How to Increase Wedding Bookings: From First Wedding to Fully Booked in 4 Months

How to Increase Wedding Bookings: From First Wedding to Fully Booked in 4 Months

Heidi Thompson:
Most wedding pros accidentally write their website to speak to other wedding pros, but not this one. This one wrote it for her exact ideal client, and she went from first wedding to fully booked in 4 months.

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. Here is your host, Heidi Thompson.

Heidi Thompson:
Hey there and welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Heidi Thompson, and today I am joined by a member of the Wedding Business Collective who has had quite the rise, and I’m really excited to break down her story with you. I think you’re gonna realize just how much you can actually accomplish when you focus. And this person, Rachel Shannon, the wedding painter from Philly, she is one of those people that just shows the hell up and she gets it done. And I was so impressed when she joined the Wedding Business Collective how quickly. She took action. She took quick, imperfect action. And to give you some context, Rachel painted her very first wedding in May of this year.

It is end of September, beginning of October when this comes out. Now her 2026 calendar is full. She’s booking ’27, she’s booking into ’28. And in this episode, she is breaking down the website rewrite that She credits for taking her from about one inquiry a week to multiple per day, and why she stopped waiting for things to be perfect. I think this is going to be a huge inspiration for you because you can take these same exact steps in your business. We have them laid out for you in the Wedding Business Collective. Come join us at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/ pod. Now let’s get to the interview with Rachel. Today I am joined by Rachel Shannon, a live wedding painter and member of the Wedding Business Collective. I’m so excited to have her here to talk about her journey because, oh my God, does this woman take action and get stuff done and make progress. So Rachel, thank you so much for being here and tell us a little bit about you and your business.

Rachel Shannon:
Well, thank you for having me, Heidi. I am a big fan. I’m honestly a huge fangirl of you and your business. Um, yeah, like if you had asked me all this a year ago, I would’ve had nothing to say because I didn’t have anything. And now I am like full-time wedding, wedding, wedding. So it’s crazy what the Wedding Business Collective has enabled me to be able to do. But I am a live wedding painter based out of Philadelphia. I started my business which is a big secret, honestly, in the beginning of 2026. So I have not been doing this long. I am now full-time doing this. I am hiring an assistant this week, and I’m super, super excited about everything. So that’s just a little overview about me and my business.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, and as we’re recording this, this is the beginning of September.

Rachel Shannon:
Yes.

Heidi Thompson:
Like, very fast, very fast journey.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely, like crazy. And my fiancé always tells me, he’s like, I knew you could succeed, but I didn’t think you’d succeed like this. I’m like, thank you. Thanks for the vote of confidence. But yeah, no, it’s really cool.

Heidi Thompson:
So what actually made you decide to start this live wedding painting business?

Rachel Shannon:
Oh my gosh, it’s honestly so complicated, and I try to like pinpoint an exact time, and I, I can’t really do so. But I’d say it was a combination of things. I was in a corporate job I did not enjoy. It was known for having just a bad environment. They were transitioning me into a position that, I mean, not to give too much away, but would have just been really, really bad for my mental health. It would have affected my family and friends. It just was not going to be good. So I was on this precipice of having to make a change of some sort. And I’d had an art business, already had an LLC, all of that established for about a year and a half. And so I kind of got to this point where it was, I need to either make a decision, stay with this corporate job, or do something different. And Literally at the last minute, like I was in training for this other position and I decided to jump ship and go full-time and to just have

Rachel Shannon:
having a woo-woo art business, which is not advisable and not wise. But I did. I jumped ship and I just, for the next few weeks, I just started making art.

Rachel Shannon:
‘Cause I was like, you know, I just gotta put one foot in front of the other. What do artists do?

Rachel Shannon:
They make art. So I was doing that, obviously not making any money, and it was not very like happy for me. And I was having a conversation one day because I told myself, if I’m gonna have a business, I need to be a networker. So I was just networking, networking, networking.

And during one of these conversations, someone said, you know what? Wedding show and maybe brides would be interested in like buying your work.

Rachel Shannon:
You know, they’re buying new houses, whatever.

And that sparked something in me and I was like, you know what, wedding painting is something I’ve always seen from afar. I’m just curious about it. And I had a friend getting married, so I asked her if I could paint at her wedding. Um, and this is another little secret. I literally started like painting at weddings. The first wedding I painted at was in May and it literally immediately like it transformed everything.

Rachel Shannon:
I was like, this is what I need to make my business about. So I quickly rebranded. I had that infrastructure in place. Like I had the LLC. I like, I knew some things about business in general, but then I decided just to make it all into a wedding business. And just the entire summer, I completely booked my fall 2026 calendar. 2027 is almost completely booked. And by now, after, you know, going through your really great program, it’s my full-time, full-time job. Like I’m super busy to the point I have to bring someone else on to the point I’m at, like the, how do I want this to look in several years expansion phase. Absolutely, like incredibly phenomenal. I’m so grateful for it.

Heidi Thompson:
Oh my God, that is incredible. Like what a whirlwind of a journey that has been for you.

Rachel Shannon:
Yeah, it’s insane.

Heidi Thompson:
So where were you at when you initially decided to join the Wedding Business Collective?

Rachel Shannon:
Yeah, so I think that was, um, I looked into it in June.

Rachel Shannon:
I was starting to, and you know, it’s wild because I did my first wedding in May and then by the end of June I already had lots of weddings on the books, but I was like, I want to grow this fast.

Rachel Shannon:
So I was just driving to a venue to network and I had your podcast on. I listen to tons of podcasts. I just love to learn. And I was listening and I was like, you know what? Like, I feel like this may be worth the investment just because the least— like, I listened to every single podcast you have, literally. But I was like, you know, I think I’ve learned everything I can learn here. Maybe it’s worth making the investment. And at that point, like, I had my fully functioning website.

Rachel Shannon:
I had invested in like a good CRM. I had social media, all of these different things, but I never like invested into formal education other than a wedding show course. And from that wedding show course, I was like, you know what?

I think I like this online course thing.

It’s giving me these tips and tricks I would not have otherwise known about the wedding industry because my degree is not in the wedding industry. Like you can’t get a degree in that. So I didn’t have any experience and I was at this point where I felt like I was going to plateau. With my marketing knowledge if I didn’t do something else. Because I was getting bookings, but these bookings and getting leads, but that was happening maybe once a week, maybe once every week and a half. And that just was not the volume that I wanted to see.

Rachel Shannon:
And I know it was like, it was a month to 2 months in and I should be patient, but I am not a patient person. Like, I wanna see results and see them fast.

So it was worth it to kind of make a jump for me.

Heidi Thompson:
How are you getting those initial leads? How are they finding you?

Rachel Shannon:
Honestly, they were finding me kind of the same way they find me now.

Rachel Shannon:
It’s just like times 10 now. So posting on Instagram, posting on Facebook, um, and I did start with The Knot and with Zola, but I remember very like vividly being super excited signing up for this expensive posting and being like, this is the solution to all my problems. And then after being on there for like 3 weeks, I wasn’t hearing anything. And that was like the moment I knew, like, I had to own the marketing side of things. And I think your Wedding Business Collective program spoke to me because I wanted to own every aspect of it. And I will say, like, I actually got bookings from The Knot and from Zola pretty early on, which I’m grateful for, but it’s definitely something I didn’t want to be reliant on.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, that’s the big issue for me. Like, I think a lot of people think I just hate these platforms. They work for some people and great, they should work. You’re paying for them, they should work for you. But my biggest concern is when people get into a situation where they’re relying on a company that they don’t control to feed the most important part of their business. Like, that’s a very risky situation to be in when you don’t have any control over the leads coming in, the bookings coming in, and you’re just paying another company and hoping for the best. Like, that is a terrifying position to be in.

Rachel Shannon:
And it didn’t work for me, I don’t wanna just let it sit there and hope for the best because hoping for the best leads to about 1 inquiry every 2 weeks and that was just not acceptable for me. So I’m at the point too where I’m like, let’s see how I can phase that out of just paying for in general because 1 inquiry every 2 weeks, is that really worth it? I don’t think so.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, and like, okay, 1 inquiry every 2 weeks, like how many of those are actually converting? You know, not every single one of them is going to convert. And I know that’s a lot of people’s issue with, you know, different directory platforms. So yeah, I totally get, you know, your position of like, yeah, this, this ain’t gonna cut it.

Rachel Shannon:
Mm-hmm.

Heidi Thompson:
I thought it was, I thought it was like this magical solution, but turns out not so much. So then you joined the Wedding Business Collective. I know you dove immediately right in and got to work. I’m curious, like, as you started going through it, as you started putting your marketing plan together, what became apparent to you about your ideal client and the ways that you needed to speak to them? Yes.

Rachel Shannon:
So this was really hard for me because if I was being honest, I didn’t have a client. I had done one paid wedding at that point, and I had clients that I had booked. For later on in the season, but I hadn’t actually done those weddings yet. So it was hard to say like, you know, why did they want to work with me? They haven’t even worked with me yet. So I kind of had to play around and be really strategic in thinking about the people who had booked me, the one client I had worked with, and just in general, like what, what I understand about people, what I understand about the world, and what I understand about what I have to offer. So I do think Most wedding professionals would probably benefit even more than I did from the Wedding Business Collective because they already have, you know, a year, 3 years, 5 years of data under their belt to use.

I kind of had to invent the data. And there were some great tools within the Wedding Business Collective, some like good AI tools that helped me kind of nudge me along. But it was surprisingly accurate, the ideal client I was able to kind of come up with and compare that to the people I’m working with now very, very regularly. It’s very, very similar. And I do acknowledge, am I gonna have to tweak this along the way? Absolutely. Like, my first kind of go at it probably is not 100% correct, but it was very helpful in helping me turn my website from, just like you always say, someone’s website could be literally anyone’s. It could be any wedding planner, but honestly, it could be any wedding professionals. Like, turn your day into some beautiful celebration. Like, of course everyone wants a beautiful, elegant, you know, whatever celebration. It helped me make my copy extremely distinct and unique. And even when comparing to other wedding painters in my area, no one else had that, which immediately set me apart from the crowd.

Heidi Thompson:
And I think your experience is really important to speak to here because, you know, not everybody that I end up working with has previous clients to pull on, or they’re moving to a different type of clientele, or like there’s, for some reason, like they are not the ideal clients that they want to really be speaking to.

And I am definitely of the mind that you are much better off creating a hypothesis and like digging into that.

Heidi Thompson:
And okay, like this person that I want to work with, what is it that I think they care about? Like, what can I, you know, assess based on maybe their other purchasing decisions? Maybe you know them, but like they haven’t worked with you. Maybe they’re friends, maybe they’re or just other people that exist in the world that you know, you get there so much faster. You get to that clarity faster than if you just start with, I’m a wedding painter.

Rachel Shannon:
Mm-hmm, absolutely, yeah. I mean, what you just said makes me think back to when I was coming up with all of it. I kind of channeled my inner, like, who I thought I was gonna be with my life and what I, like, I went to school for psychology, I worked in psychological research, I was gonna pursue my PhD in clinical psych, and like, that’s a whole other story, but I kind of distilled down my ideal client usually is really a high-powered professional woman. She’s usually like a doctor, has like a PhD or a law degree, something like that. And it’s very interesting, like, I see a lot of myself in her, but we’re not the same. But I had to pull that from the data I had, but also some really good working hypotheses. So you’re definitely correct there.

Heidi Thompson:
And I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think one thing you said is like they are a huge lover of art, but they themselves can barely draw a stick figure. Yes.

I love it. That’s totally me. I’m like, oh my God, I try to draw something and it’s like, well, a 4-year-old could do that, but okay.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely. Well, and that’s where there’s a value add because there’s a lot of people that appreciate it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can do it.

Rachel Shannon:
And that’s something I can do. So there’s a really great way that, you know, we can work together in that way just by me offering something that you want to be a part of your wedding, but you really couldn’t have as part of your wedding in any other capacity.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah. So what kind of messaging were you using? And I’m curious, like, is it kind of the same now? Has it shifted to really speak to your people, whether it’s on your website or it’s in your social media or in your other marketing? Like, what are you really speaking about, you know, in terms of their problem to help set you apart?

Rachel Shannon:
Yes. Well, my very favorite part of the Wedding Business Collective was the really deep crash course on copy. I think that completely transformed I mean, right away I saw a huge uptick in my inquiries and in my bookings. So I think I was able to convert better and I was able to convey my message better just by having people read that, which kind of surprised me because I—

it’s probably pretty evident, but I’m a very fast-paced person. So when I’m reading someone’s website, I am not reading every single paragraph, but some people do. So when you have that there, they’re able to read it. Originally, like I mentioned earlier, I was pretty much like every other wedding professional because I kind of—

Rachel Shannon:
that’s how I built my website. I just read what other people had. Yeah. I was like, okay, this works.

Rachel Shannon:
So I was very much about elevated, luxury, elegant. Maybe there were some words about vintage, pretty, all these different, like, very, just like anyone can be that word. And then I honestly pulled from what I thought my ideal client wants to hear. They are fast-paced people. They don’t have time to sit around and ask for pricing. And I told them, like, girl, I know that you wanna know the pricing, here it is. And most wedding professionals at this point are putting their pricing on their website, but they may not package it.

Rachel Shannon:
That way where it’s like, look, I know you don’t have time to waste, neither do I.

So like, honestly, I just kind of channeled my personality a little bit more too, because what’s a differentiator? I can be a differentiator. So it was a little bit more direct because my true inner self is a bit more direct. So I was like, you know what, I will speak to my client directly.

Rachel Shannon:
That’s typically how these high-powered professionals like to be spoken to. For my Instagram copy, I feel like social media is a whole other beast that I’m still learning, and it’s very hard for me to kind of take everything I very much studied and very much distilled to perfection for my website into my Instagram. I honestly, once again, just try to be myself. Like, how would I text my friend and how can I incorporate that into a caption?

I don’t feel like Instagram— it’s funny ’cause like I don’t have a million followers on Instagram, but almost all of my leads come from Instagram. So I’m gonna say it’s working, but I do, I feel like I have more work there in terms of Instagram in general.

Heidi Thompson:
It’s really interesting because I think for some people, well, I think we all think of Instagram as like this discovery source. That’s where people are going to find you. And it might be, it might be that they come across you there, but for a lot of wedding professionals, it’s also a trust-building place. It’s a credibility place. It’s a showing that you know what you’re talking about, showing your work, showing, you know, yourself in action. And I think sometimes we can really discount that part of the process because even if someone doesn’t find you on Instagram, like I know SEO has been important for you, if someone finds you in search, they’re probably still going to go to your Instagram to look to see what you’re doing over there.

Rachel Shannon:
Absolutely. I mean, I literally had a client tell me, oh my gosh, you’re so sweet and genuine and authentic. She commented that on an Instagram post, which is so interesting because, you know, I could be fake.

I’m not. That’s my real self. But you can post whatever you want.

Rachel Shannon:
But it is very interesting how clearly people trust you when they they see a real person doing the real thing that they hired you to do on Instagram. So since I started my business, I have been very big about posting my face, posting my— I do a little bit of talking videos, but if I can just get myself visible in front of my clients, that’s really important to me. Not because I love seeing myself on camera at all.

It’s honestly so uncomfortable, but I make myself do it because you are so right.

Rachel Shannon:
It is 100% a trust-building thing. They see I’m a real person out here doing this every single day, and then they either think, oh, I’m gonna hire her, or if they already have hired me, it’s building that confidence that I really am gonna deliver what I said I would for one of the biggest days of their life.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, it can definitely play a sort of different role than we think about because it’s, uh, it’s really a demonstration of, especially for someone like you, a live wedding painter, like I’m seeing you do it, you know?

Heidi Thompson:
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely.

Heidi Thompson:
So we mentioned Instagram, you mentioned SEO, what did you decide to focus on in terms of your marketing channels?

Rachel Shannon:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I decided to focus on Instagram, just in general Google SEO, um, and Facebook, and then YouTube, surprisingly. And I think, I don’t know, I’m not a ChatGPT expert.

Rachel Shannon:
So many people find me on ChatGPT, and I think it is because I upload onto YouTube. Because according to the, you know, ChatGPT powers that be, the AI bots sweep some core websites.

Rachel Shannon:
One of them is YouTube to get their information. So even though I haven’t been doing it a long time, Google thinks I have. So thank you, Google, um, and thank you, YouTube. So those little secret, like, tactics have really helped just make me visible on the search channels.

Heidi Thompson:
That’s really interesting because it’s pulling from your website too, I’m sure, but it’s also pulling from this extra source over on YouTube, which I think it gives a lot of— I don’t know if I want to say credibility, but like, it seems to really lean on, you know, these bigger platforms because it shows, you know, people are paying attention to you and you’re regularly putting something out, even if it’s not, you know, a ton, or if it’s not very often. It still shows that you are active and I think, you know, it’s, it’s just like Google search. It’s trying to find you the best results, and the best result is gonna be someone who has been active recently and not someone who, you know, hasn’t posted something in a year.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely. I heard this on your podcast too, someone you interviewed a while ago, and I’m gonna butcher what they said, but the general point was done is better than perfect.

And I have completely taken that with all of my marketing. If I was waiting for everything to be perfect, I would have probably 20% of the bookings I have now. I would not be where I was because if I was allowing my perfectionist to run the show, it just, it wouldn’t happen. So I’ve released that. I post on Instagram. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. I post on YouTube. Is it perfect? No. Like all these things I’m posting, I don’t need, I don’t like them. I genuinely don’t. But it gets the job done and it gets the AI, you know, SEO stuff done. And it’s made a huge, huge difference for me.

Heidi Thompson:
I love that you’ve been able to do that because that perfectionism really holds people back. And it’s funny, during the last summit I was talking to someone and they were asking me some questions about their website and I was like, what if I told you to do B-minus work?

Heidi Thompson:
And she was like, then it, then the website’s done and I can publish it. I was like, publish the website.

Rachel Shannon:
Yeah.

Heidi Thompson:
That, like, the goal isn’t to do the best, you know, the goal is to Get the attention, get the business.

Rachel Shannon:
Absolutely. And I’m not a marketing SEO expert or a web developer or any of those other things. And if I was gonna wait, I wouldn’t be where I was. Um, and honestly, that was not a practical option for me. I wanted to have income. Like, you gotta make money, you gotta eat food, you gotta pay the bills. So done was better than perfect. And that really, really helped me release being new at things too.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, because like you’re gonna mess things up. And quite honestly, if 10 years from now you don’t look back at the thing you did and you’re first year of business and you’re not embarrassed by it, like, you probably haven’t grown enough.

Rachel Shannon:
I heard you say that previously and that really spoke to me. Like, absolutely. I hope my business in 5 years is 20 times better than currently. Like, that would, that would be a failure if it’s not. So you’re absolutely right on that.

Heidi Thompson:
I look at old stuff that like I’ve written and it’s like, oh, oh boy. Okay. But it’s a good sign and it’s like, it was good enough and it’s good enough at the time and it did the job and that I think we have to keep in mind that we’re not in the job of being the best marketer in the world. We’re in the job of doing the marketing well enough that it brings you the right clients and gets you the bookings.

Rachel Shannon:
Absolutely. And honestly, that made me think, like, I’m not pretending to be something I’m not. So I am honest with my clients.

Rachel Shannon:
I have been painting for 9 years.

Rachel Shannon:
I am very confident the product I make for you, a wedding painting, guest portraits, which is honestly most of what I do now, that’s going to be really, really good because that’s where I’m an expert. I am not a marketing expert. So that is where, you know, good is better than perfect. That’s where I’m going to, you know, post the unfinished post. My actual product I’m producing for you, it’s going to be very, very high quality because that’s what I’m actually selling you. So 100%, I completely agree with that. I’ve had to honestly, for the practicality sake of my business, kind of rethink of myself as I am A marketing professional now, Monday through Friday and Saturday through Sunday.

Rachel Shannon:
Sunday, I’m an artist. And it’s almost like I do 2 completely different jobs and they don’t overlap very much, and that’s okay.

Heidi Thompson:
That’s really interesting. Has that helped you like keep in the right mindset for each of those?

Rachel Shannon:
100%, because I am a good artist. I think I can, I know objectively, like my art is good. Am I a great marketer? Not yet, but I hope to be someday. And I really am trying to learn. And it’s why I invested in your program, investing in other programs. I’m getting my MBA currently in marketing, and that was, I’ve been working on this for a while, way before I started this business. So I’m a young professional, even if I wasn’t new to this wedding industry, I’m a young professional generally. Like, I know I have a ton to learn. I feel very confident in my artistic skills. I don’t feel confident in the marketing skills, and that’s okay, ’cause there’s tons of time to grow and learn. And honestly, the best way to learn is by doing.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, absolutely. And it like, okay, so you make a cringeworthy social media post, like, Whatever. Nobody sees most of the stuff we post anyway. Like, just let it go out into the ether. If it does its job, it does its job. If it doesn’t, okay, you learn from it. You know, it’s that idea of I don’t lose, I either win or I learn something that I can apply and move forward with. And you don’t get to do that if you’re not in action.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely.

Heidi Thompson:
So you had put your marketing plan together, you start executing this, what happens from there?

Rachel Shannon:
Honestly, it was crazy. And I know SEO is supposed to take a little bit of time to like grow and do its thing. In about a week to 2 weeks, the inquiries just started flowing in. And I told you before I started all of this, I was getting maybe one inquiry a week, maybe once a week and a half. I started getting— first it started, oh, I got like 3 inquiries a week, and then it was, oh, I’m getting an inquiry every day, and then it was multiple inquiries every day. And these inquiries were not just sitting stagnant, they were immediately booking calls. Pricing was not a problem. They were wanting to talk to me, and I would get on a call with them, we would have a great conversation, they would book me. usually within 48 hours. Like, it was just coming in like clockwork. It was, it was crazy. Now, I will say everything I implemented, I didn’t implement one tiny little piece at a time. Like, when I learned something, I implemented it, but I kept going. I told myself, if I’m going to make this investment, I want it to be introduced to my business very quickly. So I made my way through the course very quickly. So I made changes very quickly, but it was, it was like night and day, the difference in my business.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah. I mean, I remember when you submitted your marketing plan, I was like, didn’t she just join? Like, okay, let’s, let’s go see what she’s got. And it was well done. It was like well thought out. Everything was there. I was like, oh, okay, she is gonna go crush this. So I’m not surprised, like, leads started to flow in. What were the best sources for you as you started to, you know, implement all of these different things?

Rachel Shannon:
Yeah, well, I’ll answer that. But going back to the marketing plan, it’s funny you say that because it goes back to done is better than perfect. Because when I submitted that, I thought, this is awful. She is going to see right through me. She’s going to know that I am just like making this up as I go. She’s going to tell me to redo it like I’m in like 7th grade. So it goes back to that. Like, I’m glad I just did it. And you know what? It’s not perfect, but it was done. And it really, it did work. Because if I had my own way, I would’ve worked on that for 2 more months, legitimately.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah.

Rachel Shannon:
I would still be here sitting there doing it.

Heidi Thompson:
And because it was done, I was able to turn around and be like, okay, do this, change this. We’re gonna do this over here. We’re gonna make this change on your website. And then you could actually just go do it. Like, I would much rather someone be like, okay, this is, this is what I got. Like, maybe this is rough, but this is what I got. You know, give me feedback so I can move forward than try to make it like this pristine, perfect thing because you were like 90% of the way there.

Rachel Shannon:
And I really appreciate that. That goes back to why this has been so supportive for me as well, is I feel like I’ve gone into this so blind because I have— like, I don’t have hospitality experience, event experience. I’ve called you before my fairy godmother of wedding because that is what you have been to me. Like, you have helped show me the way, like, this is the direction you need to go, and it’s opened up so many opportunities for me. So yeah, thank you for that.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, I love hearing that so much and that it has been helpful for you. And I’m glad that you highlighted that it felt like you didn’t have it all together. I think that’s helpful for someone to hear.

Rachel Shannon:
No, and I honestly, I still feel like that every single day because as a young professional,

Rachel Shannon:
feel like, oh, people see me, they think I don’t know what I’m talking about, etc. Or they know that I haven’t been in this industry very long, whatever. There’s a lot of imposter syndrome. So I’m thankful that I’ve had the resources and the tools and the support to be able to push past that. But it’s definitely something— who knows when I will not experience that anymore. I hope I can overcome that soon.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, there’s the imposter syndrome piece, but then there’s the, the fact that like business and marketing and just the world is always changing and we have to respond to it. And there’s Plenty of times in my business where I’m like, well, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m just trying to figure it out with everybody else. But if you’re trying to figure it out, if you’re actually testing things and like you said, like just getting something done and getting it out there, then you can actually get data to go off of, or you can get feedback, or you can get help. You can’t do that if you just stay in your head.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely no. And that goes back to what sources started working. So the sources that started working for me, like I mentioned earlier, it was just an amplification. Of what was already working. So people had already started slowly trickling into my Instagram, and by putting these processes into place, my Instagram bookings completely went up. That kind of tells me that people were already clicking on my website from Instagram, but now they’re reading my copy that really speaks to them, and now they’re wanting to actually email me, actually book a call with me. Facebook also completely went through the roof, and I, I mean, I’m a Gen Z. I’m very young. I did not grow up on Facebook. I learned Facebook really quick for this. Um, because all the brides are on there. So that was a really good source. And then it was night and day for Google and ChatGPT. I was not receiving any inquiries organically through Google or ChatGPT. And then after implementing these changes, I would say about half of my inquiries come from either Google or ChatGPT.

Heidi Thompson:
Wow, that is awesome. And that speaks to getting specific, right? You are clearly being found because you are speaking about the thing your person is looking for. Because if they are asking ChatGPT or they’re asking Google for, you know, uh, live wedding painter, they’re probably going to start there. But they’re— if especially if they’re in ChatGPT, we tend to get more specific. We tell them things we like, we tell them things we don’t like. If you have more specificity in your copy, it’s going to allow it to just like pluck you out of everybody else, much like when, you know, we’re comparing, you know, 20 different live wedding painters. I need to be able to pluck people out and see, okay, you’re the right person for this person. You’re the right person for that person. Otherwise, everybody just blends in together and it becomes an impossible race to the bottom.

Rachel Shannon:
100%. Something else that was an invaluable resource is the critique you offer members of their website. Um, and I just remember you, you know, going through my copy that I had originally, and it made me realize my copy was also very much written from an artist perspective. Because to be quite honest, brides don’t care if you’re using, you know, gallery-quality linen-wrapped canvas or the finest of Winsor& Newton oil paints. They want to know, you know, when are you gonna be there on my wedding? Are you gonna capture the flowers that I just invested $40,000 into in my wedding? Like, they’re very wedding-focused. And as a painter, I was really writing from the perspective of an artist, and all the other live wedding painters around me are also writing from the perspective of an artist. And by shifting my copy to write from the perspective of a wedding professional delivering this wedding service to my clients. I think that really helped make the transition from what I do to brides understanding what I do and realizing that that’s specifically what they want.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, that’s huge. We talk over people’s heads all the time because we’re used to this, you know, we’re experts in our area and you can’t unlearn that. You can’t unknow that. So that’s why I think it’s so important to, you know, Do interviews, ask questions, look for inspiration out in the market, and to really try to put yourself in that position of, okay, what do they care about? What are they looking for? What are they saying is important to them? Because it’s almost something that we treat as implied, but they don’t know that if you don’t bring it out specifically in your marketing.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely. Yeah, I think I was using very like flowery language before where I was like, capture And I think to an extent I still do that because it’s, you know, pretty whimsical, whatever. But I’m a lot more direct in what that actually means now, not just, you know, the XYZ of 7 hours of coverage, but what 7 hours of coverage means.

Rachel Shannon:
of coverage actually translates to for a finished product that they’re gonna enjoy on their wedding day.

Heidi Thompson:
And there’s a lot of reasons why someone is going to hire any type of wedding vendor. You know, in your position, I have worked with live wedding painters who their people are all about like the guest experience and they want something really unique and really engaging and interactive for their guests. And then I’ve worked with other wedding painters who their clients are art collectors and they want like a gallery piece from their wedding. Like, those are 2 completely different people, so we have to market to them differently.

Rachel Shannon:
Absolutely. And honestly, so my business is wedding painting, but I mentioned earlier guest portraits is honestly about 75% of what I do. And whenever I am marketing those 2 different services, I am talking to completely different brides. My guest portrait brides, they are 100% concerned with guest experience. My wedding painting brides, they want that art, they want that sentiment, they want that heirloom. So I’ve experienced that myself. I am speaking to 2 different pools. Another thing that really helps me that I learned from you is, you know, bride is way, way, way too broad of a term to just market loosely at. You have to distill down who are these people underneath this role that they’re playing. And once I understood that, and I never heard that anywhere else, I was able to really distill down my marketing into something that people could connect to.

Heidi Thompson:
And once you notice it, it’s funny, you see it everywhere. Like, you see how we make our own purchasing decisions out in the world. You see how other companies do their marketing, and either it’s like, that’s kind of weird, or, oh my God, that, that makes me feel like I want to buy from them immediately. And when you start to pay attention to that, you realize that you can elicit that feeling with your own marketing. And marketing’s weird and squishy, it’s psychology. So, you know, we have to really connect to what it is that they want. And like you said, not just from your perspective as the artist.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely. I think I’ve mentioned this to you before, Heidi. I’m actually a 2027 bride myself, so I’ve experienced this firsthand when I was hiring my photographer. So I’m getting married in France, but I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And I really wanted an American photographer just because the photographer sets the tone for the day. I wanted there to be no language barrier. I wanted it to just flow really nicely. And my best friend saw this reel where this guy got on the camera and he said, hi everyone, are you an American bride getting married in France and looking for a wedding photographer? And I heard that and I said, yes, I am. And I did not even look at his pricing. I hopped on a call with him that day. I booked him that day. He was amazing, but he marketed exactly to my very, very specific need and it was a complete no-brainer. And because I experienced that from the customer role, now I know how to do that from the business side of things.

Heidi Thompson:
That’s so cool to hear. And that it wasn’t even a comparison for you. Like, no, this guy’s giving me exactly what I want.

Rachel Shannon:
No, 100%.

Heidi Thompson:
100%.

Rachel Shannon:
I mean, there’s so many amazing photographers out there. Like, honestly, I feel bad for photographers. There’s so much, there’s so many great, great competition. But he was like a no-brainer because he was exactly And he was able to speak to that. And his work, of course, was beautiful. He was very, very kind. Like, that’s something I look for in a wedding vendor, is someone who’s actually nice, not just nice to me ’cause they wanna make a sale. Um, but at the end of the day, he filled that specific need that I had.

Heidi Thompson:
And I think we need to be thinking more about that, about problem solution, about what is the need, how do I fill the need? It just allows your marketing to be so much more specific and find the right person. person because your friend never would’ve recommended that had he not said that exact thing. If he said, I am a photographer in France, I bet your friend would’ve never recommended it because it didn’t line up with what you were asking for.

Rachel Shannon:
No. And there’s so many photographers in France and I’m sure they’re wonderful, but they are not what I needed. I needed a specific thing. And that’s okay if the bride finds me and I’m not what she needs. That’s totally fine because the right bride will find me and she’s gonna book without a problem.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, and that’s a great mindset to have carrying forward. And speaking of that, tell me a bit about where you are now. So it’s been a few months since you’ve made these website changes, since you’ve put this marketing plan into place for yourself. Where are you at now?

Rachel Shannon:
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited where I am now. Um, well, I’m in the thick of wedding season now, which has been fabulous because it’s my first wedding season, which I don’t admit to most people, but I’ll admit to

Rachel Shannon:
Thank you, Heidi. So here I am, I’m doing it. I really love it. I’ve started actually creating like systems, procedures, standard operating procedures. I think you mentioned this very recently on a podcast you just released about being a CEO versus like a worker bee. That’s been huge for me to realize.

Heidi Thompson:
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Shannon:
I, ever since getting tons of business, I have so many just like minuscule tasks I’m doing all of the time, which is taking away from the growth of the business. So I realized it is time just logically to expand to hiring an assistant. So I’m really excited to be hiring one next week, which feels so surreal. Like, am I making the right decision? And on paper with the numbers, like everything says yes, but it’s a huge emotional leap. But I’m very excited to be doing so. I’m also at the point where I am going to go ahead and invest in a professional web designer, which is also a big emotional decision because it’s like, does my website work now? Absolutely. Is it going to take me to the revenue I need it to be at?

Heidi Thompson:
Maybe not.

Rachel Shannon:
But my revenue is at the point where I can afford these decisions based on what I’ve already done. Like, it is incredible how quickly this has grown, and I’m so grateful for it. My 2026 is fully booked. 2027 is about, it’s getting there, it’s almost done. Booking into 2028, and I’m excited for some little other growth opportunities I have just to scale the business larger. I’m doing a lot of networking with venues, just trying to build those relationships organically. Yeah, it’s been really, really fun.

Heidi Thompson:
Have you had time to, like, sit back and think about the vision going forward, like, where you want this to go?

Rachel Shannon:
I have to plan my own wedding in my free time.

Heidi Thompson:
Oh, yeah, that’s right.

Rachel Shannon:
To be fair, yeah, I’m doing that in my free time. But strategy-wise, oh, gosh, I don’t know. You know what I would love? And don’t hold me to it. Someday, I would love to own a wedding venue. Like, that is my ultimate dream, is to have a studio in the attic and then the venue downstairs and then be doing both. Like, that’s something that would— That would be magical. We’ll see if I can go there someday.

Heidi Thompson:
That would be really cool.

Rachel Shannon:
Yeah.

Heidi Thompson:
What sorts of things are you gonna be handing off to your assistant?

Rachel Shannon:
Everything that is, you know, a $10 task, as you said in the podcast. So, um, a ton of just like spreadsheet stuff, organizational activities, packaging artwork, taking it to the post office, handwritten notes. Like, I would love to write these handwritten notes, but do I have time to do that? Probably not. Just these little tasks. And I’m hiring a person in person, a girl that I actually work with at weddings, because I need someone to physically be able to take things to the post office for me, package up art. I considered a virtual assistant, I just don’t think it’s actually the need I need since what we do is so tactile. And then that’s gonna free up a ton of time for me to write more blog posts, to create more strategized Instagram, social media marketing, to build vendor and venue relationships, relationships even further, um, and to kind of go after some goals that I haven’t even been able to scratch the surface of yet.

Heidi Thompson:
That’s so exciting. And there is something really magical about when you start to free up time to be able to work on those bigger things, because it’s always the little things that, you know, pop up with a notification that demand your attention, that pull you away from, you know, bigger things. Like, I want to build these relationships that are going to get me to where I want to go. Or, you know, I wanna be able to spend more time being really strategic or invest a bunch of time in this or that project. But you have emails, you have thank you notes, you have all these things that have to get done. And it’s just all these little things that add up to so much. So I’m so excited to hear about how that goes for you because when you realize like it’s getting done. And I’m not the one that has to do it. It’s just this lift off your shoulders. It’s magic.

Rachel Shannon:
When I was in my corporate job, I always said, I’ll know I have arrived when I have someone else do my email for me. And I’m like, oh my gosh, this is happening way sooner than I thought in life. But I am so, so excited. I loathe it. I am not an admin girly. I’m just not. So I’m really, I’m looking forward to it. And honestly, like, At the end of the day, my, what I’m doing can be used more effectively in other places and I, I have to let it go. It goes back to being a perfectionist. Would I like to respond to every single email myself? 100%, because I wanna make sure it’s correct. Do I need to let that one go so I can get more things done? 100%. So it’s just letting it go once again.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, it’s acting as the CEO. Like you said, it’s making those decisions about where is your time best spent? What are the things that only

Heidi Thompson:
you can do in the business versus what can you teach someone else to do.

Rachel Shannon:
Definitely.

Heidi Thompson:
And you can teach them to do it your way. You know, you can guide them, you can have steps for them to follow. It’s not like you just have to let people wing it. Uh, but I, I’m so excited for you. I cannot wait to see where you go from here. It has been so much fun to just see your growth because you are the kind of person that I know when I give feedback to, like, it’s gonna be done, like, tomorrow. And you are already getting results from it by the end of the week. And I love working with people like that because they get to see, you know, the fruits of all the stuff that they’ve been working on. Sometimes that is just frustrating waiting around for it. And it goes to show that you can push things forward and make things happen quickly if you really want to.

Rachel Shannon:
It feels really surreal. I think I said that earlier because I’ve had an art business before. I think total revenue for that business was maybe $400. So like, I’ve been in a place where things I tried did not succeed, but I, I don’t know why, but this, you know, I just put my literal all into it and I invested into the resources I needed and it came together and I am so, so thankful for that.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah. And I think you in particular, you’re very strategic about where you put your attention. And I think that is a skill that a lot of people don’t have that they need to develop to know, like, okay, if I really focus in on like the website copy, that’s gonna have a downstream effect so that everybody that comes to this website, all of a sudden a higher percentage of them are converting. That results in, you know, more bookings and more money. Whereas sometimes people get in the weeds with everything and aren’t able to see this is a very high leverage thing that if I take action on this, it’s going to have a huge impact. And I think you’re very good at seeing that.

Rachel Shannon:
Well, thank you. I also think ChatGPT is very good at helping me see, helping me see what I need to see. Big fan of Chat. Chat has helped me build my business, so yeah, I will definitely say it’s not all me. It’s wise mentors. It’s tools. It’s, yeah, trial and error. I’ve had a lot of error too.

Heidi Thompson:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You can’t, you know, when you’re doing this, you can’t not, you know, you’re going to try things, they’re going to fail. But you get to make the decision of what that means. Does that mean you just, well, okay, that didn’t work, move on to the next thing? Or does that mean that you make it mean something about you and that you’re not, good at this and that you shouldn’t be doing it. Like, you get to make that choice.

Rachel Shannon:
That’s a good reminder that I need, definitely.

Heidi Thompson:
Well, Rachel, where can people go to connect with you, to follow along with you? What’s the best place to reach you?

Rachel Shannon:
Yeah, so everything is Rachel Shannon Art. So my website is rachelshannonart.com. My Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Rachel Shannon Art. Um, Instagram’s the best place to find me. I post there pretty much every day. And if you want to send me an email, just head on over to my website. We can connect there.

Heidi Thompson:
Thank you so much for being here and sharing this, and I can’t wait to see where you go from here.

Rachel Shannon:
Thank you so much, Heidi. Thank you for everything. I’m so grateful.

Heidi Thompson:
Pretty incredible story, right? This is what happens when you get really specific about who you are trying to attract and you build your website and your marketing to be the absolute perfect magnet. For them, it brings them in in droves. And as you saw, it doesn’t even have to take that long to start getting found in Google with your SEO or start getting found by ChatGPT. This does not have to take that long. Rachel got these results in a matter of four months, and we have the steps laid out for you in the Wedding Business Collective that she followed to get them. So come on over and join us at Evolve Your Wedding Business. And I will have the show notes and all of the relevant links over at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/377. And of course, I would always love, always love to hear from you in my DMs. So shoot me a DM, let me know what you learned from this, what you’re taking away, any questions you have about making this happen in your own business, and I will speak to you again very soon.

Rachel Shannon:
Bye.