What Happens After the Wedding Inquiry? How to Book More Clients with Better Follow Up with Kaitlyn Blair

In this episode we’ll cover:

• Why most wedding inquiry follow-up systems aren’t working (and how to fix it)
• How many touchpoints it really takes to book a wedding client
• Simple changes that can dramatically improve your booking rate
• What your follow-up emails should include to actually move people forward
• The role text messaging and automation can play in converting more leads
• Why “just checking in” emails aren’t enough
• How to create a follow-up process that works even when you’re not online

What Happens After the Wedding Inquiry? How to Book More Clients with Better Follow Up with Kaitlyn Blair

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
You got the inquiry. Now what? Most wedding pros lose potential clients not because of price or competition, but because their follow-up process falls flat. Let’s fix that.

0:00:14 – 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.

0:00:49 – Heidi Thompson
Hello there, my friend, Welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, Heidi Thompson, and I help make your marketing easier, help you book more weddings with clients you love, and make your business be the thing that creates freedom and flexibility for you, instead of you driving yourself crazy all the time. And today I am joined by Kaitlyn Blair and we’re going to dig into what really needs to happen after a wedding inquiry comes in if you want to turn more leads into booked clients. This is so important. This is where so many people fall down. They think they need more leads, but really, if they just fixed their processes, their follow-up processes and booking processes and Kaitlyn goes into four different workflows that you need in this episode you would have those bookings from the leads that you already are getting.

A lot of times you know you hear in the wedding industry about people being ghosted, but so many of us are unintentionally, inadvertently making our potential clients feel ghosted, and 80% of sales require at least five follow-ups. That is a crazy high number and I can tell you from talking to thousands and thousands of wedding pros over the years most are not doing this.

This is why I was so excited to bring Kaitlyn on to talk about all of the mistakes that happen, that kill the booking process, how you can actually automate without being robotic it doesn’t have to be that way and how to create a follow-up system that feels good for both you and your couples. So if you want to turn more of those leads that you’ve been getting into bookings, you are going to absolutely love this episode and we are going to be able to cover a lot here today, but we can’t cover everything in just a podcast episode. So Kaitlyn is going to be doing a workshop that will be available for you. It’s happening on June 3rd. It’s called Fix your Follow-Up and Fill your Calendar.

We talk a bit about it in the episode, but I want to give you a heads up up front. If you want to grab your ticket for that, you can do it at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/followupfix, and that is exactly what we are going to do. You’re going to leave that, having your followup fixed and knowing exactly what it is that you need to put into place in order to actually take action on this episode and turn more leads into bookings. So with that, let’s get into my interview with Kaitlyn Blair.

Today I’m joined by Kaitlyn Blair, the owner of Virtually Vital. She’s one of 22 certified HoneyBook pros and a Dubsado expert, and she is here to talk to us about workflows and efficiency and how they actually help you book more weddings and make you more money in your business, while also making your life easier, which I can’t think of anything better than that right All of those things at once. So, Kaitlyn, thank you so much for joining me.

0:04:21 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, I’m super excited to be here. I am so passionate about everything you just said, so I’m super excited about this topic.

0:04:29 – Heidi Thompson
I’m curious how did you first get into this world that you are now super passionate about and helping wedding professionals with their systems, with their CRMs? How did that come about?

0:04:44 – Kaitlyn Blair
Okay, so it’s kind of a long story. So I know entrepreneurs, but so I started as a general virtual assistant, just kind of. I was, I was a college student, so I was just kind of doing this on the side and wasn’t really expecting to make this a career. And then I had started working actually, with a wedding violinist. She’s a performer and she’s fantastic and she used HoneyBook and I am a natural organizer I love organization and I was like this tool is amazing. I was like this tool is amazing and so I like I fell in love with it then.

And then I ended up getting too busy where I couldn’t focus on school and my business at the same time. So I was like you know what I can. If I need to go back to school, I can do that, but I’m gonna experiment right now and go all in on my business. So I did that and transition to. I tried out some social media management. And then Reels came out and I was like I’m so burnt out I can’t do this.

And then I transitioned to copywriting and then I was like, okay, what is happening? I need to ref things efficient and finding. I love puzzles and I felt like it was a digital puzzle. So I transitioned to systems and I realized I’d worked with several wedding photographers and wedding planners and those were my favorite types of clients. They’re just so passionate about their work and passionate and about their clients too. So I was like this is perfect for me. I totally want to do this. So in let’s see October of 2023, I transitioned fully into HoneyBook and Dubsado builds for wedding pros. So long story, but that’s how I got there and, yeah, I’ve been loving it ever since.

0:06:52 – Heidi Thompson
I love that. I have a similar journey that like only makes sense in retrospect and it’s like oh yeah, I see how I got here.

0:06:59 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, I know it’s pretty crazy, but it’s been. It’s so fun and so interesting how, like every different type of service or every other thing that I’ve done has helped me do what I’m doing now, Like it’s. It’s so funny.

0:07:14 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, it just builds on itself. It’s awesome of like, this is something you love. This is a puzzle to you because so many wedding pros, I’m sure, as you see, are overwhelmed and not really sure how to make the most of these tools, not really sure how they’re going to save them time, not really sure how they’re going to make their lives easier. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about for someone who maybe is just getting started, maybe doesn’t know what HoneyBook is, what Dubsado is, what is a CRM and what is the benefit of having your systems and processes set up in one?

0:08:01 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yes, I would love to answer that. So a CRM is a client relationship management tool and basically it’s built to help you keep all of your client information in one place. You can kind of think of it as a digital filing cabinet. So, depending, there’s lots of different CRMs out there and depending on the tool, you can send contracts and invoices and you can track your finances. You can create some cool automations and cool templates, and there’s so much you can do. It can be so overwhelming, especially if you’re just starting out in HoneyBook and Dubsado and you’re like, oh my gosh, this is going to save me time. And then you log in and you’re like, oh my gosh, where do I start? What do I do?

0:08:47 – Heidi Thompson
It can do anything. Oh God yeah.

0:08:51 – Kaitlyn Blair
It’s like the opposite effects. I got this to feel more organized and to save me time, and now I have to spend all my time learning it and creating all these templates and things and I don’t even know. I don’t know what to do. So the benefits of it like I was saying earlier, there’s so many cool things you can do with a CRM.

A huge benefit is automations. So you can, depending on the CRM, you can create some really cool automations. So when a lead fills out a form on your website, you can automatically send them an email and then, if they don’t respond, you can automatically send a follow up. So it’s really cool how you can build these automations.

A really fun one that I always like to tell my clients is to create an anniversary follow-up email and that automation so six months or one year after the wedding, just send another email saying, hey, happy anniversary, it was so fun working with you. You can maybe add a little note too. So if something like personal happened I loved when your grandma did this at the reception or something like that Um, just making that feel a bit more personal, like there’s so many cool things you can do, um, and that is one of the biggest benefits of a CRM is saving you time and um. Those follow-ups are a great way to um to not lose leads.

0:10:25 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I think you know so much. Follow up is this manual thing and I’ve had so many wedding pros tell me like they feel like they spend so much time chasing leads and they get ghosted and it’s wonderful that we have tools that can help us with this. Do this for us. But also, you know, something I talk to my people a lot about is like the opportunity cost of your time, and I meet a lot of wedding professionals who you know they want to get started with a CRM or a new CRM and they want to get everything set up and they want to do it right, but it’s overwhelming and they don’t have the time and I love that people like you exist so you can be like, yeah, just let someone that knows how to do this. Yeah, do this efficiently, take care of it, and then that work that gets done one time continues to pay you. You know, day after day, week after week, as you go forward in your business.

0:11:29 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, exactly, yeah, I just love, I love CRMs, and even if you maybe your budget you don’t want to hire somebody you can at least find someone who specializes in it and look at their resources, because they probably have tons of different tips to help you get started. Even though that is still investing your time, it’s still just a great way to learn about the tool, because there’s so many things with CRMs that people don’t know about. Like with HoneyBook there is, and Dubsado there is, a built-in scheduler, so if you use Calendly or Acuity or something, you don’t have to use that anymore because HoneyBook and Dubsado already have that, and then you can create cool automations off of it. So it’s super fun, yeah.

And then another, going back to your previous question, with some benefits, you can really showcase your luxurious services with your proposals and your brochures and things. You can make it like a client experience the moment that they open a form and you can showcase past work, and then you can introduce your proposal and then have an invoice contract and then laying out those next steps that the client should take, whether it’s scheduling a call, whether you’re like, hey, I’ll be in touch with you in two weeks, blah, blah, blah. But that’s another thing that I don’t think people realize that they can do is utilize those forms to show off their branding and their services.

0:13:09 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I think we don’t think about that as the beginning of the client experience, because they’re not yet a client, but it is. It sets the tone and it can really make you stand out. It can make someone decide to choose you, because I know if I was looking for a wedding planner and it looked like they had their shit together more than other people, yeah, that’s gonna influence my decision and my willingness to spend more money yeah, exactly why don’t you tell us a little bit about workflows?

Because I think this is one of those words that gets used a lot and can mean things it’s like what are you, what are we talking about here?

0:13:53 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, it sounds like a scary word, it sounds very corporate-y, but a workflow is basically a set of steps to get you from point A to point B. That is pretty much it. So you can think of it as like your morning routine you wake up, you get out of bed, you go brush your teeth, you go to the bathroom, take a shower, you do all of that and then you’re ready for your day, or like your night routine those sets of steps to get you ready for bed. The same can be said for your business. So I break it down into usually four different workflows.

So the first one is the inquiry process or the inquiry workflow the moment that a lead has filled out your form and now they’re in your CRM to getting that contract signed and getting that invoice signed. What are those steps that you need to take? Do you hop on a call with them? Do you have follow-ups that send? If they haven’t hopped on a call or if you haven’t heard back from them, do you send a brochure with your services, like, what do you do? And then the next one is onboarding or the booking process. So they sign the contract. Now what do you? What information do you need from them to get started. Do you have a consultation call? Or, if you’re a photographer, do you just wait? Do you send them a questionnaire to get their vision? What are those sets of steps?

And then after that, I just call it like the pre-wedding phase or the active phase or workflow. And so this is what do you do in between? A lot of people that I have worked with sometimes don’t do anything. They will maybe send an email, like a week before the wedding, and then that’s it. The main thing with this is you don’t want the client to feel like they are being ghosted. You want to continue to communicate with them, because not only is this making them feel like, oh, they actually care about me specifically, but also they’ll feel more comfortable to make requests because they’ve been talking with you for a while.

And then, after that, is the off-boarding or post-wedding workflow, and that is the set of steps. After the wedding, do you send a gallery, do you send a video? Do you ask for a testimonial, like I mentioned earlier with the anniversary emails. Do you do that? What’s that process like? And so breaking it up into those steps is a lot simpler to find any cracks in your workflows or in your process to make sure that you’re giving your clients that luxurious experience that they’re paying for and showing off your services. They’ll be more likely to refer you to their friends and yes, that’s the long-winded. What workflows are?

0:16:41 – Heidi Thompson
I love this point you made about you don’t want your clients to feel like they’re getting ghosted, because we talk about ghosting in terms of in between inquiry and follow-up. We’re not going back.

But think about if you hire someone and you pay them several thousand dollars. You pay them five figures and then you just don’t hear from them, even if they don’t have anything necessarily get from you right now. That can feel very weird, very disconcerting. And the thing I find really interesting about humans in this sort of you know way of communicating is we don’t even necessarily need more communication. We don’t necessarily need you know more, but it’s certainty that we need. It’s expectation, it’s knowing what’s happening next. When am I next going to hear from you? What’s the next step? And when we don’t have that next step, it creates so much like anxiety and angst and I mean I don’t know about you, but I do this every time I order food. I’m like where’s my food? What street is my food? I know, are they goingthe wrong way?

0:18:03 – Kaitlyn Blair
Even just like in Panera, they have whenever I order it. They have like the stages of what your food is, If they’re in the process of making it or if they’re like about to pack it up, Like I’m just standing there looking at that while they’re doing it.

0:18:18 – Heidi Thompson
It gives you this like weird comfort and level of certainty that, like that they care, yeah, and that like you’re being taken care of, like we got you, we didn’t forget about you, yeah. This is just the stage that it’s in, and I think that’s a really easy place to drop the ball, and it’s a very easy way to inadvertently provide a bad client experience that results in no referrals, right?

0:18:47 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, and it could be totally like not of course, not on purpose. You don’t want I hope you’re not purposely doing this, but I mean, maybe you’re just super busy and you just forget to check in at six months or three months or whatever. Like it’s could be totally not your fault, but it could feel to the client like oh, I’m just a number to them, or like you’re saying, not necessarily like a person. So it’s a super simple way just an email and it can be automated. Or at least you can create a task that will generate three months before the wedding or six months whatever, just checking in. And yeah, I always recommend that to my clients.

0:19:36 – Heidi Thompson
And even better if it can be automated or it can be a task that populates, because we all think we’re going to remember stuff. I know to have you know systems that back you up so that even on your worst day, your clients are still getting an exceptional experience and they feel taken care of.

0:20:06 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, like if you’re on vacation or if you went viral and now all of a sudden you have 20 clients, like making sure that they’re each getting that consistent client experience. So that’s another thing, the consistency because you don’t want like you don’t realize that your two clients are friends and then they’re like oh, this person, my friend, got this, why didn’t I get that? Or something like that. So that consistency is super important as well.

0:20:35 – Heidi Thompson
And people are spending a lot of money on vendors and it can feel scary and, you know, there’s so much less trust in the market now than there has been, because everyone knows someone or has read about someone that has had some sort of horror story. So in the back of their mind it’s like, oh, even if they love you and trust you, it’s like they could just take my money and not come to my wedding. Yeah, and that’s scary. And you want to reassure people that? No, you have a process, you have a way of handling this. They’re working with a professional and they’re going to have, you know, a killer experience, which I think every wedding vendor cares about.

0:21:17 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, exactly, which I think every wedding vendor cares about. Yeah, exactly. I always make sure to emphasize the importance of laying out those expectations whenever possible. So if they’ve once they’ve booked, what’s the next steps? What do they need from you? When are you going to contact them? Same with if you do a check-in email, what’s the next steps? Are you going to contact them in another month or a week before their wedding? Whatever? Lay that out. And always some people don’t do this. If they’re wedding photographers, sometimes they don’t emphasize when they’ll be receiving the gallery. They’ll kind of just expect, like, oh, it’s in the contract, they should know that. Yeah, like, it says four weeks in the contract. Always make sure that the client knows hey, you’ll get the sneak peeks in 48 hours and then in four weeks you can expect the gallery, if not sooner, something like that, because you don’t want to assume that the client knows something and that was forever ago.

0:22:16 – Heidi Thompson
That was a completely different version of that person who read that contract right, yeah, now they’re married, and now they’re like under her name, like a year later, you know.

0:22:25 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, exactly.

0:22:27 – Heidi Thompson
Let’s talk a little bit about follow-up systems, because I think this is a surprisingly underutilized workflow. I think a lot of people do this in a very manual way, you know, responding to their inquiries and following up with their inquiries and, as a result, your emotions get in the way, right? So you know we don’t hear back from somebody. We internalize that, we make it. You know they hate me. Yeah, I know. So I’m sure you see the difference it makes in a business. When people are coming to you, they don’t have this kind of thing in place. They put a workflow in place to start to handle some of their follow-ups for them. What kind of change do you see in those businesses?

0:23:17 – Kaitlyn Blair
Oh, responses for sure. Even if it’s not like the response that you want, they’re at least responding saying oh, hey, sorry, or like maybe they’re out of town. There’s one client I was actually working with last week. She was like we followed up with her twice and she responded and was like hey, so sorry, I’ve looked at it. I just I’ve been in San Diego and so you don’t know what that client is doing. I mean, how many times yourself, if you are maybe doing something, you’re in a super busy workday and then you get an email from like your doctor saying to fill out this form, and then you’re like, yeah, I’ll do it later. I just snoozed an email like that, yeah, I’ll do it later.

0:23:58 – Heidi Thompson
I just newsed an email like that yeah, I’ll schedule that later Get out of here.

0:24:04 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, exactly, and so then maybe you forget. And then having that follow up it’s not personal Like you were saying, it’s just making sure that you’re at the top of their mind because you don’t know what they’re doing. Because you don’t know what they’re doing, so something that I like to do. So there’s. I found a study from Salesforce and they say that 80% of sales require at least five follow-ups before a sale. And that sounds like a lot and that is probably scary to a lot of people, to a lot of people. But follow-ups are normal. You should have them.

I have a follow-up system set up for my clients where, if they haven’t heard a response from a lead and about, depending on the client and their service usually between two to four days I send a follow-up, another and their service usually between two to four days I send a follow-up Another, same thing. If we haven’t heard back from them, another follow-up and then finally a third follow-up, just for that first initial response. Now, after you send the proposal, same thing and then, if you need a questionnaire, back sending those follow-ups and having that built in. So when you’re busy with your 20 other clients you don’t have to think about following up about that one client that, um, that you don’t know they could be out of town or they could be sick.

0:25:31 – Heidi Thompson
So yeah, and I think so much of what people count as getting ghosted like’s an argument, of course, and I see it all the time that like, okay, it’s not the right fit, it’s not the right client. But for the ones that are the right fit, a lot of times it’s us that’s dropping the ball because we’re not continuing to stay on top of it and we I get it it. It it’s like, well, they’re not interested. You can’t make that assumption and I’m sure you’ve seen of your clients get bookings from those follow-ups that probably initially were like I don’t know. It feels like a lot.

0:26:12 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, there’s this one client that I manage her HoneyBook monthly for her and so I make sure that she’s available on certain dates and things. And there’s this one client I made sure to follow up three times and she just sent her a proposal yesterday after the lead came in, like two weeks ago. So being consistent definitely pays off and I think as far as follow-ups, I know some people can be like well, what, what do you include in a follow up? Like, what does that mean? It doesn’t have to be super long.

In fact, I’ve seen some people send like super long personal, like personal stories or whatever to make it feel like they’re talking to a person, which is fine, but people probably aren’t, they’re not going to be reading that. So even just a simple like hey, popping this up and putting this to the top of your inbox, kind of thing, and then restating your value and maybe even adding a personal touch if you want to. If you don’t want it to be automated, if you’re like, oh, I don’t want that to sound like a template, you can still create an automation for it to generate, so you don’t have to remember to do it, and then you can add like a personal touch to it if you’d like. And then even I’ve seen people they add like a blog post for resources or their Pinterest for inspiration and stuff Like hey, you’re getting married at this venue.

0:27:35 – Heidi Thompson
Here is a blog post about a wedding I shot at this venue. That’s brilliant, because all of the other people that they’re talking to are not following up that way. I can tell you from personal experience, from working with wedding professionals for like 13 years, most people are following up in a way that’s like hey, you ready to give me money? Yet, yeah, I know. And if you make it just the slightest bit valuable, oh my God, does that stand out?

0:28:10 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, adding that value for sure is incredibly helpful, especially at the beginning.

0:28:16 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because that’s the point where they have the most people that they’re considering. That’s where you have the most competition, the most crowded space in their inbox, because, if they’re like most of us, they’ve probably inquired to like 20 different people at the same time. And then those responses come back and it’s like, oh God, now I have too much going on, I’m going to ignore it.

0:28:45 – Kaitlyn Blair
Right, I know yeah, then there yeah.

0:28:49 – Heidi Thompson
And if we, if we really take the initiative and create a process around our follow-up and, like you said, it doesn’t have to be super complicated, it can also be not fully automated which I really like too, is that combination that, like sort of hybrid of you’re creating You’re creating a base template?

0:29:11 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, and then you can add to it.

0:29:13 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, the template for yourself. Or you’re creating a task for yourself or a reminder for yourself, or you’re creating a task for yourself or a reminder, you know, something that at least makes it a little bit easier for you, because this is one of those areas of your business that if you don’t make it easy for yourself, you’re just not going to do it.

0:29:30 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, exactly, and this is, it’s such a simple thing, but because I feel like, because it’s so simple, people don’t do it, and so making sure at least having a task to remind you to do something is super important. Now you need to make sure that you understand yourself and your business and realize, oh, am I actually going to follow through with that? Because if you’re not just send the template, just send what you have and yeah. So I think that’s because I’ve known some people that are like, yeah, let’s do that. I’m like are you really going to send that template? Like, are you so just kind of having a reality check can be, can make sure that you are making money and making making more money.

0:30:14 – Heidi Thompson
I know you’ve said so. You mentioned making more money there. I know you’ve said like, as part of building out these workflows for your clients, they’ve been able to make more money with their proposals. Tell us a little bit about that.

0:30:27 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah. So a really cool thing that you can do with HoneyBook and Dubsado proposals. You can include add-on services so you can propose your base service. You’ve talked to the client, you know that you’re going to deliver like an eight-hour coverage day or your full planning package. You can add other things along to it, like maybe you have an album or you have like a 10 second video clip or something like that you can add on those services so you can upsell your services. You may not realize that, oh, that client was actually interested in it and I didn’t realize that that’s something that they’d be interested in. They have that right there and that’s such a simple way that you can make more money with your, with your services and your packages.

0:31:17 – Heidi Thompson
I love that because it really puts the client in control. Yeah, it doesn’t feel like we’re pushing it, we’re like really banging them over the head with it. It’s just like this is available if you want to add it on and I’m sure you see plenty of your clients have people that do decide to add it on.

0:31:38 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, I’ve seen lots and sometimes I even I’ll suggest it to a client and then they’ll be like, oh, I didn’t realize I can do that. And then they’ll come to me a month later and be like, oh my gosh, I’ve sold XX about or of this package because of this, and I love that. So and the really cool thing with HoneyBook and Dubsado is that you can add a certain feature is called like a service block or a payment recap block, but basically the contract and invoice will update automatically, so you won’t have to worry about like oh, is the invoice going to be accurate or is the contract? Is the contract going to be covered? Like, yeah, it’s so nice, the invoice can be accurate, or is the contract? Is the contract can be covered? Like, yeah, it’s so nice, so you don’t have to worry about that. If a client decides to add a certain amount of your services or items, I love that.

0:32:29 – Heidi Thompson
That is so cool. That definitely saves you work.

0:32:32 – Kaitlyn Blair
I know and worry and like, yeah, you don’t have to, you don’t have to worry about that.

0:32:38 – Heidi Thompson
Okay, so paint a picture for me before and after, when someone comes to you and they’re like I don’t know, I got to get my systems together. I need to, you know, put it all together in a CRM. And then, after you know, they have these follow-up systems set up, they have these little proposal add-ons that are able to bring in their additional revenue. What does that transformation look like from the people that you’ve worked with?

0:33:10 – Kaitlyn Blair
Oh my gosh, it is. It’s huge, because usually my clients, when they come to me, they are overwhelmed because they’ve heard okay, I need a CRM if I’m going to be taking my business seriously. I’ve chosen this one like I need your help. And so I’ll work with them and understand their services and their processes. So then I’ll go through and create workflows that are specific to each service, because some people are like, well, I’ll just create one big one and then if they if they do weddings, but then they also do family photography or event planning they don’t realize that maybe they should be creating different questionnaires and all of that. So I’ll work with them and create all of that. And then we also talk about if they want certain steps automated or not. I’ll, of course, make suggestions to their processes. And then, yeah, and the big thing for me is, I want them to feel in control of their account and training, so training.

A lot of times they’re like there’s just so much about these tools, I don’t know. I’ve heard so many times I don’t know what, I don’t know, um, and I’m like that’s so funny. Um, so making sure that they understand their account and working with them to in the future if they decide they want to add another automation, or if they’ve rebranded, do they know how to do that in their accounts? They don’t have to. Of course, they can invest if they want to, but if they don’t want to invest again in a service like this, what? What do they do?

So that’s a big thing for me, and afterwards it is so powerful for them they are getting. When they get leads, they don’t have to worry about their next wedding expo, like what do they need to prep for? Or if they’re doing ads, or if they’ve accidentally not accidentally, but if they’ve gone viral on Instagram or something, they’re prepared for that. And yeah, there’s one client that I just recently worked with again, like last week, and she just needed a bunch of email templates. That was it. So I created them all for her and then she was like this is huge, is so helpful to not even have to think about what I need to say in a certain certain situation. So’s so cool because it’s making you more sales.

0:35:42 – Heidi Thompson
It’s delivering a better client experience, it’s making your experience as a business owner in managing your business easier, more streamlined, more in control, and it’s giving you that peace of mind of like, yeah, I got this, I have a template for this, I know what happens at this step, I’m not just like winging it.

0:36:06 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, exactly, and you can even track your finances and do some financial reports and things and see which service is your highest selling, which month was your best, and yeah, it’s so cool and such I don’t know where I would be without mine, like it is so helpful for me.

0:36:26 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I meet a lot of wedding pros who are winging it and I get it. You know we’ve all been there. But oh my god, can I tell you it’s just so much easier when you have systems and processes in place and you know what you’re doing and you know the steps to follow. And you personally aren’t the one that has to do everything. You can rely on some automation. It just makes your whole life easier.

0:36:52 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, it’s so, so easy. It’s so like your brain. I feel like your brain can finally breathe, knowing that you know that a task will generate five months before the wedding, reminding you to do something like it’s so, so freeing.

0:37:06 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I don’t have to worry about that right now. I’m just going to put that away.

0:37:10 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, exactly.

0:37:12 – Heidi Thompson
Well, if you are listening to this and you’re like I need some of this in my life, I am very excited because Kaitlyn is doing a training for us all about fixing your follow-up and filling your calendar and it’s happening on June 3rd. You can get your ticket at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/followupfix and we are going to go in depth into the workflows. What needs to happen in the follow-ups? What sorts of email templates do you need? How do you optimize that? What do you need to have in your proposal? All of these questions of like okay, cool, I want to do it. Okay, cool, I want to do it Now. How do I do it? We are going to be covering and you’ll also be able to ask Kaitlyn your questions because this is a personalized sort of thing.

Everyone’s business is a little bit different.

0:38:11 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, I’m super excited it’s going to be so fun.

0:38:14 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I can’t wait. I know this is an area a lot of people struggle with and it’s one of those things that like, when you fix it, it makes everything easier. Like I said, it makes sales easier, it brings in more money to your business, it makes the running of your business easier. It’s one of those few things that you invest a little bit of time, a little bit of money up front and it continues to pay you back week after week. I love those sorts of things 100%.

And, as you’ve heard, your follow-up system can absolutely generate way more sales for you than it is currently, especially if you’re not doing it or if you’re not doing enough of it, and we’re going to be talking about all that. I’m really excited.

0:39:08 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, I like how you pointed out doing enough, because there have been plenty of people I’ve worked with where they’ll send just one, or they’ll send one two weeks later after the lead comes in and I’m like, stop, no. So, yeah, making sure that you’re strategizing those follow-ups.

0:39:27 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I get it Like if you’re manually doing this in your business, it can be exhausting. Yeah, and like, okay, yeah, I’ll get around to it when I get around to following up with this person and you don’t have to rely on that manual work, which I’m a huge fan.

0:39:44 – Kaitlyn Blair
Yeah, exactly. Or, and you don’t have to hire an assistant to do it, Honeybook or Dubsado will do it.

0:39:49 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I love that we live in a time where we can just let tools do some of the work for us and, yeah, I’m forever grateful for that.

0:40:02 – Kaitlyn Blair
I know I’m like, wow, all this ai stuff, I may as well use it.

0:40:04 – Heidi Thompson
So, like we were saying earlier, with chat gpt, like it’s my best friend yeah, I love it I love it and anything I can automate and still, you know, infuse personality into, of course, yeah, both. Just it frees up so much of your time, so so head over to https://www.theweddingbusinesscollective.com/followupfix/. You’ll be able to get your ticket there.

It’s happening on June 3rd. People who get their ticket will get access to the replay. We’re going to go in depth on all of these things, especially related to your followupup, so you can turn more of the inquiries that you already have into bookings. Maybe you don’t need as many new inquiries as you thought you did. You just need to follow up a little bit more, yeah.

0:40:51 – Kaitlyn Blair
I’m so excited.

0:40:52 – Heidi Thompson
I can’t wait for it. And Kaitlyn, for people who are like oh my God, please help me, when can they go to get in contact with you?

0:41:02 – Kaitlyn Blair
Sure, so you can visit my website, www.virtuallyvital.co It’s C-O and you can check me out on Instagram, @virtuallyvitalva, and I’m super active there. Feel free to DM me and we can chat all about what is bothering you and how to make your systems work specifically for you.

0:41:25 – Heidi Thompson
And I will say, if you did not hear Kaitlyn’s presentation during the last summit, she is brilliant at making systems work for people who have ADHD, because that presents fun new challenges. So even if you’re like, oh, I can’t because I’m all over the place, I’m scattered, I have ADHD, this is something I struggle with. Kaitlyn is well, I got you All three of my siblings have it.

0:41:56 – Kaitlyn Blair
I’m pretty sure my husband has it, so I know how y’all’s brains work. We’ll work with it to make sure that your system is working for you.

0:42:06 – Heidi Thompson
Fabulous. Thank you so much for this. Be sure, for those of you listening, grab your ticket. Evolveyourweddingbusinesscom, slash followupfix and let’s fix your followup. Kaitlyn, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.

0:42:22 – Kaitlyn Blair
It was wonderful.

0:42:23 – Heidi Thompson
How awesome is Kaitlyn right and knowing that you have these bookings that are just sitting there waiting for you to follow up with them and make it happen to turn those leads into bookings. You are so close and we just need to make some changes to your workflows or put workflows in place, if you don’t have them already, to make sure that this happens, and it doesn’t require a ton of your time. Like Kaitlyn said, there are so many things you can do to put this on autopilot, to have a just run like a well-oiled machine in the background. And we’re going to dig even deeper into this with the Fix your Follow-Up and Fill your Calendar. Workshop happening June 3rd.

Go grab your ticket at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/followupfix. You’ll have the option to either grab your ticket or get it for free with membership to the Wedding Business Collective. Either way, totally cool by us. We just want you to get your follow-up fix so you can actually turn more of these leads into bookings, make more money and grow your business. So I hope to see you there on June 3rd.

I would love to hear what you took away from this episode. So shoot me a DM on Instagram I am @evolveyourweddingbusiness and let me know. And, of course, if you need that link evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/followupfix you will also find it in the show notes for this episode, or you can just DM me and I’ll send it to you. You know, if you’re driving, if you’re doing something right now that makes it, so you can’t go to that link and get your ticket, feel free to just shoot me a dm and ask for the workshop link and I’ll send it right over to you. All right, my friend? Thank you for taking the time to tune in today and I will speak to you. All right, my friend, thank you for taking the time to tune in today and I will speak to you again very soon.

About Kaitlyn Blair

Kaitlyn Blair is the owner of Virtually Vital. She is one of 22 Certified Honeybook Pros and a Dubsado Expert who utilizes her knowledge of the tools to bring her clients clarity to their efficiency, workflows, and templates. She has worked within the wedding industry for several years, allowing her to truly understand the industry’s best practices to give to her clients.

She has provided courses, educational workshops & masterclasses, and podcast episodes for educators such as The Virtual Savvy, the Wedding Business CEO Summit, the Celebration Pro Podcast, and more.

Website: virtuallyvital.co
Instagram: @virtuallyvitalva

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Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
Get your ticket to Fix Your Follow Up & Fill Your Calendar!
Is Your Wedding Inquiry Process Driving Clients Away?
How to Escape the Hustle Trap in Your Wedding Business (Without Sacrificing Success)
Honeybook
Dubsado
Rock Paper Coin

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