One of the things I love most about the one on one consulting I do is that it always gives me ideas on what matters most to my target market…you, the readers of Think Like A Bride. While every consulting client has a different specific need (Hey, that’s why they called me in the first place) in a larger sense they are all struggling with similar issues.

I see so many wedding vendors struggling with identity issues. Whether they are looking for a web make over, trying to figure out what to put in their blogs or  if and where to place advertising it almost always boils down to an issue of identity. What is your businesses identity, what is your “Brand”.

Exactly as I have told brides over and over, first figure out the style and theme of your wedding; you as wedding professionals have to do the same. By finding, defining and understanding your unique brand you have a template for all of your other decisions. When faced with a question simply ask yourself, “Does this fit with my brand?”

For many, defining the brand is the hardest thing they have to do in marketing their business.

Here are a few articles that may help and I plan to explore this yet again in the March issue of Think Like A Bride.

Branding. What Are You Missing

Branding. Again> Or why you need a second opinion

If all else fails, call me.

Every now and then I run across these videos. I’ve used some of them in my presentations and seminars. This one has a lot to say about the power of social media. If you think it is just a fad or that you don’t need to use it for your business you are sorely mistaken.

As wedding vendors, your target market IS GenY. If you ignore the media that they use you have no hope of reaching them. In order to sucessfully market anything, you have to:

• Understand your target market
• Know where they are
• Reach out to them in a way that they are receptive to hearing

You can not market your goods or service only in the way that you would be receptive to; or that worked well for previous generations.

Because of how unique our industry is, our target market is constantly shifting. They move at light speed and you have to stay on top of their trends to find them. It is no longer enough to stay up on the latest trends in weddings. You have to constantly scan the jungle to see where the herd you seek to capture is lurking.

There are two distinct schools of thought on how to handle how you use social media: short and frequent versus longer and less

often. Is there really a difference and which style is for you.

The conventional wisdom for blogging was that the best strategy was to put up short posts on a daily basis. Limit yourself to 500 words or less but do it every day.  This is the part that got a lot of my clients groaning. The thinking behind this was that in the eyes of the search engine every post represents a page on your site. Another factor was to keep subscribers happy and coming back. Well with the rise in popularity of microblogging sites like Twitter a new thinking is beginning to emerge.

First let’s look at Twitter. If you are on Twitter than you know what I am talking about when I say that there are too many people clogging the twittershpere with mundane stream of consciousness nonsense. “Yum, starbucks here we come” “Uploading Saturday’s wedding”  “Such a nice day and no photo shoots”  Please people, I have a life, I don’t want yours. Then along comes an article on how the CDC is using Twitter to keep everyone informed about the Swine Flu issue. (which, btw, I found on Twitter in the first place)

Be Simple and Selective on Twitter, Don’t Over Complicate: Unlike many of us (myself included) who congest Twitter’s airwaves with excessive banter, the CDC exercised impressive restraint in sharing only the most essential content. In a weird way, its Twitter account @CDCemergency felt more authoritative precisely because it didn’t spray unnecessary junk our way. Everything it shares is important, timely and actionable. When it arrives, you know it’s important.

Precisely because it posted only the most essential content, you pay more attention to it. I follow close to 500 people on Twitter; it is the ones that only post meaningful things that I really pay any attention to at all. Do you want your followers to hear what you have to say or are you just posting to hear yourself tweet? Constant tweeting can be a plus for name recognition but are you getting recognized for what you want to be known for?

Some one that is doing frequent right on Twitter is Bravo Bride. They post about once an hour but always with a new item on their For Sale boards. It’s almost like watching the Home Shopping Network pop up on my twadget sidebar. What a wonderful, guilty pleasure.

As for blogging; more often doesn’t have to be the only way.  There is such a thing as evergreen posts; those posts that will be just as relevant 2 years from now as they are today. Suppose you write really great how to posts, those will most likely look good for the life of the blog. It’s ok for these to be longer. They may also have the added benefit of looking better to the Googlebots and if they are really good they may just land on the front page of Google and stay there for up to a year. One of the keys is that these posts have to be really well done. Mediocre just won’t cut it for a long post, so edit, edit, edit.

If the posts you write tend to be more topical and time sensitive then you have to be a frequent poster. Just by the nature of the beast you will want to lean toward quick hits here. Think of them as more of a news flash than a well researched feature article. Get your facts right, make your language concise and hit it and get it. Toss in a couple of well labeled images and you are on your way.

Here is an example of the difference.

Short post:  Amber & Josh’s Wedding.

This would be an example of a post that would be short.  Get in all the important information and relevant keywords like your location and the venue complete with town and state. Use your great pictures and let them carry the information for you.

Long Post: Why Amber’s Wedding Makeup Looked So Great & How Yours Can Too

Same wedding, maybe even same images but this time you are giving the brides tips on how to achieve the look they want in their pictures by using the right makeup tricks. Yep, you may have to pick up the phone and ask the makeup artist a few questions, do a bit of refining but you will have a post that has staying (and search) power.

There isn’t anything wrong with either approach. There isn’t anything wrong with a combination of the two. What you want to be careful of is mixing them up. No one wants to read a 1500 word review of some strangers wedding. If you go long, make it packed with information that your readers can use.

I sat in a meeting the other night with 10 other wedding professionals. It was supposed to be a board meeting for our local wedding organization but it quickly digressed to an all out trash fest of one of the brides for next month.

You see, half of the people in the room had already fired this bride. The only one that still had not was the planner. The floral designer, transportation company, the invitation designer and one other had already had to make the decision to walk away from the outrageous behavior and demands of this client. It is not an easy decision to make; I know, I had to do it myself this week.

When do you know it’s time to fire a client? For me, it is when I come to the realization that no matter what I do it will never be right with this client. Often it has to do with communication and for me, it usually has a component of extreme micro-management. For others it is a clash of personalities or a death by paper cuts scenario, what ever has caused it- it is in your best interest to remove yourself as soon as possible. The longer you keep trying the worse it is going to get.

As professionals that are passionate about what we do it is hard to give up on a client. Of course there is the money aspect. Hey, who likes to give up income?  Take a look back at some of the weddings you have done where your instincts were telling you that something was wrong. I bet that most of the time they ended up costing you money in the end. You bent over backwards to please the unappeasable. You replaced, added, amended and redid over and above what was originally agreed upon. In the end, they still were only marginally satisfied.

I have had to do this twice now. The first time was a on a very simple wedding cake. Well I guess it was simple, it was supposed to be buttercream with borders, nothing like most of the designer cakes I usually did. After three design consultations and nearly 5 hours of time spent with this bride I still had no idea what she wanted. At one point it came to me piping the same border for her to look at in 4 different tip sizes at which point she said “Let’s schedule another appointment so I can see some more ideas.” I’m still not sure why she came to me in the first place. Mind you it rarely took more than an hour to an hour and a half to design even the most elaborate cake.

I had worked with brides that I had done as many a 4 redesigns on, no problem. I have had brides request trial tiers if it was an especially elaborate design or we were doing some very specific color matching, again no problem. There was just something about this girl that my inner voice kept screaming at me about. In the end I listened to that voice and made the hard choice to fire her. At first it makes you feel like a failure. How could you not have made this work? Then at some point you realize that you just weren’t a fit no matter how hard you tried.

I called her consultant and talked it over. She completely understood; after all she was working with her too. I wrote her a very professional letter explaining that I felt she would be happier with another cake designer and returned her (non-refundable) deposit. I never regretted it, especially after hearing from the planner after the wedding. Nothing had been right, all the way down to the temperature of the A/C in the limo. That time my instincts were right.

So how do you keep this from happening in the first place? First off never be afraid to NOT take a client. Tell clients at every step of the interview process that if you feel they would be a better fit with a different professional you will happily recommend one. That way you don’t have to take them in the first place.

In the long run a bad client can do you more harm than any amount you stand to make off the wedding. They will kill your self esteem, try to ruin your reputation and generally make you question why you are even doing what you are doing. If your inner voice is screaming, maybe you should not be afraid to listen.

“So Then I Shouldn’t Let My 6 Year Old Answer the Phone?”

Ummmm, no. That question was really asked of me recently. Do some wedding vendors just not get that this is a

business or are they clueless as to what a business is?

I truly didn’t know how to respond to the question. Where do you start to correct something like this? The question arose after a DJ had asked me to take a look at his business card from a marketing stand point. He asked me if he should risk putting his cell phone on the card. I told him if he wasn’t around his business phone most of the day then yes.

“Oh no” he said, “That is my home phone. I don’t have a business line.”

How many of you have just fallen into your business? Printed up a few business cards and thought you were good to go? More frighten, how many of you did that 10 or 15 years ago and are still thinking that way?

Think Like a Bride is here to keep you up on the trends in our industry, keep you clued in to your brides heads and spew forth marketing advice. I can’t help you if you aren’t at least looking at what you do from the level of a professional. Today’s brides are disenchanted enough and jaded enough that if they suspect for one minute that you are not professional they are never going to give you the time of day; or if they do they are not going to do it for anything but bargain basement rates.

If on the other hand you want great weddings and larger margins you have to look, sound and act like a professional. If you want today’s bride to hand you over a large check she wants to feel like you have it completely together, not some basement Betty just fooling around on the weekend.

Today’s bride is used to a certain level of professionalism when she spends top dollar. Additionally most of our brides have been in or at least exposed to the corporate world. They know how it works. I fear that many of the vendors I run across today have never been in that kind of business intensive world.

Even the simple things like proper business phone etiquette or how to put together a professional looking proposal seem to have fallen by the wayside. Proper spelling and language use count. It doesn’t matter how pretty you bridal bouquets are if your proposal looks like a 3^rd grader typed it you won’t get the good brides. Details matter to these brides. I saw one on line the other day complaining that a caterer she sent an inquiry to misspelled her name in his reply. Her comment “How hard is it to just cut and paste?”

If you want to make a living in this industry in 2010 then you have got to be thinking about it from a business like point of view. We only have 52 Saturdays a year.

Before you even begin to start thinking about spending any money on marketing your business take a good hard look at the little things that make a business’ image. I don’t want you to come to me wanting a brand image makeover if you aren’t already doing the basic things that make you look like a pro. No amount of money spent on marketing is going to work if when they do call your 6 year old answers the phone.

I was following a thread recently on wedding sticker shock. I thought some of the things these brides were complaining about were rather amusing.

As expected, gowns and photography headed the list. I chalk the gown part up to brides being uninformed. Most major magazines list the prices in their editorial content. Couple that with the huge difference between top end and moderate priced gowns and you can have some surprises, although I really thought it would be the other way. If you look at bridal editorial most of what they show are on the high end, very many of the gowns in salons are at the high-moderate to moderate side.

As for the photography, you can blame part of that on Craig’s List and part of it on brides simply not understanding just how important it is to have skill behind the lens. Just because someone can purchase a nice digital camera doesn’t make them an artist with it. Photographers need to do a better job of getting that point across.

Here is where I started getting amused. Chair covers. There were several that were having complete fits over the cost of chair covers. Some were flabbergasted over $3 apiece. Now come on, that’s barely going to cover the cost of cleaning them, extremely reasonable. My guess is that it sounded like a great price until they multiplied it by say 200 guests. So have you seen the percentage of clients using chair covers drop lately? Are they falling into the category of “I can live without it?”

The other biggie was veils. They just can’t get their head around the cost of “a piece of tulle and a comb,” as one poster described it. Having been around a few salons over the years, I know that these are often considered a profit center with higher mark-ups. I think the brides have picked up on that. (NO, I’m not the one that told them)

What all this tells me is that the “gorgeous wedding at any cost” fog has lifted. Brides are evaluating the goods and services they purchase for their wedding on a different level and set of criteria today. They are not afraid to buy off the rack. They aren’t afraid to rethink what is mandatory. They are willingly saying no to bells and whistles.

Do you think it may be time to adjust your core business accordingly? If you have been propping up your bottom line with add ons, now may be the time to re-evaluate your core business. You are being evaluated on what they get for their money; be prepared to show them the value in your product/service.

You will notice I didn’t suggest dropping your prices. If you offer packages, you may want to de-construct them. If you bundle things, you need to show them exactly what they are getting. “show me the money” has morphed into “show me the value.”

Do you still meet your clients at the local Starbucks? Do you invite them into your living room? That may not be the best plan.

For many of us solo-preneurs having a dedicated off site office is just not something we have thought about or built into our growth plan. Heck, I work out of my bedroom but then I rarely meet with clients, it’s all over the phone and internet for me.  If you meet with clients face to face on a regular basis you need to think about the impression you send with where you meet.

This was prompted by a discussion I was following on a photographer’s forum. The original poster was moving into a new place and was wondering if he should turn his old place into a studio.  Great idea, depending on the location.  It was a 2^nd story one bedroom on a side street. No matter how professional he made it, I still worry how comfortable a single woman would be going there alone.  It had better be in a great neighborhood. The thread continued with many people posting about their experiences when they moved into a real office/studio.

Let’s break it down. Brides will tell you that meeting at the local coffee house is OK. It’s a safe, public place that is easy to find. The problem for you is that you project the same image as every other wedding vendor that they meet there. There is nothing there to set you apart, nothing remarkable. There are distractions a plenty and nothing to stick in their mind.

If you meet in your home you are giving them too much information. Every home has its own drawbacks.  Even if you live in a show house designed by the editor of Metropolitan Home there are still a million personal touches that will show. Add to that the safety factor; do you really want to invite perfect strangers into you private space?  I sure don’t. I also don’t know many women that embrace the thought of being alone in a house with a stranger, especially if he is a man. I realize that it is often easier to meet at your home, particularly if you have children.  This is business folks; that isn’t always easy. The exception may be if you have a studio/workspace that is detached from the home.  Then the client is only viewing your home from the outside.

If you have a dedicated, off-site place to meet you set yourself apart. It is decorated in a manner that reflects your style. It screams professional, not amateur. Clients enter the space in a mood to do business, not chat. Unlike a coffee house, you have every possible sales tool at your finger tips. You just can’t carry everything in a briefcase. If it is in a commercial district it is presumed to be safe ground since there are other people near.  Unlike your home, your client only sees what you wish to present them, not everything about your life. All around it is the best solution.

Wait , you say! I can’t afford a place like that! You may be surprised.  I’m not talking about renting a corner office in a swanky high-rise or popping for commercial space in the shopping district; there are a million alternatives.  I know of two different wedding businesses in my small city that have added office suites to their property. They are tiny little spaces design for no more than meeting clients. If there isn’t something like this where you are you may consider doing it yourself.  Rent a place much larger than you need, divide it into small bedroom sized offices and rent them out to other wedding vendors. It pays your rent and they have a “business home.”

Heck, now that I think about it, my editor/publisher started his company this way in a restored mansion near the town square in Franklin, TN. He had one big room on the first floor.  I also remember photographer years ago that landed a similar place. It was a really cool building that a photographer had bought, built a nice studio and divided the rest up into private offices. She rented her office and had rights to schedule use of the studio space.  It worked out well for her for years. You could think of them as small business incubators.

There is a place that can be found if you put your mind to it. Oh, and yes, every single poster to that thread that had moved into professional space had seen a dramatic jump in their close rate. Just though I’d throw that out there.

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I just got home from The Special Event 2010 in New Orleans. Every time I go, I go with a different segment of the industry. This year I hung out with the planners. Funny how we all work in the same industry but all have very different points of view.

If you have not been to the TSE you have to make a serious effort to go next year. It is really a one stop shop for education, networking and the latest products and inspiration.

Networking: Just like anywhere, it is what you make of it. If you go down with a group and stick to your selves, you are missing the point. You have to reach out and make new friends. Meet for lunch, meet for coffee, talk to the speakers and get to know them. Then follow up once you get home. There isn’t any point in making connections if you don’t build on the initial meeting.

New Products: The show floor most years is a wonderland of what’s hot for the new year. Don’t just focus on your segment of the industry, look at everything. For example, this year lighted bars were everywhere. Most florists wouldn’t pay attention. Well they should because next year you are going to have to design floral decor to decorate them. Duh.

In this same vein, check out the table tops for the wedding luncheon and the tabletop competition. Some of the top creatives in the industry are given free reign to design. This will certainly give you a glimpse into where the trend for “looks” is going in the next few years.

Spoiler: think organic and woodsy.

Also a great source of inspiration is the nominees for the GALA Awards. Be sure to check out what the judges thought was hot enough to make the cut.

Education:There are so many seminars that it can be hard to figure out just which ones to attend. Here is the biggest tip I can give you; pick speakers that come from the wedding and event industry. We really are unique. Every year I sit through at least on given by a marketing guru that has no concept of our target market. Sadly, they just don’t get it. Now granted, I do marketing for a living and I am familiar with a lot of these speakers, but seriously, what they teach really has to be filtered through the lens of our unique market.

Here is another tip, get to the sessions a bit early to network with the other people in the audience. Obviously you have a common interest and as you walk out together you have something to talk about.

Probably the best reason to go is how energized you feel when you leave. Always held in January, what better way to kick off a new year than with a massive infusion of ideas and new connections?

Marketing for the small entrepreneur has a lot to do with name recognition.  The question I am always asked is how do you get it?

The easy answer is to hire a big PR firm. Right, I know “Not  happenin’.” The harder answer is to do it yourself and that takes really not a lot more than blind perseverance and dedication.

If you are a regular subscriber you already know about using the social networks to build your name. Question is, which name are you building? What? Here is an example: The Rolling Stones vs Mick Jagger; U2 vs Bono; which ones are the rock stars?  Are you out there building your company brand or are you building your own?  Wolverine or Hugh Jackman? Do you see what I am getting at? If you really want to be a rock star you have to make your company identified as a part of you, not the other way around. If you don’t believe me, look at the Trendsetters list in Modern Bride; not one is listed by their company name. Even the write up on the venerable Kleinfeld’s, which is by all rights a major brand, is headlined as Mara Urshel & Ronnie Rothstein.

Now that you have that straight in your mind, what steps do you take to make it happen. Well you start with a small following. Think about being a headliner for a small crowd as opposed to being the opening act for someone else. Seth Godin wrote a great post on this, you can read it here.  Build your small following on your name, not your companies. Companies are thought of a faceless entities, be bold enough to put your face on what you do (of course you have be really good at what you do).

Build audience by getting exposure. Offer to speak to groups like you local NACE or ABC, offer to write articles for your local publications, get to know the producers of your local tv shows, offer to do presentations at local bridal shows. Build you tiny little cult following at the same time you hone your skills.

Take any offer that will get you exposure. You never know who will be in that crowd. I live in a city that understands this completely. The places I have seen songwriters and musicians perform in around here would truly boggle your mind. No matter what the dive, you just never know who will be in the crowd. Randy Travis was discovered singing in a horrible tourist trap catfish dive out by Opryland. He was a dishwasher that talked the boss into letting him sing on a fairly regular basis, night after night for unappreciative half drunk tourists. Now he was doing the other work of hitting Music Row, but ultimately it was someone that saw him perform on that stage that took him over the edge.

Use this exposure to build to the next level.

Here is where the blind perseverance comes in. Except in rare cases, this isn’t going to happen overnight. You need to keep putting yourself out there, keep taking risks. Think about what we all know to be true of actors: 15 years to become an overnight success.  Start zeroing in on larger and larger markets. Pick your targets and keep offering, hit them with an idea on a monthly basis. Don’t be pushy but do be relentless. Believe me, they will remember your name and when the time comes that they need what you have to offer they will look you up. It may feel like you are emailing a black hole. It may feel like they aren’t listening but keep doing it any way.  There are too many stories out there about the PR flack that pitches a client to Oprah/Fast Company/InStyle for a year before they hear anything. Have faith and just keep doing it.

I know that some of you are sitting there thinking how is this going to help my little bakery? I can only deliver in a small geographic area, why do I need to be on Oprah? If you think for one minute that national exposure won’t be felt in your local market you are crazy. The minute you hit primetime, your prices and your booking are going to go through the roof. Besides, there is a great big world out there. Don’t be afraid to think about expanding into it. After all, you just got yourself on Oprah didn’t you; you can do anything!