible."
Kelly Snider Tweet
We are thrilled to have Kelly Snider join us today for ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview. Kelly is a best-selling author, story curator, and event expert who has more than 25 years of experience in the events industry.
Through her company, Reflect Management Ltd, Kelly focuses on making every event a true reflection of the organization, business, or individual(s) by connecting the attendees and guests to the host’s mission, values, and heart.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Kelly Snider: My name is Kelly Snider, and I’m a best-selling author, story curator, and event expert. Through my more than 25 years in the events industry, I have realized there is so much more to a successful event than all the organizational details.
My company, Reflect Management Ltd, started out focusing on ensuring that every event was a true reflection of the organization, business, or individual(s). Whether a fundraiser, a conference, or even a wedding, the lasting impact comes in making it personal by connecting the attendees and guests to the mission, values, and heart of the host.
Since I started working with clients in the 1990s, my events have raised over twelve million dollars net for charities around the world.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffett, how would you describe your company, services, or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Kelly Snider: Reflect Management Ltd. is more than an event production company. Event management isn’t difficult; it is mainly about being skilled at choreographing and organizing all of the many details and moving parts.
What we do differently is we make the client the focus (rather than the event itself) by finding out their bigger goals beyond that day. How do they want their guests to feel? What actions do they want them to take? We place a huge focus on telling the client’s story taking it to a personal level, making those heart connections and spurring the guests to action.
My company’s biggest strength is our ability to discover and highlight clients’ individual stories, needs, and goals in order to make the biggest impact possible.
What advice do you wish you received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Kelly Snider: First, I wish I had been told to trust my intuition and do it my way. There is no one way to succeed in business, and trying to imitate what another business or person is doing is most likely not going to be authentic for me. My skills, abilities, and knowledge are different than all others, so my approach should be as well. It’s okay to be unique – in fact, it’s imperative.
Second, I wish that I had been encouraged from day one to be bolder in promoting myself and my unique skillset. This is not a natural or comfortable thing for me to do, but the confidence I have in my abilities and expertise is key to allowing my clients to trust me with their big moments.
Third, I wish that I’d been advised to delegate, particularly the tasks that I don’t excel at or love. This would have saved me so much time, energy, frustration, and money. I’m still working on all of these things, but what I’m really focusing on improving in the next quarter is delegation. As the demands on my own time increase, this is becoming more and more necessary to keep me and my business moving forward.
Here is a two fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Kelly Snider: I’m a huge reader, and it’s difficult to choose just one book over the thousands that I’ve read. However, in the past year, the book that has had the greatest impact would have to be Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Big Magic”.
It encouraged me to think outside of that proverbial box, embrace my creativity, realize that there is not just one way to be creative. This book also helped remind me that knowledge and ability come from so much more than academic titles and degrees, and that life experience has a valuable part to play. Finally, “Big Magic” helped me finally put pen to paper to finish my own book.
The book I’ve gifted the most has to be Robert Munsch’s “The Paperbag Princess”. Yes, it’s a children’s book, but often we learn the most from the simplest stories. This book has amazing reminders and lessons about our own personal strength, ability, and resilience amid all kinds of challenges, and of course, to avoid judging a book by its cover, or making assumptions about anyone or anything based on appearance alone.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Kelly Snider: Yes, my book “Your Story Your Strength” was released in November of last year and is about discovering how our stories have not only shaped how we show up on a daily basis for ourselves, for our families, in our professional lives, and in all our relationships, but also how understanding them on a deeper level can change our lives.
Throughout the book I’ve used my own life and stories to illustrate a myriad of topics. I delve into the importance of knowing and sharing our stories for healing, recognizing how things like guilt, shame, forgiveness, and even gratitude can contribute to helping us embrace our current reality. Our stories have the power to inspire, encourage, and even heal others, and my book is about embracing our lives and our stories as part of our legacy.
This is true both personally and in business. We have the opportunity every day to decide what we want our legacy to be and to work towards creating it.
2020, 2021, 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Kelly Snider: If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that we have to be flexible. What worked for us in the past most likely needs to change. It’s a great opportunity to reassess everything from our line item expenses to how and where our staff work best and are most productive.
We continue to see a shift in priorities in both businesses and charitable organizations. At the same time, individuals are more often questioning their own priorities when it comes to their time, investments, and giving strategies. We all need to reevaluate how best to move forward in this new reality and how we can streamline business for both profitability and community impact.
I believe this makes connecting on a deeper level with our stories and personal experiences even more important for greater success.
What does “success” in the year to come mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Kelly Snider: Success for me is the same in both my personal and professional life: I want to make an impact. I want to leave people, situations, businesses, and organizations – whomever I come into contact with – better in some way. Inspired. Encouraged. Empowered. Even transformed.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Kelly Snider for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Kelly Snider or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.