Wedding Business Solutions

How do you fill the holes in your calendar?

August 07, 2024 • Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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How do you fill the holes in your calendar?

When cancellations or postponements happen, how are you filling those empty slots in your calendar? Are you being proactive in reaching out to potential clients or just hoping they find you? In this episode, I share some ideas on how to get the word out and create a sense of urgency to help you book those open dates.

Listen to this new 9-minute episode for strategies on promoting your availability, offering incentives, and leveraging your network to fill those calendar gaps and keep your business thriving.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 


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Want to see about having me come for private sales training, or a mastermind (bring together some industry friends to have me spend a day with you all)? Reach out to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or text or call +1.732.422.6362

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. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

How do you fill the holes in your calendar when they're coming up six months, eight months away instead of the normal twelve or 14 months? Listen to this episode for some ideas. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. This came in on an ask me anything suggestion from my friend Ripley, who has a wedding venue in the Hudson Valley in New York. And it's something I've been hearing a lot lately from people where people are waiting longer to book than they typically have. And I've touched on this on some other episodes. I think some of it is the COVID hangover. Some of this is definitely being in a presidential election year.


But let me address this, if it's any year, not just in this year in particular, because I think we are feeling it a little bit more right now. I'm recording this in the spring, towards the summer of 2024. So depending on when you're listening to this, I think I want to give you some ideas that'll be a little bit more evergreen and not just ideas for now. So when you look at your calendar and you say, we typically book out whatever it is, right? Because if you're a venue or something like that, you're 12, 14, 18 months out. A lot of you who are earlier in the process, maybe photography and entertainment and things, you could be more like a year or close to a year. And some of the others, and I know some of you are typically booked later than that, but let's just say you have some holes coming up. What can you do to fill those holes? And interestingly, part of this discussion is also, should you be doing incentives to try to fill those holes? It's always a funny thing when I hear people saying somebody came to them and they said, hey, they want to get married in four months, and person is offering them all kinds of discounts for them to do that. And that's because you're feeling desperate that you see the holes in your calendar.


But think about it from the other side. Think about it from the couple's side who's trying to plan a wedding for four months from now, when a lot of people are booked, like normally you might be booked, but you're not. Are they the ones that are in the position where they need to get a discount, or are they the ones that are more desperate to try to get the best services and products for their wedding? And are you giving away money, giving away profit because you're discounting something where you want to fill that? But on the other hand, they're the ones who are a little bit more desperate to try to get it right. So there's kind of two sides to that. Right. And I think it's more how strong you feel about your position and if you're okay with not booking that particular date. So let's talk about this. How are you getting the word out now? And if you're getting the word out now through traditional sources, through your advertising, through your social media, through your networking and so forth, that's great.


If you're not filling the calendar, one thing to be certainly doing in your network is finding out, are you the only one or other people also having that issue? Because maybe it's just you or I, maybe like right now, maybe it's a lot of people are having that. This is where the network certainly comes in handy. You have to be thinking upstream, of course. If you are a venue, you are at the top of the food chain, both literally and figuratively there. Top of the food chain. So you're going to have to do more in terms of social media, in terms of your advertising, in terms of going back to people that have not booked but had made inquiries, but you had not heard the no, because maybe some of those people just haven't booked yet. Maybe some of those people had to put off the planning for some reason. Maybe they put it on hold.


Maybe they're trying to save some more money or whatever. And I know certainly from my clients and people that give me feedback, what they've told me, they've heard, they've read in my books and things is by going back to those ghosts, you can turn that into some business, because some of those people have not booked yet and nobody else is asking at this point. So the first place I would start is go back to the ghosts. People that inquired, you never had a conversation with people that inquired. You had a conversation, maybe a meeting, maybe. Maybe a tour of your venue. And you didn't book them, but they didn't tell you no, you didn't get the no from them. I would start there.


That is the first place I would start. Every single person listening here, remember, you're trying to get a yes or a no from everyone. And if you haven't heard no, follow up again. Follow up again. Follow up again. That's the first place that I would start. If you're down the food chain a little bit, look to the people who are up higher than you, who gets booked before you do or typically gets booked before you look for those people, talk to them and see you know, what can you do in terms of getting some referrals? Can they be reaching out to their customers? And this, it's up to you and the other person whether there are referral fees or commissions involved. I'm not making a judgment on that.


Again, I have clients that do it. I have people that don't do it. It's just a business model. It is nothing. Kickbacks. Kickbacks is something else. I've spoken about that before. Not going to talk about that here.


So that's the first thing. The second thing is make sure everybody knows when I go to your website, when I go to your social media, do you say, we have five dates left in 2024 or 2025 or whatever? Right. Do you say something like that to create the sense of urgency? You need to do that because some people, let's say they get engaged and they want to get married soon. Let's say it was not someone that's been planning for a year and just hasn't booked yet. Somebody gets engaged, wants to, wants the book soon, they're going to find out that on the most popular dates, right, Saturdays on the most popular months, may through October across the country, but could be different in your area, that they're going to have a hard time booking that. So create that sense of urgency. You also want to look busy and sound busy. So if you put up there, then say that we, you know, we have a limited number of dates left, or I've even seen people putting the dates up, specifically putting the dates up and saying, we have these dates available.


That's it. Right now. You could hold some of those back and say, hey, we have these dates available when they come and you could say, oh, we just opened up another one or something. You could do that. All right. So just don't lie. Don't say we only have these. Say we have these dates available.


If you're interested in one of those, that would be a way to do it. Make sure that's on your social. If you have an email list, make sure you're blasting it out. Make sure that your past customers let them know. Go to that list and say, hey, if you know anyone who's getting married, we have a few dates left this year. If somebody's looking to do that now, if you're looking to add an incentive to that, that's great. Do the incentive. I always prefer added value to money off.


You've probably heard me say this before, but every dollar you discount without taking something of value back is profit. You're giving away so I would much rather you gave added value. If there is something that you can give of added value that has a, a perceived value because it's on your rate sheet at x dollars, but it doesn't cost you that to actually produce it. So overtime is certainly something there. If your photo booth props could be something because you have them already. If you're entertainment, it could be a lighting thing or it could be a special effect thing there, or it could be a ceremony music when you might actually charge it extra for ceremony music or ceremony sound or something that doesn't cost you dollar for dollar but has a perceived value. So you can do that. And I have clients where I've seen this on the website where they said, hey, if you book for this year, here's the extra incentives here.


Now, some people are doing discounts, some people are doing added value. And not everybody has added value. If you're an officiant listening, I don't know that there's necessarily added value, but maybe if you charge extra for a sand ceremony or hand fasting or something like that. Maybe something like that. Or maybe if you do invitations that could be something in stationary you could do or save the dates or something like that, or thank you cards where you could throw something in that has the value but doesn't cost you dollar for dollar what they would have paid you for that. So the big thing is if people don't know that you have the dates open, they're not going to ask for them. So make a big deal of it. Go to your networking events.


Make sure that your networking friends know that you have these available. So if somebody comes to them and says, hey, do you know someone who might be available? They can say, oh yeah, so and so. I was just saw them at my meeting the other night, my nace or WIPa or Aaliyah or my local association. Right. Or something. So make sure that people know that you have these open so that they can tell other people as well. And that's really the big thing. People don't know, they can't ask for it.


So on your website, in your social media, right. But when you do it on your website and social, remember, make it seem that you have a limited number of these things available, which I hope that you do. But if you have a lot of dates, you don't want to say, hey, we still have 50 dates open for this year. There's no sense of urgency for that. You say we have these dates available or we have a limited number of dates available in the fall that could be a way to do it where you don't say how many because you don't want it to seem like nobody wants to book you. You just want it to seem like, hey, we still have a little bit of inventory. We're letting people know about that. If you have any specific ideas that I didn't mention, certainly share them with us.


Come back to me alan@weddingbusinessolutions.com or make a comment on the if it's a YouTube video or on the social post of this. Love to hear your ideas as well. So Ripley, thanks for the suggestion. And if you haven't asked me anything suggestion, please go to podcast alanberg.com. click the button there and make your submission as well, just like she did. Thanks.


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.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com