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When I started my meeting planning service I had no idea what to call my business.  The very first day I started making phone calls to introduce myself I tried out different names, such as Nancy’s Meeting Planning & Event Company, Meetings Your Way, and Hotel Search for You.  Obviously I wasn’t very good at the creative aspect of what name best suited my new venture.  Every name I came up with just didn’t roll of my tongue.

I decided I needed to find an advertising agency to help me create a logo and company name.  Being newly established and starting out on my own the availability of funds was not where they needed to be in order to hire an agency to get me recognized.  A few weeks into my start-up a dear travel industry friend suggested I have a contest to name my new meeting planning service, and I did.

After being in the hotel industry for many years I had developed quite a list of customers who plan meetings so I sent a postcard mailing to everyone on the roster to announce my meeting planning service and that I was having a contest to name my business.  I asked my contacts to think about helping me come up with a business name that immediately explained what I do for you.  And voila, a customer at an aerospace company in Long Beach, CA came up with One call is all you need.  The rest is handled by…The Meetings Concierge.  And I was sold.

The contest winner was announced in a second mailing as was the launch of The Meetings Concierge.  She won a gift certificate to Neiman-Marcus that cost me a whole lot less than the ad agency wanted to charge and she got a nice shopping spree on me.  A concierge is defined as “one who serves guests” and that is what we do; serve our guests who plan offsite meetings.

And that is how the Meetings Concierge came to be, in April 1995.