Tag Archives: Weddings

Are You Running a Hobby or a Business?

Posted on 07/21/2011 by admin
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If you are in business then correct me if I’m wrong but I’m betting you are in business to make money, right? So why feel guilty that some brides cannot afford your prices? I hear it all the time, people are scared to have high prices because they think that they will not make as many sales, well I can tell you now, whether we are in a recession or not there are plenty and I mean PLENTY of brides out there that have loads of money to spend on their weddings. And the good thing about marketing to THESE brides is that you have less competition!  Let everyone else clamour and jostle for the budget brides, down there you are competing with the mass market players which these days even include the likes of Tesco, BHS and Amazon and if you think you can compete with those guys then good luck with that.

The other end of the scale not only do you have far less competition but you actually have to do less work! Yes, thats right not more work, but LESS work! This is because your prices are so much higher. When I was watching the apprentice this series (and other series actually) it always amazes me that when they are choosing products to sell to big retailers they always go for something fairly cheap. This series the back pack was in fact a real winner and I’ve since seen it on a number of websites but I was amazed that they completely disregarded the electric bike which was retailing at about £1500. I know its expensive but think about it – would you rather be selling something for £30 or £1500?? Yes, sure you are (probably) going to sell more of the item worth £30 but how much more? You would have to sell 50 times the £30 product to every ONE of the £1500 – thats a hell of a lot of difference and its a WELL known fact that the hardest part is always getting NEW clients  !!

With the right marketing yu CAN target the higher end brides. When I was wedding planning the average spend on a wedding was probably about £65000 and those clients were as easy to attract as the ones that wanted to only spend £20000 and I can tell you that they required the same amount of work from me but gave me a MUCH higher pay day which meant that I earnt MORE money by working LESS – thats not a bad gig is it?

So – the moral to this blog post is – target the higher end brides people, there are plenty of them out there looking for EXACTLy what you are offering! Don’t feel sorry for the brides that can’t afford you, there are plenty of suppliers out there that they can afford – so STOP running a hobby and START running a successful, money making business…..

 

Claire xox

 

If you need help with this or any other strategy to bring you the Wedding Wealth that you deserve then contact me about the Wedding Wealth program, 100% of my clients are happy that they did!!!!

Do You Test and Measure Everything?

Posted on 06/14/2011 by admin
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One of the first things I ask new clients or people that are just asking for marketing advice is “Whats working for you currently?” I want to know this because if something is working then my philosophy is ‘If it aint broke don’t fix it’ although I do know some people with marketing strategies that seem to have the philosophy ‘If it aint broke fix it until it is’ but thats a whole ‘nothr blog!

I want to know whats working because sometimes the best marketing strategy is to increase and refine what you’re already doing if something is working for you rather than introduce a whole load of new things that take time and money and maybe wont work at all, but back to the point of the blog.  It simply amazes me when some people have no idea what is working or not working for them, they have a website, they advertise, the use Facebook and Twitter and they have no idea where their customers are coming from. This is madness in the extreme – if you are spending your time on Twitter, maybe several hours a day remember what your time is worth (hopefully a minimum of about £30 per hour) and thats a WHOLE lot of money you are spending on Twitter – are you getting enough returns from that to justify it?

The same goes with advertising (my soapbox topic so I’ll try not to get on it!) Its ok advertising in glossy magazines if you are GENUINELY getting the sales from it that not only cover the cost of the advert but also end up making you a profit, otherwise whats the point? Yes you could say that its brand awareness etc but let face it , you are NOT Coco-Cola or Cadbury’s you haven’t got millions to throw away on brand awareness, all your budget NEEDS to get you a return. Not only that but what use is brand awareness when the wedding industry is so continuously moving? Your brides and potential customers are potential customers for a year, maybe 18months tops, after that they are married and aren’t interested in the wedding industry anymore – weddings customers are around for a short time, chocolate customers are there for life!

So – what is all your hard work marketing REALLY costing you and what is it REALLY getting you? If you don’t measure it then you cannot improve it and if you can’t improve it then you could be just throwing your money away. One of my favourite sayings is from Ben Franklin “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” Yet that is EXACTLY what some people do with their advertising and marketing…..

 

 

Claire xox

 

 

Need help attracting more brides and getting more profit? Join the Wedding Wealth Program NOW!

How To Make Sure Your Emails Are Getting Read???

Posted on 05/04/2011 by admin
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These days we get absolutely inundated with emails and messages and if you’re anything like me a lot of them I delete without even reading, and your customers are exactly the same, so how do you make sure that YOUR emails are the ones that get read and noticed?

When sending emails to your potential customers there is nothing worse than sending constant ‘buy me, buy me, buy me’ messages – these are guaranteed to be deleted and marked as junk straight away. The wholepoint, once again, is to build a relationship with your customer so that they can get to know you, get to know your business and what you are offering and decide for themselves whether they want to do business with you. This is the easiest, less pushy and in my experience the much more successful way of converting potentials into customers!

So what should your emails say? They should always be informative and valuable to the people you are contacting, make them about the latest trends, focus on case studies, testimonials, latest products, celeb weddings in the news, anything that your potential customer will actually be interested to read and know about do NOT, and I repeat do NOT make it all about you! Tempting as it might be to tell people how wonderful you are at this stage in the relationship they are really not interested, you want them to come to that conclusion on their own!

So thats what to put inside your emails but how do you actually get your brides to even open the email? Well the title has to be FAB! It has to make your potential customers sit-up and want to read more, it has to be relevant to them and it has to incite curiosity enough to make them read further…

If you want some inspiration on how to write fabulous headlines start checking out all the womens mags on the shelves, the headlines on the front are amazing and the people that write those have researched and researched what works so use their results! They often have Top Tips, or really emotive words in the titles, no one is ever ‘sad’ that they’ve broken up with their partner in ‘Hello and OK’ world, they are always ‘devastated’ ! It creates much more of a response that just sad doesn’t it? Also get ideas from some of the best selling books, they are always Seven Steps to… Ten ways to….. The secret of……

Remember some of the key motivating factors when coming up with your titles  are

  • Saving time
  • Being appreciated by others
  • Improving appearance
  • Being up-to-date
  • Avoiding criticism
  • Avoiding pain
  • Avoiding losing money
  • Improving Social status

………to name but a few

Of course, remember YOU are marketing to brides so the biggest things on THEIR minds are their WEDDING DATE and their NEW NAME so if you can get those into your titles you are onto a guaranteed opener!!!!!

 

Claire x0x

 

Do you need help with attracting more clients to your Wedding Business? The Wedding Wealth program is specifically designed to generate more leads and more customers in an effortless and cost effective way. Find out more HERE Now…


Are You Discounting or Adding Value?

Posted on 03/28/2011 by admin
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I often get asked whether you should include prices on a website and to be honest I have no idea whether there is a right or wrong answer to that. If someone is going to go elsewhere because of the price they see on your website then it really saves you the hassle of them making contact, you chatting, maybe visiting them and then them saying its too expensive and going somewhere else. On the other hand you could argue that without quoting the price you have a chance to ‘sell’ to the potential customer and they will be so taken with you that they’ll pay anything…… Personally, and this IS only my personal opinion I don’t think it makes any difference because weddings are so emotional occasions that if you provide something a bride particularly wants then the price aspect goes out of the window immediately and I think very few brides actually purchase based on price.

Whether you choose to display prices or not there is one thing that I often see people doing and I would really, really ask you to think twice and that is DISCOUNTING!!!!  We’ve all seen the ads on tv over and over again for DFS furniture and their sofas are reduced to some tiny amount compared to what they are apparently worth, and what are we all thinking? We are thinking that the reduced price is probably what they are worth, not the inflated price at all, and it actually deflates the VALUE of the product. Top supermarkets, who spend millions on their marketing have done extensive research on how to offer their products. Which offer would you prefer:-
Half Price
50% Off
Buy One Get One Free
Basically they are, of course all the same but Buy One Get One Free consistently gets 300-500% more sales than the others!

If you want to make an offer to potential clients, maybe at a wedding fair or as a limited time offer, rather than make a discount increase your VALUE instead. You can do this by adding something of value to your package. If you are a photographer for example offer a FREE engagement shoot (you might do this anyway but make it known!) and make sure you tell people how much this shoot is worth, add a VALUE to it.  If you are making an offering that involves just your time make sure you add a value to it and advertise that value, attach an hourly rate to your service and make it known to your potential customers exactly what they are getting.

So next time you are tempted to discount and reduce the value of YOU and YOUR service think again and get creative about how you can instead add VALUE to your offering.

 

Claire x0x

 

Do you need help to put together a Marketing Strategy for your business that will make it SOAR? Are you ready to Step Up??? Click Here NOW

Can You Sell More Than Just Your Time?

Posted on 03/10/2011 by admin
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When my Wedding Planning business started taking off one of the things that bothered me was the fact that I only had so many physical hours in the day which effectively meant that there was a limit on what I could earn. Of course I could raise my prices but the limit would still be there. Luckily with Wedding Planning I was able to train people so that they could work for me and I could in effect do more than just one wedding on any single day and when business was booming I was doing 4 weddings a day. Unfortunately, many of the professions within the wedding industry mean that it is impossible to clone yourself such as lots of stationery, photographers, designers etc which mean there is a ceiling on your earning potential right? Well no!

Many experts say that the mark of a good business is if you could go away for a year and come back and its still running, could you do this with your business? If you can’t then you don’t have a business, you have a job! And unfortunately for many if us the job we have doesn’t come with the perks of working for someone else because you don’t get bonuses, holiday pay, sick pay, company parties etc, etc.

So how can you get out of this time for money trap and start to build a REAL business? Well the answer is to sell your knowledge. We all have a whole ton of wealth and experience in our heads and this is what people pay you for, but what if you could put some of this knowledge and experience down on paper and sell it? If you’re a wedding planner can you do online workshop advice or sell checklists or planning guides? If you are a photographer could you sell a guide to doing your own wedding photography??  But claire, I hear you say, if I do that I’m going to lose customers!!! NOOOOOOO !!! You will NOT lose customers, if anything you will gain them. The people that will buy your guides are NOT the same people that are your clients, they wont pay your prices, BUT you never know, some may be so impressed by your expertise that they end up booking you!

So, if you want your BUSINESS to grow and to start earning a PASSIVE income, think about what you can sell. If you want help with developing the PASSIVE INCOME side of your business then click here now, the Wedding Wealth Program covers this and many other aspects of growing your business and soon you’ll be earning money in your sleep!!!!!


Claire x0x


Do you need help to put together a Marketing Strategy for your business that will make it SOAR? Are you ready to Step Up??? Click Here NOW

What Risk Are your Customers Taking With You???

Posted on 12/29/2010 by admin
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We all like to think we offer a really great service and that our customers will be completely satisfied but how do we convince new customers of this? Well, if you are in the wedding industry you actually have an advantage because weddings are so emotive and the brides are pretty much driven by how your service or product will make them ‘feel’ What does every bride want her wedding day to be???? PERFECT!!!! But what is perfect? Well it varies from bride to bride of course but your job as a supplier is to let the bride know that her idea of ‘perfect’ is exactly the same as yours and that you will do everything you can to ensure it – what about if you GUARANTEED it? Wow – thats scary stuff isn’t it? Could you guarantee to your brides that your element of the wedding would be perfect?? Lets put it slightly differently, how many of the brides that you have dealt with in the past have actually thought things weren’t perfect? I bet there’s been very few, if any at all!

So – what is stopping you from offering some type of guarantee to your clients to help them make the decision to buy from you? Forever Living is a huge, global Multi Level Marketing company and has a completely brilliant guarantee, it really does make the decision to buy from them a complete no-brainer :-

“You will have the right to cancel any order within 14 days of it being placed. In addition, we are so confident that you will love our products, that we offer a complete money-back guarantee. If you are not completely satisfied with any item, simply return the receipt to me together with the unused part of the product or empty containers, within 60 days of the date of purchase and I will refund the price paid”

The other guarantee I always think works well is the one on the shopping channel QVC – it really gets round the possibility that people will not buy because they can’t actually see something…

“Every product purchased is backed by our 30-day money-back guarantee for extra peace of mind. So, if you decide you’d prefer a different colour, size or a refund, just return it to us within 30 days of receipt using the enclosed returns label”


Even I offer a guarantee to all my new clients, I’m so confident that I can help people build a successful wedding supplier business that I guarantee that if you follow all my recommendations and you don’t see an improvement in your business then I will refund all your money – win, win all the way!


So – what can you guarantee to your new clients to make the buying decision a no-brainer????



Happy and Successful New Year Everyone


Claire  x0x


Remember – if you want your business to grow and bring you wealth in 2011 my Wedding Wealth Program

Yes – I want Wedding Wealth!

Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up……..

Posted on 12/14/2010 by admin
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No one likes selling, we all worry what people will think of us and we don’t like rejection but the truth is if we are in business we are selling all the time whether we like it or not so we might as well do it really, really well!

When I work with clients one of the common problems of course is not having enough clients and one of the first questions I ask is “Do you ask for the sale?” Of course they say, “OK, how many times do you ask” Well one they tell me – ONCE? Just once??? Ah  - well that could be one of your problems then, once is NOT enough! I’m not saying that you have to badger and harrass people until they buy from you, of course not, but if you only ask for the deal once the chance of you asking when they are actually ready to buy is pretty slim, but the odds increase the more you ask. After all, how many times do you receives snail mail or email and read it and think, oh thats great, and then forget all about it until a few months later when you remember that you’ve seen an email about exactly what you currently want, and you look for a while for the email without luck, so end up getting it somewhere else…. I know I do it all the time!

So, by not following up you are actually stopping people that want to buy from you, its your obligation to follow up so that you can allow them to buy from you!

A famous Market Research company actually did a study on this and found out that 80% of all high ticket sales (which applies to weddings!) comes from the sales people that follow up at least 5 times!!!! In fact :-

44% of sales people give up after the first ‘no’
22% give up after 2 ‘no’s’
4% give up after 3 ‘no’s’

and 12% give up after 4 ‘no’s’

So – 92% of people give up after 4 ‘no’s’ and only 8% of people ask a 5th time, SO – those 8% of people are actually getting 60% of the sales…….

I bet you’re going to start asking for the sale a bit more now aren’t you?????????????

 

Have a great day!

Claire x0x0


If you want your Wedding Business to bring you WEALTH in 2011 then join the Wedding Wealth Program NOW


 


How Can You Make Multiple Sales to Each bride?

Posted on 12/07/2010 by admin
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When talking to Wedding suppliers I constantly hear them say that the wedding industry is difficult because brides (hopefully) only get married once, therefore you are constantly looking for new customers. This is true……. or is it?

Have you ever noticed at weddings that there are always loads of other people there that are getting married within a year or so, or have just got engaged etc?  Your potential for sales with every single bride you deal with is enormous and you should take full advantage of this by keeping yourself prominent in the brides mind even after the wedding! Of course you can only take advantage of this fantastic opportunity if you’ve already done an exceptional job in the first place so I can’t stress enough how important excellent customer service is but thats for a whole nother blog……..

You have to remember that for every bride you work for you have a valuable bit of information – their wedding date! This gives you a fantastic opportunity to contact them at least once a year, send them a card celebrating their anniversary and their friends will see the card as well, you can even offer an incentive for every referral they give you, it doesn’t have to be money, it can be vouchers or if you are a cake maker send them a few cup cakes with Thank You on them – I guarantee when they receive them they will go out of their way to find you more customers because they will love receiving your gifts!

One of the nicest gifts I ever received was a gorgeous bottle of Champagne and box of Champagne truffles for recommending a customer to someone. It was fabulous and I was over the moon about it, admittedly the customer meant a lot of financial gain to them, way more than the gift but thats not the point, the point is I literally cannot recommend these people enough now – I’m literally their best salesperson ever and all because of a gift!

A previous client of mine does this kind of marketing fabulously now and every single year she gets masses of orders for anniversary cakes, childrens birthday cakes and christmas cakes from her previous brides – this is virtually NO COST marketing in action at its best and all Wedding Suppliers can do this.

 


Claire x0x

 

If you want your business to grow into the something that brings you the profit you always imagined then sign up for my Wedding Wealth Program NOW, its guaranteed to succeed!


Who Wants Wedding Wealth??????

Posted on 11/14/2010 by admin
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I’ve spent the last 13 years working for myself, some ideas have been successful, others less so but in those years I have learnt exactly what works and what doesn’t in business. By far my most successful business (so far icon smile Who Wants Wedding Wealth?????? ) was my Wedding Planning business called Kiss The Frog which I sold earlier this year, mainly spurred by my realisation that I don’t much like weddings and particularly brides! I DO love the wedding industry though and I enjoy its uniqueness and all the fabulous and creative people involved in it.

Unfortunately during my 6 years as a wedding planner I’ve seen lots of businesses come and go, not because the people weren’t talented or their products weren’t good, 99% of them had something truly fabulous to offer the world of weddings but their businesses failed because of their business strategy and lack of knowledge and skills.

The wedding industry is truly unique because you are constantly chasing new customers. Unlike other business strategies that encourage you to up-sell and cross-sell because its ten times easier to sell to existing customers than find new ones, this is virtually redundant when it comes to the wedding industry, not only that but unlike other industries you have a finite selling window – once the wedding date is there they will (hopefully) never need your service ever again.  That’s the bad points about selling to the wedding industry but the good part is that it’s the ultimate in ‘emotional purchasing’ ! Brides are driven almost exclusively by their emotions, even price rarely comes into the equation and if you understand this and use it to your advantage it makes the selling process a whole lot easier.

So what on earth is Wedding Wealth?

The Wedding Wealth program has been produced exclusively for the wedding industry to turn your business into something that you can make a good living from instead of barely scraping an existence from.

Wedding Wealth will cover :-

  • How to generate leads
  • How to turn your leads into paying customers
  • Confidence and the fear of rejection – Get Over It!
  • Pricing- exactly how much are your products/services worth?
  • How to ask for the sale
  • Social Media – What is it and how to get masses of business from it effortlessly
  • How to make your adverts and website really get business
  • What makes you different from everyone else
  • How to make your clients rave about you and become your free sales force.

So what are you waiting for? Find out more about Wedding Wealth and kick start your business Today!


Claire xoxo