When you plan an important meeting, there’s much more to worry about than the meeting itself. Often the preparation that needs to happen before the meeting even starts—or even before attendees are invited—can be overwhelming. Whether you want to impress a top client, make a new sale, or run an effective staff meeting, a meeting-services professional can relieve a lot of stress and remove distractions, giving you more time and focus to get your job done.

Hiring a meeting-services professional is an effective way to let go of some of the meeting and event preparation work so you can focus on yourself and your objectives. Here are five benefits of hiring a meeting-services professional:

1. Creation and achievement of goals
In order to create the best possible atmosphere for your meeting, you’ll need to come up with—and communicate—your intended goals and outcomes for the meeting first. A meeting-services professional will help you create and focus those goals, both for your own work and to direct their planning for your meeting. Plus, once you know exactly what you want out of your meeting, you can work together to make it as effective and productive as possible.

2. Exposure to new ideas
By hiring a meeting-services professional, you’re teaming up with a wealth of knowledge—and not just about event planning. After you communicate your goals and objectives for your meeting, a professional can help you with ideas that can make your meeting the best it can be—whether it’s new technology to use in a presentation, strategies to best achieve your goals, gifts and favors to give your guests, and more.

3. Access to locations and amenities
Planning a meeting on your own often means starting from scratch in almost every way: doing research on the top locations for your meeting, spending hours on the phone with venues, catering companies, and more, and thinking through what you and your guests might need during your meeting. But hiring a meeting-services professional to help with planning means you’ll get all of their knowledge and connections on top locations, amenities, and more near you and in your price range. Working with a professional will make the logistics simple and easy for you, giving you more time and less stress to do your part of the preparation.

4. No stress
Hiring a professional to help plan your meeting can take the stress of hosting out of your meeting. It’s their job to think of everything you and your guests will need or want and make sure you and your guests will be comfortable, without distractions, for an effective and productive meeting. You don’t have to think about going the extra mile for your guests and attendees—a meeting-services professional will do it for you.

5. You can focus on doing your job—not hosting
With the location, planning, and amenities taken care of by trusted professionals, you can turn your attention to your own professional responsibilities for the meeting. You won’t be distracted from your full-time job by having to deal with the details of hosting—and this way, you can make sure your full attention is on your work.

With help on goals, ideas, and hosting, and without the stress of hosting and planning the details, what is there to lose? Check out our meeting and event capabilities here, and find more information on planning the perfect meeting here.