Wedding Business Solutions

Rod McMahon - are you adapting your selling style to their buying style?

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Rod McMahon - are you adapting your selling style to their buying style?

Are you selling the way your customers want to buy?
Are you meeting them with a dialogue, or just running through another sales script monologue? What if you're missing those subtle buying signs, taking too long to follow up, or not adapting your process to fit where they are on their decision journey? In this episode, I dig into how we can recognize our own "curse of knowledge," the dangers of ambiguous next steps, and how to mirror our clients’ style for better results and more booked weddings—plus, how small tweaks to your follow-up can bring contracts back faster.

Listen to this new episode for practical ideas on matching your sales to your couples’ buying styles, asking better questions, and closing more confidently—before decision fatigue sets in.

About Rod McMahon: Rod owns and operates Maximum Music DJ Service in both Toronto and Calgary. An Enjoyer of travel, fine drink and delicious food. Find pleasure in getting outdoors with friends in the Canadian Rockies. Student of the world who loves to travel and explore. Staying connected to business through my laptop and cell phone. I truly enjoy my career and it has provided the time and financial rewards for an amazing life.  

Contact Rod: 

maximumDJ.com 

rod@maximumDJ.com 

Call/text 647-549-6642 


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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©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Are you adapting your selling style to their buying style? Listen to this episode and see where we're going. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have back on my friend Rod McMahon from Canada. How you doing, Rod? Doing great. All right. How are things up in. In Alberta? A little cold, but, you know, summer. Summer is on the horizon. On the horizon. There we go. Well, so you. You came to me with a thought, right? A thought about how are we or are we adapting to consumers? So tell me the story. Where did. What. What prompted this? Something must have sparked you to say, I need to reach out to Alan about this. So what was the spark? I. I guess I was reflecting on what I'm doing. Like, how am I talking to clients and getting concerned that maybe I was getting into a rut where I was delivering what I thought was important without actually hearing what they're looking for and adapting quick enough to give them what they need to make the purchasing decision. Okay, so the first thing that I hear there is is your sales appointment. And I say, you people listening, not just you personally. Is it a monologue or a dialogue? Right. Yeah, right. Because too many people are using a sales script, and a script is great for training, gives you the words and gives you the phrases. But if you're using a script in your presentation, that's a monologue, right? That's a monologue. And I think at some point in our lives, we were all taught to do a presentation, script, and all that kind of stuff, and that doesn't work. Right. I'm sure you found that over the years. You've been doing this a long time. So in the idea of a dialogue, where could that be going south? Again, that brought this in here where you say, am I adapting? Or whatever. So where. Where could that be going south for people? Well, you know, to use one of. I think one of the terms you had before is, you know, we have this curse of knowledge. So we know about our industry. We've had, you know, dozens or hundreds or thousands of client calls, and we just start to get into this memory muscle of this is what my features are. This is my unique proposition. This is why you should hire me. And without even thinking about it or we say we're in the moment, we say we're listening, and we say we're adapting, but do we have the blinders on? And we're still delivering what we think is the right. And that's what I was trying to reflect on for My own sales calls is, you know, even though I think I'm authentic and in the moment, am I still caught in and I haven't recorded calls? And that's probably one of the solutions here is I should say, are you okay if I record this to someone or just record it kind of quietly with my phone in the background so I can hear that conversation again to find out if I'm being as authentic as I think I am? That interesting thing, because I've been playing with AI a lot and I just had an idea with that. So if you do get permission to record it. Yes. Get the transcript and go to ChatGPT. Or you can go to Perplexity, which now has a version of deep seek R1 and ask it to analyze the conversation. Ask it, am I being authentic? Am I asking good questions? Am I responding to their answers or going off on tangents and all these type of things that you could be doing with it in a very unbiased way. Because that. That same curse of knowledge is when you go back and listen to that, right, you're not going to hear everything that you wanted to hear. That's why somebody else has to do it. I had an experience last year with an entertainment company in Wisconsin, a good friend of mine, and it's quarter to six. I was at his place, I had spoken at an event or at his place, we're going to go to dinner. And a quarter to six, he gets a text message and it says, hey, don't forget, six o' clock, you have a appointment with a new customer. And he's like, a zoom call. I was like, oh. He's like, oh, I'm sorry. Do you mind? I said, not if I can watch. So imagine now imagine, Rod, you're doing a zoom call, and I'm sitting just out of frame. That's what happened there, right? So he said, listen, Alan, afterwards, if I had known you for 10 years, I would have been really, really nervous right now. But so I got to watch both of them. And he did really well. I saw a lot of me and what he did, and he's even said that. But at one point, I thought it became a monologue, right? It went from a dialogue. He started out as a dialogue, went to a monologue. So when we did the postmortem and I asked him, I said, how do you think it went? He said, you know what? At this one point, I just think I was talking too much. He felt it, but he didn't stop. Have you ever had that where you're like, I probably shouldn't just keep talking right now. I, I say it out loud. Literally will say, I think I'm talking too much, you know, and my style is to be a little more, I think, vulnerable or authentic. Whether that's good or bad, I guess is up to the customer. But yeah, I will literally stop myself and say, you know, have I answered your question or am I talking too much? Are we covering what's important to you? And then just to stop and, and give them the air. And the other thing is to try and let there be these odd moments of dead air. Like if they're thinking about a question or looking at each other. On the zoom call, I don't have to fill that space with more words. Yeah, that's really important because you. We sometimes hate the dead air. But if you watch the body language and on Zoom, you can watch the body language. Right. You can see the eyes. Are they looking up into the left? Are they thinking? Are they pondering something? The eyes are going, pondering. Don't fill that because you're going to pull them out of that space. You want to keep them there. So let's talk about the zoom used to do a lot of in person stuff and now you're doing all phone and zoom meetings. So what have you found that's different? Let's talk about, first of all, what's the difference between a phone call with someone and a zoom call? I don't differentiate. I. Okay, again, I don't have enough data, but I feel like I'm the same person whether I see you or don't see you. I don't know if there's studies that suggest we are different on zoom in person or on the phone. Yeah, I don't see a big difference. And yeah, it's been like 25 years of doing remote phone calls and things like that, so. Right. Those of you that didn't hear the first episode, we did. So Rod used to live on the other end of Canada from where his business was. So he was still doing before zoom, he was doing all of his meetings. Phone call, I guess. What would it have been? Skype? FaceTime? It was too glitchy. So literally it was phone calls. I mean, in the 2000s, yeah, there was a guy in Toronto doing face to face meetings because that's what you had to do. But since like 2010 or so, it's been been remote. So phone calls mostly. Right. So when you do a zoom, are you doing any visuals or are you just having a conversation? I'm Just having a conversation. And, and what's your thought on that? What are you seeing out in the world? Are, are people adding more pizzazz to their zoom presentations? So there is more of a, let me scare share a screen with you. Is there more of that happening? Well, you said about glitchy. So the first thing is make sure that you both have a good connection. Right. And are they on their phone versus are they on a laptop or a tablet or something else? That would be first as to whether or not I would even think about bringing any visuals in. Too many people use them as a crutch, right? They're going to use them as a crutch. I need to go through this deck with you. And it's funny, I'm listening to a audio book now and I actually just finished this audiobook sales book and this guy just hates the idea of presentations that the first meeting you're having with someone, you're going right to this deck and look at us and look at what we do. And that's the other thing is I would want to look at your deck and, or whatever you're showing and saying is this about them, the person you're talking to and their results they're going to get or is this hey, look at us, look at what we've done and you're not including them and too many sales pitches, too many presentation materials is talking about yourself. But we're not selling that. We're selling the results that they're going to get by choosing you and only you because you as an entertainment company are you who's listening? As a venue, as a caterer, as a florist, as a whatever your what looks like everybody else's, what it's we should be selling. Why do you want our results? So I always say in the beginning I wouldn't show them anything. And I actually told this story just the other day. I used to sell wedding advertising in magazines back before the not. I had two magazines I published, sold before that and when the person came to train me, it was a franchise. When the person came to train me, I'll do air quotes here. She trained me, right? I've been in sales for 10 years. She was training me but. But I didn't know the product, right. I didn't know the industry and had this big three ring binder with page saver stuff with stuff on every page and she said we went out on appointments and she did it and she went out and she went through every page front to back in this three ring binder with somebody. And this is how we do it. That's how we do it. That's how we do. And then she went back to Omaha and I took the binder and put it away. I feel just from this conversation, I've decided to not add visuals. It, it feels like a monologue. It feels like, okay, now I'm going to deliver these slides in order and I'm going to talk about what's on the slide. I, I do ask if they've had a chance to take a look at our website and, you know, how's your research going? Have you had a chance to compare us to a few other DJs? Right. And then I start to get the baseline right informed. Am I the first phone call. And. Then take it from there. And I, I tried to work in a few things that I feel are like unique or a selling proposition of ours. Like, right. Specialize in weddings. And I hope that came through loud and clear on our website that we're not an AV company that also does weddings. We're not a kids dance or nightclub company that also does weddings. And then again, it's probably a burg ism. Why this is good for you is you have a DJ who specializes in weddings and someone who did the club thing when they were 20 years, but now they've grown up and they have careers and mortgages and they do what they love, which is DJ the event. I do what I love, which is the sales call and running the business and keeping it organized. Right. Like literally, that's probably verbatim what I say in a zoom. And. But you tend to get the reaction like, oh, okay, that is different from the other one we spoke to. You know, whether it resonates enough to close the deal. You don't know. Well, different is different. We don't say that we're better than someone else. We're different. And they have to want your different. And if you can't articulate what's different about you. So the fact that you only do weddings. There are companies that do Weddings Incorporated, whatever, they do a really good job at weddings. So we're not saying we're going to do better, but the distractions are different. The learning is different. Right. If you take a wedding DJ and put them into a club, they may not have the best club music today because they're not up on it the way that somebody that's been playing clubs consistently for the last 10 years. So I always say in the beginning of a sales call, the customer should be talking more because if they're talking, I'm learning. If I'm talking, I'm not learning anything. So it's always about questions. Then the other thing where that monologue was. So my friend's dialogue turned into a monologue is instead of asking if the person was interested in finding out more about some feature he was about to say, he just talked about it. Right. That's all he did, is he just talked about it. So could you say instead? Have you thought about your ceremony? And they're having the ceremony reception at the same venue. Have you thought about the experience of your ceremony? And before you even arrive and you want them to go, what do you mean? Well, you're off getting ready, you're getting your hair done, you're getting whatever, depending upon who the couple is. Right. You're getting dressed, you're getting all ready over there, and your guests are coming in. Well, what's the experience for them? Now you can talk about music and. Have you ever been to a ceremony where you couldn't hear the vows? You know, you're a guest and you're sitting kind of midway back, you couldn't even hear the vows. Yeah. You want to make sure all your guests can hear every word, right? Yeah. Well, we have the right technology. Well, just yesterday I was working with somebody, and what did we see on their website? Ceremony sound, white microphones, speakers, whatever. Every DJ has microphones and speakers or whatever. But does every DJ say, I'm going to make sure that Aunt Sally in the last row can hear every word of your vows? Because they care about that. So. But it was. Have you. Have you been to a wedding where you couldn't hear the vows? Is the question that lets me tell you about how we're going to make that happen. So I think the monologues come in. You can break your monologue. First of all, you should not be going A to Z or A to Z, depending where you are. You should not be going there, because some people. You were just saying this before we started recording. Some people are kind of ready to buy. Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the signs for you that I don't need to go into this pitch? Right. You're talking to them a little in the beginning. What do you find? What are you hearing that's saying, okay, Rod, stop telling them about what you do and start asking for the sale? Trying to not. Not blunt in a forceful way, but put in words and questions. So how does this feel to you? Does this seem like what you want to do? You know, are you Ready to make us your DJ for the night, like and then again, shut up, right? And let them look at each other and give that little nod and, and try and you know, make it their decision, right? So if, let's say you say are you ready to make us your dj? And they're like well, not yet, we're still looking around or whatever. It didn't end the sale, it just said not yet. That's what I heard is not yet. So how do you, I was going to say recover because some people are thinking, oh my gosh, they just said no, right? They didn't say no, they said not yet. Where do you go from there? If they say, you know, well, you know, we're still looking around, where do you go? Where do you go from there? It's interesting. I, I don't know if I like being the first call or the third call. I've had first calls where they're like I'm going to cancel my other calls. You, I feel comfortable you're referred by the venue. Your socials were up to date. I'm just ready to do this and I'm like great, I love it. Right. I don't think you need those calls either. You seem like a great fit for us and we would love to be your dj. So just take the sale. Because my follow up process and using calendly to schedule appointments and things, I'm often the first appointment because it's easy for them to set a time. I would love it if they didn't make any further calls. But the reality is a lot of them do, they've got them set up. One thing I'll say is like if you're talking to someone else and they say something really cool, maybe we overlooked it. So please don't, you know, think that because someone else mentioned something we can't, you know, I don't put an emphasis on lights or those sort of things but if, if you find that you are interested, let me know, we have them. I just don't push them on you. And I kind of subtly try and suggest other DJs will try upsells and things like that. And again, good on them. They're, they're successful. I'm just trying to differentiate, you know, if I'm the third call, I'm like, well, you've got a basis of comparison. Are we ahead or below? And if you know, how do you feel about it? What, you know, what's been different in your other two phone calls and would you like to move forward with us? Like, yeah, asking. Asking for the sale. Asking for the sale. Yeah. Is there anything you've seen with the other companies that we didn't talk about? And when you're third. Right. When you're first, it's. Is there something you're still looking for that we didn't get to. Right, right. So when you're first, you can ask that because they haven't been anywhere else. And if they say, oh, you know, we have these other appointments, well, is there something you're still looking for that you didn't find here with us? And I like that. And that's a good way to plant the seed that they don't have to have those future conversations. Right. And. And one of my favorite stories I probably told this on the podcast was bridal shops that sell dresses. Very often, somebody will make appointments at three shops on a Saturday, right? So they have an early morning one, a midday one, an afternoon one. They go to the first shop, the stylist does a really good job, brings out a dress. The dress is on. The angels are singing, Mom's crying. You know, it's just perfect. But I have these other appointments, and this shop said, we'll say to the bride, would you like us to cancel them for you? And I said, wait, so you call the other stores? And they said, yeah. I said, okay, so when you call the other store, do you call from your cell phone or the store phone, like the caller ID gonna say it was your shop or is it gonna not? And they said, it depends upon who we're calling. I said, okay, sometimes you want to let them know, but I. And some stores will have a cancellation fee, and shops will say, listen, we'll pay the cancellation fee. So you'll do that. Because the question is, what I started with is, are we adapting to their buying style? Right. Some people are ready to buy quickly, and if you're third, they might have decision fatigue, which is. Oh, okay, you know what? Yeah, they all sounded good. We're with you right now. Let's do this right. And then decision paralysis. I don't know. They all sound good, but I don't know. So these are two different things. Decision fatigue and decision paralysis. Decision fatigue is so many decisions, so many choices. I can't decide. Decision fatigue is I'm tired of making choices because I'm done here. So you need to read that. Right? You need to read that. And if you want to set a topic for our next phone call. Something. Else that's driving me nuts is I've issued a whole bunch of contracts. And DJ event planner is doing a great job of following up with them, but they're not signing off. Okay? That's a whole other phone call, Right? So we lose control. Whenever you say, I'm going to send you this contract, get this back to me. Even if you say, get it back to me by tomorrow, by two days from now, three days from now, whatever it is, you've lost control because you've just sent that out into the ether, Assuming that they get it, assuming that they read it, assuming that they go through it with their partner, all these different things. So you're kind of losing control. A lot of people do proposals. So a lot of the caterers do proposals. Some of the florists will do proposals and things that I've spoken about this where I would prefer where you say, I will have your proposal ready for you tomorrow afternoon. Let's set up another call. And I'm going to go through it with you. And if there's any changes that I need to make, we can make them there right on the spot with a contract. If they haven't seen the contract yet, you could try something like that. If this is happening a lot, which is, I'm going to have the contract ready, and let's go through this together, because everybody's contract looks different. Your venue's contract is going to look different than mine's going to look different than your florist and your photographer and your videographer and so forth. And then if there's anything that's not clear, I can clear it up for you right then. And then we can, you know, then you can take the next steps moving forward. So if they've said yes, there's a great book called the Jolt Effect, which is by Matthew Dixon. I forget the other author, but it's about indecision. So you sent them the contract, and they haven't sent it back. So that wasn't the Jolt Effect. It was in Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, where he talks about three kinds of yes. The counterfeit yes, where they told you yes and have no intention of moving forward. Some of those contracts you sent out became counterfeit yeses. There's the confirmation yeses, which is yes. I mean, to do it. But you kind of need to hear two or three yeses from them. And then there's the commitment yes, yes, absolutely. We're doing this. So before you sent the contract, the question is, did you get a which yes did you get? And one way to get a really good yes is to get them to say no. Which is, is there any reason we shouldn't go ahead and get started planning your amazing wedding? And if they go no, that's a strong yes. Right. Okay, so now you want to keep your hands on the steering wheel and say, here's what we're going to do. Now I'm going to work up the contract for you. Now do you do your contracts on the spot? I usually do it about 10 minutes after the phone call and, and send it in a follow up, email the link to the contract and that's okay. So what you could do is if you're not sure how strong it is or you might want to just try this is we're going to set up a quick. Just tell them, here's what we're going to do. Now I'm going to work up the contract for you. We're going to set up a 15 minute quick zoom just so I can go through it with you. Because everybody's contract looks different from your venue all the way through your dress and your invitations, whatever. And if there's any questions, I can clear them up for you. Anything needs be adjusted, I can do that. And then the next step after that is you're going to e sign that. You're going to give me the deposit. You're going to do that. Okay, so I'll have that contract ready a little bit later. Would you like to do that in about a half an hour or is tomorrow better? Yes. Give them two choices. Right. So now you go back, you do a zoom, you go through it. Now they know how to read your contract. Because everybody listening here has a different contract, different terms, different. All these things, payment terms, all forced majeure and all those kind of things. Right. And just go through the contract with them and say, is this everything we spoke about? Yes. Is there anything missing that you want? No. Is there anything you'd like to add or take away? No. Great. Okay. The deposit is this. Right. We're clear on that. The payment terms of this. Fantastic. Going to e sign this. Okay, so I'm sending you the contract right now. Would you like me to stay on so you know, can make sure there's no problems? Right. Goes into their thing, you could have even have them share their screen. You could even watch them do it if you wanted to. That's one possibility. A little bit more of your time. But right now you're chasing people down for contracts and the truth is you can't hold their date if you don't have money in a contract. Right. You're not going to hold their date. Great takeaway there. And something that I'm going to experiment with is how to get that contract back fast. Some people, you're right, they turn it around within a day and you're like, boom, done. But once it sits and lingers on for more than a few days, right? And there's different reasons, right? There are people that get busy, somebody gets sick, they got a pile of work put on their desk and stuff like that. And let's face it, the wedding's a year from now, nine months from now or whatever. You're not the most important thing on their desk today. So you want to give them a sense of urgency. And, and this is again, mirroring style. Some people are like, oh, I got to do it right now. Like I got, I got an contract this morning. Somebody emailed me and said, I just sent you the, the, the agreement. You know, it'll be in a separate email. Look for it. It's coming from this, whatever. I went in, clicked, read through it, signed it, done. Emailed them back, done. Right. My personality is like off the plate. Done. That's it. But there are other times I have to say it languished, you know, maybe a couple of days or whatever, it languished and then it gets buried in your inbox and now you're just not seeing it anymore. And I know that DJ Intelligence is, or DJ Event Planner is following up, but the sense of urgency needs to be not about I need your contract. It needs to be about we can't start planning your fun event until we get that part done. And I think what a lot of people do is I need the contract, I need the money, I need the contract. That's transactional and we need to make it about. We're going to spend an awful lot of time planning your wedding, but we can't do that until we know it's your wedding day. And we can't know that until you do the contract. So therefore, could you please, and I think if you change the wording, go back into DJ Event Planner, look at the wording and the follow ups and see if it's very cold transactional wording. And can we make it more about them and how, you know, what you, you'll see us for how many hours a typical wedding for you? Five, six? They're more like eight up here. Eight up there. Okay, well, it's the exchange rate, right? It's eight up there, it's six over here. Is that what it is? Yeah. So, you know, you're going to see us for eight hours. What you're not going to see is the 30 hours that we're going to put in preparing. And that doesn't start until I have your contract, your deposit. We'd love to get started. Could you please do that? I think just changing the wording on that might help. I think that would help a lot of people that, you know, looking at your follow up after a meeting and making sure that you're giving them everything they need to make the decision we want them to, which is to lock it down. Right. And the thing is, if you're watching on video, some of you have seen these before. Ambiguous next steps bring ambiguous results. Too many people are losing control of the sale because they're just sending out a proposal, just sending out a contract and there isn't an expectation of when that's going to be back. I think if you need to, I think you need to, when you're having that conversation and they say, yeah, send me the contract. You say, okay, I'm going to send you the contract. Here's the timing on this, right? So set them up for that. Say, here's the timing on that. Your date is not reserved till the deposit and the contractor in. Which means if somebody else comes along, they can take that date away from you. And we don't want that to happen. So here's the expectation. So even if you can't set up or don't want to set up that next meeting, tee that up better in the beginning, be clearer. And then when you send it over, I would also say, here's the three steps to getting started on your wedding. One, you're going to sign the contract. Two, you're going to do the deposit. Three, we got the rest of it right, there you go. So I think we can do a better job in communication. And that's also mirroring them. But I think a lot of it is we have to take responsibility. Was it clear to them, Curse of knowledge again, was it clear to them what, how this timing is going to be? And is their sense of urgency equal to or greater than mine? Yeah. And, and when I look at the value of my time, I, I'm looking and I've got 25 contracts that are out that aren't returned. You know, for me that that's $50,000. I mean that is good value. So to have gone through the effort of attracting a client, having them enough interest to set up a discovery call or whatever you want to call it, saying, yes, I would like a contract to hold the date while I make my final decision and then not getting it back. It's like those are my most valuable things to do today is to make sure I've created a path for them to follow, to make the commitment to us. Right. And the clear timeline is the thing. We might be taking that for granted. That might be part of our monologue. And it's not a dialogue. You know, they say that people remember 40% of what they hear and 60% of what they read. They also say that 28% of all statistics are made up. So, you know, you never know on that. But the truth is we don't remember everything people say to us because we're thinking where our minds are going. There are distractions. So just because you said, I need it back and just because it says it in there in your email, I need it back, maybe that didn't sink in. So getting that dialogue and saying, okay, so here's the next steps, here's how this is going to be. Right? Any questions upon that? Okay, great. So then I'm going to send this over. You'll have it by then. I need you to sign it. Will you be able to sign that today for me? Right, because then your date is done, man, your data is done. You can all take a deep breath and that's great. So you can do that for me today. Again, not transactional. Make it, make it about them. Make it all about them. So the mirroring of their style. People that are ready to buy now, let's go to the other side real quick because we could go on forever because you and I love talking. What about the people that just aren't ready to make a decision now and they're just dragging and dragging and dragging on? Right. What do you do with those? And how do you, how are you recognizing that? My, my current follow up processes is a two week, you know, barrage. Maybe not barrage, but you know, did you get the contract? Do you want to book us? Anything holding you back? Are we good to go? You know, are you still there? Like, yeah, some of them are a little fun and, but, but yeah, it's about a two week process. Okay. This is people that you met with haven't said yes or no. No, they've, I've sent them a contract. No, no. What about people? Oh, so, so everybody you speak to, you send a contract? Most. Oh, interesting. Okay, that, that, okay. And some of the language is, you know, this feels really good. Would you, would you like me to send you a contractor review that holds the date While you make your final decision. And how long do you give them for that? Hold the date at this point it's two weeks. That's too long. I would, I would cut that back. Because the calendar doesn't change. Right? The calendar doesn't change. So you get inquiries all the time. You're a multi op company, you do multiple events on a day and it's too long. Personally, I'd give them three days. Right. If I'm holding your date, I'm gonna, it's three days, 72 hours is the most that I would give them. If they say, oh, I'm meeting, you know, we're meeting with my parents on, on, on next Tuesday and it's six days away except great, don't tell anybody, but I'll give you, I'll give you till Tuesday. And I feel like what One thing that I need to do is I have clients where they should be on a three day cycle because their wedding is coming up within six months. And you know what? Get on with this. Yeah. And then I need another stream to put people in who are maybe a little more of a tire kicker. And they're looking at a wedding for next fall. They're not there yet. So I need to have a different stream for people that are really just doing research at this point. Right, right. So that, that changes some of what I said before in terms of contracts because I'm assuming the contract is. Yeah, they said they want to do it as opposed to. Oh, here, I'd like, They're looking at your, some people are looking at your contracts as proposals is really what it is because they're still doing their shopping around. Yeah, yeah, that could be. But I would still say listen here, here it is. I, I, your data is being held for 72 hours for three days. If you need more time than that, that's fine. I can't guarantee we're holding your date. Right. If it goes more than 14 days, I can't guarantee I'm holding the price. Right, right. I can't guarantee I'm holding the price. After that I'd be happy to give you a new, new proposal. Right. But three days, I'll hold your date, I'll hold the price. 14 days, I'll hold this price for you after that, whatever the current pricing is and whatever availability is and then try to get some agreement as to what the next follow up is going to be, when, how, whatever. So it's not ambiguous. So, so mirroring their style, if they're talking a lot, let them talk Sometimes you have to reel them in because some people will keep going, all right, off, off, you know, off on a tangent, right? And then people, people who don't talk much, you have to ask a better question. You have to get them thinking about the experience for them and their guests. No matter how quiet they are, they do understand that they've been to other weddings, there has been an experience, and you just have to get. Dig deeper and have them picturing it and listening to Rod here. Don't be afraid to ask for the sale. That's what it's all about. So, Rod, we could go on forever with this. Thank you so much for bringing this to me and thank you so much for. For coming on again and sharing this with us. Ask me anything is something. If you go to podcast.alanberg.com there's a button there you can ask. I got a couple of them in yesterday that are going to come on future episodes and sometimes I invite you to come on and. And talk about it together. So thanks everybody for listening and thank you, Rod. Cheers.

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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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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