Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / What's frustrating your wedding couples with Ciara Crossan

Transcript

What's frustrating your wedding couples with Ciara Crossan · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

• 0:00
  Ciara: It's not all just dancing, okay.
• 0:01
  I suppose is my message about TikTok.
• 0:04
  You know, there's ways to use TikTok to share your expertise, to
• 0:07
  give tips, to be really seen as an expert, to share beautiful images.
• 0:12
  You know, there's lots and lots of ways that people can embrace that.
• 0:15
  And, you know, talking about personalization, we always talk
• 0:18
  about personalize it to the couples, you know, personalize it to them.
• 0:20
  But also personalized to you.
• 0:22
  People want to see the face behind the brand.
• 0:27
  Becca: I'm Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert,
• 0:30
  speaker, and blogger, and you're listening to the Wedding Pros
• 0:33
  Who Are Ready to Grow podcast.
• 0:35
  I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life
• 0:38
  examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
• 0:42
  If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
• 0:46
  and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you
• 0:49
  love, then you're in the right place.
• 0:51
  Let's get going with today's episode.
• 0:54
  Today I'm chatting with Ciara Crossan, CEO and founder of Wedding Dates, one
• 0:58
  of the biggest platforms in Ireland and the UK for wedding planning.
• 1:02
  Since launching in 2008, Ciara has built the platform to where
• 1:05
  it is today with a team of 10.
• 1:07
  And as an inspirational tech founder herself, Ciara is passionate about
• 1:10
  championing young entrepreneurship.
• 1:12
  and women in business.
• 1:14
  I first met Ciara and her team while speaking at the Guys for Brides UK
• 1:17
  wedding conference and have recently taken a deep dive into the wedding dates
• 1:20
  industry report that they've created.
• 1:22
  I knew as soon as I read it, I needed to get her booked in for an interview
• 1:26
  and I'm excited to dive into the stats.
• 1:28
  Ciara, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:30
  Ciara: Hi Becca.
• 1:31
  Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:32
  Becca: I really appreciate you being here.
• 1:35
  As I just said, before we hit record, I absolutely love the report that you've
• 1:39
  recently put out and we are going to get to that in more detail in a little while.
• 1:43
  But first, what I always like to do in this podcast is get to know
• 1:46
  the person that we're interviewing.
• 1:48
  Cause I think whenever we're talking to someone and we're trying to get
• 1:50
  expert advice, it's important that we all understand where that's coming
• 1:54
  from and how you have that experience in order to share this advice with us.
• 1:59
  So take me back to pre wedding dates.
• 2:02
  Like where on earth did this idea come from?
• 2:05
  What were you doing and how did it come into fruition?
• 2:08
  Ciara: Wow.
• 2:09
  I do have to cast my mind back.
• 2:11
  So wedding dates, we just celebrated 16 years in business actually in February.
• 2:16
  So really proud of the longevity, I suppose.
• 2:19
  But back then, so I started in 2008, but even, even slightly
• 2:23
  before that in end of 2007.
• 2:26
  was kind of coming up with the concept.
• 2:28
  And to give you some background, my family, my, my mum and
• 2:32
  dad both grew up in hotels.
• 2:35
  So my grandparents on both sides of my family grew up in hotels.
• 2:39
  So I've always had a real love for, you know, the, the hospitality
• 2:43
  industry and, and kind of a, An interest or a curiosity of, you know,
• 2:48
  what goes on behind the curtain.
• 2:50
  I was always curious about that.
• 2:52
  So that's kind of my family background.
• 2:54
  But in, in university, I studied business information systems.
• 2:58
  So, you know, it was around all around the explosion of the internet when I went
• 3:02
  to college and that's what I studied.
• 3:04
  So back in kind of 2007.
• 3:07
  It's really kind of sitting around the kitchen table, chatting
• 3:09
  about different, different ideas.
• 3:11
  I've, I've always had that drive, I think, to, or desire to maybe work for myself.
• 3:16
  And literally, like most good ideas, it came sitting around a kitchen table.
• 3:20
  They say it's either good ideas are around a kitchen table or at a bar counter.
• 3:27
  Well, this, this one was around the kitchen table with my mum and dad.
• 3:31
  And back then, it's again, hard to even imagine this, but Back
• 3:36
  in 2007, hotels had websites, but a lot of them weren't bookable.
• 3:42
  You know, you could just phone up or send a contact form
• 3:45
  if you wanted to stay there.
• 3:46
  But that was just around the time, 2006 2007, of booking.
• 3:51
  com and hotels.
• 3:52
  com.
• 3:53
  Those OTAs were just exploding, or coming on at that time.
• 3:56
  So, the idea that you could book a bedroom online, Was kind of taken care of.
• 4:00
  So then we started thinking, well, what else do other people do in hotels?
• 4:04
  So I'm kind of very much coming from that family background in hotels and kind of
• 4:07
  love of the industry and my IT degree, and started thinking about what, what else do
• 4:13
  people do in hotels and in ar, I know it's different in the uk, but in Ireland a lot
• 4:18
  of, a lot of people still, but especially back then used to get married in hotels.
• 4:22
  So we just thought, well, weddings, that's another thing that people do in hotels.
• 4:27
  And that really, the idea was.
• 4:29
  very simple wedding dates, allow people to search for venues based on availability.
• 4:35
  So that was the very baby idea.
• 4:37
  And then it expanded to vendors and other wedding suppliers as well.
• 4:40
  And they started with a very simple.
• 4:43
  directory website back in 2008.
• 4:46
  I think we had like 30 venues on there.
• 4:48
  It was really simple.
• 4:49
  I think the only people clicking on it at the beginning was just like my mom in her
• 4:54
  work giving like, give us the traffic.
• 4:57
  It was very, very simple start, but it built from very organically from there.
• 5:01
  And after about a year, I went on the Dragon's Den TV show in Ireland.
• 5:06
  And that really helped get a lot of exposure, a lot of brand awareness.
• 5:11
  And the business just steadily grew and about a year after that,
• 5:14
  then I expanded into the UK.
• 5:17
  So we've been operating both Ireland and the UK for the last, you know,
• 5:21
  Oh my God, what, 11, 12 years in the UK, 16 years in ireland.
• 5:26
  Becca: Yeah.
• 5:27
  You make it sound so easy and people will be listening to this and thinking, okay,
• 5:30
  so you just came up with this idea, then you built this website and now it's really
• 5:33
  successful and you've got 10 team members.
• 5:35
  I'm sure there's been a whole lot more to that journey over the years.
• 5:39
  As you look back, are there some key challenges or key things
• 5:42
  you've had to overcome as even just as a female tech founder?
• 5:47
  Ciara: I was.
• 5:47
  You read my mind there, Becca, because I was actually going to say, and I don't
• 5:51
  know when this is going to air, but we're recording it on International Women's Day.
• 5:55
  So it's quite apt the, the, the day that's in it.
• 5:57
  But that was definitely a challenge for me at the early days.
• 6:00
  I was only, I was 25 when I started the business and I had quite a
• 6:06
  baby face, kind of looked, looked very young anyway, and I was young.
• 6:12
  And a female and starting a business in the wedding space.
• 6:16
  So a lot of rooms that I would walk into would be, you know, men in suits
• 6:20
  was, was a lot of those networking events that I went to, or, you know,
• 6:24
  when I went to pitch for investment or various government grants that were
• 6:28
  available to help start up businesses.
• 6:30
  And they looked at me like the little girl with the wedding business.
• 6:36
  And I felt kind of almost like an invisible pat on my head.
• 6:40
  And I, I, I felt it and I, I know I haven't dreamed this, I've been told,
• 6:43
  I've, you know, had many things said to me over the years, you know, bank
• 6:47
  managers have said to me, aren't you great now starting your own
• 6:50
  business, that's lovely for you now.
• 6:53
  And you can hear the little patronizing tone and that used to drive me crazy,
• 6:58
  but it actually gave me a real fire in my belly of, of, you know, I'm
• 7:02
  one of those people that like, I'll show them, you know, I'll, I'll
• 7:05
  prove them wrong kind of thing.
• 7:06
  So I think it was.
• 7:09
  Probably a thing to overcome, but also it, it, it fueled me as well in another way.
• 7:14
  So that was a definite challenge, you know, having, I have twin boys, it
• 7:18
  was a, it was an unexpected pregnancy and then it was a surprise that
• 7:22
  it was twins and then they arrived nine weeks early, very premature and
• 7:28
  spent many weeks in the neonatal.
• 7:30
  So that was another huge challenge, which obviously was on the personal
• 7:33
  side, but of course, It affects your business as well because when you
• 7:36
  work for yourself, you know, where do you end and the business begin?
• 7:40
  It's a very blurred line.
• 7:42
  So there's been many challenges over the years, but I think
• 7:45
  they do make you stronger.
• 7:46
  And that's one of the things that I'm most proud of with the business is
• 7:50
  the longevity and the resilience, you know, to come through when we started
• 7:54
  in 2008, which was the recession.
• 7:56
  And we got through COVID and we're still here, we're still standing and
• 8:00
  I just think it's such an achievement.
• 8:02
  So,
• 8:04
  Becca: yeah, absolutely stronger than ever.
• 8:05
  And I think as well, we see in this industry, I've seen it since I've been
• 8:09
  doing what I do since 2016, you see people come, you see people go, you see these new
• 8:13
  businesses pop up and fade away very fast.
• 8:15
  And actually to be able to look back and say, yeah, we're still going,
• 8:18
  we've still got the same mission.
• 8:19
  We've, you know, we're evolving and growing, but we're still here is an
• 8:23
  absolutely phenomenal achievement.
• 8:25
  And I love that you took that.
• 8:27
  those challenges and it made you stronger rather than make you want to give up.
• 8:31
  And that is particularly apt, as you said, on International
• 8:34
  Women's Day as we record this.
• 8:35
  Now, one thing in your story I kind of breezed over, but I want to come back to.
• 8:39
  You mentioned that you were on Dragon's Den in Ireland.
• 8:42
  Now, if you You may not know this care, but my background is
• 8:45
  actually working in television.
• 8:47
  So I'm very skeptical about all things television, because I used to work
• 8:50
  in the studios at these programs.
• 8:52
  So I would love to know from your point of view, because sometimes people ask
• 8:55
  me, should I try and go on dragon's den?
• 8:57
  Was it a benefit to your business?
• 8:59
  Was it as good as it looks or you tell us more about that experience.
• 9:02
  Ciara: So it was a phenomenal experience for me.
• 9:04
  And I totally hear you about the skepticism because you know, the, the
• 9:09
  It's a TV show, it's entertainment.
• 9:10
  There's a format, you know, the interviewer guy says, you know, today
• 9:14
  on the den, but actually they record the dragon's den over the course of a week.
• 9:19
  The dragons wear the same clothes every day, and then they slice and dice the,
• 9:23
  the, the pitches so that, you know, every show has somebody who got the
• 9:27
  money, somebody who made a fool out of themselves, somebody who turned the
• 9:30
  dragons down, somebody that didn't get the money, you know, they have this format.
• 9:34
  So on my episode, when they said today in the den.
• 9:37
  In actual fact, it was only one person on my episode that
• 9:39
  was there that same day as me.
• 9:40
  So, you know, I totally get you about the, the kind of, the structure of
• 9:45
  it or the, the skepticism around it.
• 9:47
  But from my perspective, it was a really, really positive thing.
• 9:50
  And the reason I think it went viral, I didn't get the investment by the way.
• 9:55
  In my head I had a playbook that they were going, two dragons were going to offer me
• 10:00
  half the money each for double the equity and I was going to walk to the back of
• 10:02
  the room and have a little think about it and then I was going to come back and
• 10:06
  politely turn them down and I was going to be the girl that turned the dragons down.
• 10:11
  This was in my head before it happened.
• 10:12
  My plan, it of course didn't go exactly to plan.
• 10:15
  I didn't, I didn't get the investment.
• 10:18
  I didn't have to turn anybody down.
• 10:19
  However, they were all overwhelmingly positive towards me and it, it,
• 10:26
  it came off really, really well.
• 10:27
  I was very lucky in the editing, you know, it's, I was in there for over an hour.
• 10:31
  It got edited down to six or seven minutes.
• 10:33
  And I was very lucky that I, I came off good in the editing, but I think
• 10:37
  the thing that I learned the most from doing that was, first of all,
• 10:42
  something my dad said, which I always reiterate is, you know, when I was so
• 10:46
  nervous thinking about it, he said, you know, the dragons, you know, they're,
• 10:49
  they're people just like you and me.
• 10:51
  They put their pants on one leg at a time.
• 10:54
  And I just think it's a lovely analogy.
• 10:55
  You know, when you, when you think of somebody getting out of
• 10:57
  bed in the morning and putting on their pants, you know, there's no
• 11:00
  elegant to graceful way to do that.
• 11:02
  We all look the same doing it.
• 11:04
  And I think it's a great leveler.
• 11:05
  My dad is brilliant at kind of helping me reframe things like that in my head.
• 11:09
  But that was one of the things in terms of being daunted about
• 11:12
  meeting certain people or whatever.
• 11:14
  You know, I learned that from that experience.
• 11:17
  And the other thing was, preparation is so key.
• 11:20
  So before I did the show, I actually got media training.
• 11:25
  And at the time, this is back in 2010, it was, I think it was a thousand euros
• 11:30
  for a day media training up in Dublin.
• 11:32
  Now I had never spent a thousand euros on a day's training
• 11:36
  for myself in my entire life.
• 11:37
  Like it was just, I was a one man band back then.
• 11:39
  That was a huge amount of money back in 2010 for me to
• 11:42
  spend on on one day for myself.
• 11:45
  But it paid dividends because they really prepped me so well.
• 11:50
  They did a fake thing with the camera rolling and got me to see where my
• 11:54
  strengths and weaknesses were, I suppose.
• 11:56
  So preparation, and I've really, you know, used that, I suppose, in my business going
• 12:00
  forward, that if I do have a big thing, then I like to be as prepared as possible.
• 12:04
  So it's really helped me with my media training in general, but, but kind
• 12:08
  of even in business overall, I think.
• 12:10
  Becca: What an exciting experience.
• 12:11
  I love hearing about it.
• 12:12
  I am, I think I'm going to go on a YouTube search later today and see
• 12:15
  if I can track down your episode.
• 12:17
  Don't worry, I won't share it in the show notes though if I do,
• 12:19
  but I just love to see you do it.
• 12:21
  I'm sure you smashed it and I love that you had the idea that you were
• 12:23
  going to turn them all down anyway.
• 12:25
  So who cares that you didn't get the investment because you still walked
• 12:28
  away positive and the good thing is you weren't the one that they
• 12:31
  made to look like a fool, which is probably would be my biggest fear
• 12:34
  on going on something like that.
• 12:36
  So I I love hearing about it, so thank you for sharing it.
• 12:39
  Now, one of the other things I've been talking with some of my clients about
• 12:42
  recently, who are solopreneurs, have their own wedding businesses, maybe
• 12:46
  wedding planners, wedding florists, is about when they get to the point
• 12:50
  where they might want to grow a team.
• 12:51
  Now, as we said in the intro, you now have 10 people in the team.
• 12:55
  When you were on Dragon's Den, it was just you.
• 12:57
  Do you remember back to knowing like that feeling of, I'm ready to
• 13:01
  hire my first team member, because it is a bit of a scary thing to do.
• 13:05
  Ciara: It is a scary thing to do for sure but it, for me, it was just, I
• 13:10
  suppose desperation pushed me there because I, I just needed the help.
• 13:13
  I was totally overwhelmed.
• 13:14
  I couldn't, I couldn't do it all.
• 13:16
  My first employee was actually my brother, so that was a little bit of a gentler hire
• 13:21
  as well in terms of, you know, formality of it and the trust element, you know,
• 13:25
  you, you, there was instant trust there.
• 13:28
  But obviously then I, I, I expanded out to, to non family members and It just,
• 13:34
  it's really shown me that like the only way I could grow the business was with
• 13:38
  a larger team and having those people around me because you just can't be good
• 13:42
  at everything as much as I try to be.
• 13:46
  You just, you just can't.
• 13:48
  If you want to service your clients and grow, and grow in a scalable way that
• 13:52
  isn't going to leave you burnt out.
• 13:54
  For me, for my, my business, which is very scalable, it definitely
• 13:58
  involved hiring hiring people.
• 14:00
  But I think, you know, you can, there's no, and I've got it wrong as many
• 14:05
  times as I've gotten it right, Becca.
• 14:06
  Okay.
• 14:07
  I mean, that has to be said as well, because.
• 14:10
  There's a huge amount of trust, you know, you, you, you see somebody's
• 14:13
  CV, you read it, you interview them, you do your reference checks, but
• 14:16
  at the end of the day, you know, how are they going to gel with you?
• 14:21
  How are they going to, you know, embody the culture of the company?
• 14:24
  How are they going to perform?
• 14:27
  You know, it is a bit of a roll of a dice.
• 14:29
  And I've been very, very lucky over the years to have amazing people work for me.
• 14:33
  Not all of them are still with me, obviously.
• 14:35
  People move on for various reasons.
• 14:36
  I had one amazing woman work for me and she moved to Australia with her boyfriend.
• 14:41
  So that was, you know, it was amazing.
• 14:42
  It's devastating to see her go and, and other two women work for me who ended up
• 14:47
  leaving me to set up their own businesses, which is something that I actually felt
• 14:52
  really proud about because I felt like maybe I was giving them, you know, a bit
• 14:57
  of a confidence boost or that, you know, initiative or whatever that they could
• 15:00
  see, see it as, Oh, okay, I can do this.
• 15:03
  So, you know, I, I take great, great kind of pride in that, but
• 15:06
  you know, my team with me now.
• 15:08
  I mean, God, Chris has been with me coming up 10 years.
• 15:12
  Alex has just celebrated her seven year anniversary.
• 15:15
  Sarah's four years next week.
• 15:18
  You know, there, there's longevity in the team, which is lovely.
• 15:21
  And I really value that.
• 15:24
  I think it's, it's, it's, it speaks a lot to the culture of the company
• 15:27
  and how well, you know, They work and support each other as well.
• 15:31
  Becca: Yeah.
• 15:31
  And I have to say, I met some of your team at that Guides for Brides
• 15:34
  conference and they were all lovely.
• 15:35
  Everyone, everyone that I spoke to was super lovely, super friendly.
• 15:38
  And I'm connected with a few of them on LinkedIn as well.
• 15:40
  And I always feel like they're really positive over there as well.
• 15:43
  So you've done a great job with the team that you've got right now.
• 15:47
  No, here we talked in the intro about this industry report.
• 15:50
  So we need to get onto the industry report.
• 15:52
  Otherwise I will be talking to you about your story all day.
• 15:55
  So you recently released the 2024 wedding dates, UK industry report.
• 16:00
  So before we get into the stats, I'd love you to just share a bit of background
• 16:03
  about what the report is, why you do it, how you do it, that kind of thing.
• 16:08
  Ciara: Sure.
• 16:08
  So we started producing this report.
• 16:11
  Oh my God, on the spot now.
• 16:12
  When will I, I think it was 2013, a long time ago, right?
• 16:16
  2015, something like that.
• 16:18
  I think this might be our ninth one.
• 16:21
  The team in the office will kill me now for not knowing
• 16:23
  that off the top of my head.
• 16:24
  Ha, ha, ha.
• 16:25
  But the reason we did it is because we have clients that are asking us all the
• 16:30
  time, what are you seeing out there?
• 16:31
  What are couples saying?
• 16:33
  And, you know, we provide a web platform for couples to inquire to
• 16:38
  venues and, and research suppliers.
• 16:40
  And we also provide software to, to, to venues as well to
• 16:43
  help them manage their weddings.
• 16:44
  You know, we're not.
• 16:46
  day to day talking to brides, you know, I'm not a wedding planner.
• 16:49
  People often assume that when you say, Oh, my company's wedding dates, they're
• 16:52
  like, Oh, you're very busy now in the summer with all the weddings you're doing.
• 16:54
  And it's like, no, we're not actually hands on with the wedding.
• 16:58
  So the only way for us to kind of hear what the couples are saying is obviously
• 17:02
  engaging with them on social media, which is kind of more on an ad hoc basis.
• 17:06
  But the industry report was all right.
• 17:08
  All right.
• 17:09
  was the idea for that was let's survey couples and find out their
• 17:12
  preferences and we'll take that survey information and put it together into
• 17:16
  a digestible report to share with our community of wedding venues and wedding
• 17:20
  suppliers because they are at the coalface, they're hearing these things.
• 17:26
  you know, day in, day out.
• 17:27
  But a lot of wedding pros, they're hearing things from couples, but then
• 17:31
  they don't know, is this just me?
• 17:33
  Is everybody else experiencing it?
• 17:34
  Some people can feel quite isolated and not necessarily know, well, is
• 17:38
  this, is what I'm experiencing normal?
• 17:40
  And, you know, When, when COVID hit, you know, the amount of our clients that
• 17:45
  were ringing us going, what's going on?
• 17:46
  What are other venues doing?
• 17:46
  Are they, are they, you know, offering refunds of money?
• 17:50
  Are they holding money over what, you know, how are people dealing with this?
• 17:53
  You know, asking us for our advice and our opinion, because they
• 17:56
  know, obviously we talk to so many other businesses day in, day out.
• 17:59
  So.
• 18:00
  Instead of just giving kind of that ad hoc feedback, we
• 18:03
  thought, let's collate the data.
• 18:05
  So we survey over a thousand couples every year, and we disseminate all
• 18:11
  of that information, digest it, and compare it to previous years, and
• 18:16
  then we pull out some key trends and some key stats that we think will be
• 18:20
  of interest to our, our community.
• 18:24
  Becca: And you, am I right in thinking that you have both a UK wedding report
• 18:28
  and an Ireland wedding report as well?
• 18:29
  Ciara: Yes, that's right.
• 18:31
  We do two separate reports because the, the markets are similar, but you know,
• 18:35
  there's definitely differences for sure.
• 18:37
  You know, there's, there's even differences, you know.
• 18:40
  between North and South England, you know, without a shadow of a doubt.
• 18:44
  So we do, we do separate them because we do a thousand, you know, it's
• 18:48
  two completely different surveys, two completely different reports,
• 18:51
  a thousand couples in Ireland, a thousand couples in the UK.
• 18:53
  So it's, yeah, it's a behemoth.
• 18:57
  task and we don't make any money from it but it's something that I think is
• 19:01
  really important for us to do every year because it just helps us get our finger
• 19:04
  on the pulse as well you know and we we know when we go to industry events
• 19:08
  we get asked to speak at things or you know we're pitching to venues you know
• 19:12
  we've got to be able to stand over what we're doing and why we're doing it.
• 19:17
  And the only way to do that is to have your finger on the pulse.
• 19:20
  So we, we really proud of, of the report.
• 19:23
  And I think it's really vital for the industry.
• 19:26
  Becca: Yeah.
• 19:26
  And as I said, it's really lovely how it's laid out.
• 19:28
  It's really easy to digest.
• 19:29
  So just for transparency during this conversation, we're going to be
• 19:32
  talking about the UK industry report.
• 19:35
  However, I will link to both in the show notes.
• 19:38
  So if you are based in Ireland and you want to look at the Irish
• 19:40
  version of that as well, then I will make sure you can get.
• 19:43
  To that, I have one question for you Ciara as well.
• 19:47
  How do you get a thousand people to fill in a survey?
• 19:50
  Because sometimes my winning pros find it hard to even get one
• 19:52
  person to leave them a review.
• 19:53
  So how have you done that?
• 19:55
  Ciara: We do, we offer a prize because exactly right, why
• 19:58
  would people fill out a survey?
• 19:59
  And, and this survey is quite long.
• 20:00
  It takes, you know, probably about five minutes on average to fill it out.
• 20:04
  It's not a, you know, quick 30 second one.
• 20:07
  There's 50 odd questions in it.
• 20:09
  So we really go deep.
• 20:10
  So we want them to, you know, stay with us and complete it.
• 20:14
  So we do incentivize them.
• 20:15
  We ask our community of venues to give up a nice overnight stay,
• 20:20
  dinner, bed and breakfast, bottle of champagne, whatever it might be.
• 20:23
  So this year, our UK industry report was sponsored by Legacy Hotels, so they have
• 20:27
  a beautiful collection of properties.
• 20:29
  around the country.
• 20:30
  So we like to do it with a small group like that so it's not just
• 20:33
  one single venue in one place that people could pick or choose where
• 20:36
  they wanted to take their break.
• 20:38
  So just a big thank you and shout out to Legacy Hotels for supporting
• 20:42
  us with the prize this year.
• 20:43
  Becca: Yes, I love a good prize.
• 20:44
  Always a great incentive.
• 20:46
  Okay, let's dive into the data then Ciara.
• 20:48
  So what I would love to know is what are some of the key things that you've
• 20:52
  seen coming out of this year's report that are specifically useful for
• 20:57
  wedding pros and wedding venues to know?
• 20:58
  Ciara: So one of the massive things that stood out for us this year, we
• 21:02
  asked couples, you know, how the whole wedding planning process made them feel.
• 21:08
  And, Only, what was, God, trying to think of the exact number off the top of
• 21:14
  my head, but it was over 70 percent of couples said that they were underwhelmed.
• 21:18
  I think it was 73 or 74 percent of couples said that they were underwhelmed.
• 21:23
  They didn't, they weren't made to feel special when inquiring
• 21:29
  and going through the process.
• 21:30
  And that figure just shocked me, shocked me, honestly.
• 21:34
  So that means like only one in four are actually like, Ooh, I feel so special,
• 21:38
  this is such a lovely experience.
• 21:39
  It is.
• 21:39
  You know, three quarters are like, meh, they're not feeling the love and it just
• 21:44
  blew me away and I just think, you know, it is sad and it is a bit shocking,
• 21:49
  however, I always, I'm a, I'm a bit of a positive, positive person or try to, try
• 21:55
  to look at the positive glass half full.
• 21:57
  I always think, okay, let's flip that.
• 21:58
  What's the opportunity there?
• 22:00
  You know?
• 22:01
  So if the majority of couples are feeling underwhelmed, then it's very
• 22:07
  easy to stand out from the crowd.
• 22:09
  Right, so that's what I would say to the wedding pros out there, because
• 22:12
  so many people are doing this at a very, either a bad or a mediocre level.
• 22:18
  You know, standing out is actually not that hard to do.
• 22:21
  And, you know, sometimes when I come, we we, I do a webinar with the
• 22:25
  industry report every year and coming on your podcast, the people that
• 22:28
  are listening to this podcast are the people that are doing it right.
• 22:32
  They are the people that are exceeding people's expectations because the
• 22:35
  other people wouldn't be bothered listening to this podcast, right.
• 22:38
  Or wouldn't be bothered downloading our industry report or coming on the webinar.
• 22:41
  So I suppose that's the, the.
• 22:44
  the secret sauce, I suppose, you know, if you're, if you're reading this
• 22:47
  industry report, if you're interested in the data, if you're listening to
• 22:50
  this podcast and listening to the tips from, from pros or in your community,
• 22:53
  Becca, you know, that's the best of the best, that's the cream of the crop.
• 22:57
  So I think it's really, I mean, not that we're all just going to sit back
• 23:01
  and pat ourselves on the back, but it's a really nice to think, okay, well,
• 23:04
  I'm doing, you know, I'm in the cohort that is actually doing what I should
• 23:08
  be doing to make couples feel special.
• 23:10
  But I think that's really then.
• 23:13
  It isn't too hard to stand out, but of course, then you can,
• 23:16
  there's levels of that, right?
• 23:19
  So you can, I'm always saying to my team, you know, what, how
• 23:22
  can we improve things by 1%?
• 23:24
  You know, I'm always looking for that 1 percent improvement.
• 23:27
  How can we do things just a little bit better than we used to do them yesterday
• 23:30
  or last week or last month or last year?
• 23:33
  So I think that's a good challenge to any of the wedding pros
• 23:35
  listening is, you know Okay.
• 23:37
  to, to, to seek those improvements in your own businesses and
• 23:40
  seek to wow the couples.
• 23:42
  Anything that you can do that's just a tiny little bit extra to wow the
• 23:45
  couples is going to blow them away.
• 23:49
  And it's going to make the difference.
• 23:50
  Becca: I was really shocked by that statistic myself.
• 23:53
  I was saying to you before that I've been using some of these stats in some
• 23:55
  of my recent talks and I use that one.
• 23:57
  74 percent of people were not feeling special on their wedding.
• 24:01
  Like when they, viewed it by vendors.
• 24:03
  And I actually said in my talk, I was like, this is a shame on our
• 24:06
  wedding industry because this is the most important day to many
• 24:09
  people of their lives and we're not making them feel special.
• 24:13
  And you're right.
• 24:13
  The people listening are the people that do that and we can push it further.
• 24:16
  And that's a massive opportunity.
• 24:18
  But actually we need to get the word out to a wider audience that we need
• 24:22
  to make people feel special if we want to make the sale or we won't.
• 24:25
  survive in business.
• 24:27
  And one of the interesting conversations I quite often have with venues, if I
• 24:30
  consult with them, is I say, if a couple arrive on the day of their wedding,
• 24:34
  they walk into your hotel, having just got married, how do you greet them?
• 24:38
  And they're like, we put the red carpet out.
• 24:40
  We have a drink for them.
• 24:41
  We like make them feel like a million dollars.
• 24:43
  I was like, okay, now contrast that to how you greet them when
• 24:46
  they come for a show round.
• 24:48
  And their faces are like, Oh yeah, because I'm like they're making that
• 24:52
  decision on and they think that's how they you're going to make them
• 24:54
  feel on their wedding day because they haven't seen that experience.
• 24:58
  And so I think there's definitely space for all of us to do better in this area.
• 25:02
  So yeah, really, really shocking statistic, but one to spare us all for it.
• 25:07
  Ciara: Absolutely.
• 25:07
  I couldn't agree with you more, Becca.
• 25:09
  And I think, you know, It is busy in, in, for venues and for suppliers
• 25:15
  as well, you know, there's a high volume of inquiries, particularly this
• 25:17
  time of year, you know, January and February, and it can be overwhelming.
• 25:21
  And, and I think it's just a challenge to, to just pause and not
• 25:24
  just think of it as another number.
• 25:26
  This is a couple that's just bound up with their own, you know, love story,
• 25:30
  their own, you know, it could have been a long journey to getting, getting engaged.
• 25:34
  You know, they might've been saving for a long time or, you know, there, there
• 25:38
  could be, you know, everybody has a story.
• 25:40
  And I think it's, it's just trying to move off that conveyor belt and actually
• 25:46
  kind of see the humans behind it and give that personalized experience.
• 25:49
  So that's really what couples are craving is that personalization.
• 25:53
  Becca: One of the most interesting parts of the report from me was where you got
• 25:56
  people to share their common frustrations.
• 25:58
  And I actually shared this on my Instagram because I was so excited
• 26:01
  to see that everything I've been teaching for the last year was
• 26:03
  absolutely backed up in your report.
• 26:06
  So some of the common frustrations that came out to the top five, most were
• 26:09
  around pricing and price transparency and of course slow response times as well.
• 26:14
  So what would you say to wedding pros and venues?
• 26:16
  based on those frustrations that they should look at moving forward.
• 26:20
  Ciara: So yeah, that made me chuckle as well, Becca.
• 26:22
  And, you know, again, we're, we've been talking about that to our
• 26:26
  clients, you know, for a long time now.
• 26:28
  And now it's great that we actually have the data to back it up as well,
• 26:31
  because we, we all know it, right.
• 26:33
  All of us in the, in the industry, or, you know, those of us that, that are on the
• 26:36
  other side, I suppose, training, training the venues and suppliers and that.
• 26:40
  So how, how to kind of overcome that, I think the big thing is, is, you know,
• 26:46
  Walk a mile in their shoes, you know, try to see it from the other perspective.
• 26:49
  I mean, there's, there's venues and suppliers out there.
• 26:52
  They don't even look at their own website.
• 26:55
  That's just a basic starting point.
• 26:57
  Go through, use your own website as if you were a couple and actually go
• 27:01
  through the process of making an inquiry.
• 27:03
  You know, sending, sending mystery inquiries, for example.
• 27:06
  How long does it take to be, for people to get back to you?
• 27:09
  So speedy, speedy response.
• 27:11
  is vital.
• 27:12
  The vast majority of people want email communication and they
• 27:17
  want the brochure instantly.
• 27:19
  You know, they don't want to wait for the brochure to be sent to them.
• 27:22
  They want it instantly.
• 27:23
  Another thing I think is, as you said, around the pricing transparency, you
• 27:29
  know, it's a venue that we work with, I was just looking at their stats the
• 27:33
  other day and they've got an absolutely woeful conversion rate and it's a
• 27:36
  beautiful place but the feedback from couples is it was just way too expensive
• 27:40
  because they're hiding all that behind the scenes so they're getting a high
• 27:43
  volume of inquiries because they're a beautiful place, they're getting
• 27:46
  a really terrible conversion because they're not telling anybody the price.
• 27:49
  And it's just, you know, it's, it's so indicative of, of why that pricing
• 27:54
  transparency is so important because that's what people want, they want to
• 27:58
  be able to put themselves into that.
• 28:01
  category and, and no, and not be made to feel foolish or, or whatever.
• 28:05
  I think it's vital at every sector.
• 28:07
  It used to be taught that, oh, well, only budget venues would advertise the price.
• 28:13
  Whereas a high end venue, you know, price on request darling, you know,
• 28:17
  and it's no, it's that's so outdated.
• 28:19
  I think that's just gone.
• 28:22
  It's, it's just gone now and I, and I think all of those things are tied up
• 28:26
  together this, this, the speedy response, obviously for the initial inquiry,
• 28:30
  but also for follow up emails as well.
• 28:32
  And, you know, one thing that we always advocate for with venues is to use
• 28:36
  automation and to use it cleverly.
• 28:38
  So if you can be sending out proactive emails to couples, even after they've
• 28:42
  booked, you know, with, you know, Countdown 12 months to the big day, six
• 28:46
  months to the big day, three months to the big day, using automated systems that
• 28:50
  will, will trigger those emails for you.
• 28:52
  If you're proactively sending an email to a couple with all of the next things
• 28:56
  they need to do, you're probably saving yourself about four or five inbound emails
• 29:00
  from that couple asking you questions.
• 29:02
  So I just think, you know, kind of nearly cut them off at the
• 29:05
  pass, if you will, by using those.
• 29:08
  And obviously you can't by say, Then you always send emails at 12 months, 6
• 29:13
  months, 3 months, the countdown's like, what I can't be sending all those emails.
• 29:16
  That's why you need a system.
• 29:17
  You know, that's why you need automation to make it, make
• 29:19
  it easy for you to do that.
• 29:20
  So automation is your friend, but it still needs to be highly personalized to
• 29:24
  give them that wow, and make them feel.
• 29:26
  Make them feel that you care and make them feel that they're special.
• 29:28
  Becca: Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:30
  And it's interesting, isn't it?
• 29:31
  Because the stats are telling us these things.
• 29:33
  We are both saying these things in our own talks and to our own clients.
• 29:37
  Yet, I don't know if you're seeing this, but I still get quite a lot
• 29:40
  of resistance from both venues and pros around both of these areas,
• 29:45
  automation and price transparency.
• 29:47
  Are you seeing that same resistance?
• 29:48
  And what do you think it is that's causing that resistance?
• 29:52
  Ciara: I think I, so first of all, to answer your question, yes, I
• 29:55
  am seeing that resistance as well.
• 29:57
  And I think the reason is it's very simple.
• 30:01
  It's just fear of change.
• 30:03
  You know, people don't like change and there can be just that fear.
• 30:05
  That's the way we've always done it, especially for people that have maybe
• 30:08
  worked in the industry for a long time.
• 30:10
  The other resistance to it, I think is As I said, the fear of change,
• 30:15
  but you know, you've, you've, you've heard this as well, Becca.
• 30:18
  Oh, well, we, we do it personalized.
• 30:20
  That's why we need to do it manually, because we're so personalized.
• 30:24
  Which is a thing in their head, I think, but then, I mean, nobody is replying to
• 30:30
  emails 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 30:33
  I mean, or at least they shouldn't.
• 30:34
  We actually did Karis on my team did a demo with a wedding coordinator recently
• 30:38
  and she said she worked 25, eight, 25 hours a day, eight days a week.
• 30:46
  That was her way of saying that she just never switched off.
• 30:49
  And it's like, that's not healthy.
• 30:51
  That's not good.
• 30:52
  And particularly for, you know, all of us trying to manage our, our, our,
• 30:58
  Mental health or emotional health or physical well being, burnout.
• 31:02
  These are all very real things.
• 31:03
  Whether you're a solopreneur, whether you're, you know, running a wedding pro,
• 31:07
  running a standalone vendor or supplier business, or whether you work in property
• 31:12
  in a venue, you know, it's really, really important that we mind ourselves.
• 31:16
  And that's the only way that we can have longevity and sustainability in
• 31:22
  our businesses is if we mind ourselves.
• 31:24
  I, I love the phrase, you can't pour from an empty cup.
• 31:27
  And I use it all of the time when I think about, you know, over the years,
• 31:32
  I have of course run myself ragged at various times and it's the times then
• 31:36
  I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 31:38
  You're not going to have a business if you keep doing this.
• 31:40
  You need to stop, you need to slow down, you need to ask for
• 31:42
  help, you need to delegate.
• 31:44
  And use systems and tools, you know, make work smarter, not harder.
• 31:48
  We've all heard it, but sometimes taking that first step into a new system is hard.
• 31:52
  And the other very funny thing we hear is, I really, I want to do the automation.
• 31:56
  I'm, you know, they're not afraid of change.
• 31:58
  They totally want to embrace it.
• 31:59
  But they just don't have time to get the thing that's going
• 32:02
  to save them loads of time.
• 32:04
  Becca: Yeah, I hear that a lot as well.
• 32:06
  I'm like, well, just pay someone to set it up for you.
• 32:08
  Like, let's just put some more budget against someone
• 32:10
  else setting it up for you.
• 32:11
  Cause in the end, it is going to save you a huge amount of time.
• 32:14
  Now, when I was researching for this episode, Ciara, I was actually
• 32:16
  listening to another interview that you did and you told a story on
• 32:20
  there, which just made me smile when it comes to this fear of change.
• 32:23
  And you talked about how it's back in the day you were teaching venues
• 32:27
  about Facebook and how they needed to get their hotels on Facebook.
• 32:30
  And they all looked at you like you had two heads.
• 32:32
  Ciara: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:34
  That was back in, I think it was back in 2009.
• 32:36
  And I did a workshop for hotel years, all about social media marketing.
• 32:40
  And they were just sitting there saying, nobody's going to be friends with.
• 32:44
  a hotel on Facebook.
• 32:46
  This is pre Facebook pages.
• 32:47
  So talk about making me feel old.
• 32:49
  Instagram didn't, it didn't exist back then.
• 32:52
  And obviously that's a huge, huge channel for wedding pros now to
• 32:55
  generate, generate leads and, and kind of capture people's imagination.
• 32:59
  But what we saw from the industry report is that TikTok is now a
• 33:03
  massive, massive rising trend in terms of people getting inspiration.
• 33:08
  And while I know there's people out there going to be, have their head in
• 33:12
  their hands going, not another bloody social media thing that I need to learn.
• 33:17
  I'm not going dancing on TikTok.
• 33:19
  But 57 percent of couples are going on TikTok looking for wedding
• 33:23
  inspiration and you know you don't, it's not all just dancing, okay, I
• 33:27
  suppose is my message about TikTok.
• 33:29
  You know there's ways to use TikTok to share your expertise, to give
• 33:33
  tips, to be really seen as a, as an expert, to share beautiful images.
• 33:37
  You know there's lots and lots of ways that people can embrace that.
• 33:40
  And you know talking about personalization, we always talk
• 33:43
  about personalize it to the couples, you know, personalize to them.
• 33:46
  But also personalized to you.
• 33:48
  People want to see the face behind the brand.
• 33:50
  And I think it's, they're putting a lot of money and a lot of trust in you.
• 33:54
  And I think being on camera, if, if you can at all, or at least
• 34:00
  your voice or at least photo, whatever is, is comfortable for you.
• 34:04
  I think I just couldn't encourage people to do it enough because people want to
• 34:08
  see who they're doing business with, who they're giving their money to.
• 34:10
  It's that trust factor.
• 34:12
  And, you know, Looping back again, because all of these things
• 34:15
  are, are, are, are linked to the frustrations that couples feel.
• 34:20
  One of the frustrations was when they were dealing with venues and there was
• 34:22
  like, they were dealing with like five different people and people, staff
• 34:25
  were leaving and changing all the time.
• 34:27
  That was really kind of discombobulating to them because they were like, Oh,
• 34:31
  who's actually taking care of me?
• 34:33
  So, you know, that's why, you know, family run businesses often do quite well with
• 34:38
  weddings because, you know, People feel that there's huge amount of trust in
• 34:41
  booking their wedding with them because they're not going to let them down.
• 34:43
  Becca: Yeah.
• 34:44
  And it's that old marketing adage that people buy from people and we
• 34:47
  need to remember that and bring that to the forefront, even in the age of
• 34:50
  TikTok, which everyone listening to this podcast knows, I just absolutely
• 34:54
  love that we have to be on TikTok now, but people ultimately buy from people.
• 34:59
  And so we need to bring ourselves to the forefront.
• 35:01
  Now, I think two of the things, the biggest problems when people are
• 35:05
  thinking about their own businesses.
• 35:07
  and how they can embrace some of these changes are twofold,
• 35:10
  education and overwhelm of the tech.
• 35:13
  Now, I know because I've done my research, there's huge amounts
• 35:17
  now of tech solutions, people that will help you set up this tech.
• 35:21
  So just tell us a little bit about about your platform and how you're trying to
• 35:25
  help people solve some of these problems.
• 35:27
  Ciara: Sure.
• 35:27
  Thank you.
• 35:28
  So our platform developed actually out of COVID.
• 35:31
  We got, obviously our business got very quiet and the phone stopped ringing
• 35:35
  and the emails stopped coming in.
• 35:37
  So we got busy working on something that we'd been kind of thinking
• 35:39
  about for many years previously.
• 35:41
  And it's a piece of software, it's called WedPro and it's designed to really
• 35:46
  support wedding venues primarily is our.
• 35:50
  cohort of customers at the moment, not to say it couldn't work for
• 35:53
  wedding vendors as well, but our, our initial focus was, was venues.
• 35:58
  And it's a tool that really allows them to capture all of their leads, all of their
• 36:03
  inquiries from many different sources, from their own website, if they're on
• 36:06
  other third party websites, all their leads fed into one central system.
• 36:10
  Most of them are using it.
• 36:12
  Excel spreadsheets for that at the moment and it requires manual data entry.
• 36:16
  Of course, it can be prone to human error or if staff changes, et cetera.
• 36:21
  So this is one central system.
• 36:22
  We're calling it, it's a.
• 36:24
  It's a source of truth.
• 36:26
  So all of the leads are in one place.
• 36:28
  All of those triggered follow up emails are in there, the countdown
• 36:32
  to the big day for the bookings, the nudging them to book the show
• 36:36
  round for the inquiries, etc, etc.
• 36:38
  And then the reporting is, I'm a total stats junkie.
• 36:43
  I mean, if you didn't already know from the industry report.
• 36:46
  So I love the numbers.
• 36:47
  And for me, I really want to see in my own business, what's
• 36:51
  working and what's not working.
• 36:52
  And then for the venues.
• 36:53
  That we work with, we want to show them, okay, well, you're, this is all your, all
• 36:57
  of your, your marketing that you're doing.
• 36:59
  Well, what's actually working, what's not working, you know,
• 37:01
  where are your leads coming from?
• 37:03
  And also then where are your conversions coming from?
• 37:06
  And conversion rate, I think is so vital because, you know, some venues will be
• 37:10
  more or less popular than others in terms of, Just the, the reputation of the venue
• 37:15
  or whatever, but the conversion rate is so much to do with the person that
• 37:19
  they meet when they come through the door, how that person makes them feel.
• 37:22
  And we have, we, you know, I've worked with airport hotels that
• 37:26
  have really strong conversion rates because they just have a dynamo
• 37:29
  wedding or events coordinator, you know, so it's, it's, it's not always.
• 37:34
  The tip, the venues that you would expect, which is quite interesting.
• 37:37
  So I, I think the reporting side is, is really key because as you just said,
• 37:40
  back in knowledge is power and we can only make decisions to improve our
• 37:44
  business when we have that knowledge.
• 37:45
  So the reporting and then the competitive benchmarking, because
• 37:48
  obviously we're working with.
• 37:49
  So many different wedding businesses, we can show them what's average, what's
• 37:52
  normal, what they can expect in their location for a venue of their type, etc.
• 37:57
  So it's quite cool that we have that insight and can share the
• 38:00
  bigger picture as well as what's going on for them specifically.
• 38:03
  Becca: Sounds amazing.
• 38:04
  I'm sure that there is a lot of venues who really do need to move away from
• 38:08
  working from spreadsheets, especially when their team members are changing,
• 38:11
  you know, all this stuff is changing and it gives a central location.
• 38:14
  If they're then having that second resistance then of, yeah, but
• 38:17
  we don't have time to set it up.
• 38:18
  It.
• 38:19
  Do your team offer a service to help them set it up?
• 38:21
  Is that how it works?
• 38:22
  Ciara: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:23
  So we do the full onboarding.
• 38:24
  So importing all of their inquiries from, from their spreadsheet or from their
• 38:28
  other, other sources, we will do that import for them, get, you know, the, the
• 38:32
  little bit of tech installed on their, on their website that the lead capture
• 38:35
  forms and then just train them up.
• 38:37
  So it's, it's, you know, it's, Kind of a handholding training call, but we also
• 38:42
  just launching this week, actually, the Web Pro Academy, which is a training e
• 38:47
  learning platform for our for our clients to help them upskill on, you know, how
• 38:52
  to get the most out of the system, how to earn kind of their their expert level,
• 38:56
  you know, we've kind of gamified it a little bit so that they, you know, will
• 39:00
  will kind of Yeah, upscale on, on the platform and really use it the best it
• 39:05
  can be because you often have people who sign up to these things, or you
• 39:08
  might have an owner or a general manager that signs up to something and they're
• 39:11
  actually only using a fraction of it.
• 39:13
  And that's probably true of all of us in our businesses, you know, and
• 39:17
  you, you want the, the more that they're using it, the more that
• 39:20
  they're going to get out of it.
• 39:20
  So we're always trying to encourage them to use the new features
• 39:23
  because we're constantly, we've built the software in house.
• 39:25
  So we're constantly adding to it and improving it all the time.
• 39:28
  And we want them to embrace those new additions as well as.
• 39:32
  the features that they've been using and loving.
• 39:34
  Becca: It's so true and it's so important as well.
• 39:36
  If you're a venue owner listening to this, it's not just a you decision.
• 39:39
  You've got to get your team on board with these platforms and get them to
• 39:42
  buy into it because I've been on venue visits, and I'm sure you have as well,
• 39:45
  Ciara, where I asked about their system and they're like, well, the manager
• 39:49
  paid for this really expensive piece of software, but we don't really use
• 39:51
  it because we don't understand it.
• 39:52
  So we're still working from these paper files.
• 39:55
  And I just think I put my head in my hands.
• 39:57
  I think like, just get your team together for a couple of hours, teach them
• 40:00
  how to use this system and everything is going to run so much smoother.
• 40:04
  Ciara: Absolutely.
• 40:05
  Absolutely.
• 40:06
  And, you know, we've just built an integration with property management
• 40:09
  systems that hotels use as well to, because you know, those, But with
• 40:14
  those systems, they're so massive, they're such a huge investment.
• 40:17
  There absolutely has to be buy in from the team.
• 40:19
  But sometimes it's other smaller, you know, there might be an email
• 40:22
  system, there might be a CRM system, there might, whatever.
• 40:26
  And that not everybody has embraced them.
• 40:28
  So I think it's really important, you know, for us to kind of position
• 40:31
  ourselves that, you know, this is a significant investment, you know, you
• 40:34
  want to be getting the most out of it.
• 40:35
  And we're also integrating with the other significant investment that you made in
• 40:39
  terms of your property management system.
• 40:40
  So that's really.
• 40:42
  It, you're so right.
• 40:43
  It's so key to get the, get the support.
• 40:45
  But our, I want to give a little shout out to one of my team members, Jasmine.
• 40:49
  She's our customer success specialist, and she is just amazing.
• 40:52
  The, the venues love her.
• 40:54
  The wedding coordinators love her.
• 40:55
  She's a millennial bride herself.
• 40:57
  She just got married last October.
• 40:59
  So again, she knows exactly what it's like to be in the bride's shoes.
• 41:03
  So she gives really great insight and feedback.
• 41:06
  Venues ask her all the time.
• 41:07
  What do you think about this?
• 41:08
  What do you think about this?
• 41:09
  And she's able to give her opinion as a bride.
• 41:12
  as a kind of a fresh, freshly minted bride, which, you know,
• 41:15
  I can't give that perspective.
• 41:17
  You know, I'm a 42 year old mom, so I'm coming at it from a different place.
• 41:23
  But yeah,
• 41:24
  Becca: I love that it's 2024 listeners.
• 41:26
  So it's time to embrace the system, whether you're a venue, whether you're
• 41:29
  a small business owner, just start thinking about the system and stop
• 41:32
  telling yourself You can't do it because you can't understand it or you can't
• 41:35
  do it because it's going to cost you money because I promise you the amount
• 41:38
  of time it will save you will save you money in the long run as well because
• 41:43
  you are spending so much time repeating these processes over and over again.
• 41:47
  Ciara, I could talk to you all day about all of these things, but we do
• 41:51
  need to bring the episode to a close.
• 41:52
  So thank you for your time.
• 41:53
  Thank you for being here.
• 41:54
  I always end my podcast with the same question.
• 41:57
  So I'm going to pose that one to you now.
• 41:58
  And it's this, what's one thing you personally wish you'd
• 42:02
  known sooner in your own life?
• 42:04
  Ciara: Well, as I said, I've been in business for 16 years, so it's
• 42:07
  a long time and something that I wish I knew earlier on was really
• 42:12
  about that tribe, about surrounding yourself with other people that are
• 42:16
  in the same kind of situation as you.
• 42:19
  I was a good few years into my business and I was completely on
• 42:22
  my own, wasn't really involved in any, in any networks or any groups.
• 42:26
  And it was only after a few years I started.
• 42:29
  Binding other women in business groups and now I have a couple of different lovely,
• 42:35
  lovely groups that I'm involved in and I get so much from those women when I meet
• 42:39
  them, when we go to events together, if I'm struggling with something, I have
• 42:44
  people at the other end of the spectrum.
• 42:46
  phone that I can just pick up and call and that for me has been an absolute game
• 42:50
  changer and I wish I knew it, I wish I knew it sooner because I went through a
• 42:55
  few very lonely years at the beginning.
• 42:57
  The only person I could call was like my mom and dad.
• 43:01
  Oh, it's better now.
• 43:02
  Becca: Yeah.
• 43:02
  Community is so, so important.
• 43:05
  I definitely agree with you on that one.
• 43:06
  Ciara, thank you so much for your time.
• 43:08
  If people who've been listening, want to find out more about you,
• 43:11
  about your platforms, where's the best places for them to go?
• 43:14
  Ciara: So we're very active on LinkedIn.
• 43:15
  We have a LinkedIn page for wedding dates and also my own LinkedIn page.
• 43:19
  You should be able to find me easily, or we just launched our new Instagram.
• 43:23
  So the handle is getwedpro.
• 43:25
  on Instagram.
• 43:26
  So we'd love all the wedding pros out there to follow us.
• 43:29
  We share all our, you know, the stats, the industry report is linked there.
• 43:35
  Lots of different information, advice, tips, and encouragement, I suppose,
• 43:39
  for wedding pros that are listening.
• 43:41
  You'll find us on Instagram.
• 43:42
  Becca: Amazing.
• 43:43
  I will make sure I put all of those links as well as the links to the two wedding
• 43:46
  industry reports in the show notes.
• 43:48
  Thank you for your time.
• 43:49
  I hope that I can see you in person somewhere very soon.
• 43:52
  Ciara: Hope so too.
• 43:53
  Thanks for having me, Becca.
• 43:56
  Becca: I love talking about wedding industry reports.
• 43:58
  I could have had a conversation all day about those stats, but
• 44:01
  hopefully that's given you a bit of a deep dive into that report.
• 44:04
  And you can go now and read it in more detail yourself.
• 44:07
  Some of the key things that have come out is we need to make sure
• 44:09
  we make our couples feel special.
• 44:11
  We need to embrace the price transparency and we need to get back to people sooner.
• 44:15
  And as much as I don't like to say it, we really need to be on TikTok.
• 44:19
  I'll see you all next time.