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On the Fast Track

Energetic entrepreneur creates magazine, plans entertainment events

October 2009

by Tom Ensey

Kim Traff talks fast, works fast and her business has grown fast.

The dynamic president of RSVP Montgomery, Inc. publishes a bi-monthly magazine that highlights entertainment and activities in the River Region, and plans parties and events that range from the popular downtown pub crawl to speed dating for all ages to weddings and Sweet 16 parties.

They’re based out of a big loft on the second floor of the house in Sturbridge where Traff lives with her husband.

The thriving company resembles a sorority house sometimes – Sloppy Joe nights are popular with the micro-staff of two interns and her best friend from high school. It’s all part of the business plan – have fun, work hard, make money.

You couldn’t even say she started the magazine on a shoestring budget – it was more like a strand of dental floss. After about a year of market research, she quit her job as a paralegal, drained her IRA for the startup capital and started bustling.

She paid her husband $1,200 a month for the office space as much to prove to herself she could do it as anything else.

Originally the plan was to own a venue and rent it, promoting the parties there – RSVP stood for “Rental Space Vogue Parties.”

That morphed into the simpler plan for a publication that serves a young, single, affluent clientele looking for entertainment, and using the magazine to promote the parties and events the company puts together.

In a little more than two years, the magazine RSVP Montgomery grew from 32 pages to 80 for its most recent edition because so many advertisers want into the full-color, glossy paper pages.

“Really, we don’t sell advertising that much anymore,” she said. “They’ve started calling us.”

The company is completely debt-free. After losing money on the first four quarterly editions of the magazine, Traff is seeing positive cash flow and rapid growth.

The writing is sassy and edgy. “Like Sarah Jessica Parker wrote in ‘Sex and the City,’” is the way Traff described it. The stories are positive, smart, funny and fun. That’s part of the vision, too.

From the beginning, Traff knew exactly who comprised her market, and her research showed there was little or no  competition to serve a demographic that was hungry for information about entertainment options.

“I hate it when people say, ‘There’s nothing to do here,’ or call Montgomery ‘The Gump,’ and say ‘I want to get out of the Gump,’” she said.

She’s proved that to be wrong – people just weren’t informed about the many entertainment options available here.

But Traff, ever the go-getter, does more than publish a magazine about those options. She makes them happen.

She sunk her own money into the first few weddings and parties she planned to make the events special – she went the extra mile on luxurious table linen, service, china and food.

She gambled that word-of-mouth would help get the next job.

Jackpot.

Her calendar is packed. So far, her ideas have proved more successful than planned.

For the first “pub crawl” she just walked into the 13 downtown venues and asked one question: “Do you need help marketing your business?”

She got them to pay her a small sum to include their business in a pack of coupons – two-for-one drinks, half-off an entrée, whatever. Then she partnered with the city of Montgomery’s department of Riverfront Facilities – which oversees Riverwalk Stadium, the Riverwalk Amphitheatre and other municipal venues downtown to advertise and sell tickets.

The weather cooperated. She thought 300 people would be great. Seven hundred showed.

For the more recent pub crawl on July 4, 1,500 bought tickets.

The magazine has a circulation of 10,000, distributed by hand to 280 area outlets that include lawyers’ and doctors’ offices, businesses and clubs.

“That’s the fun part,” Traff said. “We go in with a bundle of magazines and people can’t wait to see us. They can’t wait to read them, to see what’s coming up.”

They mail an additional 800 or so and that, too, is done by hand.

Traff has big hopes for the future. One day, she’d like to franchise the idea, and have an RSVP Auburn, an RSVP Birmingham, and an RSVP Mobile.

In the more immediate future, she is ready to admit that sooner or later, they’re going to have to move out of her house and find some office space.

But not quite yet. For now, it is go, go, go, keep busy, and most of all, have fun telling other people how to have fun.