Wedding Business Solutions

Has what I'm being asked changed much over the years?

August 21, 2024 • Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Has what I'm being asked changed much over the years?

Over the years, have the challenges you're facing as a wedding professional evolved, or are they remarkably consistent? How has technology affected the way you handle the same age-old business issues? In this episode, I delve into the timeless nature of the industry's core problems and offer insights into how new technologies offer new solutions without changing the essence of what needs to be addressed.

Listen to this new 7-minute episode for insights on how to adapt to technological changes while focusing on the enduring fundamentals of your wedding business.

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

Oh, I love this. Ask me anything, and it's a great suggestion. You want to listen to this? Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. Thanks to Leon in the UK for this question. What they're asking is, over the years, what has changed in terms of what people are reaching out to me to help them with their business? He's a DJ, so he's asking what I'm helping DJ's with. But I'm just gonna expand this, Leon, if it's okay, into what have people been asking me? So, in other words, in all the years that I've been doing this, are people still coming to me and asking for the same type of help with the same things, or are they asking for help with different things? So great. Great question here, leah.

So let me expand this topic. I started doing consulting when I was selling wedding advertising, publishing wedding magazines, and then at the knot as a sales director, the main speaker, vice president of sales, and so forth. So even though it wasn't my individual business, I was helping people. Because if I help my customers, my advertisers do better business, they're going to continue to advertise. Right. That's how I actually started speaking, was by doing that. So I would say even then to the, what is it now? Gosh, 13 years since I left the knot as a VPN, not a lot has changed in terms of the questions. In terms of the answers, though, what's changed really goes to the technology that's different now versus then.

So we didn't have AI back then. We didn't have. People weren't necessarily texting at that point, things like that. But in terms of what people are asking for, I think it's really not. A lot has changed. If I go back to the days of I should date myself here, but bi, before the Internet, when people are doing business on the phone and people are doing business face to face, that's how it was happening. People were complaining that somebody inquires, and then I don't hear from them or I call somebody back and they don't reply to me. And then it became texting and emailing and faxing way back in the day and things like that.

So I think it's just the technology that's changed, Leon. I don't think it's actually, um. The question is really the same, which is, how do I convert more of the people that are inquiring to sales now? We didn't use the phrase ghosting years ago. I'm trying to think of when, when I started hearing it, what is it? Maybe ten years ago, you know, maybe not even ten years ago, because it was, you know, less than that when I wrote why are they ghosting me? Only because it was just really bubbling up. I'm sure the phrase was out there. It just didn't hit kind of mainstream until maybe within the last five to ten years. So ghosting was happening. It just, we didnt use that phrase.

Ghosting. People were just frustrated because people wouldnt get back to them. Right. They would respond to that inquiry. They wouldnt get back to them. So closing the sale, converting leads, that is a perpetual thing. Its kind of one of the beautiful things about my business is that its evergreen in terms of the wedding and event industry is filled with creative people. And this is another thing that hasnt changed, Leon.

Creative people who mostly got into their industry for the creative aspect. Right. So you as a dj, love music. You love helping people have a great time through your music, and that doesn't make you a great salesperson, right. And if you took pictures, like my son's partner, she took pictures in college, and then after, and, you know, then all of a sudden she's shooting families and the food and then weddings. And that doesn't make them a great business person. It just means that they're great at photography. So I think what also hasn't changed is the need for people to really focus on the business side of their business in order to have a profitable business.

Cause it's easy to be a weekend warrior when you have a day job and your benefits are covered in stuff, and that extra money is great, but when it becomes your full time thing, or even if you're weekend warrior stuff, you treat it like a full time business, which you should, right? And then you start to think, okay, am I being profitable? Am I investing the time? Am I doing the right things? I think that's where you realize that you need the business skills. So if I had to pick one thing, I would say it's the need for having better business, more profitable business that hasn't changed, converting more leads, that hasn't changed. I think the only thing that's really changed is the technology. I mean, that's why I focus on this end of it. When I talk about websites, I talk about website usability, not the technology. My first book, if you're watching, it's behind me, the yellow blue cover. If your website was an employee, would you fire it is not a book on how to build a website, because that wouldn't be evergreen, you'd have to learn the new technologies and the new forms and structures and things like that, coding and all. It's about thinking about your website.

My next book that I'm working on with my friend Brian is going to be the follow up to that. And we're going talking about usability and when it's time for a new website and the things that you're doing that are hurting your conversion, but again, not specifically the technology, because that can and will change whether it's WordPress today and then something else five years from now, the need for people to find what they're looking for and take the action that you want them to take, that doesn't change. It's just, it's going to be with a different technology, maybe, right? Who knows? Same reason I don't speak about social media much except strategy. Because today it's Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest down the line. Who knows what the next one will be, right? It used to be Twitter x. It's x now for the wedding and event industry, it's a non issue. People don't use that. So if I had a book that I wrote about how to use Twitter for your wedding business, that book would be out of print because it wouldn't be relevant today.

So that's why I don't talk about that stuff. So the stuff that I do is evergreen and I believe I can do this as long as I want to because there's always new people coming into the industry and there's always people that have been in the industry that are having trouble adapting to whatever's going on. Like right now, I talk about the COVID hangover and the wedding gap and things like that. That's stuff we're having to adapt to. And a lot of people need my help now because they're not converting the leads as much as they want. They're getting ghosted more than they want. They don't know how to follow up better and stuff like that. Leon, thank you so much for this.

Ask me anything. I love talking about this. I appreciate you asking more of a personal question for me, but it really turns back around to you is what do you need? Has that changed now from five years ago, ten years ago, 1520 years ago? And the answer is no. From a high level and even a medium level. No, it really hasn't changed at all. So keep the suggestions coming. Go to podcast dot allenburg.com. click on the button there for ask me anything.

Make your submission there of a topic you'd like to hear. Maybe even a guest that you'd like to see me have on and love to answer your questions. Thanks again, Leonida.

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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©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com