What to do if you're new or maybe not so new in the industry. Listen to this episode for some ideas. Welcome to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so excited to have my friend Brian Lawrence back on with me today to talk about a topic that you actually came to me with. Brian, how you doing today?
Doing great. Looking forward to it. I love helping people. I mean, we were all new at some point, right?
Exactly. As a matter of fact, people have.
Known all the things that we know now and avoid some of the mistakes that we made.
Nate, now you and I have been in the industry a long time. We met a very long time ago when I was new in the industry. You were not as new in the industry, but I was new in the industry. And this does go back to this point where we were all new once, but we're also in a time that's new to us. We're in this, what I call the COVID hangover. We're in this time where things have, have changed. But I think in the years that you and I have been in the business, we don't have to say how many years that is. We'll just leave that alone.
In the many years that you and I have been in the business, a lot of things have changed and we're always adapting. So what prompted you to want to talk about this one? Because you've been on here before talking about some great things with me. What prompted this? Like we should talk about this.
I have had the opportunity to talk to a number of businesses that were new in the industry from all different categories. And also I see businesses that may have announced their, you know, that well, my venue just opened like on a press release. And just as a student of the industry, I go and look at their website, I go search them on Google, and I just see so many things that they're not doing that they're doing wrong. And it's understandable they are approaching their business from their lens. Maybe they've done some research, but likely they would be hiring a generic web design or generic SEO company that doesn't really know the industry, so there isn't anybody to take them by the hand. These businesses usually, it really depends. I mean, a startup of a venue is so much more of a commitment. I mean, you're either leasing owning property, that could be, it's certainly a minimum in the hundreds of thousands of dollars going into the millions.
You have a DJ that says, okay, I'm going to be a DJ and maybe just buy some equipment and starts working from his house. Then in the middle you might have a bridal shop that may not own the building, but they have to rent a nice piece of space. So what I find is that there's a lot of going for it when it comes to their physical space, but they don't think about as much their virtual storefront, their virtual space online. And I mean, that will be the core of some of the things that I want to discuss. I want to help people that may have already invested in a website, just maybe set up their Google business profile. But what else should I do? Those are some of the things that I wanted to share some wisdom and ideas from my experience.
And this is not just for businesses that are new because we do a lot of secret shopping. Actually was updating for a presentation I'm going to be giving soon. And between last year and this year, as of today, we've shopped 350 companies now. So we have a lot of stats there. And I got to say, I got this list of businesses for this event that I'm going to go to, and we're secret shopping. And all I got was a name, a company, and an email. Right. That's what I got.
So we're looking at their email addresses to go to their website. Except as you know, a lot of them you cant because theyre AOL, theyre Gmail, theyre Hotmail still, things like that. But I was able to sleuth out some of these and my gosh, some of these people, they really need to be treating themselves like a new business because I saw a lot of bad websites. I couldnt find people on Google. They didnt have a Google business profile. These are established businesses that dont have some of the same things that youre talking about here, that you wish there was a checklist. Right. Okay.
You're going to start a business in the wedding and event industry. Here's your checklist of things that you need to do. You should do, you might want to do, right, go down the list there of some of those things. So let's start with the, with the must haves. Okay. You're a brand new business or you're a relatively new business or you've been in business. Right? Let's start with the must haves. Ryan?
Well, the first, I mean, we certainly want to have a website, a website that is professional. And, you know, a new business has, there's all different levels of credibility when you're a new business. Like, for example, opening up a venue sometimes, you know, starting opening up a new venue is an advantage because people look for things different. By going to a new venue that their friends and peers have not had an event for helps quench their thirst for differentiation. But maybe not so much hiring a dj that never worked before or a new business. So the venue has the advantage. They just have to be professional. They have to have a beautiful place.
But a DJ or a photographer or videographer, they need to have proof of talent, proof of abilities, and sometimes that's not so easy.
But going back to the website idea, I've run into this a lot as a traveler where I google something and I see it on Google Maps, maybe a restaurant, and then I click to go to their website, but it takes me to their Facebook page. And I saw this just the other day with someone in the wedding and event industry as well. And I've seen this a few times where they don't have a website, they just have their Facebook page sending me over there. My first thought is this is a mistake. This link is broken. It's not the right one. So when I get to their Facebook page, I'm looking on their about information, looking for their website, and guess what? There's no website there. So what's wrong with that picture?
Well, what's wrong with the picture is that it's so limiting. Their exposure is so limiting. Typically when someone is searching for your business type in your area and you don't have a website, yes, you could establish a Google Business profile without having a website, but that's going to limit your ability to rank. And having Google is not going to put your Facebook, the link to your Facebook page over more established websites. And Google doesn't judge. You can have the most, a new business could have the most beautiful website and that could help them get attention and get more interest in some of their competitors because of the quality of their website. Google doesn't look at that. It's not a beauty contest with Google, it's having a website and nurturing that website to be recognized by Google with various strategies.
And you have to do a lot more than your competitors who have earned the right to rank on Google just by sheer duration in business. But the fortunate thing is there are certain things that a newer business could do to catch up. Unfortunately, most of them don't.
Right. So my first thought is you're on Facebook, you're one click away from every competitor that that business has. So the first mistake you made is not having your own website. The second is you sent me to where all of your competitors are, right? So you're making it too easy for me to now shop around. Plus, like you said, you don't appear to the, to that customer the same as somebody who's got their own website. Now, it doesn't mean you have the most expensive website, but you do have to have a website that looks current, that represents what you do well and that you and I were talking about this before we started recording. Most importantly, that converts that visitor to a sale or an inquiry, depending if you're trying to sell on the website or if you're just trying to, you know, get them to make the inquiry over there. So you need to have a website.
The second thing is Google, you said, is looking for, not pretty, but it's looking for content, right? And it's looking for the right kind of content. So what are some of the content things that, whether you're a new business or whether you're an established business that you want to make sure that you're doing so that you will show up more in searches?
Well, one thing that you don't do anymore, contrary to many more established business beliefs, is you don't keep repeating your keywords, thinking that the more that you have your keywords, the better you're going to rank on. Google.
Keyword stuffing, keyword thing looks like.
I know that you used to joke around with it as a wedding dj in Chicago. You'd want to find the best dj in Chicago, and we're the best dj in Chicago. So firefighters, crazy things like that. Google is, I mean, with the artificial intelligence, being able to look at a photo and understand it without a human reading it, they get it. So it's all about you being an authentic writer of content that answers the questions that couples would want to have, what your pricing is, why they should hire you, you try to educate them. Be a brand ambassador for your area. Try to educate them on areas of your expertise. Just being authentic and curating your content, making it well written, is just really important.
Google will understand it. One of a broadlark client that I had, we did a new website for her and she said, I went to this bridal association seminar and they said we should have keywords all over the place. And I asked her, I said, well, what keywords do you want to rank for? And she gave them to me and I said, have you searched for yourself on Google for those keywords? And I said, let's do it right now. And right in front of her on a zoom, all of the keywords that she complained were spread all over the site. She was ranking very high for.
Theoretically, and this is what I say, theoretically, if you are doing what you said, which is being authentic about who you are, who you serve, what results you provide, you're talking to your audience in the language that is the right language for them. If you're doing that well, the keywords will be there because you're talking about the services and the products that you do. So that's why I always say you first want to talk about the user experience, is it what they want? And then make sure you're using those keywords. You and I see this a lot, where people will mention your event instead of saying your wedding because event is not a keyword and nobody's searching for their event. If they're getting married, they're searching for a wedding. So go back. You do the content for your visitor, then you make sure that you put those words in so it feels organic. Because I think you say with AI, it's reading the site to make sure that it reads, that it answers the question that somebody searched for and just keyword stuffing, it's going to go, oh, that doesn't read correctly.
Yes. I mean, there are certain cues that you can help guide Google with, but that's more actually in the control panel of the website that's called Metadata, where you can have certain tags that could help guide Google, to help you establish certain keywords that you want to rank for as opposed to having them spread all over your website. And one of the biggest misses that businesses that are just getting started don't realize is that they don't have to wait till the actual events, weddings take place to start getting reviews. You could ask reviews. You can actually ask clients for reviews at the time they become a client. Why not ask them about what was the experience? If you don't mind, could you give me a review on how you felt you were treated as a new customer? Because to a certain extent, reviews, besides the quality of the reviews, they are a vanity metric. And if someone is searching on Google, on Google Maps, or even on wedding wire in the knot, and they see a business that has no reviews, that's a competitive disadvantage. So the more that you can get reviews just out there so that you have a certain quantity of reviews, you could expand to other industry colleagues, other vendors, anyone that could speak to your talents.
You could also, depending on the type of business you are, you could also ask one of your suppliers to give.
You a review, peer reviews, which you can do on the not in wedding wire. You can certainly do that on Google. You can do that on Yelp, you can have those peer reviews there. So this is a great tip if you're a newer business and you haven't done that many events yet, is ask people to review you before the event to talk about their experience of doing business with you so far. And then certainly as you go along and you start doing more events, you want to be more assertive in asking for the reviews. And we've done podcasts about that and it's in my books and stuff already. So curating reviews beforehand and then, as people probably know from what you and I have spoken about, is how to use those reviews on your website. Pulling the, you know, somebody writes you a seven sentence review, you might have four sentences that you can use separately in different pages of the site to talk about the different experience.
So the idea of the volume of reviews that matters on a site like Google, like the not like wedding Wire, when somebody will see you have three reviews or you have 13 reviews, or you have 33 reviews or 333 reviews, right? Theyll see that. But on your site, you're curating that content. So you can take those great things that people said, which could also be in an email that somebody wrote. You could also be in a text that somebody sent you that said, hey, it's been so great working with you, whatever, that you could take that sentence or ask them to post a review. So that's another great tip for a new business who says, hey, I haven't done that many events. This is another way to get reviews, peer reviews and reviews of the experience while you're doing business with someone before the event has even happened.
Yes, and even in this discussion, reviews, it also brings out another interesting use of the reviews for a newer business. So say someone opened up business and they went through a year of weddings. Now, they started their business with their own perception of the things that they think the public would appreciate about them. But now they have a chance to look at reviews and really see after a client had a firsthand experience with you, what are some of those experiences that again and again, clients are showing appreciation with? And those are some more benefits and content ideas that you could bring to your website and to your social media that that could be attractive to that many more clients.
Right? Again, I speak about the difference between your branding and your brand. Your branding is your logo and your colors and all those things, but your brand is what people say about you after they do business with you. So if you were to describe to somebody, this is what my brand is, and then you go read your reviews, you could find out it's something else because it is the perception of what other people say about you. I do this in all my sales training. As a matter of fact, I'm doing a sales training in a couple of days and I ask them to print out a few pages of their reviews from Google, the knot wedding Wire, Facebook and Yelp. And im going to sit down with the sales team and were going to go through that and make sure that the language theyre using when they write and talk to their customers is matching this language. Because what youre delivering is in the reviews. Thats what people talk about.
What you did, what you say is what youre going to do for someone. What the reviews say is what you actually did and their perception is the reality. So if you dont like it that it's your focus group, and if you love it, that's your language to use on your site and in your sales process.
Yes.
Okay, so what are some other things? What are some common mistakes that people make when they're deciding, okay, I'm a new business, I'm going to make a website. What are some mistakes you see?
I see businesses not understanding that they need to be more granular about their approach to their website. And if you're a wedding vendor that also does other events, the more that you could have specific pages that talk about those individual events. It's better for the user experience because it shows that potential visitor client that you specialize in that type of event. And also it, the more pages that you have out there, the more that you could rank on Google.
Now let's talk about that for a second because you have some people that do different types of events. Then you have people that do different types of events and have different types of services. Now my preference is the pages are about the events because the customer knows that. And when they get to that page, let's say you do weddings and mitzvahs and quinces and corporate and whatever. I like you to have, let's say a wedding page. And on that page tell me everything you can do for weddings as opposed to I have to go to different pages for the services because I don't get to see all the services you can do for me unless I go. Okay, so you're in alignment.
I totally agree with you. You use the, you know, say your wedding page to share the experience. I take them through the day when they, what happens to the beginnings for the ceremony, after the ceremony, the reception, but then talk about all of the different services that you provide. And then if a client, a visitor, wants to get more specific about a particular service, they could link it links to that specific service. So what you're trying to do is create a guided experience which leads them towards the path of conversion. So the sooner that you're getting somebody to make an appointment with you, the more control that you have over them learning about your brand. So if you so try to get, it would be great if you can just book a tour or have a meeting right on the homepage. But be strategic, don't make your navigation overwhelming and let them start at a place that you don't want them to start.
You also have to understand the customer journey. If they just got to your website, the least likely thing they want to do is make an appointment because they haven't learned anything more than what they already knew. So it's not that you can't have that as an option. You could certainly have book an appointment, be an option in the menu. But you know this about me. I don't like drop downs on your navigation menu because now you've just added more choices. And more choices is a detriment to getting people to what they want.
Use your main event pages as instead of a drop down menu, show them what you do in a very elegant way. And if they want to see more information on a particular service. And another thing that I think is a big mistake is the treatment of pricing. Now, I know that wedding warrior and that all of the studies talk about will be transparent, that there has to be some sort of treatment of pricing. You can't ignore it. But the people that want to be transparent, if they have pricing right in the middle of the navigation and somebody comes to their website and that's the first thing people want to see. So they go to the website, they see the packages, they have no context, they don't know about the brand. So if somebody has in their mind an imagined budget that they're looking at, from a very pragmatic standpoint, when they're looking at pricing first, they didn't have a chance to fall in love with you.
So my suggestion is if you want to be transparent with pricing, don't just have it right there front and center, so someone can look at it first, because you're going to lose business and you're going to deprive many potential clients of hiring you because they don't understand the why of your brand.
Well, that's the important thing anybody listening to this podcast has heard me say over and over again, is we don't sell what we do, we sell why they should choose us to get the results that only we can do. The mistake that you and I see on people's pricing pages is it sells the watt, which is a list of services. And everybody in your category does those same things at a different level, at a different price, provides different results. If you don't show them why they should choose you and then say, this is what I charge, you're inviting them to shop you against somebody else. Compare your bullet point list. Actually, I'll challenge everybody listening here. If you have a price list, if you have prices on your website, and I took your logo off, can I put another company's logo on and they could fulfill everything on that page. And if the answer is yes, then you've commoditized what you do.
So if you're going to say, this is what we do for you, talk about what you actually do for them, which is the results, not the services. Right. Nobody needs a band. They want to have beautiful ceremony music, the right cocktail background music, and they want people to have a great time at the reception. Yeah. The band is the means to the end. So why do people choose you? I'll give you a quick story. A friend of mine, his daughter's getting married, and he called me up to say, hey, do you know either of these bands? And I didn't.
So I went on to wedding wire, and actually, I just googled to find their reviews. I found wedding wire and the knot. And it was funny. One of them had 526 reviews. One of them had 529. I was like, all right, well, all right, how even are we here? Right? And of course, they're both five star all across the board. So we started reading the words to try to find out really what the difference was, because from a high level, they both looked identical. 526, 529, five star.
How do you show what's really different about you? And if there's no perceived difference, the cheaper price wins.
Yeah, absolutely.
So if you're going to put pricing and you want to put full pricing, and we have clients, Brian, that do that with full pricing, we have venue clients and DJ's and others that have full pricing. If you're going to do that, talk about the why, not just the what. Otherwise you're just commoditizing it or go with the price range, which is one of my favorite ways to give an idea of price. But you still have to talk about the why. I think too many sites that you see and I see, really, we could just strip the name off and just put anybody in their category on there because what they're saying is so generic, even though they think it's unique. Like, you know what? You talk about quality. You shouldn't be in the business if you don't do quality. You talk about professionalism.
You shouldn't be in the business if you're not being professional. Don't stand on that as what makes you different because it doesn't. Right. And you can't stand on five star reviews. You can stand on. This is what our couples say about us. This is what people like you say after they've chosen us for their weddings, for their corporate event or their prom or whatever. So that's where you want to show what's different.
And the price doesn't make you different. You justify the price by what actually makes you different.
Yes, absolutely. Some of the newer businesses also should think about, well, what are some of the niches that they could really broadcast that they want, that they want to attract, whether it's culture or nationality, just different things and get really granular with that because that's less competitive and, you know, then just trying to rank for any type of wedding.
Well, that's a basic thing that you and I talk about with people. You know, someone's starting a business and we say, so who's your target client? And if they say weddings, you say, eh, wrong answer.
Yes.
Right. Now let's drill that down. You know, there's a saying in the speaking world, the riches are in the niches, right? As opposed to the reaches are in.
The niches, but most, most businesses don't do it. So this is really, I mean, this seems really simple, but it's very powerful to, you know, to think about those things.
Well, people think that they're limiting themselves by narrowing the niche when actually they become the go to. When you narrow the niche, it's like, who is the right person for this fill in the blank wedding? We have clients, let's say they're bilingual in English and Portuguese, so they deal with a lot of Brazilians. Okay, well, that's a niche, right? And if somebody's having a wedding and they need someone who understands the cultures, understands the music or whatever, you become the go to. And if you can fill your calendar that way and it makes you happy, it makes your customers happy. Don't worry about the rest of the weddings. You're not going to do. You're never going to do them all and you're only going to do a fraction of them anyway. So choose the fraction you want to do and let them know this is who we are.
Yes. If you on your website do a blog post that proves that you know so much, many of the nuances of a particular culture, and it's done with the right SEO approach and it starts ranking on Google. If somebody searches and they get that blog post and you show your authority and expertise, that's an express train to them contacting you. They're not even thinking about the price. They just know that you're going to be able to take care of their needs.
Well, your business and my business are perfect examples. If you're watching this on YouTube, you see behind Brian's head, it says, Brian Lawrence, wedding industry marketing expert. Now, it's not that you can't help somebody outside the industry, and it's not that I can't help somebody outside the industry. We don't look for that business because this is our focus. If it comes to us, sure, I'll tell you if I can help you or not. You'll tell them if you can help them or not. But that's where the focus came in. And that says when someone says, I need a website and I'm a wedding business, well, I need Brian.
Because Brian understands not just websites, he understands the wedding business.
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Okay, so we're probably running tight on time here. So what's a couple of other things that we need to get? It need to squeeze in here just.
In general, getting educated. You know, get, get certificates, certifications, you know, go to wedding MBA, go to, go to Alan's talks, read the books. Those make such a big difference in catching up to some of your more seasoned competitors. Join local associations and industry associations so that you could talk in a safe space with other peers. I mean, it's wonderful if you're a member of an association where you have other businesses in your category, from other parts of the country that you could really be. You can be mentored. I mean, for example, if you know your DJ joining the DJ vault that Joe Bunn runs and being mentored by someone like him, there's just a lot of openness under the right circumstances compared to walking into your competitor and saying, hey, I just opened the business, could you help me out? I want to get established. It's just not going to happen.
But in the same vein, you can use your newness to an advantage because you are more available than some of your more established competitors. So if you develop the right relationships with some of your more established competitors, and they believe in your worth, you might be able to get some overflow work that they're booked for because you're available, Jeff.
Right. And this is also where that narrowing the niche comes in, when people know that you're the go to for that thing and they see you. So this is what going to the industry events, you don't walk in there with a stack of business cards and hand them out. You walk in there and say, how can I be of service to this organization? Because when you give, people want to give back to you. But people also refer the people that they see. If you're the one showing up, you're top of mind when someone needs that. I did an event in Wisconsin recently, and I did a mastermind, and there was a magician that came to the mastermind, and there were a bunch of DJ's that were in this mastermind as well. And I think there was a venue as well.
And like, wait a minute, you do magic at weddings. Like, what do you do? And it's the cocktail hour, right? It's this perfect thing to keep people busy. Well, now all of a sudden they found out something they didn't know. He met people who could actually refer business to him or be his agent, actually, to sell it to their customers as an. As an upsell or whatever. And how did this happen? Because he decided to show up, right? And that's the thing. You decide to show up. You don't know who you're going to meet.
You don't know who you can ask a question to, you don't know who you can help, who also might be able to help you, and whether it's your local association. So it's nice. It's Ailea, it's WIPA, it's AWP, it's all the local associations, or if it's a national conference, or it's wedding, MBA, or a special event or any of these conferences, you just don't know the value until you get there because a lot of it is intangible value. And if you go there with the wrong attitude, which is, I'm here to get business. No, I'm here to learn. I'm here to network. I'm here to open my ears. I think it was Malcolm Forbes who said that education's purpose was to change an empty mind into an open one.
And just the idea of, I'm going to learn something. You and I, for all the years we've been doing this, how many people have we met that we've been either able to help or it's, hey, I have a question. Oh, I know who to call because I sat next to them at this conference or whatever. So I think it's really important to invest in yourself. And what was it Henry Ford who said, whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. If you don't think you'll learn anything, you're right. And you won't show up. And if you think, oh, it's not worth the money, you're right because you won't invest it.
And then the people that keep going and going are learning stuff you're not and meeting people you're not. Okay, one more.
And also expanding on that, using LinkedIn, using alignable to network to get to build relationships that way. And one of the least used vendor category that the wedding pages used to use is networking with jewelers. It's often forgotten in the industry that it really does start with the engagement rank. And trying to build relationships with jewelers to be a referral source, even as a venue, is a good starting point that often is not tapped into. Most jewelers don't exist within the wedding industry as much. You don't see them at bridal shows. So approaching them could be a fresh opportunity to develop a relationship that could be a funnel for you. Like for example, if you're a photographer offering a free engagement photo when someone buys a ring, right?
Well, again, this is part of that networking. And sometimes you have to go out and you have to make this happen, and sometimes it's happening organically because there are these associations and things already. So a bunch of great tips here for people that are new, and maybe not just people that are new, but people that are maybe not getting as many inquiries as they want, maybe not converting as much as they want. Some of these same tips here. If somebody gets to your website and doesn't inquire was it the right fit or not? And if it was a good fit and they had the budget and all, but didn't like what they saw, that's a self inflicted wound. Right. If you didn't show up in that Google search because you don't have your Google business profile or you haven't done the right SEO things or whatever, that's a self inflicted because these are things that are somewhat in your control.
So, I mean, I think this whole topic of doing something like this for newer businesses is a webinar in itself. I mean, doing, because I have so many other ideas, but I understand that we don't have time.
Yeah, yeah. Let's cut this one off here. You and I have to talk more about the book that we're writing. That's a big tease right there. I'll just leave that. Let's just leave that one alone. But we'll definitely have you back on to talk some more about this. If you have any questions for Brian Brian ryanlaurence.com it'll be in the show notes as well.
If you need a website or SEO or accessibility. If you haven't had your website checked free for to see if it's accessible for people with different abilities, like my site is, if you go to my website allenburg.com in the bottom left corner there's this little circle with a little person on it with all the different accessibility options over there. You want it. Brian's website, brianlawrence.com has a free link where you can have your website checked instantly to see if it's compatible or not. I'm going to put in the show notes how you get a hold of Brian. All those links and things will be in there. Brian, thanks for bringing up this topic and thanks for coming back on with me. Pleasure.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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