Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / Why you should be attending wedding conferences - with Danielle Andrews

Transcript

Why you should be attending wedding conferences - with Danielle Andrews · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

• 0:00
  Danielle: It's so important to attend conferences.
• 0:03
  You're experiencing the way people run things.
• 0:06
  And so you can look at the event that they're hosting and you can
• 0:09
  say, oh, I would do this better.
• 0:11
  Oh, you know what?
• 0:11
  They really should have done this and, and then you're gonna keep that as well.
• 0:14
  So it's not only that you are learning better things, you're learning how
• 0:18
  to do things better as well, and what not to do for your own events.
• 0:25
  Becca: I am Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert,
• 0:27
  speaker and blogger, and you are listening to The Wedding Pros
• 0:30
  who are Ready to Grow podcast.
• 0:32
  I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life
• 0:36
  examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
• 0:39
  If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
• 0:43
  and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you
• 0:46
  love, then you're in the right place.
• 0:48
  Let's get going with today's episode.
• 0:52
  Today I'm chatting with my new friend Danielle Andrews.
• 0:55
  We met a few weeks ago, a conference we were speaking at in Cyprus, and
• 0:58
  with our blonde hair and sunglasses.
• 1:00
  People kept getting us confused, so I thought I should invite my
• 1:03
  new Canadian twin onto the podcast.
• 1:06
  Danielle is the president and co-founder of the Wedding Planner's Institute of
• 1:09
  Canada and has over 9,000 alumni from 35 different countries around the world.
• 1:14
  She has over 20 years experience in the wedding industry and has
• 1:18
  been planning weddings since.
• 1:19
  2000.
• 1:20
  Yes.
• 1:20
  You heard that right?
• 1:21
  You are gonna absolutely love her.
• 1:23
  Danielle, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:26
  Danielle: Thank you.
• 1:26
  Thank you.
• 1:28
  Pleasure to be here.
• 1:29
  Becca: I'm so excited to have you on the podcast.
• 1:31
  We had such a good time out in Cyprus.
• 1:33
  We had a lovely little private sightseeing tour and just a lot of fun.
• 1:38
  But before we get into the real stuff, first thing I need to ask
• 1:41
  you is, Danielle, how do you look?
• 1:43
  So good?
• 1:44
  When I was 14.
• 1:47
  In 2000, you were planning weddings.
• 1:50
  You don't look like you're old enough to have been planning
• 1:52
  weddings in the year 2000.
• 1:54
  Tell us your secret.
• 1:55
  I
• 1:55
  Danielle: am so glad to hear that.
• 1:58
  It's just good genes I think, and just keeping mentally young.
• 2:03
  You are what you think you are.
• 2:04
  So don't dress the part, don't, you won't look the part.
• 2:08
  Becca: Amazing.
• 2:09
  Do go and have a look at the pictures of Danielle over on Instagram because you
• 2:13
  will not believe it that she could have possibly been planning weddings since the
• 2:16
  year 2000, but she really, really has.
• 2:18
  And I'm glad that you look good, especially when people kept
• 2:21
  mistaking us for each other.
• 2:22
  So it's all exactly.
• 2:26
  Danielle: It's better that hopefully it's because I look young.
• 2:28
  You don't look older, right?
• 2:29
  Becca: Yeah, I hope so.
• 2:30
  I hope so.
• 2:31
  Well, lots of people often say I look young as well, so we'll, we'll take it.
• 2:34
  Yep, exactly.
• 2:35
  You do, you do.
• 2:36
  Thank you.
• 2:37
  Anyway, let's get into it then.
• 2:38
  So take us back then.
• 2:40
  We've talked about where you started way back in the year 2000.
• 2:43
  How did you end up in this wonderful world of the wedding industry?
• 2:48
  Danielle: Oh boy.
• 2:49
  So I was actually planning to be a criminal lawyer and.
• 2:52
  I was taking a break between doing my undergraduate and doing law school,
• 2:58
  and I got married during that time and I planned this fabulous wedding
• 3:01
  at a major amusement park, and then I was working in finance and just to
• 3:06
  make some money for law school, and it was just, Like sucking my soul.
• 3:11
  It was, it was soul crushing.
• 3:12
  It was awful working in finance.
• 3:14
  And so I just started planning all these parties and I was making
• 3:17
  elaborate themes and doing this and that, and my husband said to me, okay,
• 3:21
  you need to stop with putting out all this money for all these parties.
• 3:25
  Why don't you look at wedding planning?
• 3:27
  Like people always.
• 3:28
  Go crazy about our wedding.
• 3:30
  Why don't you look at wedding planning?
• 3:31
  And so I looked at the different courses that were available and
• 3:35
  there really wasn't anything.
• 3:36
  And so I took a course through the United States, got certified, and then
• 3:42
  what happened is my sister said, well, if you love doing wedding planning,
• 3:45
  I'm gonna love doing wedding planning.
• 3:46
  And so she went and got certified as well, and we started doing that.
• 3:50
  And back in 2000, nobody was on the internet.
• 3:53
  So my company was the only wedding planning company for all of
• 3:56
  Canada listed on the internet.
• 3:58
  So we were getting anybody that was doing any searches.
• 4:02
  And so we got a lot of success very quickly.
• 4:05
  And what kept on coming up, because the wedding planner movie came
• 4:09
  out just after, and my company name was the Wedding Planners.
• 4:12
  And so about six months later, J Lo was doing the wedding planner.
• 4:15
  And so suddenly everybody wanted to be a wedding planner, and they
• 4:18
  kept on asking us, oh, how did you become a wedding planner?
• 4:20
  So we'd.
• 4:21
  Give them the information.
• 4:23
  And a few years down we realized we learned way too much on the job that we
• 4:29
  should have learned in person and so, What we did is we looked at how can we
• 4:34
  get a better course is, is there something that's better to educate wedding planners?
• 4:39
  And so we petitioned the government of Canada.
• 4:42
  It was a yearlong process.
• 4:43
  We got approval to be, to actually open up an institute and we had to go through
• 4:48
  all the training modules, all of that.
• 4:49
  Once we got.
• 4:51
  Licensed in Canada, we had to get licensed province by province, an approved
• 4:56
  province by province, and we're so, we're still the only licensed institute
• 4:59
  in Canada to certify wedding planners.
• 5:02
  Becca: That's incredible.
• 5:03
  What an incredible story to go from working in a soul sucking job in finance
• 5:08
  to going into the fun world of weddings and then taking it even further and
• 5:12
  helping other people, but not just helping other people, but getting certified.
• 5:17
  In Canada.
• 5:17
  That's incredible and I love that you're still doing it all these years later.
• 5:21
  Are you still planning weddings as well or is it mostly just education now?
• 5:24
  Danielle: Not as much.
• 5:25
  I officiate weddings.
• 5:26
  I do help and I do do some planning, but it's just not fair with my
• 5:29
  travel schedule cuz we are just all over the world, as you know.
• 5:33
  Because two weeks ago we were in Cyprus together, so it's just not.
• 5:36
  Fair to my couple, so I only take on a couple clients for that.
• 5:40
  Becca: Just to keep your hand in and because we just love weddings.
• 5:44
  Absolutely.
• 5:44
  But you can't work in this industry if you don't love weddings
• 5:47
  and wedding planning movies.
• 5:48
  And I love that as well, that you say that you were the first people on the internet
• 5:53
  in Canada for wedding planning and although obviously now everyone's on the
• 5:57
  internet, it is a reminder to us sometimes we need to be earlier adopters of things.
• 6:01
  Things that.
• 6:02
  People don't understand yet.
• 6:04
  If we can be one step ahead, we could be the first person on the
• 6:07
  next TikTok or the first person using AI in our business successfully.
• 6:11
  Danielle: That's why keeping up with your education is so important so that you
• 6:15
  can learn to do these things so that you can adopt these things early and be the
• 6:18
  first ones out there and get, because I know your focus is marketing and.
• 6:24
  That's absolutely such a huge part of the wedding industry and such
• 6:28
  a huge part of owning a business.
• 6:30
  Like you have to be early adopters of everything, and you have to know what
• 6:34
  you're doing and how to go about it.
• 6:36
  Becca: Now, I said in the intro that you have over 9,000 alumni from your programs.
• 6:42
  All over the world, which is just an incredible statistic.
• 6:46
  So along the way, you've met all sorts of different people, I'm sure.
• 6:49
  Are there some common themes when you meet people, especially people just starting
• 6:53
  out in their wedding planning businesses or starting out in the industry?
• 6:57
  Are there common mistakes you see people making or common traps people fall into?
• 7:01
  Danielle: You know what, I think there's been some really bad advice
• 7:05
  out there to people just starting out about fake it till you make it and.
• 7:10
  Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of people doing that and just misrepresenting
• 7:16
  themselves and not saying that they're capable of more than they are and
• 7:20
  not being as educated as they should be, and so that's a major, major.
• 7:24
  Common theme that I'm seeing, like, cause a lot of people think, oh, I planned my
• 7:28
  wedding and so that's all I need to do.
• 7:30
  And so that was so much experience planning my own wedding.
• 7:33
  So I'm good.
• 7:33
  I, I know what I'm doing.
• 7:35
  And then they go out there and they're just, they're, they don't know the
• 7:38
  laws, they don't know the liabilities.
• 7:40
  They, they don't know about their insurances and, and then they don't know
• 7:43
  about the contract negotiations and what their responsibilities are to the clients.
• 7:47
  And so unfortunately, there's just way too many people faking it.
• 7:50
  Becca: Yeah, that's a really interesting piece of advice actually, because
• 7:53
  although it's good for us to be marketing and showcasing ourselves
• 7:57
  well, we don't wanna put ourselves in a situation where we're gonna let
• 8:00
  someone down on their wedding day.
• 8:02
  Do you recommend people doing work experience or getting
• 8:05
  experience in a venue first?
• 8:07
  Like when you're speaking to planners who are saying, look, I really wanna go
• 8:10
  out and I wanna be a wedding planner.
• 8:12
  Where do you send them to start building up that experience?
• 8:15
  Danielle: So they definitely need to get all the theory first.
• 8:18
  So once they have the education, then they definitely have to put it into practice.
• 8:22
  And so just like with any profession, after you do your education, they
• 8:27
  want you to intern for a little bit or they want you to get some
• 8:30
  hands-on experience, you do need that.
• 8:32
  what we do for our planners once they've taken the course is we have
• 8:36
  a volunteer program that they can.
• 8:38
  What would happen is the established wedding planners would put out
• 8:41
  there, I need help for this wedding.
• 8:43
  Do you wanna come and work with me?
• 8:44
  And so it's kind of a job shadowing, it's also volunteer position and it's
• 8:48
  you gaining experience and actually getting the hands on work with a wedding
• 8:53
  planner so that you can see what their best practices are, see what you would
• 8:56
  wanna do better, what you can learn from them, and gaining that experience.
• 9:01
  And we say if just do a couple weddings with another wedding planner and don't
• 9:05
  do it with the same wedding planner.
• 9:06
  Go and.
• 9:07
  Work with different wedding planners and just to see their style and see
• 9:10
  what they do and how it works for them and just to gain that experience.
• 9:13
  Cuz really working a wedding, you're gonna learn so much and it's gonna
• 9:17
  feel like you've worked 10 weddings.
• 9:19
  And so cuz working behind the scenes of a wedding and seeing a wedding happen
• 9:23
  are two completely different things.
• 9:26
  And so getting that experience.
• 9:27
  Really is invaluable.
• 9:29
  if somebody wants to go and work with a catering company or they
• 9:32
  wanna go work with another wedding planning firm, or they wanna go work
• 9:35
  at a venue, absolutely that's all fantastic and that all adds to it.
• 9:39
  But nothing can beat working with an actual wedding planner doing all
• 9:43
  of it because instead of just doing one segment of the industry, you're.
• 9:48
  Actually working all of it, and you're managing all of it
• 9:50
  Becca: for people that are the other end of the spectrum, so we have the people who
• 9:54
  are the fake it till you make it people, but you also have these people who feel
• 9:57
  like they're never gonna be good enough.
• 9:59
  They're trying to be perfectionists all of the time, and they just don't
• 10:02
  have the confidence presumably.
• 10:05
  Nobody ever knows it all.
• 10:06
  I'm sure people are always learning as they go.
• 10:09
  There's always new things to learn, right?
• 10:11
  Danielle: Oh, I'm constantly learning.
• 10:12
  I've been doing this for over 23 years.
• 10:14
  I'm constantly learning.
• 10:15
  That's why I attend so many conferences, a conference junkie.
• 10:18
  It's not just what I'm speaking at them.
• 10:20
  I'm going and learning from everybody else as well.
• 10:22
  Cuz there's always somebody that does something better or
• 10:24
  somebody does something faster.
• 10:26
  Somebody has a totally different take on it or different perception
• 10:30
  of something that you've been doing.
• 10:32
  And so it's amazing to go and.
• 10:34
  Talk to other wedding planners.
• 10:36
  And one thing, uh, to answer your question about for building confidence,
• 10:41
  really experience does that for you.
• 10:43
  The more you work and you work with other people, or you work on weddings
• 10:48
  yourself, you're gonna get more and more confidence because you're
• 10:51
  gonna be like, oh, I do know that.
• 10:52
  I know this, I know this.
• 10:53
  And that brings more and more confidence with you.
• 10:56
  One exercise that it.
• 10:57
  Sounds really silly when I say it, but one exercise that I have noticed really
• 11:02
  helps people build their confidence is actually doing a photo shoot.
• 11:06
  And so if you do like a branding photo shoot and you bring your little props and
• 11:11
  all your little wedding planners props, you got your clipboard, you got your
• 11:14
  headsets, or you do all those things, and going and doing that and just doing
• 11:19
  empowering photos, it really seems to help your confidence because you, you're.
• 11:23
  You're not just looking the part, you're not pretending you really are that person.
• 11:27
  You, you've worked those weddings and so you're showcasing your skills and that
• 11:31
  really seems to be a confidence booster.
• 11:34
  Just this.
• 11:34
  Just a little thing people can do.
• 11:36
  Becca: Yeah.
• 11:36
  Love that.
• 11:36
  And it's so important to get good photos anyway, because then you
• 11:39
  can feel confident showing up and being visible in your marketing too.
• 11:44
  Now, across the years, all of these different planners you've
• 11:46
  worked with, all of these different people who've learned from you.
• 11:50
  I'm sure some of them have got on to be really successful.
• 11:52
  Some of them maybe haven't.
• 11:54
  What do you think differentiates the people that go on and make a
• 11:58
  success of it versus those that don't?
• 12:01
  Danielle: I think it has a lot to do with their drive because yes, we've
• 12:04
  had some very, very successful people.
• 12:06
  Like one of our planners, she is Drake's planner now.
• 12:11
  And so, and she's traveling all over the world and planning parties for him.
• 12:14
  And so like we've had some major success stories, but it
• 12:17
  really comes down to drive.
• 12:19
  And also it's the whole creating a brand as well.
• 12:23
  So it, and they're marking themselves and they're really putting
• 12:27
  themselves behind their business.
• 12:28
  And so it does come down to what you were saying about confidence and so showcasing
• 12:33
  themselves, showcasing them, their skills, and really putting themselves
• 12:37
  out there that makes a huge difference.
• 12:39
  As opposed to the people who are not putting themselves out there.
• 12:42
  There's a big difference between people who are, there's only 40% of wedding
• 12:46
  planners get published in magazines.
• 12:49
  There's nothing stopping anybody from getting published in a magazine.
• 12:52
  You just have to put yourself out there for it.
• 12:54
  There's nothing media loves to talk to wedding planners, so anything
• 12:58
  that's with wedding planners, media loves to talk to wedding planners,
• 13:01
  but if you don't put yourself out there, you're not gonna get that.
• 13:03
  And these are the things that you need to get to be.
• 13:08
  In people's faces and to actually get more business because they are seeing
• 13:12
  you and they're like, oh, I need to work with her, or I need to work with that.
• 13:15
  And so really it is all about putting yourself out there, having that
• 13:20
  confidence, showcasing what you can do, and reaching out to people as well.
• 13:25
  Being visible, being at different conferences, getting
• 13:29
  yourself speaking engagements.
• 13:31
  And just really being out there.
• 13:33
  Becca: Yes, get yourself out there.
• 13:35
  Take action and just ask.
• 13:37
  It's something I say a lot to my clients is just ask.
• 13:40
  The worst that can happen is someone ignores you or says no, but
• 13:43
  if you never ask, you never get.
• 13:45
  I had a client of mine and there's a TV show here, I don't know if you
• 13:48
  have it in Canada, called Married at First Sight and she saw that they were
• 13:52
  gonna start using celebrants instead of registrars, and she's a celebrant.
• 13:56
  So she just contacted them and said, if you need a celebrant for your
• 13:59
  show, I'd love to be part of it.
• 14:01
  She just asked, and she's now been on two series of it here in the uk and
• 14:06
  she would never have got that if she hadn't have just asked the question.
• 14:09
  So you've gotta just put yourself out there and ask.
• 14:13
  Now you've referred to yourself Danielle, as a conference junkie.
• 14:17
  That's where we met at a conference.
• 14:20
  And I know that you speak and you exhibit and you attend lots and lots of
• 14:24
  different conferences all over the world.
• 14:26
  What do you think the benefits are for people listening, other
• 14:29
  wedding pros, wedding planners of taking time out of their business,
• 14:33
  spending money out of their budget to attend these kind of conferences?
• 14:39
  Danielle: Oh my goodness, there's so many benefits to it.
• 14:41
  It's.
• 14:42
  Way more than just the education part of it because for, I find that
• 14:46
  conferences are hit or miss, so some seminars you're gonna get something from
• 14:50
  some seminars you're not gonna get the things from, but you need to attend.
• 14:54
  There's always gonna be one aha moment that you're gonna get from
• 14:57
  that, and that can be worth the entire cost of the conference.
• 15:00
  Two.
• 15:01
  The networking aspect of it.
• 15:03
  That is such a huge aspect.
• 15:05
  So much more actually happens at a conference after, like you and I connected
• 15:10
  after the conference and so it really, I don't know, the networking is just
• 15:16
  amazing and the, what you're doing is you're sharing best practices with people.
• 15:19
  You're finding out better ways of doing things.
• 15:21
  You're finding out what's new and exciting in the industry.
• 15:24
  It's so important to attend conferences you're experiencing.
• 15:29
  The way people run things.
• 15:30
  And so you can look at the event that they're hosting, you can
• 15:34
  say, oh, I would do this better.
• 15:35
  Oh, you know what, they really should have done this, and, and
• 15:37
  then you're gonna keep that as well.
• 15:39
  So it's not only that you are learning better things, you're learning how to do
• 15:43
  things better as well, and what not to do.
• 15:47
  For your own events?
• 15:48
  It's, I, I don't know.
• 15:51
  I just, I absolutely love attending the conferences and just seeing, I
• 15:54
  don't just attend wedding conferences.
• 15:56
  I attend event conferences, catering, conferences, floral conferences, and just
• 16:00
  seeing all the different aspects of the industry and the way that people do things
• 16:04
  and then sharing all the best experiences and best practices really go so long.
• 16:10
  And then from.
• 16:13
  Destination aspect.
• 16:14
  If you're looking at destination weddings, it's so important to actually get out and
• 16:18
  experience the travel part of it because how can you assist your clients with
• 16:23
  their destination wedding if you don't travel yourself and haven't experienced
• 16:27
  it and really gotten out there?
• 16:29
  Because every country's completely different and the culture is so different
• 16:33
  and you're not gonna know until you actually are there and experience it.
• 16:38
  Becca: So true.
• 16:39
  And I think people.
• 16:40
  In the industry, do undervalue conferences, and I think especially
• 16:44
  here in the uk, we don't have a lot of the big conferences
• 16:47
  that you have in North America.
• 16:49
  But actually I also think that's because here we just don't value how much
• 16:54
  impact that can have on our business.
• 16:57
  And often when people go to conferences, they just.
• 16:59
  Don't make the most of their time there.
• 17:01
  A bit like we were talking about some of your students, how some of them
• 17:04
  do really well and some of them just don't make the most of the opportunity.
• 17:07
  I definitely see that when people are attending conferences, they'll say,
• 17:10
  I didn't get anything out of that.
• 17:12
  And when you dig deeper, they didn't talk to anyone.
• 17:15
  They didn't attend very much.
• 17:16
  They just, they had the wrong expectations.
• 17:18
  So if someone is going to a conference, how can they make
• 17:22
  the most of their time there?
• 17:24
  What things should they be definitely doing and what
• 17:26
  things shouldn't they be doing?
• 17:28
  Danielle: I think they need to look at what seminars are going
• 17:31
  to be available and who the speakers are, and research those.
• 17:35
  If you look at it from an aspect of what are areas in my business
• 17:38
  that I need to improve, or what are some skills that I need to improve?
• 17:42
  What are my learning goals for this conference, and then.
• 17:46
  Because a lot of conferences have multiple seminars going on at the
• 17:49
  same time and have the different breakouts, and so you really have to
• 17:52
  be careful about what you're choosing.
• 17:54
  When I go to, say, for example, the special event, so that's a huge one
• 17:59
  that is in North America, and it's all about the different special
• 18:02
  events, and so it's meeting planners, it's wedding planners, all of that.
• 18:06
  I always go to the non-wedding ones So every single seminar that I attend has
• 18:11
  nothing to do with weddings because I wanna see the other aspects of the
• 18:15
  industry and how can we put that into the wedding industry and make weddings better.
• 18:19
  And so I wanna see how they do things in catering.
• 18:22
  I wanna see how they do the things for large conferences or for
• 18:26
  fundraisers or things like that.
• 18:28
  So really look at where you're lacking for floral conferences.
• 18:33
  I've done so many floral conferences, I will never be a florist.
• 18:36
  I've learned that, but I also just wanna know how to tweak things and how, if I
• 18:42
  could need to step in, I can actually step in and I can fix that bouquet, or
• 18:45
  I can fix that boutique or I, I know what rigging I need for the event.
• 18:49
  And so you're learning.
• 18:50
  So much about how to be a better wedding planner by going to these conferences.
• 18:55
  But you need to pre-plan what you're going, what you plan to get out of
• 18:59
  it, what you want to get out of it.
• 19:01
  And the thing is, if you are in a seminar and that person is not
• 19:05
  addressing the thing that you thought was going to be addressed
• 19:08
  in it, just ask them the question.
• 19:10
  There's always that opportunity afterwards to ask them a question and.
• 19:14
  So you can get out what you were looking to get out of it.
• 19:17
  Or what's gonna happen is when you go out into the ante room, there's gonna
• 19:21
  be other planners there and you're gonna say, oh, I was hoping I was gonna hear
• 19:24
  about this, and maybe that person's gonna answer that question for you.
• 19:27
  And so you're gonna get that out of it.
• 19:28
  And then you're also going, you have to make the connections
• 19:32
  with the other planners.
• 19:33
  And so get out there, bring lots of business cards, have your.
• 19:37
  32nd elevator pitch.
• 19:39
  Ready to say who you are, what you do, what it is that you excel at,
• 19:43
  what your niche is, and then find out about them and ask those questions and
• 19:48
  get to know the other people as well.
• 19:49
  And then go to the parties, go to the extra events, go to all the special
• 19:55
  things, and don't just sit back actually.
• 19:58
  Go to a group or if you see somebody else's by themselves, go to that
• 20:02
  person and go and talk with them.
• 20:03
  Go sit with us.
• 20:04
  Don't stick with just the people that you are.
• 20:06
  I always find, cause my sister and I are in business together and so
• 20:09
  she is my business partner and I find that when we go to conferences
• 20:13
  together, we kind of stick to ourselves and we just, we're on our own.
• 20:18
  Whereas when we don't go together to a conference, I meet so many more
• 20:22
  people, I have such a better experience.
• 20:25
  I make all these networking contacts, whereas when I'm with her, I don't
• 20:29
  make any networking contacts.
• 20:31
  And so really I think it's getting out of your comfort zone and.
• 20:36
  Actually getting yourself out there rather than being comfortable hanging with your
• 20:40
  friends, hanging with people that you already know, your industry contacts,
• 20:44
  actually get out and meet new people.
• 20:45
  Cuz that's really what it's all about.
• 20:47
  Becca: Yeah, that's so true.
• 20:48
  And it is so important.
• 20:49
  And to just give everyone in the room a chance.
• 20:51
  Because if you stay in your clique and you just talk to the people you
• 20:54
  know, then people think you are not approachable and you, the whole thing
• 20:58
  can just fall down very quickly.
• 21:00
  The other thing I.
• 21:01
  See sometimes, and I don't know whether you have any experience with this,
• 21:04
  I'm sure you do, is people who are really negative at conferences, like
• 21:08
  I feel like people forget sometimes that they're, maybe they're on business
• 21:12
  or they've forgotten where they've come and they can be very negative
• 21:15
  or complain about lots of things.
• 21:17
  And sometimes I think to myself, maybe there's some things that
• 21:19
  you should just keep in your head.
• 21:21
  Danielle: Absolutely.
• 21:22
  One of those things is you're gonna be keeping people away from you as well.
• 21:27
  If you're sitting there and being very negative, people aren't gonna wanna spend
• 21:30
  the time with you anyway, and they're just gonna see you as causing trouble.
• 21:34
  And maybe they liked that seminar, maybe they did learn something, and
• 21:38
  you've just ruined that experience for them, and so definitely.
• 21:41
  Go being positive, be open and definitely keep that to yourself.
• 21:47
  You can talk to your spouse after, you can talk to your friends after, but you don't
• 21:51
  need to bring that negativity on there.
• 21:53
  People are putting so much out to be at a conference to be, to be a speaker
• 21:58
  at a conference, to be there and.
• 22:01
  Nobody knows how much work there is behind the conference.
• 22:04
  It's cuz we, we plan and execute conferences as well.
• 22:07
  And there's so much behind the scenes and so much goes into it and people
• 22:12
  don't understand just how much it takes to make this actually happen.
• 22:15
  So just go and be pleasant and be open and receive that and you're
• 22:21
  gonna have a much better experience if you're going being negative.
• 22:24
  Nobody's gonna wanna be around you anyway.
• 22:26
  Nobody likes to be around a negative person.
• 22:28
  And so you're.
• 22:30
  If you're going expecting to have a bad time, you're gonna have a bad time.
• 22:33
  Becca: That's so true.
• 22:34
  You have to go in with that mindset.
• 22:35
  And I always think as well, once you've decided you're going to something, once
• 22:38
  you've paid the money to go to something, you might as well make the absolute
• 22:42
  most of that opportunity, even if it isn't how you expected, even if the
• 22:46
  seminars weren't quite what you wanted.
• 22:48
  It's thinking, okay, well this hasn't quite worked out, but what can I do to
• 22:52
  make sure I do get something out of being here rather than just sitting back and.
• 22:56
  Being a negative Nelly, as I like to call it.
• 23:00
  Danielle: Yep, absolutely.
• 23:01
  Yeah.
• 23:01
  What blog post can I write because of this, or what podcasts can I do because
• 23:06
  of this, or what have I learned from it?
• 23:07
  Absolutely.
• 23:08
  Becca: Now, as I said, we don't have a huge amount of conferences here in
• 23:12
  the uk and as a conference junkie, I know you've been to absolutely loads.
• 23:16
  So if someone's listening and thinking, I'd really like to spend
• 23:19
  some money and go to a conference, or go to an event, do you have any
• 23:23
  recommendations of where they should look?
• 23:25
  Danielle: It definitely has to do with what your niche is and what you think
• 23:29
  you need help the most help with.
• 23:31
  For those starting out, a good place to start is always wedding mba.
• 23:34
  That is a very large one.
• 23:36
  There's 150 seminars to choose from.
• 23:39
  4,500 wedding planners go to it.
• 23:42
  I wouldn't say you're gonna get a lot out of networking from it, but you are
• 23:47
  going, there are lots of little education nuggets that you're gonna take from
• 23:51
  there, so that's a good starting point.
• 23:53
  When you're just starting out, if you are looking at high-end weddings, well
• 23:58
  then you might wanna look at the engage conferences if you're doing destination
• 24:01
  weddings, well, DWP is the huge.
• 24:04
  It's absolutely huge.
• 24:05
  So there's different, whatever your niche is that you wanna do with that.
• 24:09
  If you are doing destination weddings, we always loved attending it.
• 24:14
  Used to be called Love Mexico.
• 24:15
  Now it's I A D W P.
• 24:17
  And so they have one coming up in Punta cana.
• 24:20
  I'm a speaker at it.
• 24:21
  So they have one coming up in punta cana in June, and then they have one in Mexico.
• 24:24
  In October, and those are fabulous conferences.
• 24:27
  If you are getting into destination weddings, you'll
• 24:29
  make lots of great contacts.
• 24:31
  They have fabulous parties, and then they've got some good
• 24:34
  education in there as well.
• 24:36
  Oh, there's just, there's so many.
• 24:38
  There's so many to attend.
• 24:39
  It.
• 24:40
  You just, you get something out of every single one you really do.
• 24:43
  Becca: So if you're listening to this and you haven't been to any
• 24:45
  conferences, do some research.
• 24:47
  Think about maybe even for next year, even if you can't make it this year, putting
• 24:51
  some budget aside and thinking about going to one of these places, cuz you
• 24:55
  definitely will get something out of it.
• 24:57
  Now, Danielle.
• 24:58
  Both you and me focus very much on wedding education.
• 25:02
  We're both passionate about helping people improve their businesses, kind
• 25:06
  of leveling up the industry in general.
• 25:09
  Why is that so important to you?
• 25:11
  Why does that motivate you and drive you to do what you do?
• 25:14
  Danielle: Because so many people do it wrong.
• 25:16
  That's, that's, that's where we came from because what happened, the
• 25:21
  original reason that we started with.
• 25:23
  The Institute is because a lot of people, like I said, once the Wedding
• 25:27
  planner movie came out, everybody thought that they could be a wedding planner.
• 25:30
  Everybody thought that they should be a wedding planner.
• 25:32
  It looked like so much fun, and so it was just very romanticized.
• 25:36
  But what was happening was a lot of people were not doing things
• 25:39
  correctly and they were making.
• 25:41
  Other wedding planners have a bad name because of it.
• 25:44
  And so the way that they were handling the business, the way that
• 25:48
  they just were ignoring etiquette and not doing things the right way,
• 25:52
  not having proper insurances, it was really damaging to our profession.
• 25:58
  And so we started out with.
• 26:00
  We need to get the best people out there.
• 26:02
  We need to make sure that people are properly educated and
• 26:04
  they know what they're doing.
• 26:05
  And so that's the standpoint that we took from that.
• 26:09
  Now what our goal is, we want our people to be the best of the best cuz people,
• 26:13
  when they have W P I C behind their name, people expect that is elevated.
• 26:18
  They, they know that that is a higher level of education.
• 26:20
  They know that these people are.
• 26:22
  The best of the best.
• 26:23
  And so that's what we really wanna do.
• 26:25
  We wanna make sure that our wedding planners are the cream of the crop,
• 26:28
  and so we constantly are putting into more and more education.
• 26:32
  That's one of the reasons that we attend all the conferences because we
• 26:36
  are always upgrading the information.
• 26:39
  We're on our 15th, well now we're almost on our 16th edition of our textbook.
• 26:44
  And.
• 26:45
  What we do is we make that available to every past student, so all of 9,000 of
• 26:50
  our past students have access to all of the new information that's being shared.
• 26:55
  And so if, even if they took the course 20 years ago, I.
• 26:58
  They can get all the most current information because we want everybody
• 27:02
  to be updated and it, it's free to them and we want them to be updated.
• 27:05
  We want them to constantly be improving themselves.
• 27:08
  And so we have our online association, we have our conferences, we have seminars
• 27:14
  all the time, cuz we just want people to be the best that they can possibly be.
• 27:18
  And we want them to do it right, because if they're not doing it right,
• 27:21
  then what's happening is these couples are not getting like, this is the
• 27:25
  most important day of their life.
• 27:26
  If you're not doing it properly, you're messing with someone's.
• 27:30
  Something they've been dreaming about for years and such a huge
• 27:34
  investment that they're making, we can't mess around with that.
• 27:37
  So we, we do have to be the best.
• 27:39
  Becca: And it's important, isn't it, for people to keep on continuing
• 27:42
  with their education because things are changing all the time.
• 27:45
  Things are changing, especially in what I do in the world of marketing.
• 27:48
  I could do a.
• 27:49
  Seminar right now today about Instagram, and we could all log on
• 27:52
  tomorrow and everything's changed.
• 27:54
  The algorithm's changed, the features have changed.
• 27:56
  So we're always having to learn, but sometimes, and I've definitely
• 28:00
  met people like this, they get to a certain point and they think, great.
• 28:03
  I know everything now.
• 28:04
  I don't need to invest in education anymore.
• 28:06
  Why do you think it's important that people keep that as a, as a priority?
• 28:11
  Danielle: Oh, absolutely.
• 28:12
  It's a priority because.
• 28:13
  Like you said, everything is changing, everything is updating, and so you
• 28:17
  can't continue to do the things Covid taught us that you can't continue
• 28:21
  to do things the exact same way.
• 28:23
  You have to pivot, you have to adapt.
• 28:25
  And in the wedding industry, we're trend-based, and so everything
• 28:29
  is changing every single year and we have to keep up with that.
• 28:32
  And then there's just all the new technologies, and so I'm still a
• 28:36
  pen and paper girl, but there's lots of people who are very much.
• 28:42
  Embracing technology and bringing that into their weddings.
• 28:44
  And so we have to know what's available.
• 28:47
  We need to know what the different apps are.
• 28:49
  You can't, for example, let's say you have one wedding planner who is doing
• 28:54
  everything on aisle planner, and so they're being able to automate all of
• 28:59
  their intake forms and work that way, whereas somebody else is still doing it
• 29:05
  all paper files and things like that.
• 29:07
  Well, the person who's using aisle planner.
• 29:10
  It's gonna have much quicker response time.
• 29:13
  It's going to look much more professional because it's already done and she's
• 29:17
  ready with things to send to her clients.
• 29:20
  Whereas the person who's just always doing it on paper, inputting it themselves,
• 29:23
  doing their own forms, they're gonna be much slower to get back to people.
• 29:27
  They're gonna have to.
• 29:28
  Be like reinventing the wheel every single time.
• 29:30
  Whereas things are already automated and there's already these charts
• 29:34
  and there's already these things that can flow and the couple's
• 29:38
  gonna feel much more a part of it.
• 29:39
  So we have to embrace all these new things that are coming into it.
• 29:42
  If I did weddings the way that I did them 20 years ago, it'd be it.
• 29:46
  It's hilarious.
• 29:48
  Some of the things, when I look back on it, like we used to say,
• 29:51
  Make sure you have a spare camera and batteries and things like that.
• 29:54
  And, and so like you have to update with the times and you
• 29:58
  have to adapt to things like that.
• 30:00
  And so constantly learning what's out there, what's available,
• 30:04
  Becca: and if you don't adapt, you'll just get left behind.
• 30:06
  And that's what ends up happening.
• 30:07
  The people think that they're doing amazing and then they get stuck in
• 30:11
  their ways and don't keep evolving.
• 30:12
  And then all of a sudden new people come in with better processes
• 30:15
  and absolutely overtake them.
• 30:18
  I dunno if you've got an answer to this question, but I'm gonna see anyway.
• 30:22
  One of the things I find, and I'm sure you come across this quite a
• 30:25
  lot as well, is that when people are down on bookings or struggling, the
• 30:29
  first thing they drop is education.
• 30:31
  So they may be part of a membership, they may have.
• 30:34
  For course, and they think, oh, I can't afford that now, and
• 30:36
  they leave that straight away.
• 30:38
  When it comes to your business and planning ahead, do you have like a
• 30:40
  percentage each year that you allocate towards education and conferences?
• 30:44
  How do you work that out so that it remains a priority rather than just
• 30:48
  being the first thing that gets dropped?
• 30:50
  Danielle: For us it's just what is in the budget and so, or what is important
• 30:56
  enough to us, and so we'll look at what's coming up and what's going to be the
• 30:59
  topic of it, and how is it, how important is it for us to get to those pre covid?
• 31:04
  We were going to 11 and 12.
• 31:06
  Conferences a year.
• 31:07
  And so we like when I say we're conference junkies, we are conference junkies.
• 31:12
  And so that is something that is a priority to us, that we would never
• 31:15
  drop from the budget no matter what.
• 31:17
  And the thing is, even the governments agree with you that you should be
• 31:22
  updating and you should be attending conferences because they are tax
• 31:25
  write-offs in most countries.
• 31:27
  And so in Canada, we're allowed to write off two conferences every year.
• 31:31
  And so you can put that into your budget.
• 31:33
  For that because the thing is, conferences have such a return on
• 31:38
  investment and so you have to look at that as it's an investment in you.
• 31:42
  It's an investment in your business, and you can't drop that from there.
• 31:46
  Even if you can get to one conference a year, absolutely do it.
• 31:50
  And there's so many that are online as well.
• 31:53
  I find with online you're not getting everything that you could get out
• 31:56
  if you were in person, but there are online ones that are really.
• 32:02
  Affordable.
• 32:02
  Some are free, some, some are just very affordable.
• 32:05
  And so don't take education out of your budget.
• 32:08
  You absolutely need to be there, and the thing is you're not
• 32:12
  going to get anything else.
• 32:14
  That is a return on investment, that education is.
• 32:17
  You're going to make money from it.
• 32:19
  Whatever you put out there, you're gonna make that money.
• 32:21
  There's gonna be that nugget that's gonna make you that money, and you're gonna
• 32:24
  find a different way of doing things.
• 32:26
  You're, you're gonna attend that conference and you're gonna
• 32:29
  hear Becca give you this amazing marketing tip, and you're gonna
• 32:32
  be, oh gosh, and then suddenly you're making money because of it.
• 32:35
  So, Just don't take it out.
• 32:38
  That, that's my main advice.
• 32:41
  Becca: Absolutely.
• 32:42
  And you always do, you always get an aha moment, however long you've been in
• 32:45
  the industry, however much you think, you know, there's always something
• 32:49
  like, even just this week, I put out a reel of a tip that someone shared
• 32:52
  with me a few weeks ago about text replacement on your phone so that you
• 32:55
  can just save time typing out the long URLs by just having like a three letter.
• 33:00
  Thing that you put out there.
• 33:01
  And the amount of people that messaged me when I put the reel out
• 33:04
  yesterday saying, oh my goodness, I didn't know I could do this.
• 33:07
  You've blown my mind, blah, blah.
• 33:08
  And it's the simplest thing.
• 33:09
  And sometimes just those small things we learn at a conference we learn
• 33:12
  in a education event can transform the way we do business entirely.
• 33:18
  Have you had a recent aha moment from any of your conferences or education
• 33:22
  that you've been part of that's changed anything that you've done?
• 33:25
  I'm gonna put you on the spot now.
• 33:27
  Danielle: Oh man.
• 33:28
  You really have put me on the spot for that one.
• 33:31
  You know what, I've been doing some online trainings and things like
• 33:35
  that, and so there has been some aha moments about reels and about
• 33:40
  marketing and things like that.
• 33:41
  I'm trying to think of in-person ones that were Aha, I think.
• 33:46
  Mainly the most recent have been an inspiration, and so looking at the
• 33:51
  way that people are putting together things or how they're gaining their
• 33:56
  own inspiration on an event and how they're putting together their design,
• 34:00
  those have been aha moments for me.
• 34:02
  Just like, oh, okay.
• 34:03
  I didn't look at it from that perspective.
• 34:05
  And so looking at different perspectives, those have been my.
• 34:09
  My aha moments, but definitely like your education can be as simple as,
• 34:12
  like you were saying, like a reel, people's reels or looking online,
• 34:16
  following things on TikTok or following things on Instagram and getting those
• 34:20
  little, little sound bites as well.
• 34:23
  And then, At the actual conferences, there's, I don't know.
• 34:27
  I really, I'm trying to think of something that's just a, once I incorporate it,
• 34:31
  I'm like, oh, I've always known that.
• 34:33
  So I dunno.
• 34:36
  Becca: Yeah, that's a bit like me with this whole AI revolution.
• 34:39
  Like that blew my mind a little bit when I started understanding how to do that and
• 34:43
  now I'm like, I've known that for ages.
• 34:45
  It doesn't seem so exciting anymore.
• 34:46
  Danielle: No, exactly.
• 34:48
  Oh yeah.
• 34:49
  Becca: Yeah.
• 34:50
  Well, there's always more to learn and I'm sure people have had
• 34:53
  some really good aha moments in this conversation today as well.
• 34:56
  Danielle, now when I have my podcast, I always end with my guest with the
• 35:00
  same question, which is, what's one thing you wish you'd known sooner
• 35:04
  in your own wedding business?
• 35:05
  Danielle: I think I.
• 35:07
  It actually boils down to what we've been talking about this entire time.
• 35:10
  I wish I knew how to gain resources on wedding, putting and on how to learn
• 35:17
  more and how to get more access to information, and that was a huge thing.
• 35:22
  Also, we were talking about it today, about, having the confidence and
• 35:26
  not feeling like the imposter and having that imposter syndrome that.
• 35:30
  Because a lot of times I was like, oh, oh, maybe I, I'm not good enough, or
• 35:33
  maybe I'm not strong enough, and so it.
• 35:37
  If I knew how to build my confidence, how to gain more information, how to
• 35:42
  be more sure of myself, those would've been great things to help me right away.
• 35:46
  Becca: And I think it's helpful for people listening because I know there's
• 35:49
  lots of people listening that struggle with the imposter syndrome thing to
• 35:52
  know that that's been a struggle for you, even though you've got 9,000 core
• 35:56
  students behind you, even though you're speaking and going to conferences
• 36:00
  all over the world, we still have all those, have those moments of a
• 36:03
  little bit of lacking confidence.
• 36:06
  Danielle: Oh, absolutely.
• 36:07
  Like I still feel it when I'm at conferences and I meet somebody
• 36:10
  and I was like, oh my goodness.
• 36:11
  Oh, they're so successful and I still get those.
• 36:13
  So, nope, it, it never really goes away.
• 36:17
  It's just you have to learn how to hide it better.
• 36:20
  Becca: Absolutely, definitely true.
• 36:22
  Danielle, it's been such a pleasure to talk with you.
• 36:24
  If people wanna find out more about what you do about your
• 36:28
  education programs, where's the best place for them to find you?
• 36:31
  Danielle: Our website.
• 36:32
  So it's very simple.
• 36:33
  It's just W p I c.ca.
• 36:35
  Becca: Fabulous.
• 36:35
  I'll make sure that I link to that in the show notes.
• 36:38
  If you wanna find out more about Danielle and what she's doing, go ahead and look
• 36:42
  in the show notes underneath this episode.
• 36:44
  Danielle, thank you for your time today.
• 36:46
  It's been fabulous.
• 36:47
  Danielle: Thank you.
• 36:50
  Becca: I just loved chatting with Danielle today.
• 36:52
  Isn't she fabulous?
• 36:53
  I'm so glad that our paths crossed.
• 36:55
  While we are out in Cyprus and talking of conferences, I'm actually attending
• 36:59
  wedding M B A myself this year.
• 37:01
  So if you fancy a trip out to Las Vegas, it's come to a conference with
• 37:04
  me, let me know in the dms and maybe you could join me there as well.
• 37:08
  I'll see you next time.