Wedding Business Solutions

Get in the habit of following up now, while it's quieter!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Get in the habit of following up now, while it's quieter!

Is following up on leads falling by the wayside when you’re busy with weddings and events? Are you struggling to maintain that crucial connection with potential clients? In this episode, I discuss techniques to build the habit of following up, and ensuring that you stay on top of leads even during peak seasons.

Listen to this new 6-minute episode for tips on establishing follow-up routines that keep your business thriving, no matter how busy you get.

Episode Summary: 

In this episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast, I emphasize the importance of developing the habit of following up with leads, especially during slower periods. I highlight how consistent follow-ups can prevent potential clients from slipping through the cracks when business picks up. I share my personal strategies for time management, such as setting specific times for follow-ups and using CRM systems to automate initial responses. I underscore the significance of making follow-ups a routine task, drawing a parallel to muscle memory, so that it remains a priority even during busy times. This episode offers practical advice to help wedding professionals stay organized and responsive.

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 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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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:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Get in the habit of following up while it's slow. So you'll follow up when you're busy. Listen to this episode. See where I'm going. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. One of the hardest things to do is when you're busy in your work, right? So when you're doing weddings, when you're doing events, is to follow up on the leads that are coming in because you know it's important, yet there's other fires that are burning brighter. So now, beginning of the year, when inquiries are coming in but you're not doing as many events, some of you are not doing any events now, now's the time to just work those muscles and get into that habit of following up.

Because if you get into the habit, I'm going to follow up. I'm going to make it a priority. I'm going to do it at a certain time of the day. Whatever works for you in time management. Then when you get busy, hopefully those muscles will keep you moving through that. Just like when you, you know, first start doing events when season opens up, you kind of have to get those muscles back in. Well, get these muscles working now so that you'll learn how to do that when you're busy and it won't fall to the wayside. Because if you don't want to slow down, the thing is, when you're busy, you have to be following up on leads and not just saying, hey, I'm busy, so it's okay, I'll.

I'll follow up better when I'm slow, because you're going to make that slow time even worse for yourself. Now, I'm guilty of exactly the same thing that you are. Because when I'm busy, when I'm traveling, when I'm on the road, it's hard for me to keep up with them. But I have my system, and again, that works for me. I've done another episode on this in terms of time management. And time management means different things to different people, right? We don't want our calendar to own us, we want to own it. So for me, there's certain things that I just do at a certain time of the day, and it lets me get these things done. So I get up and I turn my computer on, and certain things I do, if you're friends with me on Facebook or LinkedIn and it tells me it's your birthday, you're going to get a birthday message from me on that day, I try to do that first thing Every morning.

And before I do that, I've gone into QuickBooks, I've downloaded all my transactions from the previous day, I match them up and it's done. It's not that many. For if I do it at one day, if I wait a week to do it, it's a lot of them to do. So it's a few minutes a day as opposed to a long time if I wait. Same with the birthdays. I'm not going to wait and wish you a happy birthday a week later. There are rare instances where I just can't do it on a day and I'll do belated the next day. But it's never more than a day past that.

I don't look at my until I've done QuickBooks, until I've done the birthday messages, until I've checked in social to see if there's anything I was tagged in, anybody responded to something that I posted that I need to comment on. And then I go in because I know that my inbox is kind of like Voldemort and the Harry Potter movies. It's going to suck me in. And once I'm in, that's it, I'm never getting out. And those other things won't get done. The following up is the same thing. I'm looking first to see in my inbox what inquiries that I get new overnight. I'm going to respond to those right away.

Now, I do have systems set up for that. I do have in my CRM, something that I set up earlier this year. And if you inquire through my website, you're going to get a reply. Now, it's not an auto reply, meaning it's not saying, hey, I'm out of the office, I can't get to you. You will get that if I'm out of the office, but if you fill out my contact form, you wouldn't get that. What you're going to get is the first reply based upon what you said. Now, it's got some intelligence in there. So if you wrote a specific comment, it won't automatically do that, but if you didn't, it's going to send you the first message.

If you don't respond to that, it's going to send you the second message and the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth. And I'm about to program a seventh and an eighth on that because I want it to keep going, but I'm going to space it out a little more there. So that's one of the ways that I'm set up my systems so that it'll get. You'll get a reply. Even if I'm on a plane, you'll get a reply. Even if I'm on a stage, you're going to get that. So it's one of the things that I've done. I don't want that to replace personal messages from me.

So if you respond, you're going to get a message from me. You're not going to get a message from my system. Right. That's a whole nother thing. You know, maybe with AI or something in the future we'll work on that, but right now you're going to get it from me. But since the first reply is almost always the same, and if you don't write anything specific in the message box, it's always the same, why not have that automated? Right. And then you could do something similar to that. But if you're going to do it manually, that's fine.

What I would say is pick a time of the day or certain times of the day. If inquiries come in at different times of the day and say, okay, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to take 15 minutes in the middle of the day to do this. And before I close out at the end of the day, I'm going to make sure I've responded to any. And you're going to do that no matter how busy you are. Because remember that customer who inquired doesn't care how busy you are. They don't care. They can't see in and see what you're doing. All they know is that they have gotten through filtering out most of your competitors like what they've seen, read, heard, watched, or personally experienced and made an inquiry with you.

And it's up to you to get back to them and show them that you're interested in doing business with them as well. So try to get into that habit now. Try to get that muscle memory going so that you're doing this as a habit. Because it takes about 30 days, they say, to, for something to become a new habit. And then when you get busy, those habits are already in place and they're just part of what you do. And that'll keep you humming along and busy in the future. I hope that gives you some ideas and I hope you do it. 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:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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