Due to the amount of activity on your Celebrant Forum recently, our very ownLisa Johnson has written this piece which we think may interest many of your fellow members.
“I can‚’t get any clients and other business myths”
I‚’ve been having quite a lot of discussions with new planners and celebrants recently about the ‚Äòbusiness side‚’ of what we do. As creative people, I think most of us came into the wedding industry for the love of doing the actual planning/performing/writing rather than because it was a good business decision but what I quickly realised (I‚’ve only been in business for 2 years myself) is that the running of the business is what I do with 80% of my time. The other 20% I get to do the fun stuff ‚- the actual planning and meeting couples ‚- the thing that gets me excited to be a wedding planner! The rest of my time is spent on marketing, PR work, blog writing, networking, accounting, advertising, branding, social media and everything else that comes with owning your own business.
So I guess really I‚’m writing this blog as a friendly wake-up call ‚- a little shake of your shoulders! Yes, running a business is hard and of course nobody wants to do the boring stuff but it‚’s got to be done in able to get to the good stuff!
Let‚’s start with setting up a business in the first place. You‚’ve done your training, you‚’ve got your name, you‚’ve even sorted out a pretty cool logo. You‚’ve really thought hard about your branding and who your ideal client is and your website and branding shows that you know this. It‚’s all set up and you‚’re open for business. So where are all the clients?
I‚’m afraid this is where the work comes in. There is no point at all having a website if nobody sees it. There is a lot more work to be done I‚’m afraid. You can‚’t sit there and wait for clients to come to you. I guarantee you that they won‚’t because there are thousands of other creatives just like you who have done exactly the same thing. You now need to get your ideal clients to find yourather than your competitors, so how exactly do you go about doing that? Here are a few ideas to start you off‚Ķ.
Social Media
Possibly the biggest advertising tool of our time ‚- I‚’m not saying you have to be on all platforms; you don‚’t. Your ideal client won‚’t be so there‚’s no reason you need to be. Work out which platforms your ideal clients are on and when they look at them and then start posting from a new facebook account opened up specifically for your business (your clients do not want to see your lovely children and pictures of your dinner). Only post content that is in line with what your clients might want to read. There‚’s a lot of choice out there with the main platforms being facebook, twitter, snapchat, Instagram, pinterest and periscope. If you want to post on quite a few and write all of your posts in one go, I recommend you download Hootsuite ‚- it allows you to schedule all of your posts at the times that give your potential clients the optimum chance of seeing them. It also means you can spend a Sunday writing them all, schedule them and then forget about it for the rest of the week!
Networking
I know that lots of us (including me) are holding down full time jobs and bringing up young children as well as running our creative businesses and that means there‚’s not much time. If time is at a premium, the best way to network is using facebook and twitter. Look up groups in your area that will be of interest ‚- some will be for wedding suppliers only and some will be groups of brides in your area so that‚’s even better! Don‚’t go in with a selling post (nobody likes that) ‚- become the expert in your area. Answer queries that people have, post different ideas that might interest the group and be generally helpful and informative. If there is no such group, make one ‚- there will be other wedding suppliers that will be looking for one too. The more you chat to other suppliers in the industry, the more likely a referral will come your way. For celebrants, this means chatting to all suppliers ‚- florists, photographers, planners, bakers and most importantly, venues (we‚’ll get on to that). There‚’s a weekly twitter chat on Wednesday evenings on twitter called WeddingHour (find it by searching for #weddinghour) where all sorts of wedding suppliers and even couples chat to each other ‚- it‚’s a great way to start networking.
If you are lucky enough to have the time ‚- get out there! People will remember you so much more if they meet you face to face. Make appointments with the suppliers in your area and just chat over coffee about your businesses. You‚’ll pick up ideas about other networking groups in your area from other suppliers and can then choose which ones are right for you. Not all will be and that‚’s ok too.
Venue Visiting
This is important for all wedding businesses but even more important for celebrants as you have a big advantage ‚- venue managers may not know you exist or how you can help their business. This is brilliant for you. It means you can go and have a coffee with the wedding coordinators at the venue and say ‚”do you ever use that beautiful garden for weddings?‚” They will say no because the law in England requires there to be a licensed room to marry in. And that‚’s where you come in. You can tell them there‚’s a way round that and explain how using a celebrant means couples could get married in that garden/unlicensed room, giving the venue more options to offer to a client, which can only be good for them! Ask them if they are having a wedding fair and would they like you to come in and do a little talk/workshop on using a celebrant (they get a speaker for free that may interest potential brides ‚- you get a captive audience who may decide to then book you when they book the venue). Make sure you ask if they have a recommended supplier list ‚- if they do, they may not have a celebrant on it so get yourself added!
Blogging
We all want to get to that first page and even that number one spot on Google right? Well one of the best ways to do this is by posting fresh content onto your website regularly. Blogging is the best way to do this. When I started planning I was on page 24 of Google when the words ‚ÄòSurrey Wedding Planner‚’ were typed in. I‚’m now consistently in positions 1-3 on page 1 (after the paid for ads). I‚’ve done this completely by blogging. Make sure your website has the right tags / labels in it (words that google will find if someone searches for them) and get blogging. You can blog about anything that you think potential clients might want to read about ‚- what a celebrant is, latest wedding trends, how certain rituals came about, etc. Remember that blogs look better with pictures (this goes for your social media posts too) so ask photographers nicely if you can use their pictures on your blogs and make sure you credit them. Don‚’t ever use them without permission though as it‚’s against copyright law. Once you‚’ve done a blog post, make sure the world knows it‚’s there by posting about it on all of your chosen social media channels!
Write for a magazine
Get your name and service out there by writing for magazines. Write articles about what a celebrant is or find a twist such as ‚Äòhow to decorate an outdoor ceremony‚’ and then send it in with some photographs. Magazines and other supplier‚’s blogs need content and you can provide it. Make contact with the magazines in your local area ‚- if they ever need a quote or an expert answer, they‚’ll come to you.
Valuing your service
I wanted to end with a quick note about valuing your service. I‚’ve heard way too many planners and celebrants lowering their fees to get more work or even doing it for free, especially in the early days. All this does is devalue your service. If you charge next to nothing, you are devaluing your service as well as the industry as a whole and you‚’ll attract only budget brides. Work out how much you want to earn per hour, add on marketing and insurance costs (yes you do have to have insurance) and then work out what you need to make at each wedding from these figures. Then stick to it. You will get clients that will pay for your service if you value it and they value it ‚- you may get less clients but they will pay more and will more likely be your ideal client so it‚’s still worth it. A recent wedding planner told me she was charging ¬£1,000 per full planning wedding. An average wedding takes 250 hours to plan and so she was working for much less than the minimum wage! You may love what you do but it‚’s a business at the end of the day. If you‚’re not making a profit, it‚’s not a business ‚- it‚’s just a hobby.
I hope this blog has helped some of you with ideas about what you can do to get going with your business and to attract more of the kinds of clients that you want. It isn‚’t easy ‚- it takes effort, time, patience and lots of work on the business side of things but you will succeed if you put the work in! I‚’d love to hear about other ways that you get yourselves out there to grow your business, so do let me know.
Lisa Johnson
Many thanks to Lisa for her valuable input.
Hello Lisa, thank you for writing such an informative, helpful piece. I'm keen to take every opportunity to be a success and will be following your advice first thing Monday morning!