#communityovereverything: Maggie Halligan

“WE HAVE TO DO WHAT WE CAN”

            Over the past few months, it has been re-affirmed for us that community is one of the most important aspects of what we do at CityCentral. In the spirit of supporting and promoting our communities, we have continued interviews with our amazing members. As part of our #CommunityOverEverything campaign, we strive to provide our community with advice and insight on managing the current situation by giving a platform to those members who feel emboldened to lend us their voices. In this interview, we were lucky enough to sit down with Maggie Halligan of MH Concepts. Maggie took some time to tell us about how she has adapted and diversified her business during our changing times.

            Maggie began her professional career working in and with the sports industry. She has worked for large companies managing their sports sponsorships and events. During this time, she travelled a lot. After all that travelling, Maggie decided to start her own company. And thus, MH Concepts was born! Now Maggie plans and executes national sales meetings, and incentive trips for companies all over the world. She and her team have also done a lot of work with liquor companies to plan their sponsorship and promotions. Here are some highlights from our conversation!

“I REALLY ENJOY COMING UP WITH NEW AND FRESH IDEAS”

            While Maggie did enjoy the travelling opportunities of her previous positions, she came to find travelling every weekend draining. These days she finds the ability to be creative with events and planning one of the most rewarding parts of her job. According to Maggie, “I very much like to do different things all the time so I don’t want to do the same thing day after day or even year after year.” She finds that too much monotony is just not for her. And who can blame her? New and exciting things always make life way more interesting! Maggie really enjoys coming up with new ideas when it comes to organizing events. She feels she can really express her creativity through finding different locations, or by coming up with different gifting ideas or entertainment. 

 “DIVERSIFY YOUR OFFERINGS AND IT REALLY MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE”

            It’s become apparent that during these times the entertainment and hospitality industries have suffered. Very few people are travelling and there are no large-scale events being held. Maggie’s advice to those in the hospitality industry is to diversify! As a result of the pandemic, Maggie has had to reschedule events from this year to next and cancel other events all together. She has said that her saving grace during this time is the work she does with liquor companies. While they may not be doing a lot of sponsorships or events, they are still spending money on marketing. Because of her work with these companies, she still has revenue coming in to keep her going. Maggie said, “A lot of other companies that do similar thing that I do don’t have that outlet to have any revenue coming in right now.” Diversifying her business has allowed Maggie to focus on other endeavors that can bring in money during this time. While liquor companies aren’t actually providing samples when they go to events, they’ve come up with different ways to get people to interact with them. Maggie and her team are in the process of developing an initiative called “Vote for Solutions”. Instead of sampling products, visitors can check their voter registration status, request their absentee ballot and learn more about the candidates. Personally, Maggie has also diversified her income by being an independent salesperson for a company called Pruvit. Through these avenues, Maggie has kept her business going in uncertain times.

“EVEN WHEN YOU OWN YOUR COMPANY, IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE ROOM”

            One piece of advice that Maggie has for us is to hire and trust experts. When it comes to building a team, hiring experts in their field and taking their advice has been something that Maggie has found invaluable. “I’ve always felt that the best bosses I’ve ever had have hired people that were experts in different fields, and we took their advice when it came to something in that field.” Maggie has taken this lead from her previous observations and done her best to implement it in her own business. If a client approaches her with an event that she may not have experience in, Maggie strives to bring in someone who has knowledge of those types of events and lets them take the lead. Building a team of experts and trusting them when it comes to advice in their expertise is so important to make any business successful.

We would like to thank Maggie for taking the time to sit down with us and impart her experience and wisdom! We hope you found her advice as helpful as we did!