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30 Days To A Better Wedding Business

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Creating the business you want takes time but I wanted to give you some actionable tips that you can implement quickly to get results. I invite you to join me in my new blog series…

30 Days To A Better Wedding Business

What is 30 Days To A Better Wedding Business?

This is a new blog series for all you awesome wedding pros who need some actionable tips now. I’ll be publishing a post each day for 30 days starting on 1st June. It’s completely free of charge and all you need to do to get all of the tips is fill out the form below. Your first tip will arrive in your inbox on 1st June!

Posted: May 15, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy, Marketing, Website Tagged With: , , , , ,

Your Pricing Questions Answered

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After being away for a few weeks, I wanted to bring you something special (especially because so many of you sent me some very sweet emails). If you get my emails, you may recall that I asked if anyone had any questions about pricing. I interviewed Joyce Washington, pricing expert from The Common Cents and asked those questions and many more.

In this video, we discuss questions like:

  • Can pricing your items too cheap put people off?
  • What is “affordable”?
  • How do you set your prices so that your services don’t seem generic?
  • Is there a formula for pricing?
  • How do you raise your prices?
  • When should you raise your prices?
  • What should you consider when you set prices?
  • Does discounting devalue your work?
  • How many packages should you have?

Watch the interview below and let me know what you think!

 

Joyce is about to launch her course on pricing, packaging and finances for your business: The Blueprint.

The Blueprint

If you want to whip your pricing and financial goals into shape, you can get the details of The Blueprint here.

What do you struggle with most when it comes to pricing?

Psst…I have an awesome course coming soon that will help you book more weddings and make more money. Find out about it here.

Posted: May 8, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy, Interviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

How To Create A Relationship Marketing Strategy In 5 Simple Steps

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As a small business owner, your business hinges on relationships. Relationships with other wedding professionals can lead to profitable referrals and joint ventures. It is important to maintain the relationships that you have with other wedding professionals and build more of them, but how do you maintain relationships when everyone is so busy all of the time?

One of the best ways to keep an relationship alive is by offering to help the other person with something. You can do this by curating the content that your favourite wedding pros are producing, thereby helping them to get it in front of more people. This is a lot simpler than it sounds and it will actually work to your advantage as well because you are sharing content your audience enjoys without having to constantly create it. Here is how I do this in my business:

1. Go to your Twitter page and create a private list called “Outreach”. (You can go directly to your lists page by going to www.twitter.com/yourtwittername/lists)

2. Sign up for a Hootsuite free account if you don’t already use it. This Hootsuite Quick Start Guide will show you how to add your Twitter account and add the new list you’ve created as a stream. This will make it so much easier to monitor what is happening not only on your new list, but throughout your entire Twitter account.

3. Sign up for Google Reader and search for the people you added to your Twitter list. This will allow you to pull all their blogs together in one place. Here is a video tutorial that Google has created on how to do this. (Note: Google Reader is being discontinued in July, but you can migrate this to another service before then)

4. Put a 30 minute block into your calendar everyday for relationship nurturing. I put this into my Google Calendar so that it pops up everyday to remind me. Take this time to check your Google Reader and Twitter list to see what your contacts have been up to.

5. If anything they have linked to, blogged about or tweeted about would appeal to your audience, share it. Make sure they know you have shared it by structuring your tweets like this:

How To Deal With Negative Reviews http://ow.ly/haoP3 via @debbieorwat

As you can see, I shortened the link in Hootsuite and mentioned the author of the content so that they know I shared it and enjoyed it. Hootsuite allows you to schedule updates as well so you can spread them out.

This may sound like it would be too small of a gesture to matter, but you are helping your contacts build their audience by sharing their content with your audience. If you do this on a regular basis, they will notice. Marketing is very frustrating for a lot of people and for someone to lend a hand like this goes a long way.

Can this really help nurture a relationship?

This strategy can be used to nurture existing relationships and build new ones. I hosted a free online event called Wedding Business Evolution Summit and I have brought speakers from all different areas of wedding business and marketing to speak about it. The only way I know most of these speakers is through social media and all of them have been on my “Outreach” list for quite some time. We all share a similar vision of helping wedding professionals, but it definitely helped that I was on their radar before I approached them to speak at this event.

Building and maintaining relationships should more like farming than hunting. If you keep at this regularly, just like watering a plant everyday, you will reap the benefits later.

Posted: April 3, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy, Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

How To Market Even When You’re Busy Or On Holiday

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When you run a business, things don’t stop just because you’re on holiday. The good news is it is incredibly easy to keep your marketing consistent even when you have no access to the internet. This is also very useful during peak wedding season. Letting your marketing drop off will affect your bottom line and make it seem like you aren’t serious about your business. The truth is, your customers don’t care that you’re on holiday, they expect to hear from you.

Here’s how to do it: Stop marketing in real time. If you wait until the night before blog post has to be done or until the day a tweet needs to go out, you will always feel behind. Now you can’t automate interaction, but you can definitely automate a lot of things to make your life easier. There are two parts to this: do the prep work and use tools to automate what you can.

Doing the prep work just means you spend a little bit of time getting things set up so you can easily make use of them in the future. Here is some of the prep work I’ve done:

  • I have a template in Aweber that I use for all of my emails that I send out to my list. All I have to do is copy it into a new message, add my new content and schedule the email.
  • I have a collection of blog post ideas saved in Evernote. I add ideas to Evernote as they come to me and at the moment I have over 50 ideas saved there which really helps when I’m not sure what to write about. It has helped me break through writer’s block many times.
  • I regularly share other people’s content that I think you’ll like and I recommend you do the same. I have a group of people I follow and I use Google Reader and Twitter lists to see what they have posted recently so that I can share it.
  • I’ve set up a schedule for my content. I post to my blog and email my list once a week, tweet 3 times a day and post to Facebook once a day. This takes any uncertainty out of when I should be doing things and helps keep me on track.

Tools To Help With This

Buffer

Buffer is one of the best social media tools I’ve ever used. It allows you to schedule your social media posts and track how they perform. The best part is that you can set pre-defined times and fill up your Buffer account with posts that you want to share. Buffer will then automatically send those posts out at those times, which means you can schedule your posts ahead of time when it’s convenient for you. There is a free plan and a paid plan for Buffer and I’m sure you’ll fall in love with it. It even integrates with other applications for maximum efficiency.

Google Reader

I use Google Reader to share other people’s content because it’s not all about me, it’s about the customer. There are people who write posts I know my audience will love, so I check Google Reader to see what is new with them. Google Reader is being discontinued in July 2013, so I will be switching over to Feedly.

Facebook Page Scheduling Tool

Facebook recently launched their own scheduling tool which is great because they had been punishing people who used 3rd party schedulers for a long time. To get maximum visibility, schedule your Facebook posts within Facebook by clicking the clock shown in the image below.

Facebook scheduling

 

 

 

Aweber 

This is my email marketing service and I love it. Aweber allows me to create attractive HTML emails and they provide me with reports on how each email performed.

WordPress Editorial Calendar Plugin

This free WordPress plugin lets me see at a glance what posts have been scheduled and when they will go live. It has a really nice calendar interface that is easy to work with.

Email Auto Response

This is one that people forget about but is very important. Make sure you set an out of office message on your email if you don’t intend to check it while you’re on holiday. Even if you plan to check it, it may be nice to add one to let people know you might take a little bit longer to get back to them.

Hootsuite

I love Hootsuite because it allows me to manage my Twitter lists in a visually appealing way. I spend a few minutes reviewing what people on those lists have posted and if anything sounds like it would interest you awesome people, I add it to Buffer.

Evernote

I don’t know what I would do without Evernote. I use it as my idea repository to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks. I also use it to store resources I know I’ll need in the future. It keeps me from having to try to remember every idea I come up with which frees up my focus so that I can truly concentrate on the task at hand.

Take Action!

Take some time today to do your prep work and familiarise yourself with these tools. Do this and you can rest assured that your holiday or busy times will no longer cause your marketing to suffer.

Posted: March 27, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy, Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

What To Do When You Lose Sight Of A Goal

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Turn It Off And On

Image Credit: http://identitee.spreadshirt.com


We all have goals and dreams about where we want to go in business and in life. My #1 goal is to develop my business in a way that allows me to be location independent. I want to be able to pick up and go anywhere I please which is why all of my offerings are going to be delivered online. It’s something I discovered through reading the blogs of Natalie Sisson and Chris Guillebeau and I think it’s amazing that we live in a time that makes this possible. This has been a goal of mine for awhile but recently I feel like I haven’t had the same focus as I once had on that goal…until this past Saturday.

My dad was diagnosed with cancer recently and it was a big fat reminder that parents don’t live forever. He’s okay at the moment but I want to spend some time with him while he still has the energy to get out and do things. Of course, I don’t know what is going to happen, but I do know that if things take a turn for the worse I want to be able to say that even though he lives over 4000 miles away, I took the opportunity I had to go spend time with him. From the beginning of April, I know I won’t have this flexibility due to my workload so I decided to seize the moment and just go.

On Saturday, I sat down to arrange a flight and noticed that all of them seemed to connect through Detroit which is where I’m from. I called Delta and arranged a stopover so that I could essentially have a 4 day layover in Detroit. Needless to say, calling my mom and saying I needed a place to crash from Wednesday-Saturday surprised her and that felt great. I arranged my flight from Detroit to Knoxville and noticed that going from Knoxville back to London will result in a 13 hour layover. At first I got annoyed, but then I realised the layover was in New York City. Not only do I have friends there, but left to my own devices I could easily entertain myself in NYC for a day. So now this very simple idea to go to my dad’s house in rural East Tennessee has resulted in the opportunity to go to 3 cities for the same price. I just booked tickets to travel to 3 cities over 9 days, less than a week before I’m due to leave. That gave me a taste of the dream that I had lost focus on.

The ability and freedom to just go anywhere and go with the flow while still being able to run my business is very real and tangible over these 9 days. Instead of focusing on this conceptual goal, I’m (unintentionally) giving myself a taste of it. I don’t know why this never occurred to me before but I feel so reenergised and renewed because of it. And watching someone I love face their own mortality is a reminder that we only get so long to achieve what we want in this life. I want to be as content as my dad is with this when the time comes.

So how does this apply to you? Simple. If you are feeling like you’re losing focus or motivation, figure out a way to give yourself a little taste of the goal you’re working toward. It is easy to lose sight of a goal, but it’s imperative to recognise that and remind yourself of why you wanted this to begin with.  It’s like when your computer starts acting weird and you just restart it. This is a goal restart button. You don’t have to travel to another country or anything like that, you could do something really small for yourself, but do something. If your goal is never having to work another Monday again, bust your booty this week and take next Monday off. You’ll feel so good when you’re relaxing on Monday and that little taste of what achieving your goal is like will shift your mindset in way you wouldn’t believe.

If you decide to do this, please share your results in the comments below!

Posted: March 20, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy, Mindset Tagged With: , , ,

WedPlanner Pro Contest

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If you’re a wedding planner I’ve got an exciting contest for you!

wedplanner pro

WedPlanner Pro is an online application for professional wedding planners to keep your wedding business organized. The application is web based and does not require specific software or a specific type of computer to use. Your data lives securely in the internet cloud and can be accessed anywhere you go. WedPlanner Pro will help with the following:
  • Organize your client data and planning details
  • Give you a system to keep all information together such as specific documents and photos for each client
  • The tools needed to show estimates and actuals for your client’s wedding budgets
  • The ability to create time lines for yourself, clients and vendors

Adriaan, the founder of WedPlanner Pro is offering one lucky wedding planner a 1 year subscription to WedPlanner Pro free! I also heard there is a little something in it for everyone who enters the contest, so enter below!

The contest ends on 7th March 2013 at 12pm GMT and a winner will be chosen soon after. All you need to do is follow the instructions below to enter!

Not a wedding planner? Share this contest with your friends who plan weddings.

[BINKD_CONTEST_ID=7262]

Posted: February 28, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy, Marketing Tagged With: ,

How Trying To Appeal To Everyone Is Sabotaging Your Business

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“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody” Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby Photo

Photo by meandmybadself, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license

Here’s the truth: If you’re trying to appeal to everyone, you’re appealing to no one. Not everyone is going to love what you. Apple is a great example of this principle at work. Apple has incredibly loyal customers and is one of the most profitable businesses in the world, but there are people who hate their products.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but your marketing should focus only on the people who are most likely to make a purchase from you. You can’t be a perfect fit for everyone, and by trying to do so you’re flushing your marketing budget down the toilet. In this post I’ll show you how to narrow your focus in order to save money and attract better clients.

If you had a heart attack, would you rather see a cardiologist or a general practitioner? And to go even more in-depth, would you rather see a local cardiologist or one who has a lot of experience with patients who have had heart attacks? Cardiologists aren’t for everyone, but they are in demand by patients who fit their target market and tend to be paid significantly more than general practitioners are.

You can’t be everything to everyone, you have to focus. (Click here to tweet this!)

How do you focus? You figure out your niche and your target client. In the previous example, the niche is cardiology and the target client is a patient who has suffered a heart attack. You can hone in on the target client even more with a worksheet I’ll give you at the end of this article.

If you’ve been in business for a while, have a look back at your favourite clients. What do they have in common? You might be surprised at the patterns you find.

Do they all live in a certain area?
Do they all work in one particular industry?
Do they all love one particular sport?

These discoveries are gold because they tell you how to speak to your ideal client and where to find them. If your market shares a common interest, talk to them about that interest on your blog and then advertise in a publication that pertains to it. Show them real weddings that appeal to their tastes, not just any random wedding.

People love it when businesses “get” them and by getting to know your ideal client, you’ll find out what they want, what they value and what keeps them up at night. This is going to give you so much clarity when it comes to marketing and will save you loads of money.

Once you figure out who your ideal client is, speak only to them in your marketing. When you think about adding a new product or service in your business, ask yourself what your ideal client would think of it.

Are you ready to get laser-focused on your ideal client? Click here to download the worksheet!

Posted: February 10, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy Tagged With: , ,

What You Can Learn From 8 Top Wedding Bloggers

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One of the best ways to learn is to observe what is working for those who are already very successful. The idea of course is not to copy, but to see what you can apply to your own business. I’ve spent some time researching 8 of the top wedding bloggers to see what we can learn from them.

Kat Williams of Rock N Roll Bride

Photography Credit: www.madeulookphotography.com

Photography Credit: www.madeulookphotography.com

Kat is totally herself and is not afraid to speak her mind. Not everyone agrees with her, but that doesn’t stop her from voicing her opinion like she does in this post about weight loss and weddings.

What we can learn: No one is ever truly neutral and acting that way sets off people’s bullshit detectors. Not everyone is going to like everything you have to say and that’s okay. Be a human-have an opinion!

 

Sara Doron of Under the Vintage Veil

SaraSara is not afraid to share personal triumphs as well as personal struggles and I respect her so much for it.

What we can learn: Sharing personal stories (in moderation) can help your customers feel like they know you, even if they’ve never met you. People want to know the person behind the business. Take a look at this post and you’ll see that Sara turns her personal story into advice for people who might be going through something similar. It takes a lot of guts to share what’s going on in your life online, but people do respect it.

Kelly Hood of Boho Weddings

Boho PhotoKelly started blog to run alongside her wedding planning business. Her blog positioned her as an expert and took on a life of its own.

What we can learn: Blogs are very powerful tools for building your business. Kelly initially set up her blog to show more of her style to her brides and it went on to take on a life of it’s own. Brides now tend to find Kelly through her blog and then realise she plans weddings. This means she doesn’t need to advertise at all to get business, because her blog readers already love her style and see her as an expert.

Julia Braime of Brides Up North

Julia ImageJulia saw a neglected local market and turned it into a successful business. Julia says, “Whilst tinkering with my first attempt at blogging, it became apparent to me that whilst the United States is home to many gorgeous wedding blogs, I was aware of only a handful of great wedding blogs in the UK and of those none were area specific. Just as during my time working on the glossies, there was a heavy focus on London and the fantastic regional suppliers that I knew and loved were being side-lined.”

What we can learn: One unique approach you can bring to your business is to make it more focused on your local area. Julia went in the opposite direction that most wedding bloggers were going in. If you want to stand out, “zig” when everyone else is “zagging”

Cassandra Hipple of When Geeks Wed

Cassandra Hipple

Cassandra created When Geeks Wed to help inspire couples to put their own personal spin on their wedding. She was able to create this niche blog by tapping into her love of all things geeky.

What we can learn: Finding where your interests and lack of mainstream representation collide might just be a great place for a business. After all, no one knows the market better than those who are in it.
 
 

Ariel Meadow Stallings of Offbeat Bride

ariel stallingsThe Offbeat Empire is a great example of a business evolving over time. It all started when Ariel wrote a book about nontraditional weddings and launched a site to go along with it. People loved the website more than the book itself, so Ariel took the hint and developed Offbeat Bride. She was able to take what she learned with Offbeat Bride and go even deeper into the interests of her audience  with Offbeat Families and Offbeat Home.

What we can learn: Listen to your audience and don’t be afraid to evolve your business. If you see a way to add another related service or product to your business, go for it! There are likely other avenues that any business can look into and the topics of weddings, families and home all fit together nicely. This also allows the readers to stick around longer because the issues of family and home are much more permanent than planning a wedding.

Andrew Shanahan of Staggered

StaggeredMen are largely ignored in wedding publications, so Andrew created what is now the top resource for men getting married. It’s not that men weren’t interested in weddings, it’s that they weren’t being spoken to by other men or even asked for their opinion on the matter.

What we can learn: Media in every industry is particularly good at ignoring certain groups of people. You can make yourself stand out by speaking to that audience, giving them a voice and paying attention to what they want and need.

Dana LaRue of The Broke-Ass Bride

Dana LaRueDana started The Broke-Ass Bride when she got engaged to share her journey and experience in planning her own wedding on a budget. Her blog is all about making the most of what you’re got. Her message has really resonated with a lot of couples because the issue of money in planning a wedding was, and still is largely ignored in a lot of wedding publications.

What we can learn: Dana became super successful in a very crowded market because of her unique perspective. She writes about wedding planning and wedding inspiration but she also writes about the finances of making it all happen. Dana has been able to build a large following because they relate to her and she makes them feel like it’s okay to not spend a ton on their weddings.

Bonus Lesson

Notice that all of these successful bloggers have distinct target markets and unique voices. They don’t aim to please everyone because it’s impossible to do. You don’t need everyone to love you, a small loyal following is often more than enough.

Learning from others is one of the best ways to figure out what is and isn’t working. During the week of 25th February, I am hosting a free online event called Wedding Business Evolution Summit. This event brings together some of the best marketing and business minds in our industry for you to learn from.

Posted: February 4, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy, Website Tagged With: , , ,

The Truth About Being Yourself In Business

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If I visited your website and then met you, would it be the same experience? If you wouldn’t say something in real life, don’t say it on your website. People want to buy from real people, not weird faceless businesses.

I know that if I were hiring someone for something as personal as a wedding, I’d want to know them as a person first. Here are some great statistics from Splendid Insights:

  • 75% of couples want their wedding to be FUN. Show that what you do contributes to that.
  • Detail shots get you published, but people shots get you hired. Photos of guests dancing, having fun helps close the sale.
  • Creativity is the top trait millennials think people should possess, so explain your process to show that you are.
  • Most importantly, be yourself. The possibility of becoming friends with their wedding pros matters to 49% of couples.

Be real! Like these amazing ladies…

Marie Forleo

Marie Forleo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marie is goofy, fun, brilliant and does not hesitate to rap in her videos. She has worked with Richard Branson and Oprah but she had never let the pressure of that stamp out her unique personality. Even her training course is called “Rich, Happy & Hot B-School”, which is not a standard boring name for a business training product. Marie is true to herself and people respect her for it.

The Daily Whip-Erika Lyremark

The Daily Whip

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Erika worked as a stripper for 9 years and she uses that to set herself apart for everyone else in her industry. Her website speaks directly to her target market: women who need want to whip their businesses into shape. Have a look at her about page to see how she has made her work as a stripper the crown jewel of her business: http://dailywhip.com/about/.

The Middle Finger Project-Ashley Ambirge

The Middle Finger Project

 

 

 

 

 

Ashley Ambirge cracks me up with every blog post she writes. She is real, raw and doesn’t sugar coat her advice. She will tell you to get off your ass and take some action and her audience loves it.

These women are not for everyone, but it’s just like the taste of Marmite: You either love it, or you hate it.

For those of you in the US or if you just haven’t heard of Marmite, it’s this incredibly strong tasting spread made from yeast extract. I think it’s awful but my husband loves it.

You can’t be all things to all people but by being yourself, the people who like you can get to really know you and fall in love you and what you offer. Have you ever met someone and said “I really liked that person we just met, they made sure to please everyone and had no opinions about anything”? The same thing applies to business, especially small businesses.

Finally, there aren’t many original ideas left in this world so your best bet for standing out is making your business reflect your personality.

Take Action!

1. Do you have a photo of yourself on your site? I have a baby photo in my professional bio. This is a creative profession, get creative!

2. Read your website content out loud. Does it sound like how you do when you speak? If not, have a think about how you could change it to sound more like how you speak.

Posted: February 1, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy, Mindset Tagged With: , ,

15 Business Lessons I’ve Learned The Hard Way

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Build Measure Learn

Source: http://stanfy.com/approach/

1. Entrepreneurship is more like science than I ever thought. It isn’t simply failure or success. It’s the scientific method at work. (Click to tweet this)

2. School lied to us. You don’t have to be good at everything. If you hate accounting, hire someone to do it for you. That would be cheating in school but in the real world it allows you to focus on income-generating activities. (Click to tweet this)

3. There is no right or wrong way to run your business (aside from basic ethics). (Click to tweet this)

4. There is no such thing as work/life balance when you are 100% in love with what you do. (Click to tweet this)

5. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to market well. (Click to tweet this)

6. Those who have been there, done that are the best teachers. The internet makes them more accessible than ever. (Click to tweet this)

7. You don’t have to follow any set formula like in other careers. If you want to work 1 day per week, you can structure your business in a way that makes that possible. (Click to tweet this)

8. You can’t expect to grow (both in business and as a person) unless you continue to learn. (Click to tweet this)

9. A traditional business plan is worthless if it isn’t actionable. This type of a plan only interests banks. It’s important to keep your goals visible so that you can be sure you’re keeping on track and that won’t happen if you have a traditional business plan sitting in a drawer somewhere. (Click to tweet this)

10. Don’t get married to one way of doing things. If you find a better way to achieve your goal, do it that way. (Click to tweet this)

11. Build it and they will come is a load of bullshit. It’s important to know what your customer wants before you spend time and money building it. I learned this from The Lean Startup. (Click to tweet this)

12. You only learn by taking action so stop overanalysing and launch something. Business is one big continual experiment. (Click to tweet this)

13.  people say they want and what they’ll really pay for are often two different things (Click to tweet this)

14. Your business is not for everyone, so stop trying to make it appeal to everyone. (Click to tweet this)

15. Observe what the entrepreneurs you look up to do regularly and see if there are commonalities that you can emulate. (Click to tweet this)

Posted: February 1, 2013 Filed Under: Business Strategy Tagged With: ,
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