Whenever I participate in the Bridal Fair I always have other planners asking me- “was it worth it?” The simple answer is yes but I can tell you that it’s not just what you do at the fair but it’s what you do afterwards that makes the fair worth it.
Here are 4 tips for maximizing your Bridal Fair investment:
Create A Great, Showstopping Booth- Even if they’re not giving out an award make sure your booth stands out. You want your booth to resonate with your target bride so that she stops by. It also shows other wedding vendors that you’re playing a bigger game and that can mean more referrals.
In person and Online Attention- We always take a ton of pictures of our booth because it’s not just the people who notice you in person that you want to impress but you want to leverage EVERYTHING that you do so that means tweeting and facebooking like crazy about your participation in a Bridal Fair. That way even if brides aren’t there they are taking notice of the splash you’re making.
Build Your List- Bridal Fairs are the best way to build your list. I always give out my free report and have brides sign up to receive it via email and then later they get my ezine. This follow up is crucial and makes the difference between getting business post fair and not.
Make Genuine Connections- Yes we live in an online world and it’s important to market online (you know I believe in that) but it’s also important to have some face time with engaged couples and to make a connection with them. Brides and grooms come to these shows seeking answers and as a wedding planner, you have lots of them. Really listen to what their needs are and suggest how you can help them. We take appointment bookings right there at our booth and are busy in the weeks post fair with interviews.
Ciara’s Rockstar Wedding Planner Advice
Bridal Fairs are fantastic for wedding planners to participate in. It’s a great way to build your list and get noticed. I personally love the networking we get to do with other vendors as it’s great to see them outside of a wedding and reconnect. Bridal Fairs can be extremely profitable but you need to make sure you have all your marketing materials and your strategy aligned before you take the plunge. At Rockstar Wedding Planner LIVE this year I’ll be creating a Bridal Fair booth to show you the optimal setup and I’ll also be providing each attendee with a package of sample marketing collateral that you should be giving out at the fair AND sharing my follow up plan with everyone in attendance. This is a GREAT reason to attend Rockstar Wedding Planner LIVE, because just one hit off your next Bridal Fair more than pays for your attendance at Rockstar Wedding Planner LIVE. Click here to secure your ticket.
Ciara Daykin is the Rockstar Wedding Planner. She is an award-winning event planner and CEO of Firefly Occasions Inc. with offices in both Canada and the United States.
Ciara has devised a system for creating and maintaining a successful event planning business. She shares her knowledge with other planners through her Rockstar Wedding Planner coaching programs and various speaking engagements.
Working as a wedding planner, often means long hours in front of the computer and on the phone. Maybe it’s a little space set up in the kitchen, a spare bedroom, the den, or an actual office space. But when you look away from your computer screen, what do you see?
It’s important for a wedding planner to be surrounded by inspiration. That’s why I wanted to share with you some of the décor I’ve added to my office to boost my inspiration level. When you’re working long hours planning a wedding, trying to come up with ways to attract new brides, or figuring out what to blog about it’s completely necessary for you to have little items around you that remind you why you’re doing the work you’re doing, why it’s important, and encouragement to take leaps forward.
Here are some items in my office that give me inspiration:
“Your venture will be a success”- I love the Seattle airport and there I found this cute little mirror surrounded by glass tiles and framing a small slip of paper that is actually from a fortune cookie and it says “your venture will be a success.” I love to look in that mirror and accept that fortune as my truth.
Lope De Vega quote- I have a small black print with pink lettering with the quote “What Are You Waiting For?” from Lope de Vega. This always catches my eye when I’m procrastinating or trying to make a decision.
Success Plaque- My aunt lives in Ireland and years ago when I was starting university she sent me a little plaque with a poem on it about success. This little plaque has followed me across the country and to each of my jobs since university and it always reminds me just what it takes to strive for success.
Audrey Hepburn- I’m a big fan of Audrey Hepburn. I love how classy and stylish she was yet simple and sophisticated. I have two books that profile her life and both have amazing pictures of her on the front cover and I love looking over and being reminded to do each task in my day with an air of class and sophistication, just like Audrey.
Wedding photos- I like to have my own wedding photos in my office. This is what got me started in this business and fed my love for all things wedding. It’s also a business that’s afforded my husband and I to work together and as a husband and wife working together, well you can imagine, we don’t always agree. So I like to have our wedding photos around to remind us that love has been the basis of our relationship and this business. I also have one of my Gramma and Simon’s with us on our wedding day. They’ve both since passed and I like to be reminded of our guardian angels who I can always talk to during my day.
Butterflies- As a kid I was really shy and not very popular (actually I was bullied quite badly). I didn’t like to stand out or take risks. But I’ve grown a lot since then. My aunt in Toronto compares it to a butterfly that’s come out of a cocoon. That I had to go through those trials to be the beautiful butterfly I am today.
My University Degree- Well it cost me a lot of money that little piece of paper, but I sure am proud of it. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Culture with a Major in Leisure and Tourism from the University of Calgary (it’s the same major as Van Wilder my husband always jokes). But it’s where I got my start in events and have a lot of great memories. I love learning and always continue to do so.
Thank you card- It’s always nice to see these around me because I love to reminisce about past clients and how much fun it was to work with them. I also love seeing their words of gratitude because it fuels my energy to work on the next wedding.
Hilarious pictures and sayings- I love a good laugh. If you meet me in person you’ll get to know that I love a good joke and have an infectious laugh. So I have a pin board with pictures of nuns jumping in the waves, a big dog eating a wedding cake while the couple is outside getting married, and pictures of Simon and I being silly in a photo booth. Life is short and sometimes you just need a good laugh.
Feng Shui- My good friend Katie Weber of Red Lotus Letter turned me onto Feng Shui and I’ve organized my office (and my entire house actually) based on the principles I’ve learned from her and I’ve noticed a big difference.
So what’s in your office?
Ciara’s Rockstar Wedding Planner Advice
Even if you don’t have your own dedicated office you can still surround yourself with inspiration. Fun candles, picture frames, momentos from your travels. It’s important to constantly be inspired. Sometimes being a wedding planner can be lonely and that can get you down. By surrounding yourself with beauty and items filled with wonderful memories you surround yourself with fantastic energy. That fantastic energy changes the way you work and the type of clients you attract. Try making your office more inspirational and see what happens. Leave a comment below and tell me what inspires you in your office!
Very early on in my journey as a wedding planner I realized that this was what I wanted to do full time. Of course at the time I had a full time job and I was getting paid very well but it wasn’t my passion and I wasn’t happy.
One day I got so frustrated that I couldn’t spend more time planning weddings that I up and quit my job out of the blue and registered for a course to get my real estate license. I thought, I’ll sell BIG houses, make BIG commissions and that will pay the bills. And since no one will be telling me what to do I can work on my wedding planning business anytime I like.
Ha!
Let me say that again…. Ha!
Wow… was I ever naïve. I quickly and I mean quickly was completely overwhelmed, broke, begging for my old job back and then working 3 jobs (wedding planning, real estate and an oil and gas software marketing) because I’d made so many commitments that weren’t aligned with my passion and my purpose.
I didn’t think that I could have a full time, well paying wedding planning career until I realized that I couldn’t have anything BUT just that.
God didn’t want me to be an oil and gas software marketer. He didn’t put me on the Earth to be a real estate agent. I am and from an early age with Bridal Barbie, have always been, a Wedding Planner.
I shifted the way I was thinking and took the following steps to align my life with my passion and my purpose:
I Created an Exit Strategy- What you focus on grows and I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t focus on anything but being overwhelmed so guess what? I just kept getting more and more overwhelmed. When I shifted my focus to my exit plan it sped up and I was able to exit both jobs quicker than I’d originally planned.
I Invested in Myself- I knew that in order to be a full time wedding planner I would need to figure out why I wasn’t attracting more brides or the high end ones? I took the marketing skills and experience I already had and gave them a boost by investing in sales, marketing and mindset courses and mastermind groups that completely changed my life. My path became so clear and I was able to create systems and implement them into my business and soon I had my first $10,000 full service wedding planning client.
I Believed That I Could Do It & That I Was Worth It- I would be nowhere without the shift that occurred in my mindset. I was actually an incredibly negative person and I pushed away a lot of opportunities because I didn’t feel worthy. But I realized that the only person I was hurting was myself, and with the help of my mentor I shifted my mindset to be one of complete faith in my abilities. I am a person who takes leaps of faith knowing that the net will appear and it always does because I am following my true path.
Ciara’s Rockstar Wedding Planner Advice
If you want to be a Rockstar Wedding Planner then you need to look at the way you’re living your life. Are you aligned with your true passion and purpose? Because whatever you put your attention toward grows. If you’re constantly focusing on how much debt you have, that will grow. If you’re obsessing over how nothing ever goes your way, well guess what, that isn’t going to change anytime soon. If you’re frustrated and angry that your competition is making changes in their business that you’d already thought of but didn’t do yet, then that will keep happening and the anger and frustration will grow but your business won’t.
If you have dreams of being a great wedding planner then it is time to step into your greatness and live a life filled with your passion and purpose by aligning your life with your true goals.
Ciara Daykin is the Rockstar Wedding Planner. She is an award-winning event planner and CEO of Firefly Occasions Inc. with offices in both Canada and the United States.
Ciara has devised a system for creating and maintaining a successful event planning business. She shares her knowledge with other planners through her Rockstar Wedding Planner coaching programs and various speaking engagements.
On my free call last week I got some feedback saying, “I can’t believe you support kickbacks.” I was actually quite surprised because you see, I don’t. But I did talk about affiliate commissions, which are quite different.
A kickback is a commission that you get from a vendor for referring them. As a wedding planner that could be quite tempting since a big part of our job is referring vendors. But there are a couple of reasons that I don’t follow the kick back model:
I want my client to feel like I’m giving them the best referral for their personality, style and budget. I don’t want my referral being jaded by a percentage. I love meeting new vendors and exploring new options. My portfolio gets better and better because I recommend new and interesting vendors whom I’ve met on my travels who have cool new ideas for my brides. If I recommend the same people over and over again because I get a commission, all my weddings would look the same.
When my client is given a price for a service or a product, which is then delivered, I want them to feel like they got great value. If a commission is tacked on by a vendor to the regular price the bride doesn’t know this. If regular price is $400 but they are charged $500 because a planner is getting a commission, they are expecting a $500 value whereas the vendor is only providing a $400 value. And that makes everyone look bad. This point was also made by famous cake designer, Silvia Weinstock, at a Engage 09. She said that she had a planner add a commission onto her cake without her knowing it and the bride was disappointed because the amount she paid was not representative of the product she received. Don’t you think that planner looked bad?
If a vendor offers me a discount for my client or a commission I’d rather give my client the discount. A big reason brides hire planners is to help them get discounts. It’s so much better when brides walk away feeling like they’ve saved money working with you versus spent more.
But I do work with affiliate commissions for things I recommend online or post as ads on my blog or my ezine. There are a lot of great wedding based companies that have affiliate programs. You get a commission if a bride clicks through from your site and makes a purchase online. Most of the time, you never meet or talk to this bride, and honestly, she’s rarely a client. It’s just a random bride looking through your website, she finds something of interest, clicks through and makes an online purchase and you get a cheque in the mail.
This is a format bloggers have been using for a long time with Google pay per click ads. If you don’t have a very busy blog then you’re not going to support yourself using Google pay per click ads but it doesn’t hurt to have banners for supporting products that your readers would be interested in. Here are some great examples for the wedding industry:
These are all places where you can sign up for an affiliate account and place a banner on your website, blog or ezine and reap the benefits of brides making purchases. The content you provide is what attracts these potential buyers. Eventually if your blog or ezine is popular enough you could sell ads, which would make you more money than the affiliate commissions you’d earn through the pay per click model.
I hope that this clarifies my feelings on kickbacks versus affiliate commissions. I’d love to see what your thoughts/ comments are on this philosophy.
I was watching Jay Leno’s new show and he was talking to Miley Cyrus via satellite and he asked her if she wasn’t in show business, what would she want to be? Her answer? A wedding planner. While Miley Cyrus will probably never be a real life wedding planner it got me thinking that I should offer her some advice on how to be a successful wedding planner, just in case (psst you can use this advice too even if you’ve been in the biz longer than Miley’s been singing).
So You Wanna Be a Wedding Planner?
When you decide to be a wedding planner it often is something that you fall into. You plan your own wedding and love it, you plan other events and one day a wedding falls in your lap, or you help out a friend for their wedding and things progress from there. But after your big début into wedding planning you’ve got to set up your business for success if you’re going to make this your career.
Here are 5 tips for setting up a foundation for a successful wedding planning career:
1) Dive Into the Industry- It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the wedding planning industry it is crucial to be surrounded by your people. Whether it’s attending yearly conferences put on by industry associations, diving into a wedding planning workshop, or joining a wedding planner’s twitter chat group you’ve got to be involved. Other wedding professionals are your people and you can learn valuable lessons from them and the experiences they can share with you.
2) Learn As Much As You Can From the Experts- Whether you’re reading Preston Bailey’s books from cover to cover or participating in a Rockstar Wedding Planner coaching call you need to be learning from the experts. Learn from those in the industry who have great ideas in regards to décor, color and trends, but don’t forget to learn from those in the industry with great business and marketing skills as well. You need a good balance of both to make it in this world.
3) Create A Positive Environment- Tell naysayers to take a back seat. If you want to be a wedding planner then you go girl! (or guy!) Or if you’ve been doing this for awhile and want to step up your game then honey, let’s see you strap on those 4” hot pink stilettos and jump into the game. If you’re going to make it in any business venture you have to keep your mindset in check, that means get away from negative energy and surround yourself with encouragement, positive affirmations and energy boosting visualizations.
4) Figure Out Your Niche- So if Miley was going to be a wedding planner I’d tell her she better find a niche. For her maybe it’d be planning weddings for up and coming young Hollywood post Disney couples. But for you, you’ve got to find a niche because just having an engagement ring is not enough of a qualification. I know my exact flavor and the more I write to her and design my business around attracting her, the more I see her show up in my office.
5) Treat It Like A Business Not a Hobby- If you want to play J. Lo. and strap on a fanny pack and play dress up at a friend’s wedding then fine, but if you wanna get serious then that means treating this venture like a business not a hobby. If you want to be a full time wedding planner then you’ve got to set up an actual business, participate in the industry, support your fellow wedding professionals and create an exit strategy to get out of your corporate job. Most importantly you need a plan, you need to have a vision for where you want this company to go and you’ve got to act as the “Chief Entrepreneurial Officer” in charge of leading the business on that journey.
Miley the Next J. Lo?
Whether you’re just starting out in the wedding planning business or a seasoned pro the above tips can help you grow in success as a wedding planner. Just like the great band Journey says, “Don’t Stop Believing.” If this is your dream it is attainable just take action.
As for Miley, I think it’s too soon to see a remake of our favorite movie “The Wedding Planner.”
I’ve been really focused on growing my business and getting more and more high end brides. And it’s working! Great news…. BUT…..
There’s always a BUT….
There are brides that love my style, love how we plan events but because my prices have gone up they can’t afford to hire me as their wedding planner. These are brides that are ready to buy and it makes me really sad to turn them away. So after listening to photographer Laura Novak at a recent conference I thought she was on to something. Laura was in the same position as me as a photographer. As she grew so did her prices but it didn’t mean she wasn’t still attracting clients that would be great to work with but who just couldn’t reach her fee. She was busy enough so she created a second division to her company where she could refer these couples. They’d receive the Laura Novak photography style and treatment because she’d trained these associates and she wouldn’t lose out on the business. Brilliant!
So I applied this to my business and quickly came up with Simon and I running the Haute Couture division and an associate planner running the Pret a Porter division. They still become a client of Firefly and get access to our private collection of décor, our cool templates and spreadsheets, design ideas and our associates are trained in the Firefly Occasions style but at a fraction of the cost. It’s a total win win!
Could you do this in your business?
This is a great tactic to try while everyone is moaning over the economy. Could you create a second tier in your business so that you personally don’t have to lower your prices but brides and grooms could still gain access to your company’s style by working with an associate planner?
Another thought is- if people aren’t buying right now it means you’ve got to do a bit of renovations to your programs or packages. Maybe you promote coaching brides through their wedding planning rather than full service. It’s less of a cost for them but it also takes up less of your time and after talking to you on the phone for a year don’t you think you could upsell them to day of coordination?
What about tossing out some budget bride packages? Get some local vendors together and figure out how you could combine your services and give the bride a sweeter deal. That helps everyone out!
You need to think… How can I renovate my wedding planning?
And this idea is good to use all the time. I think it’s important that you give your business a little reno from time to time. Think about that boutique in your town that’s been there for 25 years without a paint job and the same mannequins in the window. It’s not very exciting and it probably wouldn’t attract today’s fashionista… It needs a little facelift to bring it up with the times and get people interested again.
Ciara’s Rockstar Wedding Planner Advice
How can you renovate your business? Are there some new programs or packages that you could create to spark some new interest? Are you loosing money by not having services for different levels of brides? Is there an area of your market that you’ve thought about tapping into but hesitated? Now is the time. Why not spiffy up your business right now and jump up to the next level?
I made a new friend in Randy Fenoli, Fashion Director of Kleinfelds and star of TLC’s “ Say Yes to the Dress” at the Engage 09 summit.
Randy is a such a fantastic person and a huge advocate for thinking out of the box when it comes to your wedding planning business. At Kleinfelds they have a special closet where brides are shown via webcam modeling a wedding dress for friends and family that cannot attend the dress shopping experience in person. Total out of the box ides… and I’ll bet it helps dress sales.
But what are you doing in your business that’s out of the box?
Even the smallest touch can WOW a brides and send a referral your way. When Simon and I plan weddings he brings along his pro camera and takes tons of detail shots of the décor, shots of the couple with his telephoto lens (as their pro photog is always in the prime position of course) and shots of the party after the photographer leaves. The couple doesn’t really notice on the day of but they are thrilled when a DVD arrives in the mail after the wedding from us. They discover 300+ candid photos and detail shots of their wedding décor. Not something they were expecting but it heightens their experience of working with us.
Ciara’s Rockstar Wedding Planner Advice
Sit down right now and brainstorm ideas about what you could do to create an out of the box experience for your bridal clients. And then act on at least 3 of them and see what a difference it makes in your bride’s happiness and in your business.
With all the talk about wedding cut backs and getting the best deal brides have got it into their heads that it’s a great time to haggle with wedding professionals over their prices. In fact, I’ve had couples (who are not my clients by the way) corner me at parties to tell me what great deals they’ve secured with their wedding vendors and how they’ve “beat them down” in price.
Congratulations- your wedding is going to suck.
Well, it’s the truth isn’t it?
When bridal couples beat down wedding professionals in price no one wins. There is no way that the same level of service is provided when our prices are haggled down. It’s just human nature to be bitter about it and not bring your A-Game even if you don’t mean to do it- it happens.
So How Do You Stop A Haggler In Her Tracks?
I had a bride who came to me the other day and when I quoted her our price this is how our conversation went:
Bride: “Is there room to negotiate on that price?”
Ciara: “I could lower the price but I would have to start taking away services and you won’t get me on your wedding day, you’ll get one of my other planners.”
Bride: “Well, what do I tell my fiancé when he asks if I negotiated a good deal?”
Ciara: “Tell him I told you $500 more at first and then I gave you a deal.”
She signed with us that night.
The lesson to be learned from this interaction? If you’re worth the price that you’re quoting then you need to stick to your guns and you’ll get the client.
And for me, when brides come into my office I’ve already established a relationship with them through my ezine, blog, social networking presence, my portfolio and the testimonials on my website. They know that I’m an expert and I really connect with them. We talk in depth about the benefits of working with us and I also address all their objections in our initial sales meeting even if they don’t voice them.
You know the objections brides have to working with a planner and you need to come up with answers that nullify the objections. By operating in this manner you grow your business into an empire, you don’t just squeak by working with one haggler and then the next.
Ciara Recommends
I don’t deal with hagglers. That’s my policy. And every time I turn away a haggler the universe rewards me with a full paying, appreciative client. If you accept hagglers, even just once, you’re inviting them in to haggle with you over and over again. Because hagglers brag and they’ll brag about beating you down to all their other friends guaranteed!
If brides haggling with you is an issue then you definitely want to register for my course with The Party Goddess “The $Million$ Dollar Event Empire Blueprint” because one of our modules is all about how to price and how to get it- yes even in this market.
Planners are always asking me, how are you able to ask for high fees and actually get them?
Well, I’ve mastered “The Money Talk,” and you can too with the help of my friend Lisa Sasevich.
Basically you’re asking, why aren’t people buying from me? You’ve dreamed it, you’ve planned it, you’ve promoted it and still…no money. You need to turn interested prospects into invested clients NOW! And it all comes down to just one thing.
Stop beating around the bush and learn how to have “The Money Talk!” Without this skill all other marketing talents are wasted. With it, you might find them unnecessary.
Finally, Big Ticket Blueprint Mentor Kevin Nations and The Invisible Close Expert Lisa Sasevich will cut to the core and lay it out for you. Tune in and begin to convert clients like crazy. Tune out and watch your competitors pass you by.
If you’re sick and tired of people needing to “think about it” or requesting that you send them “more inforamtion,” you can’t afford to miss this one-time-only free call!
Since I joined Rockstar Wedding Planner Legends and started coaching with Ciara I've secured an exclusive deal to be the event designer for Indy's Union Station Crowne Plaza Hotel and I have been successfully teaching an intern wedding planner course which I designed and promoted. I realized that I was ready to take bigger leaps in my business with Ciara's help and add new income streams that I never thought of before.
Tonya Shadoan, Circle City Planners CircleCityPlanners.com, Indianapolis, Indiana
Join host Ciara Daykin and special guest Lisa Light on this December’s Become a Rockstar Wedding Planner call about planning destination weddings! With 17 years of international event planning experience, Lisa Light has become an authority on destination weddings. She is the author of DESTINATION BRIDE: How to Plan A Wedding Anywhere in the World, CEO of www.destinationbride.com and one of a select few who assists Forbestraveler.com in choosing their Forbes 400. Lisa will be talking about what it really takes to plan out of this world destination weddings and why destination weddings aren’t just all inclusive hotels anymore.
This is a free call for Become a Rockstar Wedding Planner members. Not a member yet?
Whenever I participate in the Bridal Fair I always have other planners asking me- “was it worth it?” The simple answer is yes but I can tell you that it’s not just what you do at the fair but it’s what you do afterwards that makes the fair worth it.
Build Your List- Bridal Fairs are the best way to build your list. I always give out my free report and have brides sign up to receive it via email and then later they get my ezine. This follow up is crucial and makes the difference between getting business post fair and not.
Ciara’s Rockstar Wedding Planner Advice
Ciara Daykin is the Rockstar Wedding Planner. She is an award-winning event planner and CEO of Firefly Occasions Inc. with offices in both Canada and the United States.
I made a new friend in Randy Fenoli, Fashion Director of Kleinfelds and star of TLC’s “ Say Yes to the Dress” at the Engage 09 summit.
But what are you doing in your business that’s out of the box?
Ciara’s Rockstar Wedding Planner Advice
