by Bethel Nathan | Advice, Business Management, Business Systems, Customer Journey, Ideal Client, Marketing Tools, Reviews & Reputation, Social Media, Systems & Apps
I talk to my coaching clients and industry colleagues about reviews a great deal. Why? Because the words of those who have used your services or product – talking about the value or the results or what it was like to work with you (or all of the above) – can be so much more powerful than anything you could say about yourself! And, since they are coming from the perspective of someone likely similar to the couples checking you out now, they are usually speaking in a language that fits that potential new couple, too.
So, now what?
First, be sure that you’re getting new reviews from your past clients, and regularly. Recency is just as important as quantity. After all, if you were checking out reviews of a restaurant or hotel, for instance, as you planned a night out or an upcoming trip, and you saw none from the past year, wouldn’t you wonder about that place? Are they still in business? Has their quality fallen dramatically? Plus, if you’ve been in business for a while, you have likely seen your couples change over the years, maybe in what they are looking for, their priorities, or how they express it. So, having recent couples talking about you do matters. And, yes, quantity does sure help too, not only in qualifying you for industry awards like The Knot’s “Best of Weddings” and WeddingWire’s “Couples Choice”, but in building confidence in those reading them that those many reviews they see are real and not just a handful of your friends and family members who did you a favor and wrote some for you.
How do you do this? ASK! I know that that sounds simple, and yet many people I’ve worked with over the years don’t have a process to do just that. I greatly recommend adding an email into your workflow to ask your couples to write you a review, with links directly to the places you want reviews (except for Yelp, who doesn’t like seeing businesses solicit reviews, so include it in your list, but don’t give a direct link). And usually about 2-3 weeks after your work with them is done (I know that some of us deliver our work before the wedding, others of us do so on the wedding day, and others aren’t done until well after the wedding). I used to send it in my “thank you” email the day after the wedding, but I’m finding that I’m getting more now that I wait about 2-3 weeks. Couples for whom you exceeded their expectations, and gave them a great customer experience as well as end-product, likely want to say thanks and help you as well – this gives them the chance to do so! If you haven’t been doing this, you can absolutely do a catch-up now, emailing all of your couples from the past 6-12 months, and I highly recommend it.
Then, what do you do with them? This is where the superpower of reviews comes in. You want to use them everywhere! Wait, what? Especially if coming from a past client that you would consider an ideal couple (as that helps you attract more like them), and if it is expressing something that you want others to hear or know. So, yes, use snippets on every page of your website, in your marketing materials, in your online listings, and in any place that you are communicating with couples, like your email signature and even in your verbal “elevator” pitch at wedding shows. Use full screenshots on your social media (as it gives more legitimacy to see the full and unedited verbiage) – this gives you fresh content for social media, plus allows them to be seen by more people.
Let me add a note on using their words on your website. The days of a single “testimonial” page being of the most value are behind us, and instead you want to weave your couples’ words all throughout your verbiage throughout your website. Use what they say to illustrate or to emphasize things you want to say, as their perspective can often help you to do so.
Also, don’t forget to respond to them! I always email my couples to thank them for writing one, letting them know how much I appreciate that they took the time to do so, and that I absolutely loved hearing what they had to say. And this is important, I think, for continuing the positive feelings in your customer experience with them. But you also need to respond publicly, right on the review website, as those responses are for future couples reading your reviews. Be positive, be thankful, and be you. This is one more place for your personality and your connection with your couples to be seen, so don’t pass up the opportunity to do so. But always remember that the target audience for your response is those reading it as they research you for themselves – whether it was a raving review, good review, or maybe a not-so-great or quite bad review, the response is really meant for future couples (or fellow vendors) who don’t yet know you.
Please be sure to fully read your reviews to be sure that you are making any changes in your business that comes up as an issue. One not-so-great review definitely requires a personal response, but probably doesn’t require a business change. But, multiple of not-so-great (or quite bad) reviews definitely do. So, read them looking for a pattern – whether it was your communication or professionalism or end-product – and improve accordingly.
On the flip side, if there’s something that couples are consistently mentioning as something they loved or particularly appreciate about you or your process or your end-product, can you do even more of that or make it even better, or talk about it more as a selling point? Our businesses should be in a state of constant improvement, as the wedding market and couples are constantly changing. Improving even what you are doing well and what couples love will help keep you ahead of the curve!
Embrace the power of reviews, and the “social proof” that they provide, and see what they bring to your future business!
If I can help you figure out how to best use reviews in your business, or help you narrow down what messaging to use, drop me an email below and let’s chat!
by Bethel Nathan | Business Management, Business Systems, Customer Journey, Financial Management, Goal Setting, Marketing Tools, Systems & Apps
Each of our businesses is different – and I think that that is one of the coolest parts of having my own business, as I get to do what fits me and my goals/needs best, while you get to do what fits you and your goals/needs best.
But, my current business is also different from the business it was last year, and different from the business it will be next year, and that is both fun and uncomfortable. And, this time of year – the quieter period toward the end of the year, when looking back is a necessity (taxes and financials), and looking forward is a best practice, plus, catching up on many things needs to happen too – is the time to think about all of this.
So, I thought that I would walk you through what my end-of-year process looks like in my business this year – and I’d love to hear what you’re doing differently or that I didn’t even mention!
Numbers:
Financials: Yes, I look at my financials, since I try to now keep caught up on QuickBooks month-by-month (rather than a big catch-up at tax time), plus, I implemented using a separate cash flow spreadsheet this year too. This all helps me see gross revenue, net profits, and also what my cash flow situation is (and was at various points during the year). Using that cash flow spreadsheet this year gave me a great visual way to see how my expenses fall throughout the year, and how my income come in throughout the year, in a way that the typical QuickBooks report didn’t allow for, and was a great addition to my process.
Analytics of weddings: I also go through my final weddings spreadsheet (yes, I use a spreadsheet in addition to a business management software) and look at some key numbers. I look at total number of weddings and compare it to previous years. Then also break it down to how many per month, how many were weddings vs elopements vs other kinds of ceremonies, how many were for military couples or for colleagues (the only two discounts I offer), how many were for LGBTQ couples (important focus for me), and I look at how many I have booked for next year at this time – and all of those I also compare to previous years. I also look at how far out I was booked this year, as it definitely ranges (my average is about nine months out), doing a stroke count to know how many at each point. Plus, I also look at how many of my couples were from out-of-town, since that has only increased every year for me – San Diego is a destination wedding location, and lots more of my clients come from elsewhere. Once I know these numbers, I can start to make some decisions about any changes I want to make next year, including in my systems and processes, and also about wanting to take on more or less weddings, based on my own financial or life goals for the next year. I also check in with my gut to see how the entire year felt, how certain months felt, etc. – I started doing this after the wonderful 2013 when marriage equality came back to California, as I found myself doing way more weddings per week/month in the second half of the year than I had planned, and that taught me to sometimes think before saying yes to another midweek wedding when the weekend is already full. It felt fine when I said yes, as the day was technically open, and then was exhausted when the wedding-filled Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday weekend happened!
Referral Sources: I also take some time to go through that final spreadsheet to analyze where my weddings came from. It’s important to track not only your leads (my business management software does this really well for me), but also your bookings. Since, let’s be real, loads of leads that don’t convert are usually useless to you and your business (unless you struggle to convert no matter where they come from, in which case, we have a different issue to discuss!). Since my database can only handle one referral source in that field, I also have this on my weddings spreadsheet in order to handle more than one answer. And, therefore, I am also sure to ask this question of my couples more than once, as they may give me different answers! I ask in the inquiry, of course. Then I also ask them in my “Vendors & Details Questionnaire” (part of my process). And sometimes it even comes up in the meeting too. Therefore, at the end of the year, I go through and do a final tally of where all of my weddings came from this year. I do this year by year as it does change each year – some sources that weren’t great are now fantastic, while others that used to send me lots of ideal couples no longer do. Once, I know this, I can make some decisions about marketing and advertising, to capitalize on what is working, and eliminating or lessening what isn’t.
Changes in the market or technology:
This is something that is less tangible, but just as important. Annually, you have to sit and think about what has changed and if there is anything you need to do in response. For instance, I am changing how I follow up with photographers for pictures and what I am asking for (and what I am planning to do with them). With websites being “mobile first” now – and knowing that couples really are using their mobile devices to research wedding pros more than ever – I am focusing less on adding more full galleries to my website (and am going to pull some down, actually, as I have A LOT on there), and am instead focusing more on sharing images on social media. This means that I will ask only a handful of photographers for a full gallery worth of pictures from weddings this year, and will ask all of the rest for the handful of images that I want to share on social media, especially on Instagram. Plus, I’m changing my process around all of that (not shocking for those who know what a system and process geek I am) – changing email templates, tracking spreadsheets, and what information I prep (like lists of vendors and IG handles for every wedding). Another example in my business is that I’m making a switch in what business management system I use – which is HUGE after being on the previous system for seven years (and 700 weddings!). So, I’m taking this opportunity to edit and update all of my email templates, my workflows, my questionnaires, etc. And, like I mentioned above, with more of my couples coming in from elsewhere rather than being local, I’m making these systems and processes changes with that in mind.
Planning for the New Year: After all of this is done, I feel comfortable actually starting to set goals, make plans, and start to implement changes.
I hope that this helped you to think about what you need and want to do! If I can help, and one-on-one coaching time with me would be useful, let me know. Here’s to an even better 2019 for us all!
by Bethel Nathan | Advice, Business Systems, Customer Journey, Ideal Client, Systems & Apps
I spend a lot of time talking to my coaching clients, and friends in the industry, about email templates. What they are and what they are not. Especially because I absolutely love them and they really save my sanity during the busiest parts of the wedding year! And I recently wrote an article for the WeddingWire EDU Pro Blog entitled, “Why Email Templates Are Awesome” – so you can read lots more of my thoughts there.
But as I prep my talking points for my presentation at Wedding MBA, and as I share in there the thoughts of many of the couples I surveyed as I created that presentation, I keep coming back to this important topic. Plus, as I’m in the midst of switching business management systems for my officiant business, I’m also in the middle of editing all of my templates as I move them over.
So, I thought it was essential to make clear what templates are and aren’t, and how they do not equal automated emails.
Templates DO save you a crazy amount of time by preparing content that you send regularly or often. And they DO usually save you on errors or omissions by having everything you might want to say ready to be used. They are NOT something that you should just “hit send” on, without editing or personalizing to fit that couple, that wedding, that situation, etc. And they do NOT have to be used exactly as is to still be useful as a template. The only automated email in my entire process is an invoice reminder, and receipts once they’ve paid, of course. Everything else coming from me goes out intentionally and with thought.
Let me give you three examples of where my email templates save me both time and potential issues:
Inquiries: We know that responding to incoming inquiries or leads quickly is very important (heck, according to that survey I’ll be sharing from, some folks aren’t even responding to couples at all!). I am not of the belief that you need to be the very first to respond in order to get that booking, but it sure helps to be first or somewhat quickly, as you’re on their mind when they are inquiring, no? Couples definitely expect you to respond within 24 hours. Well, having templates ready with both the answers to the questions couples typically ask when they inquire (such as: are you available, how much will it cost, what are your services/offerings/packages), and the information that I always want to share (including: please read my reviews, here – as I know my reviews often sell me – and here are the next steps), lets me answer quickly, accurately (with less chance of spelling errors too, as I’m not creating it all fresh in that very moment), and with attention on personalizing it vs creating it. What do I mean by that? I personalize my email to include anything they’ve told me already in their inquiry. I comment on their venue, on however they said they found me, especially if it came from a fellow wedding pro, and anything they put in the comment area about what they want. They want to feel heard and feel like they will matter to you when working together – and starting with a template, which already has the key points covered, lets me add the specific personalization for them and their wedding before still sending it quite quickly. First impressions matter!
Final Reminders: This is a huge time saver and problem avoider for me. About two weeks before the wedding, I send a “final reminders” email to my couples, with all sorts of key information that I either want to confirm (like start time or who they’ve chosen are their witnesses), or want to convey (like what time I’ll be there based on that start time or bring your marriage license to the wedding!!), or want prepped (like any ceremony ritual items they need to bring and have set up). And there is no doubt that this email template has gotten longer over the years as things it never would have occurred to me to have to include clearly did need to be. I mean, really, who doesn’t think to bring their marriage license to their wedding? About a dozen of my past couples have had to send someone home or the hotel to get it… Who doesn’t tell the officiant that they moved their ceremony start time? Way too many for comfort. So, I created that template to include any possible information I could want to tell a couple, and then I remove everything not relevant to that particular couple, personalizing and editing it for their wedding. But it’s much easier to remove info and edit info than it is to create from scratch. So, I have prep and set-up info for all of the different rituals they might have chosen, and then delete out everything other than what their ceremony includes, plus different intros based on whether they have a wedding planner or not, etc.
Assignments: This is also a huge time saver for me, and ensures I send everything I need to. All of my couples do the same two assignments for me. The results of those are what makes their ceremony different and allows me to make the ceremony theirs. But they all start with the same homework. So, those homework emails are all prepped and ready to be sent when their wedding hits that point in their customer journey, and then edited based on anything we already talked about in their initial meeting with me or in previous emails.
Having these email templates, and more, all prepped and ready allows me to spend my time and effort on the things that my couples really hire me for – crafting and delivering a customized ceremony that properly celebrates what they share – and less on the things that are just needed to run a professional and smooth business. And P.S. The latter is noticed and ultimately valued by my couples too, even if that wasn’t why they picked me initially.
If I can help you to create or edit or streamline your email templates, or any other part of your customer experience, let me know!
by Bethel Nathan | Advice, Business Management, Business Systems, Customer Journey, Financial Management, Goal Setting, Marketing Tools, Systems & Apps
In San Diego, weddings happen year-round, yet we do have a slower season and, just like the rest of the country, that slower time is now. As wedding professionals, November through March is our time to have fewer weddings and less cash, while having more inquiries, more meetings, and, hopefully, more bookings. Which can make our slower season stressful, but stressful in different ways vs. our busy season. And yes, there are those outside the wedding industry who figure this must be our time to sit back, relax, and “eat Bon Bons,” but, unfortunately, they are wrong. The slower season is such a crucial time for us and it flies by, so here are the 3 things that I try to make sure and do in my business during the slower season.
1) Take some breather and relaxation time. Yes, I know I just was talking about how important this time is to our business, and I will be the first to admit that I am not good at taking relaxation time. Yet, it is very important to do, especially at the end of a busy season. We work hard and give up a lot to make sure our couples are taken care of, and thus, now is the perfect time to take care of ourselves in some sort of way before beginning our important slower season tasks. Put an out-of-office reply onto your e-mail and voicemail, take a few days off with no wedding business interruptions allowed, and recharge your batteries. In our passion-based businesses, the worst thing that can happen is that we lose our passion.
2) Work on your business. During the busy part of our season, we often go from client to client and wedding to wedding and priority to priority without much time to get some of the daily or monthly business tasks done. Which makes this the best time to catch up on some of those tasks we put off, like accounting, getting pictures from those wonderful photographers your couples hired, and post-wedding clean-up, plus following up on requesting reviews. And, since there is little to no time during the busy wedding season to focus on business improvement, this is also the best time to switch business systems, build templated e-mails, and work on other aspects of your business processes and systems. The goals are to improve the customer journey for you upcoming couples, figure out new ways to market and bring in more business (since we have to constantly be in search of new couples, right?), as well as to find time and cost savings, as all of these will help elevate your business.
3) Revise goals and plans based on the current state of your business. Now is the perfect time to evaluate how your business is looking for this new year vs. previous years (I like to look at the past two years, as trends are easier to spot when looking at multiple years). And, based on what is learned from that evaluation, adjust what you are doing. Are your bookings at the number you expected? Are your marketing tools each performing as you expected? Is it time to raise your prices? Do you need to increase relationship building efforts? By evaluating early, it can allow you to better focus/re-focus your marketing dollars and be proactive vs. reactive.
Of course, if you need any help, now is also the perfect time to work with a coach – hint hint – since this part of the wedding season/year allows the time necessary to work on improving your business, and it’s easier to take both the needed look back – and the needed look ahead – to figure out what changes can make an impact on your business. If you need help elevating your business to the next level, please don’t hesitate to contact me, and we can discuss coaching options (all via Zoom, so super easy no matter where you are) – either one-off or a series – for you and your business.
by Bethel Nathan | Advice, Business Systems, Customer Journey, Ideal Client, Reviews & Reputation, Systems & Apps
When it comes to how, and how often, to communicate with your potential and current couples, there are no absolutes when discussing right or wrong ways. The how, and how often, can and will differ based on many things, including: your ideal couple; the customer journey you want to guide a couple through; and even based on the answers to questions asked and feedback received during the initial meeting(s) with the couple. However, there are some pieces of advice that I thought I could provide based on my experiences with the over 800 wedding couples I have worked with, and the many conversations I have had with other wedding professionals as part of the business coaching I do at Elevate by Bethel.
1) I am sure you have read a blog post (or two), or an article, or have even been to a presentation on working with millennials. And I would think that one of the take-aways is that phone calls are rarely the preferred method of communication with millennial couples, or even most couples of other ages, to be honest. My advice around this one is to only call your potential, or even your current, couples when either it is absolutely necessary, when you have scheduled a call with them in advance, or when they have specifically requested that you to call them. Phone calls can be valuable, for sure, but they are usually not the preferred method of people today, and it can often become a back and forth of voicemails, which eats up valuable time.
2) There needs to be a balance within your e-mails of making sure that you communicate what you want to communicate, while not communicating too often and, not making the e-mails that you do send too lengthy (tough for this long email gal!). The attention span of most people, and thus most couples getting married, is not long, let’s be real. This can make writing template e-mails both an art and a science. But, what I find helps is to pay attention to what couples may miss in your current communications, and therefore to think about what questions do they ask later that you knew were covered in earlier emails. You should also have colleagues in the industry help you by reviewing your templated emails and letting you know if they make sense, and if they get the information across that you are trying to communicate, while not being too lengthy. You can then use both your observations and the feedback from others to adjust both how much and how you communicate.
3) When a couple inquires, I recommend that you get as many contact methods for them as possible, as this gives you multiple ways to communicate with them, plus the ability to use those communication options in different ways. For example, if you have a cell phone number and email address for a couple, maybe you mostly email them, you call or Skype with them for very important or in-depth conversations, and you text them with quick reminders or easy check-ins.
I have no doubt that communicating in a way that fits your ideal couples will help the customer journey that your couples take with your business meet or exceed their expectations, thus creating higher levels of customer satisfaction, leading to better reviews and more referrals!
by Bethel Nathan | Advice, Business Management, Business Systems, Customer Journey, Systems & Apps
In the wedding industry, most of our businesses are small, and, therefore, we don’t have the financial or time resources to design and create a customer management system built specifically around our needs – and for those that do have the resources, please know that it is almost always the wrong way to go.
This leaves most of us in the wedding industry limited to the systems that already exist, and thus limited to their current and future planned functionality. This doesn’t mean we are screwed – it just means we will be compromising. Therefore, our goal should be to find a system with the least amount of compromises, and where we do have to compromise, we have a livable workaround.
Which leads me to the first, and most important, piece of advice that I can give when you are investigating business systems for your wedding industry business, followed by some more advice:
- Write down your needs and wants: This can take some time, but the way to get the best system for you is to know exactly what you need, and want, the system to do for your business. Document each of your business processes and determine their importance level. By understanding all of the processes that you want the system to manage, and the importance of each to you and your business, you can best determine which system will require the least compromise.
- Take future promised functionality with a grain of salt: It is always important to know what future functionality is planned for a system, and when it is scheduled to be added. Yet, I can almost guarantee you that the functionality will not be exactly as promised, and will be delivered later than expected. It is just the way of the software world, especially in the price range in which we are shopping.
- Don’t limit your choices to just those in your category or industry: For my wedding officiating business, Ceremonies by Bethel, I use ShootQ, because although it was developed specifically for photographers and most of their users are photographers, I found it required the least compromises for the officiant business that I wanted to build. On the other hand, my needs are different as a business coach, so I use 17hats for that business.
- Plan to be in the System for the Long Term: Thinking you are going to try a system for a year and will just switch if you don’t like it isn’t the best approach, because each system will require a decent amount time to setup and learn. And, as you use it, you will be entering data that may not easily migrate from one system to another, and therefore will need to be entered fresh into the new system.
- In almost every scenario, couples or clients come first: What I mean by this is, a system that makes your business run smoother for you, but makes doing business with you harder for potential and current couples, is probably (likely!) not the one you want.
- And finally, get demos and ask lots of questions: Once you have a few systems in mind, request a demo for each, and ask questions to verify that the functionality you need or want (from above) is part of the system. And, if the person giving the demo doesn’t have the answer, make sure they get back to you with a definitive answer before you commit.
I hope that this helps, and, of course, if you would like one-on-one assistance in evaluating wedding industry business systems, or mapping your customer journey and determining your needs for a software package, please feel free to contact me.
