For wedding planners, the new year rings in the anticipation of booking new clients and the excitement of re-igniting our cash flow. You may also experience worry and panic if the inquiries and bookings don’t come right away.
However, with a little discipline, you can take advantage of the slow times to gain a huge advantage over your competitors.
A slow start to marketing season is a great time to ramp up your lead and client management systems. Click To Tweet Doing so will enable you to book more ideal clients and manage your workload once those retainer checks start rolling in.
In this post I’ll share my top suggestions for turning a slow start into a winning season.
Create or Improve Your Business Systems
Business. Systems. Two words that strike fear in the heart of creative types. However, A system is simply a checklist of steps which are necessary to complete a task or project, much like a wedding day timeline. Click To Tweet
How many times have you said something along the lines of, “I need help, but it’s easier for me to do it myself than explain to someone else how to do it.”? Creating systems for those tedious jobs you would like to hand off, allows you to hand your intern a checklist and free yourself to work on money-making tasks. And can I get an “Amen” for having time to use the actual skills which led you to open your business in the first place.
Start out by listing all tasks and responsibilities that are necessary to keep your business running. Taking one task at a time, write down each step that needs to happen to complete that task successfully.
Lead Generation
If you’re doing wedding shows, you need a system to help you maximize your return on investment. Make a checklist for everything you need to accomplish:
- Beforehand
- On setup day
- At the show
- After the show
Word of mouth is the best source of leads, so create a system for strengthening connections.
- How often will you check in with wedding pros?
- How will you keep in touch with former clients?
- When will you request referrals?
- How will you request referrals?
- How will you thank clients and wedding pros for their referrals?
Lead Conversion
Develop a system or checklist for following up with inquiries and moving them towards a meeting.
- What will you do when clients contact you?
- How will you keep track of inquiries?
- What are the exact steps for keeping track of them?
- What is your meeting process?
- How will you compose and present proposals?
- How will you deal with objections?
- How and when will you follow up with leads?
Client Services
Reviews are important and the best way to get them is by wowing your couples. The best way to wow couples is to exceed expectations. And the best way to exceed expectations is to manage them from the outset by being very clear about your planning process.
- What is your onboarding process?
- What are your boundaries:
- How often will you meet with couples?
- How will you “wow” your clients?
- What is your wedding week process?
- What system will you use for your wedding day timeline?
- What is your post-wedding process?
- How and when do you collect reviews?
Creating systems may seem overwhelming, but it’s much less intimidating if you break the process into baby steps. Click To TweetStart out by choosing no more than three areas you need to systemize. Most people benefit by starting out with a combination of money-making activities and tasks they would like to hand off to someone else.
Do a quick brain dump of all steps necessary to complete each of the three tasks. Keep going if you have the time and you’re motivated, but you might want to consider working on it in 15 minute spurts until it’s completed. Depending on how your brain works, you might want to focus on one task at a time, or you might want to work on all three of them each day.
Cash Flow Generation
Confused about which tasks to work on first? Focus on tasks which will generate revenue. Click To Tweet My guess is you won’t get very far down the list before business heats up.
And, if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed at all that needs to be done, click here to request your Create Sizzling Systems worksheet.
In the meantime, I’d love to know how you plan to make your business sizzle this winter. I’d love to know which system you’re going to work on first, so please share it in the comments section below.
And, of course, if you found this article enlightening, please share it with your colleagues.