Over the years I have seen the same mistakes made by wedding planners and wedding businesses. In this blog post I am highlighting the top 7.
1. Doing it for love
Many of us enter the wedding industry because we love serving others and adore weddings. But you have to remember this is a business. Too often I see planners doing weddings for free, or giving clients over and beyond what was paid for. In essence they are devaluing themselves AND the industry. If you don’t think you’re worth paying, then why would a client?
2. Thinking about only the pretty
Wedding Planning is not just about the pretty, 80% of our job is admin tasks organising a wedding. But I’m sure the same could be said of many wedding businesses. For example it doesn’t matter how good a cake maker is, if they are not spending time ON the business they won’t have a business for long. I see too many wedding businesses putting ALL their effort into styled shoots and curated instagram feeds, yet have no strategy in place. Beautiful images are essential in this industry, but they are useless if you don’t have a strategy behind them.
3. No profitability
Ahh this is a common one. When I run my Business Practicalities course I spend quite a bit of time showing wedding planners what to charge and how to work out their prices. We break common services down so you can see the profitability. Yet so many businesses seem to pluck a figure from the air, dare I say it, especially those with no training. You’re running a business so you must know your profit and loss for each service and your business as a whole.
4. Hope marketing
Do you write a blog post, schedule a few social media posts then hope for the best? Instead you need to be specific with your marketing. Every single thing you do should be with your ideal clients in mind. There should be a plan and purpose for all your marketing. How many wedding planners launch with beautiful images on their website and social media, yet are frustrated when the enquiries don’t flood in. You can’t just hope for the best!
5. Your website
This goes two ways. There is no point spending thousands on a first website as I can guarantee within 18 months you will have decided your ideal client has changed. And likewise if your website looks outdated modern clients are not going to hire you. First impressions count.
6. Forgetting your ideal client
This is key and goes alongside “hope marketing”. You have to remember who you are targeting. If they were in front of you, what questions would they ask you? What are their pain points? Don’t follow the crowd but instead really think about how you can help your clients, its the only way to market.
7. Unprepared for growth
This is an important one. Some wedding businesses find all their marketing pays off and suddenly they experience immense growth. Which is great except they are unprepared. What staff do they need to help them? Should they turn work down? What support do they need. How can they manage multiple weddings. What is their on-boarding process? How can they manage overwhelm and time management. Having a successful business is exciting but try to put procedures in place early to help you with that growth.
If you are struggling with any of the above then don’t forget I am here to help you. There are many ways I can work with you from an hour intensive to 6 month in depth consultancy. More information can be seen here.
