Yoga gathering leads Boulder Book Store into conference management

BOULDER — Not long ago bakers cut the center out of donuts to create the kind of breakfast people could eat with one hand — wheel-shaped pastries with holes in the middle. One day someone must have decided that there might be a use for those centers and — voila! — donut holes went on the market.

It’s that kind of thinking that’s keeping a lot of businesses above water these days. Sometimes specializing is the way to go — especially if your market is big and your competition is small.

If the gap between what you do and what other companies do overlaps, however, diversifying and using all of your resources can create new revenue streams.

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“A new idea for business is to be creative in how you view yourself and how you market yourself,´ said David Bolduc, Boulder Book Store owner. After a few years of setting up tables for book sales at various conferences, Boulder Book Store officially moved into a new branch of business — conference management. The addition was formalized last year.

Horizon Conferences LLC sprang out of work the Boulder Book Store has been doing for the Yoga Journal, which puts on conferences in Estes Park. For years, the bookstore has sold books and tapes on yoga at the event.

When the Yoga Journal expressed problems with the company that was managing the conference, which brought in about 1,200 people, Bolduc saw the situation as an opportunity. “We said, ‘We can do this,’ ” he explained.

Horizon Conferences took on the conference management tasks of registration, phone information, checking attendees in and smoothing out any wrinkles that popped up during the event.

“Financially, we ran it through the bookstore — we just created office space in the bookstore and used the bookstore’s resources,” Bolduc said. Because the two companies continue to share resources, it’s difficult to determine Horizon’s profit, he added.

“Now we do four conferences a year for the Yoga Journal and handle registration for about 3,800 people,” explained Craig Shafer, who splits his time as Boulder Book Store’s corporate services manager and manager of Horizon Conferences. “We handle onsite registration, manage the volunteer program, arrange audio and visual and provide signage it’s back-end event management.”

Horizon Conference is growing at a steady pace with some contracts signed and a handful of potential clients closing in on the contract-signing phase.

Clients can choose to use the company as a book sales resource, for registration or for onsite management. The company has been providing onsite book sales for about 50 conferences a year with some conferences drawing in 7,000 attendees.

“Independent bookstores are struggling these days due to chains, the economy and Amazon,” Shafer said. “We’ve moved this way to create another stream of income. We’re feeling our way through it and developing a business plan as we go along.”

Sharing resources — both personnel and equipment — makes Horizon Conferences a low-overhead venture.

“From the bookstore’s point of view it’s a time of cutting staff, but with this opportunity to share resources we’re given the opportunity to retain personnel and utilize some of our unused space,” Shafer said. “Sometimes we need a full staff and sometimes just a skeleton — we draw from the bookstore’s staff.”

Shared technology includes telephone lines, Internet services, credit card processing and computer equipment.

“Our main competition is the Internet,” Shafer explained. “There are a number of service providers that provide registration services, but we can provide personalized telephone service. We help potential attendees understand their options.”

For Yoga Journal conferences, Horizon has a registration coordinator who can advise callers on which yoga classes would be appropriate for their level of experience.

“We can individualize conferences based on the needs of our clients,” Shafer said. “We think our niche is small conferences — organizations that have unique event needs,” he added. “We figure what our costs will be and mark up from there accordingly, which is why we don’t have a set price list.”

Horizon Conferences focuses on referrals, networking and personal contacts as marketing efforts.

“The easiest form of marketing is to do a good job and have that out there in the industry,” Shafer said. “Our long-term goals are to expand the range of services we offer, to continue to utilize event management technology as it develops and to double the number of clients we have within the next two years,” he added.

“Event planning is a potential area for us to expand into. With event management the client lines up speakers, contracts exhibitors and obtains their venue.

“Our financial goals are to make a profit,” Bolduc said. “We don’t have anything really stated though. If things don’t develop we still have the bookstore.

“Horizon Conferences is always going to be mixed with the bookstore in terms of resources — unless we get to about 30 conferences a year, that is.”