No matter how long you’ve been in business or how experienced you are, anyone is bound to make a few mistakes. You would be surprised how many mistakes we’ve made along the way, but it’s in our nature as humans to have a few bumps in the road or for things not to go as planned.

However, we’ve noticed a pattern between the mistakes we see made from other wedding pros, and that’s what we’ll be sharing with you today to hopefully remove a few of those bumps.

Losing Sight of Your Why

When you’ve been in business for a while or you start to feel burnt out, it can be easy to forget about our why– why we’re doing all of this to begin with or what fuels us. Losing sight of our why can even make us feel like we don’t want to be in business anymore. However, your why should be your ultimate driving force. Everyone’s why is unique, so it sets you apart in that way and pulls people towards you.

Discontinuing Education

Once you...

Giveaways. You’ve seen them around on social media and probably even participated in one at some point. They usually have hundreds to thousands of entries depending on the kind of giveaway and the account. If you’re looking to build more traffic to your brand, gain new followers, and pick up some overall momentum on social media, a giveaway is a great way to do it.

You can host one on virtually any social media platform you’re on, but the two most popular ones are Instagram and Facebook. Which platform you choose to host it on, though, depends on where your ideal clients are.

It may seem overwhelming to organize, plan, and host a giveaway, but the results can be truly remarkable. There are a couple of different ways you can host a giveaway– either by yourself or with others– and we’ll be walking you through both methods so you can have the most clarity when deciding which type to go with.

Self-Hosted Giveaway

This will be the simplest method if...

When you’ve just launched your wedding business, it can be understandably difficult to find leads or potential clients. You may feel overwhelmed and like the “new kid in town”, especially if you haven’t made any particular connections beforehand.

However, finding leads doesn’t have to be a hair-pullingly stressful experience. Although it isn’t necessarily easy, it may not be as hard as you think. There are even a few things you can do to make sure you’re doing all you can to direct couples to you.

SEO

The very first thing to pay attention to is your website’s SEO, which stands for “search engine optimization”. Usually, the first place a couple is going to go in their search for a wedding pro is Google, so it’s important to make sure the language on your website is working overtime to put your site at the top of that search.

Part of this is editing how your site will pull up in a search engine. You should be able to...

Choosing reliable, quality vendors for your client’s wedding can be stressful, especially if you’re either a new wedding professional who hasn’t had much interaction or experience with vendors before starting your business or a professional who travels to other, less familiar locations. Putting together one of the most important days of a couple’s life puts a heavy weight on your shoulders to ensure that not only are you getting everything done correctly, but that the vendors you choose are, too.

With so many to choose from, narrowing them down to the ultimate dream team can prove to be extremely difficult. We’ve learned what to look out for, questions to ask, and steps to take to rest assured knowing that the vendors you decide to go with can get the job done exceptionally well.

Learn Your Couple’s Style and Vision

It’s important that you’re extra familiar with your couple’s taste and their overall creative vision for...

It’s no secret that email lists are one of the best marketing tactics a business could have. Not only is that audience “yours”, but you know that they’re dedicated followers who actually want to hear from you, learn more about what you do, and stay updated with what’s new in your business. It’s one of the best ways to build a relationship with your audience in a more intimate and personal way.

What is A Lead Magnet?

You get people on your email list through opt-ins, but most importantly, through interesting lead magnets. The name is just what it sounds like– a magnet to attract leads, in this case, to your list. A lead magnet could be almost anything, but it should serve as an incentive for someone to join your list. Think of it as a free gift in exchange for space in their inbox, which from the perspective of a business owner, should feel like an honor to be allowed access to such a sacred place. You may also hear it commonly referred to...

Finding ways to get your business out there when you’re either just starting out or on a limited budget is a struggle that every business faces. If you don’t have hundreds of dollars ready to spend on marketing tactics, such as Facebook ads, it’s easy to feel discouraged.

However, there are numerous ways to market your wedding business, both organically and very low-cost, which is what we’ll be going over today!

Go Social

Social media, particularly Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, is the most popular marketing platform these days for most businesses. Aside from paying for Ads or promotional content, organic marketing is not only helpful but necessary for building trusting relationships with your audience.

Try to keep your feed within the 80/20 rule– 80% of your posts will be sharing value or showcasing other vendors, while 20% is promotional. Think of it this way: Would you continue to follow someone if all they did was sell, sell, and sell some...

We all get that inquiry asking us (only) about our pricing. And they can be a challenge to answer, since we know our goal is really to begin a conversation with the person.

Yet, because they asked the question, we do have to answer it. What are your options?

• Entry level cost: “Our pricing starts at…” or “Our lowest cost option is…”
  
  This works well if you want to let bargain hunters know where your pricing starts. And if you truly are out of someone’s budget, it allows them to realize it and not waste your time or theirs.

• Full range: “Our services range in price from $1,500 to $4,500. Of course, your cost will depend upon what level of service you decide you would like.”
  
  This gives the client a reasonable amount of information. It also doesn’t commit you to anything before you have much information on what they are looking for.
• Range with typical: “While our services range in price from $1,500 to $4,500, we find...

Okay, honesty right up front. It took me a LONG TIME to realize why I loved some of the sales training that I got over the years and why other training would frustrate and disappointment me.

Often times the trainings that disappointed me the most were from very good sales trainers! It wasn’t until very recently (since I won’t say how ‘recently’, maybe I’m not being completely honest…) I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. What made it even worse, was sometimes I would go back to some of the training that I hadn’t liked at first, read or listened to it again…and now liked it!

What I finally figured out was that the different ‘sales training’ programs and courses were teaching different aspects or components of sales…but most of them didn’t say that. They didn’t say what aspects they were covering. They would simply create some attention-grabbing title like “Get All the Clients...

This final blog post of 2019 on goal setting will be a little different. Here we are simply going to provide you some examples, and examples of structures, to help you think through and create your business goals for 2020.  We hope these help you create powerful and valuable goals that work well for you and that are right for you!

SALES AND MARKETING:

Results-based goals:

• Book (and deliver) 25% more weddings in 2020, while maintaining my current pricing structure.
• Hit $50,000 in gross sales in 2020, and book 75% of that business by March 1st.
• Double the number of positive reviews, ratings and testimonials I have on my website and [advertising platform] by July 2020.
  
  

Activity-based goals:

• Attend 15 industry networking events (or have 1-on-1 conversations) each month for the next 6 months.
• Invest enough time to truly understand who my ‘ideal client’ is and how to communicate the value of what I provide to them. Get this work done early enough so that I can use it...

In preparation for helping you have an amazing 2020, we’ve been talking about the power of goal setting all month long. Now we’re going to give you the ‘golden nugget’ regarding the value, or power, of goal setting. It’s creating the plan to achieve your goals.

Simply setting goals, no matter how lofty or how well structured, doesn’t change a thing…if you don’t also have a plan to achieve them. So, let’s give it to you simply and directly. 

GOAL SETTING AND GOAL ACHIEVEMENT:

When goal setting…

• Write down your goal (the results or outcome you want to achieve).
• Put a date on when you want to achieve it.

Identify all the benefits to you of achieving the goal. These will help motivate you in achieving the goal.

Then…

• Identify the obstacles that you’ll need to overcome.
• Identify the people, groups and/or organizations you need to work with, or get help from, to achieve your goal.
• Identify what you need...