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.

 Envy is defined as “the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.” Even though envy can be destructive, psychologists agree that a little envy can actually be a powerful motivator. If we see someone who is rocking their wedding business, it can inspire us to work harder in order to achieve the same level of success.

Envy becomes unhealthy when it causes us to fixate on the other person. Dwelling on the success of others wastes time and energy that should be going into building our own business. When you add in the fact that negative emotions and self-talk decrease productivity, that little voice in our head becomes our biggest enemy.

Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock is aware of the link between social media and depression. What you may not know is that people who use social media to spy on their business colleagues and competitors are more likely to feel depressed or envious than those who compare themselves to social acquaintances and posts they see in passing.

New research shows that Instagram causes even more envy and depression than other social platforms. On Instagram, not only do we compare our everyday lives to someone else’s highly curated photos, but we’re literally looking at their life (or business) through a filter.

Following are 5 tips for banishing the green-eyed monster the next time it comes calling:

Avoid Succumbing to Trash Talk

Sometimes the envy we feel when we read social media posts is completely our own doing. The other person may be publicly celebrating, rather than bragging. It can still be hard to witness someone else’s success when we’re struggling, but knowing their motives are pure, can make it a little harder to bear.

Of course, some people who brag on social media do so with the intention of psyching out their competition. However, their posturing is just as likely to be attention seeking behavior caused by their own insecurities. When we let it get under our skin, we’re wasting time being envious of someone who doesn’t even feel good about their own accomplishments.

If you can't avoid the envy, avoid the one you envy. Click To Tweet By clicking the down arrow in the upper right corner of their posts, you can unfollow them without unfriending them. They’ll never know and you can always peek in on them or pick them back up if you change your mind.

Focus on Yourself

Rather than focusing on what other planners are doing, stay focused on your own path.  Avoid changing your course of action just to keep up with what someone else is doing. Click To Tweet

If you feel inadequate, focus on self-improvement. Take a course, hire a business coach, get in shape, or do whatever else you need to do to build your confidence. Write down your goals and create a plan for accomplishing them. Not only will you grow your business, but when you’re busy achieving your goals, you won’t have time to dwell on the success of others.

Recognize Your Unique Gifts

We all have unique talents and personalities. Rather than comparing ourselves to others, we need to recognize our strengths and be grateful for what we do well.

Our envy of other people’s success, comes from our feelings of scarcity. Success doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. There’s plenty to go around. Just because someone else is successful doesn’t mean we can’t be as successful in our own right.

We’re never going to be better than another planner (or even keep up with them) if we try to beat them at their own game. We'll only be successful when we try to be the best version of ourselves. Click To Tweet

Express Gratitude

Thank God for your blessings, keep a journal, make a list or download a gratitude app. When we're not feeling grateful for the blessings we have, we tend to focus on what we don't have. Click To Tweet When we focus on what we don’t have, we tend to focus on people who have what we want. And, when we’re focused on other people, we’re not focusing on improving ourselves or our business.

No matter how down and out we feel, there’s always something we can be thank for. My planner has a space each day for expressing gratitude, and being the OCD person that I am, I”m compelled to fill in all the blanks. I have to admit there are days when nothing comes quickly to mind, and even my old stand-bys of husband and children don’t fit the bill. But, when I finally identify who or what I’m grateful for that day, I feel an immediate shift in my thinking.

Keep Your Perspective

When you find yourself envying someone else, remember that things aren’t always as they seem. Many times we envy a perceived lifestyle or business success that doesn't really exist. Click To Tweet The mermaid photo used in this post’s thumbnail was taken by my niece, Isabelle Holland. Even in high school, she was an amazing photographer, and this picture has always reminded me of perception vs. reality.

Your perception was probably of a sultry mermaid floating in a turquoise sea.  The reality is that my daughter, Jessica, was lying on top of blue doggie waste bags in a few inches of tap water in my mother’s bathtub. Her sultry expression was fueled by impending nausea, and she threw up shortly after the photo shoot ended.

Too sum it all up, we don’t know the struggles that go on behind closed doors. The grass always seems greener on the other side, but more often than not, it’s artificial turf.

Click here to Download “5 Tips to Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster”

Do you struggle with business envy? If so, share it in the comments section, and tell us how you deal with it?

Life happens. Whether it’s illness, marital problems, aging parents or prodigal children, personal problems can cut us off at the knees and throw a wrench in our business. When we work for someone else, we often have systems in place for dealing with crises – sick leave, family leave and co-workers who pick up the slack. When we run our own business, we have to keep going.

My family has been through years of grief and stress, caused by a prodigal daughter. Two years ago, we went through a particularly dark period.

I became frustrated with couples who procrastinated and seemed to care less about their wedding being a success than I did. I wanted to scream, “My family is falling apart, and you can’t even choose a first dance song????”

When you want to scream at your clients, adjustments are definitely in order. I decided it was time for me to pivot and use my wedding planning experience to help other wedding planners, rather than continue planning weddings.

Most of the years that I worked as a wedding planner were shadowed by my daughter’s waywardness. I woke up every morning hoping for a good day, but never knowing when I’d be ambushed by someone else’s poor decisions.

Following, are some tips I learned in order to keep both my sanity and business intact:

Take Care of Yourself

Take care of yourself first. Sure, this sounds like a cliché, but as caregivers (and what mom or wedding planner isn’t a caregiver,) we tend to take care of everyone but ourselves. It may not be realistic to exercise everyday but do what you can when you can. A 15 minute walk can relieve stress and fuel creativity.

It may not be feasible to cook healthy meals every day, but eat the best you can. A sandwich at home is better than fast food.

Try to get on a regular sleep schedule. Some people cope with grief by sleeping too much, while others struggle with insomnia. Going to bed at the same time every night and getting up at the same time each morning can help with both.

Level with Your Clients

Be honest with your couples. I’m a “keep your chin up” private person, so the first time I had a crisis during a wedding week, I didn’t tell the bride. I knew my assistant and I could pull it off, and I didn’t want to cause undue stress for the bride. However, I have to admit that a last-minute calamity left me less than prepared for our final meeting. I didn’t have time to review all the details before the meeting, and ended up asking questions about details that had already been decided.

While I thought I was darn near Wonder Woman to pull off the wedding with all I had going on, the bride didn’t necessarily agree. She pointed out in her review that even though we were on top of the wedding day, the final meeting left her concerned that I didn’t seem to remember the plans. Ouch.

My intention had been to spare her stress, but I actually created stress by not explaining why I wasn’t fully prepared for the final meeting. In retrospect, it would have been much better to explain that I had a last-minute family emergency while reassuring her that a plan was in place for her wedding day.

Cut Back

If your wedding planning income pays the basic bills, you have no choice but to keep going and keep working. However, focus on tasks that keep your business afloat and bring in the money. You’ll need to continue marketing and wedding planning, but how can you do it more efficiently?

If your income pads the family budget, you have more wriggle room. Cut back as much as you need to or can afford to.   If you can let something go, let it go.

This is a good time to make sure your contracts cover you if you’re unable to make a wedding. Does it allow wriggle room for you to provide someone else if you’re unable to make it, due to illness or a family crisis? If not, make changes now, so you’re protected going forward.

Get Help

Even if you’re a lone wolf in your business, you may need help in times of crisis.  This is why it’s so important to have systems in place, so someone can step in for us and carry out our business the way we want it. Systems seem overwhelming to creatives, but a system is merely a checklist of all the steps it takes to complete a task.

When you’re in crisis and struggling to get it all done, is probably not the best time to create systems. It’s best to do it before they’re needed. If you’re reading this article and NOT in a time of crisis, make time to create systems now.

With systems in place, you can call on wedding day assistants, fellow planners or possibly even friends and family members to step in and help.

Without systems, we all know it’s easier to do it yourself than tell someone else what to do, and then you’re right back where you started.

Make Notes

Grief and stress affect short-term memory, so make notes about everything. Our clients depend on us to remember details, and we can’t afford to drop the ball on their big day.

If you’re perimenopausal or menopausal, you have a double whammy, so I can’t stress this one enough. Write. Down. Everything.

Do What’s Right for You

While I chose to pivot and mentor other wedding planners, that’s not the best choice for everyone.  I have a dear friend and colleague in a situation very similar to mine. She continues planning weddings because it helps her escape from her day-to-day reality.

Several years ago, my father died suddenly while I was planning a regional wedding planner conference. I was overcome with grief at the time, but the conference served as a form of therapy by giving me something other than loss to focus on.

How grief affects your business will depend on you, the depth and cause of your grief and where you are in your business journey. It’s totally your call whether to pull back, push forward, pull out or pivot.

Have you experienced a time of grief while running your business? In the comments section, share how it affected your business, either temporarily or permanently.

Did you start the year with a list of goals and all the intentions in the world of completing them? If you’re like most people, you’re halfway through the year (where the heck did it go???) with most of your goals still undone. It’s ironic that as planners, we do such a good job of keeping everyone else on track while we get the short end of the stick.

There are many reasons we don’t meet our goals. Sometimes life forces its way in and tells us how it’s going to be. That happens to all of us at one time or another, and in those times, we have to deal the best we can. Other times, we invite life to take over and our shortfalls are of our own doing.

Below are 5 tips for staying goal focused, no matter what your situation is.

1) Focus on Your “Why”?

Sometimes we lose our way because we lose focus of our “why.” Why did you become a wedding planner? Was it because you love weddings? Love helping people? Love design? Want to have a higher standard of living? Staying clear on “why” you started your business can help keep you focused on your goals. When you have to head out to a wedding rehearsal while your friends are headed out for a night on the town, or when you’re trying to find courage to push through your doubts, focusing on why you choose to do what you do can empower you and change your attitude.

2) Don’t Over Analyze

Paralysis by analysis is one of my husband’s favorite sayings. Or then again, maybe he uses it often because he’s making observations about my tendency to over analyze. This habit causes me to spin my wheels and not move forward because I get bogged down in decision making. Should I do this? Should I not? Which tactic should I use? Is the input worth the outcome, etc? They’re all valid questions, but eventually, it’s time to fish or cut bait.

3) Avoid Procrastinating on Money-Making Tasks

We all fall victim to procrastination from time to time.  This morning, I woke up with the intention of completing an important task. While I had good intentions, I was sidetracked by busy work. I did a couple of loads of laundry, made some phone calls, and spent way too much time organizing my “to-do” list. All of those tasks needed to be done at some point, but since none of them were directly related to producing income, they shouldn’t have moved to the top of my “to-do” list.

The 80/20 rule states that 20% of our efforts produce 80% of our income, so be sure to spend the most time on tasks and goals which produce money.

4) Set Manageable Goals

We need to strive for big goals, but if a goal is too big, we’ll keep moving it to the bottom of our list. If we can break goals down into bite-sized tasks, they become a lot less intimidating. If we can do the even the tiniest bit on our busiest days, we can make steady progress towards our goals. Sometimes my tiny task may be to locate an item needed for a task the following day. It may take me less than 5 minutes to locate it, but getting that first step out of the way makes it much easier to attack the project the following day.

5) Focus on How Far You’re Come

When we feel frustrated with our progress towards our goals, it’s usually because we focus on how much we have to left to do, rather than on how much we’ve completed. When this happens, we need to make a list of our accomplishments. If life has gotten in the way of your goals, and you really haven’t accomplished much, make a list of all the personal and professional snafus and stumbling blocks you’ve dealt with. Then, compare them to your accomplishments and pat yourself on the back for how much progress you’ve made in spite of your roadblocks.

Join Me

I’ve been guilty of several all of these obstacles at some point since January, but I’m determined to get back on track with my goals. I’m inviting you to join me in a 5 Day Mid-Year Review Challenge. Yes, I know it’s prime wedding season, but that’s all the more reason to streamline your goals.  By setting aside a few minutes each day, you’ll be able to celebrate your accomplishments thus far in 2017, and position yourself to finish strong less than six months from now. (Again, where the heck did this year go???)

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. That’s one of the main tips I remember as I was climbing up the corporate ladder. For most of us, it isn’t hard to follow that rule when we’re out in public, but working at home can be another matter.

I’ve never been one to hang out in my pajamas, let alone work in them. Just as some people can’t get going until they have their morning coffee, I can’t get going until I’m showered and dressed.  Otherwise, I spend way too much time contemplating going back to bed or mentally justifying that I can’t get up off the couch because my dog is sitting on my lap.

I’m not telling you not to work in your pajamas.  If you can be totally productive while wearing them, go for it. What I’m suggesting is this: What we wear does affect our attitude and our attitude can affect our productivity Click To Tweet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily dress up when I’m at home. If I know I’m not going anywhere special, jeans or exercise wear will most likely be my outfit of choice. After all, being comfortable and ready to take a walk at a moment’s notice are a couple of the benefits of working from home, right?

But… if I need an extra shot of confidence, such as when I’m following up with prospective clients, I dress up.  When I really want to ratchet it up a notch or two, I wear heels.  Not only do heels make me feel more professional as I click around the house, they also change my posture. Studies show that a powerful posture can increase self-confidence. Click To Tweet

Choose clothing based on what you need to accomplish each day. If you plan to cocoon in your home office to plan your year or schedule a month’s worth of social media, wear whatever makes you feel comfortable. Since frequent breaks and fresh air help keep you energized during this type of work, this is definitely a time I’d have on my comfortable walking clothes.

If you’re planning to write proposals and make phone calls, pull out your professional attire and finish off your outfit with heels. Since our clothing affects our attitude, wearing a spiffy outfit can help us charge our worth or convey our confidence over the phone.

An added benefit of dressing up (especially for introverts) is that we’re more likely to be motivated to get out of the house.  Since the majority of engaged couples choose their wedding professionals based on word of mouth, getting out and being seen is a necessary part of business.

Full Disclosure: The winter before last, we had a couple of inches of snow and ice on the ground and I wasn’t able to leave my house for two solid weeks (Don’t judge, it’s a southern thing.) I got up each morning, took a shower and put on clean pajamas. I worked on the sofa, rather than at my desk, and got an amazing amount of work done. There are always exceptions to every rule!