Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / Bringing humour into your wedding business with Beth Sherman

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Bringing humour into your wedding business with Beth Sherman · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

• 0:00
  Beth: I don't blend at a wedding fair when it's a lot of, oh my god, you got This is
• 0:05
  great, and it's a lot of Maids of Honor.
• 0:07
  But I say like, yeah, let, let, let, let Nana explain to
• 0:10
  you what she's going to do.
• 0:11
  You know, I mean, it's just, just a tiny bit of self awareness.
• 0:17
  It, it breaks down barriers, and it takes people by surprise in a good way.
• 0:22
  Because that's what you need.
• 0:23
  I'm sure everyone listening is good at what they do.
• 0:26
  Sometimes you just need a little help getting that door open.
• 0:30
  Becca: I'm becca Pountney, wedding businessmarketing expert,
• 0:33
  speaker and blogger, and you are listening to the Wedding Pros
• 0:36
  who Are Ready To Grow Podcast.
• 0:38
  I'm here to share with you actionable tips strategies.
• 0:45
  If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
• 0:49
  and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you
• 0:52
  love, then you're in the right place.
• 0:54
  Let's get going with today's episode.
• 0:58
  Today I'm chatting with Beth Sherman.
• 1:00
  Beth is a speaker, comedian, and Emmy winning Hollywood comedy writer.
• 1:04
  Having written for some of the biggest shows in America, including
• 1:06
  The Tonight Show and the Oscars, Beth now lives in London with her partner.
• 1:10
  We met at an entrepreneurial dinner a few weeks ago where I discovered
• 1:14
  Beth's current business, Authentically Funny Speeches, where she helps
• 1:17
  add humor to keynote talks and, you guessed it, wedding speeches.
• 1:21
  As soon as I heard the word wedding, my eyes obviously lit
• 1:24
  up and I wanted to find out more.
• 1:26
  So I invited her onto the podcast and she's here today.
• 1:29
  Beth, welcome.
• 1:30
  Beth: Nice to be here.
• 1:32
  What a great way to meet too.
• 1:34
  I, I, it was so, I mean, random isn't the right word.
• 1:38
  We were there to network, but we weren't there to network for wedding stuff.
• 1:43
  Cause.
• 1:43
  That's not remotely what the other guests do.
• 1:47
  Becca: No, really not.
• 1:48
  And I really came expecting not to meet anyone in the wedding
• 1:51
  industry, because why would I?
• 1:53
  There was only about eight of us.
• 1:54
  But it's, it's what I teach all of the time.
• 1:56
  Actually, I'm always saying, you know, you never know who you're going to meet.
• 1:59
  You could meet a new connection anywhere, always talk about what you do.
• 2:02
  And so I loved seeing that play out in action, because when you
• 2:05
  said you did wedding speeches, I just couldn't believe it.
• 2:09
  Beth: strange look and I thought I can't tell what sort of judgment I'm
• 2:12
  getting, which was Do you know what I do?
• 2:15
  Yeah, exactly.
• 2:19
  It was, it was more of a, did I hear her right?
• 2:21
  Becca: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:22
  Because I just wasn't expecting to have that.
• 2:25
  Now, I think you might be the first ever Emmy award winning
• 2:29
  person to have on my podcast.
• 2:31
  So I'm very excited about that.
• 2:32
  So tell us about getting into comedy in the first place.
• 2:35
  Tell us a little bit about your story and how you ended up working
• 2:38
  on some of these massive shows.
• 2:40
  Beth: Well, I mean, if we go way back, I come from a family that has a very good
• 2:44
  sense of humor and a culture that has a good sense of humor, East Coast Jewish.
• 2:48
  I mean, there's just a culture of if you can't laugh, you'll cry.
• 2:51
  Very, very resilient.
• 2:53
  And my dad in particular really had a great sense of humor.
• 2:57
  My mom did too, but my dad just loved humor itself.
• 3:01
  So I grew up watching Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, a lot of Mel Brooks.
• 3:06
  My father's a huge Mel Brooks fan.
• 3:07
  If you don't know, it's producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein.
• 3:11
  And to me, that was sort of billed as the canon.
• 3:14
  This is, this is what you should know.
• 3:16
  And I didn't understand.
• 3:19
  I thought everyone thought of things that way.
• 3:22
  I didn't really listen to a lot of music growing up.
• 3:24
  I, because I was in love with comedy, my mom liked flea markets
• 3:30
  because I was in love with comedy and bored walking around them with her.
• 3:34
  I would find old albums, and so I ended up with this great collection of stand
• 3:39
  up comedy albums, many of them recorded live, and so when most kids were up in
• 3:43
  the room listening to music, I was up in my room listening to stand up comedy.
• 3:47
  Bill Cosby, it was the 80s, we didn't know, but a lot of Bill Cosby, George
• 3:52
  Carlin, Woody Allen, just all, all the, the sort of, that generation
• 3:56
  of American comedians, and there was just something magical about it.
• 4:01
  Lenny Bruce.
• 4:03
  And because they were recorded live, you heard the relationship with the
• 4:07
  audience, and that is something special.
• 4:10
  Because anytime you're on stage, but especially in stand up, it's a dialogue.
• 4:14
  One person is speaking, but if you're in front of an audience,
• 4:17
  that audience has a part.
• 4:19
  And in comedy, it's particularly evident because There's, there's, someone tells a
• 4:25
  story and there's a punchline at the end and there's a laugh and then there's, you
• 4:28
  know, you're, you're surfing this wave and it's sort of, when does it recede?
• 4:32
  When does it go back and forth?
• 4:33
  So, that wired my brain for comedy and also in the U.
• 4:37
  S.
• 4:37
  it was the late 80s, it was the, the big stand up boom, so there
• 4:40
  was a lot of stand up on TV.
• 4:42
  Now, I never had the guts.
• 4:44
  to do stand up, so I never imagined myself doing it, but one day I was 16,
• 4:49
  14, 15, 16, somewhere around there, there was a TV show that I liked
• 4:53
  called Murphy Brown, it was a sitcom, and one day there was a news magazine
• 4:57
  show that did a behind the scenes, and the behind the scenes of this, of the
• 5:01
  sitcom, but it wasn't about the actors.
• 5:04
  They, it showed us something, the behind the scenes, and it showed us
• 5:07
  something called a writer's room.
• 5:09
  And the writer's room was ten guys, it was mostly guys, but ten, ten comedy
• 5:14
  writers around a conference table.
• 5:16
  And their whole job all week was to sit together in there.
• 5:19
  One person would write the draft of that week's show, and then their job was
• 5:22
  just to sit there and make, go through it line by line and make it funnier.
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  And not just funnier, but funnier in the character's voice.
• 5:30
  And I saw that and realized, that's a job.
• 5:34
  That's a job.
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  Sit in a room with funny people.
• 5:38
  and try to outfun each other, but with a very particular target.
• 5:41
  And it's the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life, and I
• 5:45
  went to college because that wasn't really an option in my family.
• 5:49
  Both my parents were the first to go to university in their families, and
• 5:53
  so I was going to, but so I went.
• 5:56
  I majored in television, which I wouldn't recommend, but then I
• 6:00
  moved to Los Angeles to find these writers rooms and work in them.
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  And I started as a production assistant getting coffee and driving around
• 6:09
  scripts because it was before the internet and paid a lot of dues and did
• 6:14
  a lot of stuff for free, but eventually made my way into writer's rooms.
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  I got those opportunities and I learned it's kind of an
• 6:22
  apprentice business in that sense.
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  You can have a lot of talent, but unless you're doing the
• 6:27
  gig, it's hard to learn the gig.
• 6:28
  And 27 years later, That's, that's what I did, and I wanted to write for sitcoms,
• 6:36
  but the shows that I got the opportunities on, so in sitcoms you're trying to make
• 6:40
  the jokes authentic to that character's voice, but a lot of the shows that I
• 6:44
  worked on were what in my business is called comedy variety, and so here I
• 6:50
  think they're called just chat shows.
• 6:52
  So sort of Graham Norton, one professionally funny host.
• 6:57
  And a series of interviews, but, but some prepared comedy at the beginning
• 7:00
  and where Graham Norton is one day a week, these shows are five nights a week.
• 7:04
  So, the Late Show with David Letterman, Tonight Show with Jay
• 7:08
  Leno, worked on those, worked on Ellen for three years Ellen DeGeneres.
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  And.
• 7:15
  So then the skill that I developed became not just making a character
• 7:18
  funny, but it was a real person.
• 7:20
  So the weird superpower I developed was how to be funny in someone else's voice.
• 7:25
  And along the way I got the guts and the encouragement to do stand up myself.
• 7:29
  Unsurprisingly, I loved it.
• 7:31
  So of those 27 years, I spent about 15 of them doing standup nights and weekends.
• 7:38
  And when the shows were on break or on hiatus, I would go across the
• 7:42
  country and do weeks out of town.
• 7:44
  And I did that clubs and colleges and Vegas and all that.
• 7:47
  I went to Iraq.
• 7:48
  I did a two week military tour of Iraq in 2008, which was amazing.
• 7:53
  Doing four shows a day, going base to base in Black Hawk helicopters, combat
• 7:57
  outposts and forward operating bases.
• 8:00
  shows for 19 guys that hadn't seen another human in, you know, hadn't
• 8:05
  seen a new person in quite a while.
• 8:08
  So, did all that.
• 8:10
  The segue into working for people outside the world of entertainment was
• 8:15
  that we had a, well, I was on a morning show where one of the hosts, they would
• 8:20
  occasionally do comedy, and one of the hosts particularly liked to do comedy,
• 8:24
  and she had the, she had the, the status where they could keep someone on staff.
• 8:30
  to, to write and suggest comedy.
• 8:33
  And I would have to be at work pitching comedy off of the news, five days a week.
• 8:38
  It would be based on current events.
• 8:40
  And I would have to be at work at seven in the morning for a 7
• 8:43
  15 pitch meeting where they would pitch the news stories of the day.
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  And then if there was anything that was sort of If there were any comedic
• 8:51
  opportunities within it, then I would pitch ideas and then we'd produce them.
• 8:55
  But it was also a time in the news when there was a lot of very difficult stuff.
• 9:00
  There was the Mandalay shooting in La Mandalay Bay shooting in Las Vegas.
• 9:03
  Just horrible stuff, where clearly, you knew walking into work.
• 9:07
  This is not a day for comedy.
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  There's, there's not, this is primarily a new show and a discussion show.
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  So, you know, 7.
• 9:16
  30 in the morning, I'm done for the day.
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  But I have to sit in front of my computer and, and think of something to do.
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  We were already thinking about leaving Los Angeles.
• 9:27
  And I was trying to think of what would I do if I didn't work in entertainment.
• 9:30
  And I thought, well, I'm very good at being funny in someone else's voice.
• 9:35
  Maybe.
• 9:36
  I've helped people with best man speeches.
• 9:38
  Maybe that's something.
• 9:39
  And, and so while I was at this TV show, I kind of hung up a shingle on Upwork
• 9:45
  actually, and just to see, and I did a few, a few people were interested.
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  I did a few.
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  I found I really liked it.
• 9:52
  I found I was really good at it because there's a structure to it.
• 9:54
  So really the wonderful part of it is finding the right stories
• 9:58
  and telling them in the right way.
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  And it's a bit of a formula though, so you can go through it pretty quickly.
• 10:03
  You can focus on the content without having to reinvent the wheel every time.
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  And very shortly, I realized I can sort of, I don't need up work.
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  There's plenty of call for this.
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  And that was the start of that business.
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  Becca: What an incredible story.
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  I just love hearing people's backgrounds because I believe
• 10:20
  whatever steps we take kind of get us to the place that we are now.
• 10:25
  And I think one of the other things that kind of made me look confused
• 10:28
  when we first met is actually our stories are quite similar and we've
• 10:31
  kind of converged in this strange place where we met in London because I
• 10:34
  also majored in television production.
• 10:36
  I also worked in TV.
• 10:38
  I also worked my way up from the ground.
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  I also knew at 15, 16, that that's what I wanted to do.
• 10:44
  And yet so many people I speak to do not have that same story.
• 10:48
  So most 15, 16 year olds say to their parents, I want to work in TV.
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  I want to work in TV comedy.
• 10:54
  I want to produce this show.
• 10:55
  And their parents say, well, that will never happen.
• 10:58
  It's really hard to get that kind of job, go find a proper job.
• 11:01
  So how did you overcome that feeling?
• 11:03
  Or were your parents just super supportive?
• 11:05
  How did you kind of get that drive to go, this is what I want to do.
• 11:07
  And I'm going to work my way up.
• 11:09
  Beth: Well, my parents were fairly pragmatic.
• 11:10
  So it, it, it, it's a, it's a kind of support.
• 11:14
  It was, well, if that's what you want to do, knock yourself out, put the
• 11:19
  work in, but we won't support you.
• 11:21
  I mean, we'll support you emotionally but you're going to
• 11:23
  have to do whatever you have to do to support yourself financially.
• 11:28
  We will pay for you to get a university education, and this is the U S so that's
• 11:32
  no small thing, but it's up to you to.
• 11:36
  I, we would strongly suggest you choose some courses that, that get you some
• 11:41
  practical skills because once we pay for this, we'll, we'll, we'll help you
• 11:46
  financially while you're in college.
• 11:47
  We'll pay for your education.
• 11:48
  We'll help you financially while you're in college.
• 11:50
  I always worked also, but yeah, after that you're kind of on your own.
• 11:56
  So it's up to you to get out of that.
• 11:58
  Whatever is going to help you.
• 12:00
  I mean, they weren't going to let me be homeless, but they
• 12:02
  weren't going to enable me.
• 12:04
  So, and that seemed reasonable.
• 12:07
  There were moments, I guess, that it felt less reasonable, but it seemed more than
• 12:12
  generous in the grand scheme of things.
• 12:15
  So that, I was very fortunate in that.
• 12:20
  But it also, maybe it's an American thing, but we My
• 12:24
  parents don't come from anything.
• 12:25
  My dad grew up in an orphanage because his mother was widowed during
• 12:28
  the depression with three kids and she couldn't afford to raise three.
• 12:32
  So he and his brother ended up in a school for fatherless boys.
• 12:35
  So, and my mom's dad was a produce salesman.
• 12:38
  I mean, literally like guy on the street with a cart selling
• 12:41
  produce in Philadelphia.
• 12:43
  So I come from a background of of, you know, You can get anything you
• 12:48
  want, but you have to put the work in, the key is figuring out how to do it,
• 12:55
  and, and hard work, and education is often a part of that, and education
• 13:00
  in whatever form that takes, could be apprenticeship, informal, it could be just
• 13:06
  books, going to things, meeting people.
• 13:10
  But anything is within your reach.
• 13:11
  It's very American.
• 13:12
  You can be whatever you want to be, but it doesn't just happen.
• 13:14
  There's no one there with a wand waiting to bestow it on you.
• 13:18
  Becca: Yeah, and I think that's a really important message, because
• 13:20
  there'll be people listening to this with their wedding businesses that
• 13:23
  think, I want to do this full time, or I want to take it to this new place, or
• 13:26
  I want to go to destination weddings, and then talk themselves out of it
• 13:29
  before they even get to that place.
• 13:31
  But actually, as your story shows, you can do it, but there is no magic quick answer.
• 13:38
  You've just got to put in the work, meet the right people, and
• 13:40
  be open to the opportunities.
• 13:41
  Beth: Yeah, and putting in the work, and that sometimes means
• 13:44
  working a few jobs at the same time.
• 13:46
  I mean, I started doing the wedding speech writing or working for people
• 13:50
  outside the world of entertainment.
• 13:51
  While I was writing for a show, so that still took priority.
• 13:55
  I did award shows while I was doing it.
• 13:57
  I mean, I've, you know, I've been on breaks dealing with wedding
• 14:00
  clients while I was writing for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
• 14:03
  And the Oscars were getting up early because I was on a show.
• 14:07
  And I had to, I had a call time.
• 14:08
  I had to be there at 9.
• 14:12
  But I'd, a couple months before I got that job, I'd, I'd, there were, I'd
• 14:16
  accepted work from private clients and I couldn't change their deadline.
• 14:21
  So that just meant I had to work more hours.
• 14:26
  But it was an investment that I was willing to make.
• 14:28
  And the more important thing is I really, really enjoy.
• 14:32
  Being in the wedding space, I really enjoy working with people
• 14:36
  outside the world of entertainment.
• 14:37
  I love what I do in entertainment and I love what I've done, but it's different.
• 14:42
  It's different working with people who aren't professional performers.
• 14:46
  It's, it's, it's a lot of fun seeing people.
• 14:49
  Because they need much more, much more genuine emotional support and
• 14:55
  cheerleading also than professionals do.
• 14:57
  A lot of professionals need it, but they need it in kind of a narcissistic way.
• 15:01
  But real people, not that celebrities aren't real people, but they're fun
• 15:05
  to work with because it's also real events that you're helping them with.
• 15:09
  I write, I eulogies and, and, and things because there is, you want a
• 15:15
  balance of, of humor and Helping someone express how they feel about someone
• 15:23
  who's past is very, very important.
• 15:25
  I take a lot of pride in that.
• 15:26
  That's an honor.
• 15:27
  Helping a dad talk about his daughter and for a wedding day is an honor.
• 15:32
  And also, often the people that come to me are the people that have a
• 15:35
  situation that isn't straightforward.
• 15:36
  I mean, I had a mom come to me saying, well, it's not a father,
• 15:39
  it's a father of the bride speech, but it's, I'm giving, I'm giving it
• 15:41
  because dad passed away last year.
• 15:45
  And then she said, and my son passed away four months ago.
• 15:50
  And And she said, and I want this to be about my daughter because she has been
• 15:55
  through everything and it hasn't been about her, understandably, but she, she
• 15:59
  knew that she had to acknowledge these things in her speech because it would
• 16:04
  be strange not to acknowledge a little bit of the situation, but she didn't
• 16:07
  want it to overwhelm the speech and she wanted it to be joyful and funny.
• 16:11
  She wanted to have a balance.
• 16:12
  So, I mean, that's, I've actually just given myself goosebumps
• 16:16
  thinking about that one, but it's.
• 16:19
  meaningful.
• 16:19
  I feel like after 27 years in Hollywood, I feel like I'm
• 16:23
  finally using my powers for good.
• 16:25
  Becca: Yeah.
• 16:25
  Well, I might be biased, but I genuinely believe the wedding industry is one
• 16:28
  of the best places to work in the world because that is an incredibly
• 16:31
  important day for people on the whole they put their all into it.
• 16:34
  on the plan that they're going to do it once.
• 16:36
  And we are there supporting them and making that day incredible for them.
• 16:41
  And what you do is amazing.
• 16:42
  So talk to me about your wedding speech business and how that's
• 16:45
  grown and evolved over the years.
• 16:47
  Because as you said, you started just by putting things on Upwork.
• 16:50
  How else have you grown over the years?
• 16:52
  How are you now finding your clients?
• 16:54
  What's working for you?
• 16:55
  Beth: So the, the, the business side of the business is that, yeah, so first it
• 16:59
  was Upwork and that allowed me, I did that for about six months and that allowed me
• 17:02
  to sort of figure out that I liked it and figure out a system and get enough reviews
• 17:07
  and, and figure out clients and what they needed and wanted or didn't need.
• 17:12
  I was over communicating a lot at the beginning and then I just realized,
• 17:15
  let me just shut up, write it.
• 17:16
  And then.
• 17:18
  it's easier to rewrite it together.
• 17:20
  And then I used, so I built a website on Squarespace, just a DIY kind of one or
• 17:28
  two pages, a front page and an about page.
• 17:31
  And then I did a few Google ads and I was investing, I think, I think it was about
• 17:38
  a hundred a month in Google ads, but that really That really helped me because for
• 17:44
  what I do, people would frantically type how to write a best man speech into, into
• 17:53
  Google, and then a lot of help would come up, but also then my little paid ad and
• 17:58
  they go, Oh, someone can do it for me.
• 18:01
  They were thrilled to find it.
• 18:03
  So, so that really helped me.
• 18:06
  And then it, it, it's hard to, I found Google ads.
• 18:11
  Well, it just becomes kind of a growing monster and you're never
• 18:14
  really sure they can give you lots of analytics, but you're never really
• 18:16
  sure what's bringing people in.
• 18:18
  And I was looking, I wasn't really using any social media.
• 18:22
  It's not, I'm not a huge, just naturally in my day to day life.
• 18:26
  I'm not a huge fan of social media.
• 18:27
  I just, it might be generational.
• 18:30
  So, but what I found was, YouTube seemed to be a place I realized
• 18:36
  whenever I needed ad advice on how to do something, I would go to YouTube.
• 18:40
  And so from a content marketing lead generation point of view, I,
• 18:44
  I now do a lot about how to write wedding speeches and that seemed
• 18:47
  like that would be a good bet.
• 18:48
  So I put about a year into, really, this is, I'm gonna put all my,
• 18:54
  you know, just a lot of energy into YouTube, built a channel.
• 18:58
  and wanted to get it monetized which means getting or at least at the time that I did
• 19:03
  it, it meant having a thousand subscribers and four thousand watch hours, and just
• 19:07
  made video after video that was how to write a father of the bride speech, how
• 19:11
  to write a maid of honor speech, how to give a two person speech, what not to do.
• 19:16
  Here's five things not to do.
• 19:17
  Here's dad's here to, here's, here's some tips on how to get You had to
• 19:21
  make sure your wife loves your speech.
• 19:24
  I did, I learned to do lives, and I would do live Q& As.
• 19:27
  I'm still doing those.
• 19:29
  And that allowed me to totally eliminate Google Ads.
• 19:36
  Because Google owns YouTube, and now my videos will come up organically when
• 19:44
  someone types in how to write a father of the bride speech and things like that.
• 19:47
  So that's, that's become my main lead generation.
• 19:50
  Becca: It's a smart strategy.
• 19:51
  And I think, again, it goes back to what we were saying earlier about working hard
• 19:54
  and putting the work in because often people think, Oh, I'll do some YouTube
• 19:59
  And they kind of go all in for about five minutes and decide it's not really
• 20:03
  working and then just give up on it.
• 20:04
  Whereas actually, if you want to see success in these things.
• 20:06
  You have to put the work in, you have to have a plan and actually
• 20:10
  over time that plan has paid off.
• 20:12
  But I'm sure there were times when you felt like no one was ever going
• 20:14
  to watch your YouTube channel.
• 20:15
  Beth: Yeah, I remember telling, talking to my wife and I said, well,
• 20:19
  she said, well, what's your end game?
• 20:20
  And I said, well, I'd like to get to the point where I can get monetized
• 20:23
  because that means it's really not even the money that that would bring
• 20:26
  in for me, but that just opens up other things that you can do with YouTube.
• 20:29
  I could put links to my website.
• 20:32
  into the videos themselves and things like that.
• 20:34
  But she said, okay, what does it take to get monetized?
• 20:36
  And I said, well, you need, you need a thousand subscribers.
• 20:39
  And she said, how many do you have so far?
• 20:41
  And I said, 12.
• 20:45
  She said, so you've got a little ways to go.
• 20:46
  Yeah, I've got a little, I've got, it's a little ways to go, but yeah, I, I
• 20:50
  go down, I think also as busy people, we realize you can't do everything.
• 20:59
  So pick one thing and go down the rabbit hole, but do one thing
• 21:03
  right or do one thing well, rather than doing a lot of things poorly.
• 21:07
  I find that's a strategy that works for me.
• 21:11
  I've also heard other people say, well, I sort of, I, I spend a year
• 21:14
  each developing my social media.
• 21:16
  I mean, I don't try to do them all at once.
• 21:18
  I kind of put the effort into getting momentum at one, and then
• 21:21
  the following year I'll do that.
• 21:23
  That might be something I do.
• 21:24
  I've got, I have a big following on Pinterest.
• 21:27
  I don't understand it.
• 21:28
  So getting, getting more clarity on that and understanding it
• 21:32
  more is, is, is on my to do list.
• 21:35
  But I've, I've, I've been I've tried Instagram.
• 21:39
  I find that the people that are really drawn to me as customers are
• 21:43
  tend to be fathers of the bride.
• 21:46
  I think maybe it's an age thing because if you're, I'm 51 and I find
• 21:51
  that the dads relate to me more.
• 21:54
  They see the videos and the videos, you know, I try to have
• 21:56
  a few bells and whistles in them, but I'm not a TikTok person.
• 21:59
  I mean, it's just, it's too much going on for my ADD brain.
• 22:04
  So I, so the clients that I, I tend to get, and also the dads tend to go for
• 22:10
  the services because I have I have three levels of service, and one is do it
• 22:14
  yourself, then there's do it I do it with you, and then there's I do it for you.
• 22:18
  And to be honest, the dads have the money.
• 22:20
  They're the higher ticket clients anyhow, so I could spend a lot of time
• 22:24
  on Instagram, and I would love to have a bigger following, or a bit, you know,
• 22:29
  reach out to a bigger potential market.
• 22:32
  But they're also not, they don't, the Best Men and the Maids of Honor tend
• 22:37
  to take the smaller ticket purchases.
• 22:40
  So in terms of me figuring out where to allocate my time, you
• 22:44
  know, the dad's, I'm not cheap if I'm going to write it for you.
• 22:48
  And the dad's, the number of times they've said to me, throwing so much
• 22:51
  money at this thing already, what's, you know, what's another grand or two?
• 22:54
  That's, that's who I focus on at the moment.
• 23:00
  Becca: Yeah, well that's smart.
• 23:01
  It's smart to know where your audience is.
• 23:03
  It's smart to know where the money's coming from and it's smart to be in
• 23:06
  the places where they're going to be.
• 23:07
  Now I think what's interesting about wedding speeches is that, as you
• 23:11
  said earlier, they're not generally professionals giving these speeches.
• 23:14
  They are just people who happen to be the father or the mother of the person
• 23:18
  getting married and a lot of pressure is put on speeches and I can speak
• 23:22
  on behalf of the wedding industry.
• 23:23
  We have all seen some terrible speeches.
• 23:27
  We've all seen the speeches where everyone laughs out in the room and
• 23:29
  then when you go back and edit them afterwards you're like, these were
• 23:32
  not funny in any way shape or form.
• 23:34
  But I know that you've got some strong opinions on this because you feel
• 23:37
  that it's not always about the actual person giving the speech but the way
• 23:41
  that they have to deliver the speech.
• 23:43
  And yeah, so we'd love some tips.
• 23:45
  As wedding pros, what can we do to support these people who are
• 23:48
  having to give these speeches that they're not really ready to give?
• 23:52
  Beth: Well, sure.
• 23:52
  So, and again, for the people who are giving the speeches, look, you have to
• 23:55
  prepare, you have to write something, you have to practice it, edit it, you
• 23:59
  know, put some time and thought into it.
• 24:02
  But what makes me frustrated is seeing videos of speeches, and one of the
• 24:08
  things I do on my YouTube channel, one of the things that I experimented with
• 24:11
  on the YouTube channel, was reviewing some of the biggest some of the
• 24:16
  most watched speeches on on YouTube.
• 24:19
  So this father of the bride speech has 5 million views.
• 24:21
  Let's take a look at it and see what he's doing.
• 24:22
  Right.
• 24:23
  Those sorts of things.
• 24:24
  So to find the right videos to review, I watch a ton of them and I
• 24:31
  see, I, yeah, I really feel strongly about how wedding professionals
• 24:36
  can set speakers up for success.
• 24:38
  For example, people are nervous.
• 24:41
  They don't speak all the time.
• 24:44
  I was a performer for a long time.
• 24:46
  If you go to a comedy club, the first thing you're going to see when you walk
• 24:48
  in the door, if you're the comedian, you're going to look for the lineup.
• 24:52
  And the second you get there, you're going to see, okay, let's see.
• 24:55
  It's okay.
• 24:56
  I'm up at, I'm doing 10 minutes and I'm up at 854.
• 25:01
  That's my spot.
• 25:02
  So the second, so I don't have to sit there in a state of cat like readiness.
• 25:07
  Just waiting to hear my name.
• 25:08
  I know exactly what's going to happen.
• 25:10
  So in the most basic sense, if you're the wedding planner, this in even in
• 25:16
  advance, if you can, or the night before let people know what's going to happen.
• 25:21
  Give these speakers who are beside themselves in a, just in a full
• 25:27
  panic, let them know, okay, so here's, what's going to happen.
• 25:30
  There's going to be the ceremony.
• 25:31
  We'll come in.
• 25:31
  So this will happen.
• 25:32
  That'll happen.
• 25:33
  And then it'll be you, this person, then the other person.
• 25:36
  Okay.
• 25:37
  That's it.
• 25:37
  Then at least they know.
• 25:39
  Then they don't have to just, every time someone clears a dish or every
• 25:43
  time the DJ brings the music down, they don't have to think, is it now?
• 25:47
  Is it now?
• 25:48
  Is it now?
• 25:49
  So, so that's a basic thing you can do.
• 25:53
  For the,
• 25:56
  in terms of where to place a speaker, and this, this I've experienced
• 26:02
  in real life, in terms of where to place the speaker, try to put them
• 26:08
  in a position where everybody can see their face at the same time.
• 26:12
  By which I mean, I mean, I went to a family wedding and there was not just
• 26:19
  a dais, there was a stage, it was a big fancy hotel, and the DJ was up there,
• 26:23
  and all of the, it was gorgeous, and all of the tables were set up in a circle.
• 26:28
  And they were all, you know, those eight top round ones, and they put
• 26:33
  the speakers in the middle of it.
• 26:35
  And I could see how it made sense in theory, but I was on
• 26:40
  the outer side of a round table.
• 26:43
  I couldn't see.
• 26:44
  I mean, you know, people are not nine feet tall.
• 26:48
  Not in my family.
• 26:49
  They're barely five seven.
• 26:51
  So I couldn't see.
• 26:53
  So I heard all the speeches, but I couldn't see any of them.
• 26:56
  But literally, if they had just been up on the stage or raised in some
• 27:00
  way, I would have seen their face.
• 27:03
  I mean, think about if you go watch standup or a play or anything,
• 27:07
  everyone's facing, I mean, the whole point of a, of a theater or a comedy
• 27:12
  club is you, you want to be able to see the person who's performing.
• 27:15
  And I know that sounds super obvious, but I can't tell you how many times I've
• 27:19
  watched videos or been there in person.
• 27:21
  difficult to actually see the face of the person speaking.
• 27:24
  And it's a whole different experience.
• 27:26
  Someone's going to cry, or they're welling up, or they've paused, or they're smiling,
• 27:30
  or they're winking, or they're making eye contact with the, the, the couple.
• 27:34
  That's the magic of a speech.
• 27:37
  This isn't, you know, this isn't They're not JFK or Obama or Lincoln,
• 27:42
  you know, you're not going to be moved necessarily by their words.
• 27:46
  They're not poets.
• 27:47
  It's the emotional connection.
• 27:48
  And you lose that if you can't see their face.
• 27:51
  Something that, well, this people might know as wedding planners, I don't know,
• 27:57
  but I did an interview with a wedding planner and she said, if you want good
• 28:01
  video of the speeches, use a fixed mic.
• 28:07
  So use a mic.
• 28:08
  Don't just hand someone a mic because the videographer, someone's probably
• 28:11
  set up their shot and, and that's locked down and then they're going to prowl
• 28:16
  around the room taking still photos.
• 28:18
  So they've got the video camera in one place.
• 28:20
  Well, if you give someone who isn't used to speaking, if you give them a
• 28:24
  handheld mic, they will wander around.
• 28:27
  They'll be in and out of that shot.
• 28:28
  They'll be all over the place.
• 28:30
  But if it's a fixed mic, if it's in the stand, maybe give them a fixed mic in a
• 28:35
  stand and say, You might want to just, or at least tell them the parameters of
• 28:39
  where they can roam, because the number of speeches I have watched, you get a
• 28:44
  lot of the back, they'll turn to someone, and they're, they're not experienced
• 28:47
  speakers, so they don't just turn their head, they turn their whole body, and now
• 28:49
  you've got an entire speech you can see their, their, their neck and shoulders.
• 28:54
  That's it.
• 28:55
  That's a practical thing.
• 28:56
  And then she said, and she, and as soon as they finished speaking, go
• 29:01
  in there and if the, if you, they do have a handheld mic, go take it away.
• 29:05
  Don't let them while still holding the mic go and wrap their arms around someone.
• 29:10
  Cause you don't want a hot mic situation.
• 29:13
  Which I found to let I hadn't that hadn't occurred to me, but she said
• 29:16
  that she's had hot Mike situations where someone goes and puts their arm.
• 29:21
  I can't believe what you said about and Joan right into the mic.
• 29:24
  So make sure you get the mic back and then just a personal one.
• 29:28
  One final one for, the videographers.
• 29:30
  I see a lot of people, a lot of videographers that want to
• 29:33
  justify the job they've done.
• 29:36
  And so their final product when they deliver the speeches is
• 29:39
  they, they put music under the speech and they make it a montage.
• 29:44
  So you have this moment where someone is speaking and creating an emotional
• 29:49
  showing this emotional relationship.
• 29:52
  And they're just, there's, they put music on it, and there's photos
• 29:55
  from the past that are floating by, and to me, that really ruins,
• 30:00
  those are two different things.
• 30:03
  To me, that ruins the spirit of it.
• 30:04
  You don't want to watch stand up.
• 30:06
  with some music and a lot of still photos floating by.
• 30:09
  You just want to watch the performance.
• 30:14
  Becca: So true.
• 30:14
  So many helpful tips in there.
• 30:16
  And I think we need to bring the speeches back to the forefront of the wedding day
• 30:19
  because so often they're an afterthought.
• 30:21
  So often these things, they're so huge in the mind of the
• 30:24
  people that's got to give them.
• 30:26
  But often to us as wedding suppliers or the venue, it's kind of like,
• 30:29
  Oh, when are the speeches happening?
• 30:30
  Oh, we'll chuck them a microphone.
• 30:32
  And sound is another big problem.
• 30:33
  I see a lot of speeches where you just like the microphone crackles
• 30:36
  or you can't hear what's going on or they haven't thought that through.
• 30:40
  If there's two people, do you got any thoughts on the sound?
• 30:43
  Beth: Yeah.
• 30:43
  I mean, when I talk to clients, one of the, one of the things I say, I
• 30:47
  say this all the time is it doesn't matter how good your speech is.
• 30:51
  If people can't hear it, They can't hear it.
• 30:54
  It's, it's an, it's all a waste of time and effort.
• 30:57
  So I tell people generally, well, pay attention to what the audio is like.
• 31:01
  If someone's speaking before you pay attention to what the audio
• 31:03
  is like, if it's fine, great.
• 31:05
  But if you're not sure, the first thing out of your mouth should be before you
• 31:09
  start speaking is can everyone hear me?
• 31:12
  Can everyone hear me?
• 31:13
  Because they will tell you.
• 31:15
  I mean, all the old aunts in the back will go, no, we can't hear you.
• 31:18
  No, speak up.
• 31:20
  Because those are so many of the venues now people are getting married.
• 31:22
  You know, it's a barn.
• 31:24
  And it's just like an amplifier and your cousin's iPhone.
• 31:28
  I mean, that's the whole sound system.
• 31:29
  So sometimes there may be a mic, but if you are the speaker,
• 31:35
  Don't count on it to be great.
• 31:37
  If it's crackly and it's better for you just to hold the mic, not use the mic,
• 31:41
  and just speak at the top of your voice or so much as you can, that's going to help.
• 31:46
  Because again, especially in comedy, but in anything, in comedy, a
• 31:51
  joke is a set up and a punchline and it's a chemical reaction.
• 31:55
  One does not work without the other.
• 31:57
  So whereas if you're giving a business speech, people can kind
• 32:00
  of get the gist and follow along.
• 32:02
  They don't necessarily need every word, but for a joke, even if it's
• 32:06
  just a joke of you're telling a story and then this is what happened
• 32:08
  next and that's the punchline.
• 32:09
  So it doesn't have to be a ha ha.
• 32:11
  But if those two things, if people can't hear every word of both of
• 32:15
  them, clearly it doesn't work.
• 32:17
  If you hear just the setup to a joke, but you don't hear the punchline, you're
• 32:21
  not going to get a laugh or reaction.
• 32:23
  And if you can't hear the setup clearly, But you hear the punchline, just out
• 32:29
  of context, and he said, read the card.
• 32:31
  I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
• 32:34
  Yes.
• 32:35
  So it's, it's particularly important.
• 32:38
  that people hear you.
• 32:39
  And also, part of that is, as the wedding planner or, or as the DJ or
• 32:43
  whoever you are, quiet the room down.
• 32:46
  Because, you know, I also see a lot of speeches where it just feels like
• 32:49
  they're, you just hear background noise.
• 32:53
  You just hear other people having conversations.
• 32:55
  Get the rooms full attention.
• 32:56
  And I, I show speakers how to do that, but I think you can set someone up for success
• 33:01
  by clearly making it, this is the time for the speeches, shut up and, and pay
• 33:06
  attention in, in a polite way, of course.
• 33:10
  But I, I hate just people, they just become background noise.
• 33:13
  And, and that, that's painful, or they become Charlie Brown's teacher and you're
• 33:17
  just kind of hearing wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, and someone's probably
• 33:19
  sweated over this speech, or worse, paid me a lot of money and sweated over
• 33:24
  the speech for, for weeks or months.
• 33:27
  Becca: Yeah, so many helpful tips.
• 33:28
  There's so much we can do better.
• 33:29
  Now Beth, while I've still got you, there's a one other area I want to
• 33:32
  talk to you about because there will be people listening to this that aren't
• 33:36
  planning on giving a keynote talk anytime soon or maybe aren't even involved
• 33:40
  on the wedding day with the speeches.
• 33:42
  But actually I think there's some thoughts that you can share with them because
• 33:45
  there are moments when they may be meeting clients for the first time or jumping
• 33:49
  on a Zoom call for the first time or my worst one being at a wedding fair and
• 33:54
  having to kind of engage people on a stand and they just feel typically awkward.
• 33:59
  Do you think being funny, do you think comedy has a role in those social
• 34:02
  situations and do you have any thoughts about how people can embrace that or
• 34:07
  maybe bring some of that humor to kind of build a connection with people?
• 34:11
  Beth: No, I just wouldn't that be awkward if I just said after that whole tee up?
• 34:16
  Well, that's one thing.
• 34:17
  Comedy is the element of surprise.
• 34:19
  That's it.
• 34:20
  That's all comedy is.
• 34:21
  So just made you laugh now.
• 34:24
  And all I did was surprise you.
• 34:28
  You expected me to say one thing.
• 34:30
  I said something else.
• 34:31
  So it can be that simple.
• 34:33
  You don't have to be funny to use humor.
• 34:36
  Sometimes good humor is just smiling.
• 34:38
  So if you're at the wedding fair and standing there, people, you know, waiting
• 34:43
  for people to come in and you have to reel them in, or you want to start
• 34:46
  conversation while they're sort of looking at your booth, one, just be engaged.
• 34:51
  Don't just sit there on your phone, giving them a dirty look when
• 34:55
  they've, or what will come across as a dirty look when they come up.
• 34:58
  The first rule of humor is smile.
• 35:01
  I know it sounds silly, and I mean this literally, I mean, that is the first way
• 35:05
  to sort of bring a, bring the defenses down, get someone to lower their guard.
• 35:10
  Just a smile, that implies good humor.
• 35:13
  Humor and laughter, laughter is emotion, and emotion is what
• 35:19
  builds trust, and you need trust if you want someone to take action.
• 35:25
  And that action can be buying from you or hiring you, but it could
• 35:29
  also just be as small as continuing to listen to you for the next 30
• 35:33
  seconds, staying at your booth.
• 35:35
  engaging you in conversation.
• 35:37
  So to, you don't have to be someone sitting there with
• 35:42
  a thousand and one jokes.
• 35:44
  It can just be a little bit of self awareness or
• 35:47
  awareness of your environment.
• 35:50
  So if you're at a wedding event, And one of the bands just kicked off
• 35:56
  and it's someone is looking at your booth and it's hard to hear them.
• 36:01
  You can, it can be as simple as just smiling and saying, yeah,
• 36:06
  I think they're really good.
• 36:07
  Yeah, this is great.
• 36:08
  Or this isn't awkward at all.
• 36:10
  This is very helpful.
• 36:12
  It doesn't have to be.
• 36:16
  You don't have to be Jerry Seinfeld to get a laugh.
• 36:19
  You just kind of have to be yourself and be authentic, but you can create that
• 36:25
  connection so quickly with just a little bit of, and when I say self awareness,
• 36:31
  I don't mean being self deprecating necessarily, but can just be being
• 36:36
  aware of how you come across to people.
• 36:37
  I mean, you can't see me now, but I'm, I'm, I'm 51.
• 36:43
  I have gray hair.
• 36:44
  It's short.
• 36:45
  If you profiled me as a lesbian, you wouldn't be wrong.
• 36:49
  And I end up on phone.
• 36:51
  Well, you wouldn't.
• 36:52
  But what I mean is I don't blend at a wedding fair when it's a lot of,
• 36:56
  Oh my God, you guys, this is great.
• 36:59
  And it's a lot of maids of honor, but I'd say like, yeah, let, let, let, let Nana
• 37:03
  explain to you what she's going to do.
• 37:05
  You know?
• 37:05
  I mean, it's just, just a tiny bit of self awareness.
• 37:10
  It, it breaks down barriers and it takes people by surprise in a good
• 37:15
  way, because that's what you need.
• 37:17
  I'm sure everyone listening is good at what they do, sometimes you just need
• 37:21
  a little help getting that door open.
• 37:24
  Becca: So many good thoughts and it's so true and I love what you said about,
• 37:28
  giving the element of surprise as well, because in the industry, we can
• 37:31
  be self deprecating because we know that at a wedding fair, every person
• 37:34
  is walking around that fair and having the same conversation with anyone.
• 37:38
  Hey, you interested in my services?
• 37:40
  So all we need to do is say something they're not expecting to hear from us.
• 37:43
  And that's going to stand out a million miles away, right?
• 37:46
  Beth: Exactly.
• 37:47
  And the example that I use is there's a a few months ago, we were at a
• 37:52
  farmer's market and there was a guy with a, Who, with a, he was selling
• 37:56
  vegan pastry, vegan baked goods and on the front of his stand, he had
• 38:03
  testimonials, sort of that, that was the artwork that he had on the front of it.
• 38:07
  He had the, his logo and he had a bunch of testimonials, but all the testimonials
• 38:10
  were things like, not that bad.
• 38:14
  I hardly knew it was vegan.
• 38:16
  didn't taste like poop.
• 38:17
  I mean, things, things that people had actually said to him and it
• 38:23
  made me go over and talk to him.
• 38:26
  It made me go over and look at the, these vegan pastries that he was
• 38:29
  selling and I'm not vegan and I'm, I don't really have a sweet tooth, but
• 38:33
  I thought I love this guy's marketing because everything on it was true.
• 38:39
  And one of the things I talk about when I'm punching up keynote speeches and.
• 38:44
  is, well, and wedding speeches as well.
• 38:47
  Truth is funny.
• 38:48
  Life is absurd.
• 38:50
  People are crazy, but truth is funny.
• 38:54
  So all he had to do to stand out as a vegan bakery was literally
• 39:01
  reflect back the exact comments that he gets week after week.
• 39:06
  And it works!
• 39:08
  It's a vegan bakery stand, with a line!
• 39:12
  And I'm telling you, like, this is, there was so much other, different
• 39:17
  pastry that was around there.
• 39:18
  There's donuts, there's everything.
• 39:19
  He had a line!
• 39:21
  Because he just, it stopped people.
• 39:23
  It made them smile.
• 39:24
  Becca: Beth, I've loved this conversation.
• 39:26
  Thank you so much for all the insights you've shared.
• 39:28
  I'm sure that people are going to take so much away from this, whether
• 39:31
  it's being inspired by your story or some of those practical tips around
• 39:34
  speeches and talking to people at wedding shows, so much good stuff.
• 39:37
  But I always end the podcast with the same question, which is this,
• 39:40
  what's one thing you wish you'd known sooner in your own business?
• 39:43
  Beth: I think it would be listen to your customer when it comes to creating your,
• 39:49
  your packages, your, your products.
• 39:52
  I really resisted the idea of doing templates and I had a lot of clients
• 39:57
  that asked for them and I thought, no, no, it's much better to write.
• 39:59
  I want to show you how to write your own speech.
• 40:02
  It's not hard.
• 40:02
  You can do that.
• 40:04
  And people wanted templates and I even went through, I built a course, I took
• 40:07
  a course on how to build a course.
• 40:09
  And I built a course for people and realized very shortly after I'd put it
• 40:16
  up for sale that no one wants to invest the time and effort into a course.
• 40:19
  They want the kind of help they want.
• 40:22
  And some people just wanted a template.
• 40:24
  So I had to figure out how to make a template that didn't make me feel icky.
• 40:29
  Because a lot of the ones that are out there are just totally generic, but
• 40:32
  I put one together that's fill in the blank, but it has story prompts and
• 40:35
  things like that, so it gives people it gives them the connective tissue, it
• 40:38
  gives them the structure, and then they put in what I know is the magic of the
• 40:43
  speech, which is the real personalization and the things that make it authentic
• 40:47
  and, and funny and a nice balance.
• 40:50
  So I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort into simply By simply listening
• 40:56
  to, to my customers, they will tell you what they want and what they need.
• 41:02
  Becca: So true.
• 41:02
  I love that.
• 41:03
  And it's that old adage, isn't it?
• 41:04
  The customer is always right.
• 41:06
  And we should definitely listen to them.
• 41:07
  Beth, it's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast.
• 41:10
  If people want to find out more about you and what you do, where's
• 41:12
  the best place for them to find you?
• 41:15
  Beth: Sure authenticallyfunnyspeeches.
• 41:16
  com is my wedding speech business, got everything there.
• 41:19
  And my YouTube channel is Authentically Funny Speeches.
• 41:23
  And if you want to get in touch with me for speaking, I go under my full
• 41:28
  name for that, it's BethSherman.
• 41:29
  com.
• 41:30
  But if you find me either place and ask me a question, I will be more than
• 41:35
  happy to connect with you and help you.
• 41:37
  And LinkedIn also Beth Sherman on LinkedIn.
• 41:41
  Becca: Amazing.
• 41:41
  I will make sure that I put all of the links for people
• 41:43
  to find you on the show notes.
• 41:45
  Thank you so much for being a guest today.
• 41:47
  I hope that we get to share a stage somewhere very soon so
• 41:50
  we can share some more stories.
• 41:53
  Beth: I'd love to.
• 41:54
  Thanks for having me.