5 Wedding Pros Share Exactly What Helped Them Book More Weddings & Raise Their Prices

In this episode we’ll cover:

• How different wedding pros overcame slow bookings and started attracting their ideal clients
• What changes helped them raise their prices with confidence
• How they figured out where their best leads were actually coming from
• Why doing less but being more intentional made a big impact
• The mindset shifts that helped them stop spinning their wheels and start booking more weddings
• How they used a marketing plan to stop guessing and start seeing results
• What worked for them when social media and directories weren’t delivering the right leads

5 Wedding Pros Share Exactly What Helped Them Book More Weddings & Raise Their Prices

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
Struggling to get more bookings, Feeling kind of stuck in your wedding business. You are so not alone. Today, you are going to hear directly from five wedding pros who have completely transformed their businesses. They went from overwhelmed and underbooked to fully booked, raising their prices and finally attracting the right clients. Sound like the kind of thing you need. Let’s dive in.

0:00:26 – Intro
In a world where wedding professionals are struggling to market and grow their businesses, one podcast brings together top experts and actionable strategies to help you build the wedding business of your dreams. This is the Evolve your Wedding Business podcast.

0:00:59 – Heidi Thompson
Here is your host, heidi Thompson. Hey there, my friend, welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, heidi Thompson, and I help wedding professionals just like you, make their marketing easier, book more weddings with clients they love and build a business that gives them freedom and flexibility. And if you’ve ever felt like you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall with your marketing and you’re unsure of what actually works, this episode is for you. The wedding pros that I am joined by in this episode share exactly what changed everything for them, so you can apply it to your own business as well. You’ll hear from a wedding planner who went from one booking and really struggling to get another one to 29 in about the course of a year, a live wedding painter who blew his booking goals out of the water, a couple who run multiple successful businesses in the wedding industry, and a stationary designer and a live wedding painter who has really found what works for her to easily attract and book her dream clients. And what works to attract and book ideal clients is different for each one of them and they each created their unique marketing plans inside the Wedding Business Collective.

But before we dive in, if you love this episode, take a screenshot, share it on Instagram and tag me at Evolve your Wedding Business so I can cheer you on and, of course, answer any of your questions about what we talk about today. And if you’re ready to stop struggling with bookings and get real results, like these wedding pros, I want to invite you to join us in the Wedding Business Collective my membership that these wedding pros are a part of. You will learn more about it in this episode and you can get a $1 trial for your first 30 days at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/invite. Now let’s jump into the conversation and hear how these five wedding pros made the shift from stuck to thrive. Let’s do a few introductions so people know who they’re talking to. Katie, do you want to take it first? Tell us a little bit about you, your business, who you work with, all that good stuff.

0:03:14 – Katie
Yeah, hi. So I actually have two jobs right now. I have a nine to five on top of being a wedding planner. I am based in Greensboro, north Carolina, and my business is in its second year, and so so pretty early on, right? What were the other things I needed to mention?

0:03:37 – Heidi Thompson
Tell us a bit about you, your business and, yeah, I guess, how long have we been working together about? We were about a year. Yeah, working together About a year would you say yeah, yeah.

0:03:47 – Katie
About a year now. I discovered Heidi at the last summit and I dilly-dallied in joining the WBC, but once I did which I think was like in March or at least late February of last year things really turned around for me. So I’m definitely happy to talk about Heidi and The Wedding Business Collective and everything.

0:04:11 – Heidi Thompson
I’m so excited to talk about your journey. If anyone’s seen her case study, it is so awesome. I’m so pumped with how things are going for you and your business. Elyse, tell us a little bit about you and your business.

0:04:25 – Elyse
Yeah, so my name is Elyse and I am the artist I guess is like the most broad way to describe myself for EStokes Creations. I like try to say it really slowly now, because I had someone tell me it sounded like I was saying East Oaks, I’m like no E Stokes, so East Stokes Creations and I do custom wedding invitations and live wedding paintings.

I started my business back in 2018, which I can talk more about in a little bit and then have gratefully discovered Heidi as of July of last year, when I fell and broke my leg, and then ended up like finding out about the summit like, I think like a day before it was going to start, and then just kind of like have done a deep dive ever since then. So, yeah, I’m excited to be here and like talk more about my experience with things and yeah, I’m just happy to be here.

0:05:26 – Heidi Thompson
I’m happy and you have such an interesting combination. I don’t think many people are combining the worlds of live painting and stationary and you bring those two together.

0:05:38 – Elyse
Yeah, that’s. My whole thing is like trying to basically provide art for couples that enjoy that kind of thing. So I do like the watercolor on the invitations and then do acrylic painting on the actual wedding day. So that kind of from the first introduction that guests get to literally the end of the reception, I am providing intentional art.

0:06:00 – Heidi Thompson
So yeah, Chris, tell us about you and your business. Chris, tell us about you and your business.

0:06:06 – Chris
Hello everyone. Yes, I’m Chris Cook and I began WDDNG Painter, that’s wedding without the vowels. At the time I couldn’t afford the vowels, so we just went with the consonants.

0:06:21 – Heidi Thompson
We charge extra for those yeah they do, they really do. It’s like Wheel of Fortune.

0:06:26 – Chris
Yeah, I’ve been an oil painter for, I think, about 12 years, maybe a little longer than that. My journey into wedding painting which I’m another wedding painter so we have an odd representation here because I think of wedding vendors wedding painters are a very small percentage of wedding painting it began with people requesting commissions to deciding to go all in. Just a couple of years ago actually, I just really fresh to going all in on the wedding industry and promoting it, I think part of my motivation, both loving it but also having moved to Seattle and starting a family. And now my baby is like nine months old and I felt desperate to become a super dad and business owner. A super dad and business owner. And my journey over the last decade has been, you know, from you know starving artist who has zero business sense, to more and more of an entrepreneur. To now that I’ve joined the Wedding Business Collective, I’ve just you know, just you know skyrocketed in my business savvy. It’s really made a huge difference.

I’ve been in the Wedding Business Collective for just a few months now and I’ll tell you what. In the very first month I knew right away like I am stick, I’m sticking around, I’m staying, I’m here because it’s not only well worth more than a dollar, it’s well worth more than the monthly costs. I’ve already booked way more weddings since I’ve applied the things that Heidi’s taught me, and it’s going to pay for itself. I’m already I’m well into the next year of being in the Wedding Business Collective. You reviewed my website, which I’m still working on. You reviewed my 90-day and 60 and 30-day plans, which my main 90-day plan was a certain number of booked consultations. I have officially already met my goal, which was for the end of March, and we’re just through, you know, getting to toward the mid-end February. So it’s going very well. Thank you, heidi.

0:09:23 – Heidi Thompson
Hey, good for you for doing the work that is awesome. I’m so excited for you, LaShelle, and Don, tell us about you and your many businesses. I feel like it’s your coat of many colors Like look at all my businesses.

0:09:38 – Don
Yeah, that kind of is how it worked out. So we started off as a DJ company. We both had a love of music. I was actually working as a KJ for a different company that moved to Nashville and we’re located in Iowa, so I wasn’t going to follow the company at the time. And then I met Don and he had a love for music as well, and so in the meantime he was like we should start a company, and I had no idea where that was going to take us. So we started the DJ company in 2012. We started doing weddings in 2013.

0:10:11 – LaShelle
And then we were Well, and once we got into the wedding industry, people were asking for all kinds of other things. And because me and two of my sons have bartending experience, cooking experience, security experience, then we just started doing almost anything and everything, but the only thing we didn’t do was photography. So, yeah, we would go bartend events, we would do security for events, especially during COVID. You were doing planning for events. We had other friends that were working for us.

So then we became managers, producers, I don’t know what you know we were booking for magicians and clowns and comedians and other like bands and local singers and stuff at venues, with our goal always to eventually save up enough money to own our own venue right.

0:11:02 – Don
Right, and even before we started our company, my day job when I was working for the karaoke company my day job was I was an event planner for a university, so I was used to doing the event planning. So when we started doing the DJing and I always joke that in the Midwest planners are not normal in that sense A lot of brides just kind of DIY. They don’t plan on having a planner, it’s not something they search for, and so then what ends up happening is at the actual wedding event. A lot of times people look at the DJ and are like, oh, they have a microphone, they know what’s going on, and no.

So I stepped in and the role of making sure that when anybody hired our DJ company they got complimentary planning and coordinating. Then during the time that the DJ was there, which then became actually kind of a trend in this area A lot of DJs now have a coordinator that works with them and helps them do all that side of stuff. So it kind of started that movement around this area. Now planners and coordinators are more sought after in this area, which is great, but in that process we, like you said, we were always working towards potentially having our own venue, and so actually just this past year, on 2024, we bought an event venue that we’re currently sitting in, so we now are running an event venue, still doing our DJ event company.

And then my planning, which I only did through the DJ company um, because I’m also crazy and I’m finishing my PhD at the same time uh was just, I didn’t really focus on the planning side of things, but now I have pulled that out and that’s our third company. So we have three wedding companies that kind of all work in tandem together, and that’s us in a nutshell. You guys have like an ecosystem that feeds into each other, which is so cool.

0:12:42 – LaShelle
I don’t think it’s just wedding, though. I mean, we do other events, yeah I mean we, we mc and dj, corporate events and yeah, yeah, I mean the bulk of it, yes, is wedding. But what I’d say, what 15 percent maybe, is other events.

0:12:57 – Don
Yeah, okay, like weddings better well, I’m curious.

0:13:03 – Heidi Thompson
Let me ask you first what were things like for you in the business, which was just the one business at the time when you joined the collective, which was a few years ago now.

0:13:16 – Don
Yeah, things were moving forward, but very, very slowly, and I felt Did we join before COVID or after COVID? I think during? Yeah, I think that’s kind of when we found everything is because we were stuck at home. We’re like, hey, look, online education, and so that’s how we found stuff, and so I think it was actually the August of 2020 that we joined.

And so I would say for me, doing kind of the business side of stuff I do a lot of the paperwork, creating the templates and things like that for our clients to fill out things. Along those lines, it was very much kind of an island. Right, there wasn’t any place that I could go to to say, hey, does this look? Okay, Is this something that people make sense to you? Because it makes sense in my brain, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense in anybody else’s brain. And so I was doing a lot of that on my own and then by joining the collective, I was able to really kind of get more feedback from more people and make connections and actually make connections with other planners and other areas of the country and compare trends and ideas and things.

0:14:25 – LaShelle
That way, too, I think for me, because I have ADD and my poor wife has to put up with it and it’s I mean, it’s horrible. Even on medication it’s not good. So even in my personal life, I’m always trying to find some, you know, piece of paper that helps me plan out my day. Or you know, a computer program like ClickUp or Todoist or whatever, and a lot of the stuff that we got, especially from coming on and listening to Heidi and then eventually talking to some other vendors. You know that dealt with the same kind of issue, but a lot of stuff from Heidi about how to narrow down and focus and get rid of some of the distractions. You know, how do you, how do you find your ideal client?

You know, a lot of times I was just, you know, like throwing spaghetti at every client and whatever client it stuck to, then they would get the marinara sauce, you know. So being able to shrink that down and focus on stuff, then, that really, I think was the big impetus of not of getting away from thumbtack and getting away from wedding wire and getting away from all of those other places. That that’s where all of the cheap bottom feeder, which is fine if you’re just starting out and getting your name out there. But once you’re established I mean, we’ve been doing this for over 12 years you know now we’re priced where we need to be priced. We’re priced at what we’re worth, and if somebody doesn’t, you know want to pay that, then they’re probably not our ideal client?

0:16:13 – Heidi Thompson
yeah, absolutely, and I mean you guys know I never shut up about ideal clients because I want you to be able to book and work with the people you want to work with, and it’s your marketing so much easier. Um, Elyse, I’m curious what were things like for you when you first joined?

0:16:23 – Elyse
So I am laughing because I literally like sometimes it helps me process, like to like type things out. I’m like, okay, this is what the question is. So, like here’s like a few bullet points of what I want. I literally wrote out the throwing spaghetti up the wall.

And so, when you said that, I was like, oh, kindred spirit, like that’s so real, like so, like I mentioned when I did my introduction, I started in 2018 and I started with just the wedding stationary side of things. Um, and then added live wedding painting a couple of years ago now, and literally, like I went to college for international affairs, like I thought I was going to work in the government and like that’s not what I’m doing anymore. Um, and so I don’t have a business background. I didn’t study fine art in college. Like it’s just been kind of a passion that I’ve had on the side of my whole life. And so, um, when I got things started, it really like, literally it started because I did my own wedding invitations, fell in love with the wedding industry and then realized, like I want to have my own business. I don’t really love working for other people. Um, and so my husband and I like invested in different things along the way and you know, gratefully, things have been growing over the past few years.

But before I joined, I definitely feel like I was like the classic oh, this is a trend that like is coming up for like how to run your business, and I like wasn’t I wasn’t like hunkered down in any particular area Like I.

I just was like, oh, like you know, I I I definitely think I have undiagnosed ADHD and so like it’s like oh squirrel, like that looks really good. I think I’m going to try that for a little oh squirrel, I think I’m going to try oh and, and that just kind of became my business model, honestly, and like I would have goals but I wouldn’t know how to get there, like with any sort of like practicality. I feel like I just kind of was on this hamster wheel of like trying to keep grinding and keep making it work and then ended up having my son in April of 2023 and have stayed home with him ever since. So now this is like my full-time thing, but I still don’t feel like I totally knew like how to pursue the clients that I wanted until I joined the collective, which I’m sure that’s what we’ll get into next, but that’s the long story short into next. So, but that’s that’s the long story short of before.

0:19:09 – Heidi Thompson
Oh really, oh my God, you were so not alone there. That’s like everybody, believe me like feeling pulled in a million directions. That’s not just you, katie. Tell us about how things were for you, cause you were pretty new in your business when you first joined yes, so, um, when I first joined, I had one uh client, um period.

0:19:33 – Katie
That was it, um and um, I think, actually. But when I did join, I would had just finished my first client and I had no one else on the books and um I, so I had tons of time. I had so much time because I, honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing um for, for any, for any of it, I guess I should say Um, I. I mean, I had pretty, pretty good sense of how to do a handful of things and especially in terms of wedding planning, my specialty um, of course, of course, um. But in terms of running a business, I had no idea what I was doing.

Um, I really uh, the um, at least mentioning the undiagnosed ADHD. Really, really, that made me laugh, cause I’m I, that’s, that’s me too. I felt. I felt that to my core, um, uh, so, um, it’s just a lot of, a lot of a lot of things. Um, I definitely have a bit uh monkey brain going on. Um, it’s oh sparkly. Hey, look over there. Uh, throwing spaghetti at the wall, kind of thing. Um and um. Talking to and learning from heidi is really helped me to be able to focus Um and since joining the WBC, I have since sold 25 weddings.

0:20:58 – Don
Um, I’m just dancing over here. I’m so proud of you.

0:21:03 – Katie
So, yeah, it’s been. It’s been 16 in just the last um six and a half weeks, so it’s really taken off. I’ve been um very, very hardcore um working on marketing and um and taking very seriously like the things that Heidi has um has has taught me um. Some of them I need to revisit um, cause I’ve been a little bit in the overwhelmed stage.

Um, and that’s some of them I need to revisit Cause I’ve been a little bit in the overwhelmed stage and that’s just where I’m at right now and I’m okay with it. I’m at terms with that because I know it’s also not forever, something that I feel I feel supported by in terms of, like Heidi support. I also have another coach that I also uh, find support from Um and yeah, I guess before the WBC, I had no idea what I was doing and now I actually feel like I know how to run a business, I know how to delegate and I’m actually right now in the process of um hiring my first one possibly two people for planning positions, which is very exciting, and yeah, it’s kind of where it’s at right now.

0:22:17 – Heidi Thompson
I love it. I love hearing that. Thank you for sharing all of that, chris. Where were you at? Because you’ve been an artist, you were kind of moving into the wedding space. What was it like for you when you joined, I want to say in December?

0:22:36 – Chris
Yeah, it was in December. Yeah, you’re right. I’m really relating to everybody here on the panel about the goals and overwhelm. I think that’s true for a lot of entrepreneurs and for me, where I was was, yeah, really knowing that I was going to need a whole new approach from what I had been doing, because, while I had been running an art business and, to you know, a great deal of success relative to what you know, I feel very lucky because I know as an artist how hard it can be to make an income In LA. I really felt like I was just getting lucky.

I really that’s what I felt was happening and I had a lot of ideas, a lot of goals, all of which I wanted done yesterday continuously, just a continuous sense of all of it needs to be done. All of it should have already been done. And how do I even begin to sort through it and prioritize? Now? I feel like I’m learning a lot about business in the Wedding Business Collective, of course. However, for me personally, the real value is also just the accountability, like I’m learning.

But I also am here with you and have the community and you know, I realized I need a little handholding. I need a little bit of handholding, because, as an entrepreneur working alone, I think that there’s a big difference between the regular nine to five job, where you have a company that has all of the answers as to what is the value that you need to be bringing um and what value to bring today and this week and you know, working for myself, it’s been like I have a lot of the answers, but you know, who am I telling, who am I soundboarding off of as to? It’s very easy to even just feel lost when there’s no echo. You’re just walking into darkness and there’s no one to tell you that they see you, they see you, you know, and so I think that that’s a lot of what I’m getting here, too. Is is getting to be like is this an okay, is this an okay path that I’m on, and sometimes it’s redirecting and sometimes it’s like yeah, you’re okay, and and both a lot of redirecting to be honest.

0:25:25 – Elyse
Honestly, I need that sometimes yeah honestly, I was gonna say like I’m sure that’s kind of the next thing that we’re gonna get into is like our experience now, and so I figured I would kind of piggyback off of that.

Like I feel like the guidance that Heidi brings to the table, like when we’re in a mastermind call or we have get it done days, which I think we’ve got kind of a micro get it done tomorrow, have Heidi there to kind of help brainstorm, but then if you’ve been part of the networking sessions that we’ve had so far for the summit, like that is literally the exact same kind of environment that we have for like networking and mastermind calls, like with Heidi too, where we can kind of bring questions to the table and get intentional feedback from Heidi herself, but then also like within the like circle of other like-minded business pros.

Because I mean, I don’t know like, if you have experienced this, like when you’re looking for like business tips and it’s not wedding specific, it can just feel really awkward or like sleazy.

And I feel like a lot of people get into owning their own wedding business because we’re coming from a place of like empathy and joy and your wedding day is supposed to be really fun, and I feel like that’s kind of the like community that we have inside of the collective and like, yeah, I just I feel like the members within as well have really great insights, and Heidi obviously has this incredible panel of all of these people that she’s had that are donating their time to create these different lessons for all of us. And I was bragging in the networking session earlier that that’s how I found Sarah does SEO and I like was able to like rework my website really intentionally because of that, and so I don’t know, I just feel like there’s so many like really really valuable assets to being part of the collective that like I don’t know, I just I really feel like it’s it’s just been so much fun and I feel like I can’t sing Heidi’s praises enough for curating this experience for us as wedding professionals.

0:27:56 – Heidi Thompson
So yeah, thank you for sharing that, because that’s something that’s really important to me in the collective and why it’s called that is like it’s not just me coaching you, helping you, strategizing. Yes, I have this path for you to follow. I help you every step along the way, but I don’t necessarily know everything in the world. You know like there may be something you need another perspective on. Or maybe you want to hear from a planner like LaShelle, like Katie, like how would you guys react if I approach a planner in this particular way or if I propose this sort of collaboration? Like it gives you that more like open group sort of mastermind kind of feel to it. Elyse, tell us what things are like for you now, because you know when you first started obviously different situation you also had like one less leg to work with the drama, yeah, I.

0:29:06 – Elyse
So I definitely am really excited because one of the things I literally feel like my ass was just completely kicked when I first joined the collective, because I just kind of realized, like I had said earlier, I feel like I was just on this hamster wheel and doing the things because I felt like those were the right things to be doing. And I swear to God, I will never forget when Heidi literally called me out and was like but is that even like, like, what’s the return on investment? For how much time you’re trying to like figure out Instagram? Like, how many clients are you actually getting from Instagram? How many clients are you actually getting from? And I literally was like, oh, like my God, I am literally wasting time for nothing in return. And I think that that was a really huge like brain blast moment.

And so then it became okay like well, where are your referrals already coming from? Like what’s already working? And like, yeah, sure, like work on Instagram, but like, don’t be like slaving over making Instagram work for you when, like, there’s no evidence that that’s where your people are coming from anyway. And so we ended up realizing that, like, my top two are like referrals from other wedding planners or venues that I’ve worked with, and then bridal shows, and so I ended up like really kind of investing in like okay, well, how do I foster these relationships with other planners? How do I create new relationships with new planners? How can I like scratch your back and hope that like maybe you’ll scratch my back in return one day? How can I put myself out there? But then also like what strategies do I want to put in for bridal shows and like how can I be marketing myself most effectively there?

And so it’s been really cool because like last year, for example, gosh, I mean I broke my leg halfway through the year and then was still like I think I still like doubled the year before with like how many clients I ended up being able to serve just in like the second half of the year, as I was like starting to like figure things out again and like anyway, it’s just been really cool because I feel like it’s helped me kind of put blinders on a little bit, and not that I’m like not still squirreling out about things every now and then, but like it’s helped me to kind of take a more critical look at my business and myself in order to most effectively try to like keep moving forward. So I definitely I mean, I feel like there’s like a zillion and a half other things that I can talk about, but I would say like because profit is like such a massive deal. That’s kind of where my brain goes first and foremost.

0:32:05 – Heidi Thompson
I love scrolling out. I’m going to use that. That is excellent. I’ve never heard it used as that like kind of verb. I think it’s a really good point that you called out here that you know we figured out.

Okay, you’re spending all this time in this place and it’s just not giving you anything. And I think our natural tendency is to do the whole like squeaky wheel gets the oil sort of thing, like that thing’s broken, that thing’s not working, I need to go fix that thing. But it’s like, yeah, but what if you didn’t? And what if you did more of the things that are working and then we can get you this surge of inquiries and bookings. I am all about look, if we can take the lazy way, if we can take the most straightforward path to getting you more bookings, I’m all for it.

And you said your main two have been, you know, referral and wedding shows. That is so different across all of the members of The Wedding Business Collective and what we do is we help you figure out what is that thing for you, because there is no magic. I’m sorry, there’s no magic. One place, one thing, one set of things that you do, and then you get all these bookings. It’s so dependent on you, the business owner, what the business is, who your ideal clients are, where they are and what makes sense for you to spend time on Don and LaShelle. I’m really curious to hear about where you are now, because I mean well, first of all, you guys went from one to three businesses, so that’s a huge transformation.

0:33:46 – Don
Yes, so we, when we joined it helped us kind of focus in on because we were coming off of 2019. I feel like when we had 50 plus weddings that we did that year with our dj company, to 2020, when everything got shut down on top of that we were doing four name that tunes a week, three karaoke gigs a week.

0:34:08 – LaShelle
I mean we were yeah, we were hustling we own at that time and well, and still today, we own other businesses that aren’t wedding industry related.

We own a modern day game store, so modern day board games and D&D and Magic, the Gathering, pokemon and that kind of stuff. I have a construction company, uh, which is why we built this up with so I could retire from doing construction. I don’t really like crawling around on the floor putting down baseboard and all that kind of stuff anymore and I really don’t like doing any construction in the wintertime. So so we’ve kind of we took the one business, the game business and turned it to only an online during the pandemic.

And then the construction company. I really only do certain jobs for certain people, like if somebody calls me and wants a bid for doing baseboard, I will give them a bid five times what the industry standard is in our area. If they’ll pay that, I guess I’ll still do it, but I tell them it’s going to be expensive and there are other people that would do it cheaper.

0:35:13 – Don
So the Wedding Business Collective really helped us during the pandemic kind of refocus how we were going to adjust with everything that was happening in the wedding industry from the DJ perspective and not having in-person weddings or not, you know, having micro weddings and things along those lines. So we had to kind of adjust how we were going to do that until things started writing itself again and we were able to then adjust with that and regrow very quickly because of using the strategies that are within the Wedding Business Collective. And then that helped us be able to purchase the wedding venue, which then started the process within the Wedding Business Collective all over again, because it’s an entire different business and it’s a tire. In some senses it’s almost an entire different clientele because you’re reaching that, even if we’re reaching the same clients, we’re reaching them at different time periods of when they’re in their planning process, so they’re actually looking for different things even though they might be the same person. So we had to go from.

Most times people are finding DJs, you know, within six months, sometimes even three months out from the wedding, where the venue is happening a year to two years before the wedding, and so those clients are very different even though it’s the same client, and so now if people find us for the venue, ideally they can find us as the DJ way earlier, because we incorporated that into our stuff.

But we had to refocus how do we reach people a year and a half earlier than what we’re used to reaching them? So that really kind of changed how we had to look at stuff. And so then we kind of went through this more than once and I haven’t fully gone through it again for the third time with the planning company because that I’m not focusing on that yet. We just created it. So then that way it wasn’t so confusing to other vendors when they were at our venue that a DJ company was sending them a timeline kind of idea which made it weird for them. So creating this separate company is in the works and it will become a fully like established thing, but I’m not focusing on it quite yet.

0:37:17 – Heidi Thompson
And I’m glad you bring up that point, because even your own other businesses it’s different. It’s a different marketing lifecycle, it’s a different client, even though there’s going to be some overlap. And when most people join the collective, they’re joining because they don’t know what to do with their marketing. They don’t know how to attract the people they want to work with, they don’t know how to book more of those people. What does your marketing look like now? What are you guys doing to bring people in, and how has that changed?

0:37:50 – Don
Yeah, so we, our websites between the two companies look very different. Even so, we we really kind of focus on making sure that that’s going in that direction. But, like as an example, I’m looking into potentially doing some blogging and things that way for the wedding venue side, which we’ve never really looked at trying to do from the DJ perspective because we didn’t need to. We were the top DJ in the area even before we joined the Wedding Collective. If you Google for the DJ in our area, we’re the top company that comes up when for the wedding venue.

0:38:22 – LaShelle
Top unpaid. Sorry, there are DJs that pay for sponsorship on Google.

0:38:30 – Don
But for the wedding venue, when you search in our area we come up somewhere between 10th and 20th, because we’ve got two towns that are near where our wedding venue is that we would pull from primarily, and so it’s a lot lower. We’re working on trying to raise that, so I’m having to go through a different process and so that’s one of the things that kind of looking at that marketing structure. That’s something that I’m digging into.

0:38:54 – LaShelle
So I remember and I’m sorry if this is a little off topic, but something that Heidi said. Well, something that Heidi said reminded me of this very early on. I remember in one of the things Heidi saying and I’ve heard this from other people, but until Heidi said it and then we had a discussion about it don’t do what you don’t do. Well, I was spending so many fucking hours trying to do QuickBooks, like I literally would spend, you know, four to six hours every Sunday trying to do QuickBooks, and then I’m just like this is nuts. So we hired an accountant that could do it in like an hour and again, not related to wedding, but in those six hours I could inventory several thousand dollars worth of magic cards and make, you know, several thousand dollars for the month.

0:39:43 – Don
Or you made several playlists which then led into our Name that Tune gigs and we were running Name that Tune four nights a week. So that was another way that we were able to bring in money quickly to support other things that we needed to do.

0:39:56 – LaShelle
You have to know. Even as somebody that makes stationery or somebody that is an artist and paints a painting, you know, you need to know. Okay, if the painting is two foot by two foot, how long does it take you to paint this? What’s the value of that? If it takes you five hours and it’s a $500 painting, that’s a hundred dollars an hour. So if you’re spending 10 hours doing accounting and you could pay somebody else 100 bucks to do it in an hour, you could use that time to be making money doing other things and then I’m really glad you brought this up.

0:40:30 – Heidi Thompson
This keeps coming up this week the concept of opportunity cost, of if I spend my money, uh, or if I spend my time on 10, $20 an hour tasks, I am not spending my time on $100,000, $10,000 an hour tasks.

0:40:47 – LaShelle
Right, and I kept telling myself that I had more time than money, and it took listening to you and other people in the group explaining that to us for us to be like, yeah, no, you don’t have more time.

0:40:59 – Don
In other words, not listening to his wife.

0:41:01 – Heidi Thompson
But yes thank you, heidi, thank you, heidi, happy to back you up. I appreciate it.

0:41:08 – LaShelle
And then the other thing, going back to the advertising, is that we’re we have kind of split our advertising to where she does the pretty. This is the wedding industry. It needs to look nice, it needs to look elegant, you know all of those things. So on Facebook I will still I don’t, I don’t touch Instagram but on Facebook I will still occasionally throw up a music meme on our you know DJ thing. And then we just started a few months ago for our event venue, my son and I do reviews on TikTok and we only review alcohol. And just like today, how I was.

0:41:47 – Katie
We should preface the talk built in so this is an area that he also has a lot of knowledge in.

0:41:56 – Don
So when they do the tastings they’re actually comparing notes as far as the flavors and the smells and all of those things and giving reviews on this. Sorry, go ahead.

0:42:03 – LaShelle
But just like I was honest earlier and and Elyse, you liked that I said you know, throw the spaghetti. That’s how we are in our reviews. They’re not edited, it’s straight up our opinion. You can tell if we don’t like something by the look on our face. We don’t always agree on what we’re drinking and you know we just throw it out there and we always preface it with don’t be afraid to try it just because we didn’t like it. Everybody’s palates different. It might be a bourbon that you love or a rum that you love or whatever, um, but it has really started to gain us traction and it’s completely different than our facebook or our instagram or our website or any of the other social medias that we’re doing. And I think sometimes you have to have that other side of you somewhere that people can see, so they can see you’re a real person. You’re not just this stock pretty photo, you know, from a wedding page. You know you didn’t fall out of. Brides are us kind of thing.

0:43:04 – Don
Yeah, well said, and tour and found out that we had this going on on TikTok and the groom was very much interested in the bar area, of course, and so he actually started looking us up on TikTok and they’re looking at booking us because of seeing how real we are on TikTok. But yet she loves the prettiness that we have within and the planning and all that side of stuff that I’m doing within the Facebook and Instagram side of stuff. So the fact that we kind of have both sides shows a well-rounded version and different platforms are reaching different types of people or different components of our well-roundedness.

0:43:43 – Heidi Thompson
That’s so interesting. Like you’re speaking to the different customers in different ways, I love that you’re doing that as part of your marketing and that was something that we did.

0:43:53 – Don
That was kind of what set us off originally in the DJ realm when we started before we even knew you. Is that because we’re a husband and wife team before we even knew you? Is that because we’re a husband and wife team that we think about both the bride and the groom’s perspective and what’s important to both the bride and groom and how that’s going to play out, as well as kind of what are you going to remember five, 10 years down the road? Because we have been through that in that way and we talk about that all the time. So it’s definitely a unique thing that I enjoy that we are able to bring and you kind of get who we are. We were pretty open with everybody, as you can tell.

0:44:31 – Heidi Thompson
I love you guys so that I guarantee is going to be different. So we just talked to Elyse, who main things are referrals and wedding shows With Don and LaShelle
. We’re seeing like the different facets. Katie, what does your marketing look like? Oh, hang on, you are muted.

0:44:55 – Katie
There we go, yeah, okay, yeah. So my marketing I actually have like a little thing. So there is a difference between, like, where I’m getting my leads from and which leads are quality leads, and bookings, which is something that the really big difference. So referrals are going to be my top. They’re always pretty much my highest percentages. And then so is Google, for, in terms of which leads actually book, um, and I was wrong earlier it’s 29 weddings. Um, it’s 29 weddings, not 25 that I’ve booked in the last year, um, anyway. So, um, I was looking at my stats again and it looks like for me, even though I get, I got like 54% historically, I’ve gotten 54% of my leads through Facebook. However, only like 30% of those leads end up actually booking, whereas like referrals, it’s like 100%, like two thirds to 100% will go from leads to bookings. The problem with being a relatively new business is that I don’t have a lot of referrals yet, but they are starting to come in. I’m now like.

So one of the strategies that I’ve been having is actually doing venue tours, and when you go to the venue tour, you need to go with a plan. Um, so you can’t just show up and be like show me around. You actually want to be like yeah, so what? So? So I’m a planner, so I’m like so, how? Uh? So tell me about how it is working with other planners. Tell me, like what you like, what you don’t like, especially what you don’t like about working with other planners. Because I want to be the planner that works with your team, that gets it done in a way that you love. Because I want to work here and I’m very upfront about it, cause I don’t want to be that, that purse, that that planner that they’re like oh geez, I don’t want to work with that person ever again. No, that’s not me, that’s not what I want to do. I want to be the person that they want to hire again, um, and and as a planner.

For me, that’s a strategy, because plan, like most people book the venue and then book the planner, um, and that that’s not always true, um, but it’s it’s certainly true a lot of the time. Um, and I know a lot of planners that get almost 100 of their leads from from venues. So it’s it’s like I also don’t really want to stick with that strategy because, well, one, touring venues takes a lot of time. Two, putting banking only on referrals is like. To me, that doesn’t feel like a good strategy because it’s outside of my control whether or not that they refer me, and so I have multiple marketing strategies. Now, um, my, some of my marketing strategies are are Zola and the knot, and I know that that’s a really contentious thing. I only put money into the knot, I don’t put it into wedding wire, I just feel like one is enough.

Um, but I have already uh it since starting on the knot. I have already gotten three bookings off of the knot, yeah, and one of one. I had one referral that was legitimate, for my highest package and I almost sold it, except they ended up deciding to go as someone that was offering half, and I kind of just wish them luck, because that’s I’m not charging like an arm and a leg for my planning services. So I, um, I’m like, okay, good luck, um. But basically, yeah, I think the majority of my leads right now are actually from Facebook groups, um, and and I I mean it’s free marketing too, so you can just be like, all right, I’m going to come up with, um, an advert that’s Facebook sized and I’m going to just post it on a bunch of different bridal groups, totally free. I mean, different groups have different roles, so that’s something to keep in mind. Um, but yeah, that’s that’s one thing. And then Zola right now is free. I don’t think it’ll be free for very much longer.

Honestly, I really think that Zola is up and coming and they’re seeing the value in their services and it’s not free like in the terms that you. It’s like $15 to talk to someone, which is, I think, better than Thumbtack. I haven’t tried Thumbtack but I think it’s like. So it’s more to talk to someone on Thumbtack but you do get your credits back. I mean, there’s lessons learned. I’ve booked two weddings so far from Zola and I’ve only been on Zola since December again, but I’ve gotten quite a few leads and quite a few people who are legitimate have reached out to me. I’ve booked some of my higher packages from Zola so far, some of my to some of my higher packages from from Zola so far. So that’s um something to really think about in terms of like avenues. Um, wedding shows have been a total dud for me, unfortunately, as a planner. Um event active? Um, okay, sorry, I thought I just the chat I was reading apparently event active. I had no idea how to pronounce that.

0:50:23 – Heidi Thompson
It’s interesting because there are so many options, which is why the thing I’m so adamant about when we put together marketing plans is choosing only a set number and choosing the ones that make the most sense. And, katie, free Facebook makes sense. For someone else that doesn’t make sense, and that’s great, that’s fine. Like we have to find the things that work for us. So I hope those of you watching can see like the variety here, even just among these people. Chris, what are you doing marketing wise? I know wedding shows are definitely part of your strategy now.

0:51:05 – Chris
Yes, yeah, right, this moment, this month, every weekend, I have wedding shows going on and they have produced a ton of leads, a lot, a lot of consultations. I think that I had done wedding shows in the past and they did okay. One thing that you helped me with some of what I’ve been learning too is through your podcast and talking to you in person and and back and forth with that, but just a different approach to what I was expecting to get out of the wedding show and less focus on, you know, just getting their information or contacts and, you know, taking a different approach on getting those consultations right away, and that has been really effective. I mean, this month I have consultations every day that I haven’t blocked on my calendar. So, unless I’ve blocked that day, as I don’t want consultations that day every day for the rest of the month, I don’t want consultations that day every day. For the rest of the month, consultations some days multiple a day. So that, yeah, the wedding show is going well.

Other than that, for me, the open houses at venues have been really good. Part of that, I think, is you know-person things do really well, both because I like to connect in person to people and also because I’m creating something visual and I bring examples and that seems to really sell for me, which is also why, at these open houses for venues, I’ve often created a painting that can hang at the venue. I give it to the venue, um, so that my painting is there, continuing to sell for me through every tour that they that they bring you know, couples through the venue. That has been effective. So I’ve got a lot of referrals through the venues, um, and wedding planners as well. I which the wedding planners a lot of referrals through the venues and wedding planners as well, which the wedding planners. A lot of them. I’ve connected through Instagram and I think I was talking to you about the conveyor belt method that I created.

Yes saving a post and making files of all of the local wedding planners, that I just go to the bottom of that file and make sure that I’m in contact with all of the local planners and venues somewhat regularly, that’s such a good example of you know relationships work for you.

0:53:44 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, Get real. Like, what am I doing each day to move these relationships forward and just move it a little bit, move it a little bit, move it a little bit. It can be that simple. I think we overcomplicate marketing because there’s just so many options and the truth is it all works. It’s just what works for you, what works for your business, what works for your ideal client, and really figuring that out. So I love that you’ve really focused on these things that are working for you. And I know, because I’ve seen your plan you are also working on okay, what’s the next thing we’re layering in? Okay, we’re working on SEO. So you can layer these things in without it being an overwhelming thing, without feeling like you have to do all the things.

0:54:37 – Chris
Yeah, I think you helped me, you know, gave me permission to let go of a lot of the goals and refocus on the most impactful ones. You know, just like you had said earlier, is sometimes just work on the things that are working, make them better. The website you know I had edited my website that I had currently based off of your critique of Elyse’s website and then also your podcast, and then you just, you know, critique that After I had already made. You know, I tried to do as many things as I could think to do before your critique so that I could take it even further, which is great. Now I’m building a whole nother website, as you know, based off of your critiques, but I’ve already, in the things I’ve applied to the current website, I’ve seen a big difference in that. Just from how people that go to it and come to me, the things that they’re saying, that they saw on my website, I can just tell that the website is selling for me in a way that it didn’t before.

0:55:45 – Heidi Thompson
I love that so much, and actually you guys. Emily’s presentation this week is about that making sure your website sells for you. I can sit and talk to you guys all day. We’re going to be doing that tomorrow. We have a mastermind session, but I would love to hear what you would say to someone watching this. Everyone who is attending the summit is going to get access to that dollar tile for their first 30 days. What should they do? What should they expect? What would you tell someone who is thinking about joining the Wedding Business Collective through that offer? Chris, I’ll start with you.

0:56:23 – Chris
Yeah Well, I think it’s a no-brainer. I think that for one it’s well worth the full price, so it doesn’t even matter about the dollar. That’s a great no-risk situation. However, like I said, my sales have gone up a ton just in the last few months and I have a and I have a ton more to learn from you. Really, I haven’t even fully put to use all of the resources that your website has on it and it’s already well paying for itself. You know, for me, like I had mentioned earlier, the accountability is a huge, huge part for me, because, while you have a ton of great information, obviously if you just want to dig, it’s not just about information.

0:57:18 – Heidi Thompson
Obviously, your podcast I’m finding super valuable and that’s not the paid portion, and so it’s not just the information, it’s the accountability and running things by you and the level of personal hands-on work that you do with us, which I find just incredible. I love doing it.

0:57:44 – Chris
Thank you so much for sharing that. Where can people connect with you, chris? Yeah, wddng Painter is both my social media Instagram handle as well as my website. You know, just added com on there. Those are kind of the two main ways to connect with me is through Instagram, and I have that in my name, which I don’t know if people can see that. Yes, I think they can yeah, I put Chris at WDD and G painter, so that’s thank you, chris.

0:58:16 – Heidi Thompson
Thank you so much, katie. Um, what would you say to someone considering joining and where can people connect with you if they have any questions for you?

0:58:25 – Katie
yeah, so, um, I would, absolutely, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. I mean, um, being, uh, being in the wedding business collective, having access to Heidi, having access to the really awesome Facebook group. Um, I mean it’s it’s been so, so, so worthwhile. I mean they helped, like Heidi recently even helped me. I was like SOS. I didn’t know what to do with my, with any of my bookkeeping. I thought my software was handling it for me. It was not so, and then I got a bookkeeper and I found recommendations and now I’m all ready to go for tax time and anyway, it’s just it’s little, it’s it’s little things. I mean that’s kind of a big thing, but it’s like little things, big things. They all add up and and having that community that support is is has absolutely been transformative. Um, it’s honestly like Heidi’s connections. Um, everything has has changed my life and I I would absolutely wholeheartedly recommend Heidi Thompson and the Wedding Business Collective again and again and again.

I refer people off screen, off camera, to her all of the time. So I’m happy to talk more about it. I do have to go. I actually have a discovery call with a potential client at five 30 sharp or five 30 local time. Um and so, uh, yeah, I, but you can find me um on Instagram. I, my business is K S? Otter events, um, and so it’s K S otter events, like the animal um events, plural Um, and that’s just the handle. K S O T T E R E V E N Tt-s, um and on instagram, uh, feel free to message me. I would be happy to talk. Thank you so much what’s that client?

1:00:17 – Heidi Thompson
what would you say to someone considering joining? And then, how can people connect with you?

1:00:23 – Elyse
yeah, I feel like everyone, like I feel like this whole conversation has basically been a plug. And if you’re still on the fence, I feel like you already have access with the $1, like, take advantage of this month and like, do a little bit of digging and check out the Facebook group. And I definitely feel like the more that you uncover, the more that it just makes sense to not give up traction and momentum. So, yeah, I feel like, if you’re on the fence, like what’s the harm in doing the $1 for the first month? And then, like Chris said, like I think that when you start applying things, it’s going to start paying for itself, and so, like I think that when you start applying things, it’s going to start paying for itself. And so, um, yeah, I, I think that it’s just completely like worth the cost a hundred times over because of the connections that you get to make, um, the things that you get to learn, the whole nine yards. I think it’s, it’s all.

Yeah, I have literally nothing bad to say about it. And then I think I’m pointing to the right spot, that that’s where you can find me. That’s my handle East Stokes creations, this side, that one, yeah, I know I never know. I know I’m like, okay, this side, this side right here, yeah, find me at you. Soaks Creations. My name is Elyse. Like Katie said, if you want to like pick my brain any further, I am more than happy to talk more about my experience and, yeah, I am grateful to have been able to chat with all of y’all and look forward to chatting with you guys all more.

1:02:07 – Heidi Thompson
Thank you, Elyse and Don and LaShelle. What would you say to someone considering joining? Grateful to have been able to chat with all of y’all and look forward to chatting with you guys. All more Thank you, Elyse and Don and LaShelle. What?

1:02:16 – LaShelle
would you say to someone considering joining and how can people connect with you further? So first thing I would say is that this is just like anything else in life you get what you put into it. You can go out and buy a $10,000 car and it will haul you wherever you need to go. You can buy a $50,000 pickup truck and it will haul you wherever you want to go. You wouldn’t spend the money on a pickup truck and not utilize it as a pickup truck, unless you’re just looking to blow money right. So if you join this with just the expectation of Heidi’s going to give you all the answers and Heidi’s going to do all of the things, you’re not understanding what this is about.

The collective part is us being able to reach out to Chris. If we have a question about something, it doesn’t have to be. We don’t have to be painters. He we heard something that he said that we found interesting. We want to touch base with him about advertising or about you know how to do better with referrals, and same with the lease or anybody else that’s in the group Doesn’t matter what state they’re in, what country they’re in.

We were reaching out to somebody in Toronto a couple of years ago, and that’s where you get the biggest benefit from this is the collective. That’s what it’s about. It’s about being able to reach out to anybody. That’s a part of the collective anywhere with any question, because you feel like they might know more than you about something, or they might know something. It doesn’t have to be more, it can just be something different that you haven’t thought of. So then you can try and implement that Again. That’s the whole throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. You have to try the different things for you in your area, for your type of business, to see what works the best, and then you focus more on that and you’re going to get ideas from all of the people in this collective.

1:04:01 – Don
Absolutely. And Heidi is amazing, don’t get us wrong. She’s got tons of answers. But sometimes it’s a matter of Heidi knows the person that has the answer to. So sometimes it’s a matter of reaching out and saying, hey, who has this information? And then Heidi will comment reach out to this person and this person and this person, and that helps so much. Um, I would say it’s a dollar, it’s the cost of a soda. Do it. You’re silly not to try it and see if you can get something out of it in the first 30 days. And if then you realize you don’t have the time for it or it’s just not what you’re looking for, something. That way you lost out on a soda, it’s fine, you’re going to survive that $1, but I guarantee, if you do the first 30 days, you’re going to find amazing stuff in this and you’re going to be chatting with us throughout the entire month and more beyond that month as well. So I say do it 100 yeah, we found numerous ways we’re here years later.

This is how important it is.

1:04:57 – LaShelle
Like you know, we found numerous ways to either save the money or make the money to make this worth it, and we continue with it because we keep finding the reasons in here that make it worth having it. And again, a lot of that is the collective being able to reach out to the other people.

1:05:13 – Don
And Heidi’s always adding new information and new material to learn from. And what have you which we would spend way too much time trying to find on our own?

1:05:21 – LaShelle
Yes, yeah.

1:05:23 – Heidi Thompson
Thank you guys so much for sharing that, and that is a really important part of this to me that it’s not just me and that there are so many things like what Chris briefly mentioned. He was telling us on a mastermind call this strategy he’s been using on Instagram. He’s like let me teach you guys this. Okay, this is what I’m doing, and we’re all like this is brilliant. Yeah, I’m going to go do this. This is such a cool idea, and everyone inside is just incredibly open and giving and willing to help. As you can see, these are some great examples, so I hope that you will join us inside the Wedding Business Collective. So thank you guys so much for being here. I really appreciate your time and your willingness to just like pull the curtain back and show everyone inside your business.

Okay, so that was the panel I did with these five wedding professionals, and they so kindly just take us behind the scenes and share what they struggled with, and share what worked for them and what didn’t work for them, and I love that. That’s the kind of community, the kind of culture that I’ve really worked hard to foster inside of the Wedding Business Collective, and it’s really important to me that we don’t hold this stuff so close to the chest that we get to learn from one another, because historically, the wedding industry has been one of closely guarded secrets and not being so open and sharing. You know, even as recently as about 10 years ago, and I’m sure some people still run into that. So it’s really important to me that we get to learn from one another as well as you get to learn from me, because I can teach you everything I know, but I’m ultimately still one person. I haven’t had everybody’s experience. I haven’t experimented with or tried everything under the sun and in the Wedding Business Collective.

When someone finds something that works, they come and they share it. Or when someone is stuck or struggling on something, they come and they ask for help, and they get it from me, of course, but they also get it from the other members and, as you’ve heard, they are so just kind and open and giving and I absolutely adore each one of them and I’ve loved working with each and every one of them, some for years now and it’s been an absolute joy. So if you would like to come join us and get this experience for yourself, you can do that over at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/invite and, of course, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a DM on Instagram. I’m evolveyourweddingbusiness. I would be more than happy to answer those for you, and, whether you decide to join us in the collective or not, I hope that this has given you some insight on just how different things that work can look.

Business to business. We all have this tendency to want to copy and emulate things that are working for others, which I get. I fully understand that. But what works for one person might not work for you, and that’s really the ethos of what I’m all about is helping you figure out, okay, what is going to work for you, what’s going to work for your unique situation, your unique business, your market, your particular ideal client, the way you like to work. All of those things matter, and marketing is not a one size fits all sort of thing.

So I hope this has shown you that anything can work. Really, it’s just finding what is going to work best for you, and I hope that inspires you, that you don’t have to fit yourself into this box of what everybody else is doing. So I will have all of the links I mentioned in the show notes to this episode at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/309. That link to come join us and get that first 30 days for a dollar is evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/invite.

I hope to see you inside and I will speak to you again very soon.

 

Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
Wedding Planner Marketing That Works – How Katie Sautter Booked 15 Weddings in Her First Year
KS Otter Events
EStokes Creations
WDDNG Painter
Star Entertainment

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