Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / Are there too many people in the wedding industry?

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Are there too many people in the wedding industry? · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

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Becca: Has the wedding market become overly saturated?
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Are there too many people doing exactly what you do in your local area?
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Time and time again I hear people talking about how easy it is now for
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people to join the wedding industry and in a post Covid world working for
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yourself is more appealing than ever.
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So is this amount of competition a problem and how can you ensure you
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stand out even in a crowded market?
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I'm Becca Pountney, Wedding Business Marketing Expert, speaker and blogger,
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and you're listening to the Wedding Pros Who Are Ready to Grow podcast.
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I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life
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examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
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If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
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and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you
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love, then you're in the right place.
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Let's get going with today's episode.
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A couple of weeks back I was watching a webinar hosted by my
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friend Margo, who runs the Wedding Summit series out in the us.
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She runs training summits and workshops for all kind of wedding pros and venues.
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And earlier this year, she surveyed all of her attendees from her past
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summits to try and discover what she should teach about next and to find
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out what challenges wedding pros.
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Thought that they had right now.
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And in this webinar, she was revealing all the results.
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Now, number three on the list, the number three biggest challenge to
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wedding pros in 2024 really shocked me.
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And the answer was given was local competition.
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It really surprised me that this was being seen as such a challenge.
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So I thought, why not record a podcast about it and reflect on
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what I think about this issue.
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Now.
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I know, and hopefully you know as well, that I'm all about collaboration
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and community over competition.
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So I already, from the start of this episode, I'm going to tell
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you that that's the angle that I'm going to come at this from because
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I don't believe in competition.
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I think there's enough wedding work out there for each and every
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one of you and I think we all do better when we collaborate, we work
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together and have strong community.
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However, I probably will refer to local competition In this episode, so when I
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say that, no, that I don't really see it as competition, but it's just an
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easy way to explain and talk about this challenge that people think they have.
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So yes, I'm all about collaboration and community over competition,
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but I may mention local competition as part of this episode.
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And all I mean by that is other people doing the same thing in
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the area where you are based.
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So in this episode, I'm going to talk about some of the key challenges
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that people identified and felt that they had in their business.
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And then I'm going to give you my response to them.
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So the first challenge is that people feel like there's too many new
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suppliers coming into our industry.
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So whether you're a celebrant, a florist, a photographer, a cake maker,
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a wedding planner, the consensus is that there's lots and lots
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more people entering the industry.
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Now this could be for a variety of reasons.
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As I mentioned in the intro, people In the post COVID world, people are more
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likely to want to work for themselves, have flexible working, and especially
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when people get married themselves, quite often they realize that the wedding
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industry is a fun place to work, and all of us agree with them, I'm sure.
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There's also lots more online training, online training schools, so it can be
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easy to qualify, or I put that in a, you know, in little brackets, qualify
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as one of these different things and do the training online, and it's very
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easy to become a wedding planner, or a celebrant, or a photographer.
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Now we can spend our time moaning to each other, especially those of us that have
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been around a long time thinking that this is a really negative thing and it's bad
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for our industry, but actually I want to flip it on its head because I think that
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lots and lots of new people coming into our industry is actually really exciting
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and you shouldn't see it as a negative, but actually it could really benefit.
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Now, have you ever noticed how physical businesses like cafes or petrol
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stations often open in the same places?
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So you can drive for a mile, not see a petrol station, and then you
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get two opposite each other on both sides of the road, or you're walking
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along, you can't find a cafe, and then you get to one part of the road
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or a retail park, and there's five cafes all opened up in the same place.
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Like, this is what commercial retail space is, and Businesses do.
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Same with car dealerships.
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Quite often you'll see all the car dealerships in the same place.
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And there's actually a theory that backs up the benefit of this.
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It's called Hotelling's model of spatial competition.
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Feel free to look it up if you want to read more about it.
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But it basically says that there's benefit of more of the same people doing
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the same thing in the same place, both to the customer and to the business.
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Obviously, I don't want to go too deep into theory, so I'm going to give
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you a couple of real world examples of where I've seen this happen.
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So where I live, I live in a small village.
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When I moved here nine years ago, there were no coffee
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shops in this village at all.
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None, none at all.
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So you had to drive out somewhere else if you wanted to go to a coffee shop.
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And then a couple of years after I moved here, one coffee shop opened.
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And then a couple of years later, another coffee shop opened.
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And then very recently, just last week, last year, another coffee shop opened.
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So now we have three coffee shops all within the village, all within probably
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a 10 15 minute walk of each other or a two minute drive of each other.
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In fact, two of them are basically opposite each other on the high street.
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Now you may think, oh well that's bad, there's too many coffee shops now, there
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was none before, now there's three.
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But actually it works because you now know you can come to this village and
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For coffee, and there's lots of choices.
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Each of those coffee shops attracts a different kind of person.
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They have a different kind of price point and you might fancy
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one, one day and one another day.
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And actually having three has made them all more successful.
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I also see this in the wedding industry.
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If I can take you back in ancient history to 2010, which was when I
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got married, a lot of the businesses that exist now didn't exist.
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And.
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Weddings were a much simpler thing.
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When I got married, people often asked me about my own wedding.
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I've talked about it in the podcast before, but really we
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didn't have that many choices.
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We had the food, we had a photographer, we had a video, we had flowers,
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but there wasn't all the extra exciting things you have now.
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All the signs and the wooden signs and the, all the exciting different
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favors that you can get, or perhaps the garden games didn't exist then.
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We didn't have the photo booths at the weddings.
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All of these things that now you see almost every day.
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Wedding.
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Now, actually, because people have popped up doing these different
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businesses, and lots and lots of them have popped out, these items
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have become normalized at weddings.
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It's now expected that you will have something to entertain guests.
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At my wedding, people just stood around and had a chat.
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But these days, you would expect to have crazy golf or garden games
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or photo booths to entertain your guests while they're at the wedding.
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And because that's become normalized, more and more business are doing
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it, then actually everyone makes more money because more people are.
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Booking those services, it's become a normal part of the industry.
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So more suppliers, more people coming to our market is not a bad thing.
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In fact, it can raise awareness about the different products and services,
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normalize them in the market and make them a more popular choice, which
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leads to everyone making more money.
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Okay.
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The second challenge that came out in the survey that Margot did was that people
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worried with lots of new people coming into the industry and lots of local
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competition, that it was difficult for us all to keep a level of professionalism.
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Now I have a couple of thoughts on this.
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Now we don't have the same industry standards.
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Obviously if you're catering or dealing with food, then you have like food
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hygiene standards and things like that.
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But for most of us, we don't have those things that we are accountable to.
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And so we have to deal with our own level of professionalism.
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And I hope that most of you, I'm sure all of you do have
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that level of professionalism.
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And I think sometimes there's a worry that people come in and they charge
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really cheap and they're not very good.
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Actually, we can't do anything to control that.
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Because we can't control anyone else's actions, we can
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only control our own actions.
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So we can ensure that we're maintaining a level of professionalism, but we can't
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force other people to do the same thing.
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So a couple of thoughts on that.
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First of all, embrace new people into the industry.
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If you meet new people who, even if they do exactly the same as you do, Help them
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to be better because if we help the new people coming in to be better, point them
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to resources like this podcast, point them to training groups, talk to them about
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your own systems and how you've improved your business from what you've learned.
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Because if we make the new people better and we share our knowledge
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and share our experiences, then again, that's going to improve the
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industry reputation as a whole.
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Every single one of us is new at some point.
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Every single one of us starts somewhere.
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So embrace people coming into the industry and share and be
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open about your own experiences.
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Together, we all do better.
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The other thing is that you can be really clear about your
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own credentials and experience.
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Although we can't influence what other people are doing around us,
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we can influence the messaging we're putting out ourselves, so
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don't be afraid to talk about your experience out in the wide world.
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If you've worked at some impressive venues, talk about it in your marketing.
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If you've got a degree or a qualification in your subject, then
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talk about it in your marketing.
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Make sure that you are showing why you're professional, why
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you're worth working with.
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You can control that and you can make sure that you are standing
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out like a beacon of good.
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business service and that will always stand out.
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And the thing you've got to remember is customers are more savvy than you think.
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Just think about going to a shopping center.
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What if I go to a shopping center and you see all the main players, the main brands,
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and they have these big lovely shops.
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They're well lit.
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They've got nice signage.
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We recognize their brand colors.
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They're very established.
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And occasionally you can see that a local business of some
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kind, maybe it was a market store that's gone into a retail area.
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Outlet has opened up in one of the units and quite often they stand
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out a mile of being very different.
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They're not well lit.
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They haven't spent the same money on the signage.
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They're a different kind of feel.
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And as a customer, we are savvy to that.
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We don't need someone to tell us, Oh, this person's only been in business recently,
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or they're not a big player in the market.
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We can see with our own eyes and from our own experience, and we can
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make a choice about whether or not.
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We want to go to one shop or the other shop.
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Your customers are no different.
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Okay.
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They are savvy.
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They will see that you have a level of professionalism and experience.
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And yes, there will be some people that might go with someone else and
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then have a negative experience.
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But again, that's on them and their choice.
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All you can do is stand out in the market and make sure you're being clear about
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what you can do and how professional you are, why the importance of a
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contract, the importance of the business.
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people should go with a reputable source, why you should check websites, all of the
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things I teach you to do all the time.
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Make sure you're talking about why you're doing those things so that
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you're educating your potential clients.
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Okay.
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The third challenge that you have said that you have when it comes
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to local competition is Price wars.
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Now, I want to address this because, of course, if people come into the market,
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they're always going to be price wars.
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There's always going to be someone that's cheaper than you.
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There's always going to be people more expensive than you.
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You know, we're not in a world where we set one price and everyone
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has to charge the same price.
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That's just not how it works.
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So, price wars.
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Instead of worrying about price wars, first thing is you need
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to be clear on your own numbers.
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Do you know your numbers?
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Are you happy with the amount you're charging?
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Do you know how you got to that figure?
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Are you able to be profitable with that amount of money or is
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there any wiggle room to go up?
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You need to be confident in your own pricing without looking left
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and right at your competitors.
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Secondly, do not try and be the cheapest in your local market.
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You will never be.
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ever win that battle.
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Okay, so it won't happen if you try and be the cheapest, and here's why.
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I'm sure I've shared this on the podcast before, but I'm going to
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recap for anyone who hasn't heard it.
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I think it's helpful to be reminded.
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A few years back, I did my own market research where I went into a
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Facebook group for wedding pros and local people getting married, and
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I pretended I was getting married.
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And I asked, would anyone take the photos of my wedding for 500 pounds?
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Now, most of you listening will know that 500 pounds is quite a
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long way below the average market value for a wedding photographer,
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especially an experienced one.
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And yet must've had 10, 15, 20 comments of people that said, yes,
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please, I'll do it for 500 pounds.
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I then went back in and asked the same question and put a lower price.
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And I still got a lot of responses.
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I then went back in and asked if anyone would do it for free for experience.
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And I still got a handful of responses.
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Now, what does this show us?
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It shows us there's no point competing on price because there is always
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someone who's going to be happy to go out and do it for less money than you.
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And let them take that job for free because you don't want to do it for free.
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It's not about having as many jobs as you can on your list.
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It's about making a profit.
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And as I said before, if you're clear on your own numbers and what money
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you need to make to be profitable, it doesn't matter if other people want to
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do things for much cheaper, there is no point in you doing it because you
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know it won't help you be profitable.
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So do not try and be the cheapest.
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It will never happen.
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Don't try and undercut people.
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Stay in your own lane, know your numbers and be confident.
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In them, actually look at it the other way.
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There's a lot less competition at the top of your game.
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If you look at competing or being the highest price, well, guess what?
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There's a lot less competition.
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If you look out in the market at the luxury retailers versus the
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more high street retailers, there's a lot less of the luxury ones.
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It's a much smaller market.
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So don't try and be the cheapest one.
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You're never going to be the cheapest one.
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There's actually less competition at the top.
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Educate your clients as well on the value that you provide.
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Why are you charging that amount of money?
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Quite often we see these conversations about, you know, why, why are venues
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charging this much if it's a wedding and this much, if it's a birthday
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party, they're ripping me off.
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You know, if you do have different prices, educate your followers,
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educate your potential clients on why you've got to that amount of money.
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The more transparent you can be with your pricing, the better.
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People don't want to feel like they've got everything.
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Been ripped off.
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They are savvy shoppers.
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They're not necessarily wanting cheap, but they want to know they're
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getting value for their money, and they want to understand how you've
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come to that amount of money.
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Another example of this, so I've recently been to the dentist and
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when they told me the work I needed and how much it was going to cost,
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I nearly fell off the dentist chair.
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It was very, very expensive.
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Now, I think I probably took the dentist by surprise because I said to him, can
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you explain to me how you got to that figure because it feels really expensive?
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And he did.
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He said, well, the lab costs this much and then this costs this much and then my time
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costs this much and this material costs this much and that is why you have to pay
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all this money for this dentist treatment.
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I mean, it was refreshing and I left the dentist's office more willing
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to pay the money as much as I didn't want to because at least I understood.
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As humans, we don't want to feel ripped off.
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We want to understand how someone's got to the price that they've got to.
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Okay?
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So be confident in your pricing.
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Don't have wars with local competition about pricing.
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And often what you'll find is if you want to have longevity in this
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market, you need to hold your pricing.
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There may be people around you that pop into the market and they offer really,
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really cheap stuff, but actually they probably won't stay in business very
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long because they won't make a profit.
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And actually they probably aren't offering the level of service they need
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to, to maintain a successful business.
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So don't have price wars with the competition.
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Hold your price.
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Be confident about your pricing.
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Explain to your clients and customers how you got to that pricing.
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Be transparent.
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Okay.
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The next challenge is that if there's lots of local competition, you'll
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never go and stand out, you're just going to be one of the crowd.
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Well, again, I would say the onus on this one is on you.
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As you will know, if you've heard me talk on stage quite often, I talk about vanilla
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marketing and how you don't want to be the vanilla ice cream flavor is much better
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to be the unicorn sparkle flavor ice cream and get noticed for that and not be wanted
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by everyone than it is to be vanilla Blend in with the crowd In a crowded market,
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you need to find a way to stand out.
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That could be from your niche, it could be from your experience, it
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could be from your branding or website.
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Having a way to look different to the competition is really strong.
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So for example, if you are an ice cream cellar, but you specialize in vegan ice
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cream, or you are gonna stand out from the crowd by being the vegan ice cream cellar,
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and people are going to start to know you.
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And although your market share might be slightly smaller, you're more
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likely to get more of those clients that do want vegan ice cream because
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you're the specialist in that area.
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It might be that you're the most expensive in the area.
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It might be that you only take on 10 weddings a year.
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So you're the most exclusive person in the area.
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Think about how you personally can make yourself stand out from the crowd.
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It might be that all the other florists in the area have these really beige
16:22
websites and you go in with a bright pink and yellow spotty website.
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I don't know what it is for you, but think about how you can make yourself stand out.
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Out from the crowd.
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If there is a lot of people in your market, when they
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all zig, you need to zag.
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You need to go the opposite way to them.
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Do things a little bit differently.
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Think outside of the box, but don't feel that you need to blend in with the crowd.
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You need to do the opposite.
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You need to stand out.
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You need to know what you stand for.
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I need to shout about it from the rooftops.
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Okay, next challenge.
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Quite often I see this from people who are very well established in the industry.
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Maybe you've been in the industry for the last 10 years or more and you have all the
16:58
venues that serve you quite a lot of work.
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And one of your fears underlying of having new people coming into the industry
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is that what if they take your spot?
17:07
What if they take your spot at the venue and they start
17:10
getting the work instead of you?
17:12
Now, when you have that worry, it's actually probably more of a reflection
17:16
on your own business, because if you're relying too much on one source
17:20
for your business, then you don't have a very strong business model.
17:23
So if you're having those worries, maybe you need to look at diversifying
17:27
your portfolio, looking at other venues to promote you or finding other
17:30
avenues to income into your business rather than relying on one sole venue.
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Because if you lost that, you don't want your whole business to fall apart.
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I also think that this is a good thing to have.
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If you're worried someone's going to take your spot as a recommended
17:45
supplier at a venue, it's going to make you want to be better and it's
17:50
going to make you less complacent.
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I came across a wedding supply recently who'd been recommended at a venue for
17:57
probably over a decade and they weren't, they didn't have a very good reputation,
18:01
they were quite rude, they were difficult for the venue, and I ask them
18:06
why they weren't, you know, improving, having a website, that kind of thing.
18:09
And their answer was, well, we'll always be on this list.
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They'll never get rid of us because we've always been on it.
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Well, actually I challenged that and said, well, actually maybe there's a better
18:18
person that could come on this list.
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And if they're going to be doing things and treating everyone better, then I
18:23
think they are going to take your spot.
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Eventually complacency in business is not a good thing.
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If you are looking over your shoulder and realizing there's new people coming into
18:33
the industry all of the time, and they might take your space and you need to
18:37
take on that challenge and make yourself indisposable, go above and beyond for
18:41
the venue, help them out, do things for them that they're going to benefit from.
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If you're a photographer, make sure you're sharing images with
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them, offered to make an album that they can use at their open days.
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If they're going through a choice selection where they're going to
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take someone off the list, you.
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You want to make sure that you're not the person they want to take off.
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You're the person they go, Oh, we can't take Becca off the list because she's
19:01
doing XYZ and we really benefit from her.
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So new people coming into the industry and potentially taking your place is
19:07
actually a good thing because it will make you sit up and work harder to not
19:12
be complacent and to think about how you can make sure you're indisposable.
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I think one of the things I want to make clear throughout this episode is that
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new business is actually a good thing.
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New people coming into our industry is a really good thing.
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It's not something for you to be afraid of.
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In fact, it's something you should embrace.
19:32
Embrace new people coming into the industry.
19:34
Welcome them in.
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There is room for absolutely anything.
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Everybody, there's so many weddings and events happening, you
19:41
couldn't possibly service them all.
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So it's good that there's new people coming in that can do
19:45
some of that work as well.
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We can learn a huge amount from new people coming into the industry.
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They're not stuck in their ways.
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For a start, they've got fresh ideas, fresh perspectives,
19:54
fresh way to do things.
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And instead of us begrudging that, we should be looking at that and learning
20:00
from it and seeing what they're doing.
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How have they made their way into the industry?
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What are they doing differently?
20:04
How are they standing out from the crowd?
20:06
How are they marketing themselves when they're brand new?
20:08
You know, it's much harder for them to come into an industry and
20:10
be brand new than it is for you if you're already established.
20:14
So learn from their energy, learn from what they're doing and remember
20:17
there's room for absolutely everyone.
20:20
Now, I want to give you some reassurance because if you're listening to this
20:24
and it's making you panic or think, yeah, Becca, but you haven't said
20:27
about this, that or the other, I want to give you a couple of reassurances.
20:31
First of all, as I said earlier, there may be people that enter
20:33
the industry and they are super.
20:35
Cheap.
20:36
I have that myself.
20:36
I've got a course that I sell for a hundred pounds and someone's selling
20:40
a very similar course for nine pounds.
20:42
And, you know, I can't do anything about that.
20:45
Okay.
20:46
And so, you know, super cheap stuff will happen and it will happen to you as well.
20:51
However, I know that my work is valued at a lot more money.
20:56
I know that my experience, my knowledge, the way I teach, the quality
21:00
of my equipment and the benefits you're going to get from that is.
21:04
Definitely worth nearer to 100.
21:07
So there's no point me dropping the price.
21:09
And people may come into the industry and offer something really cheap, but they're
21:12
not going to be able to offer the level of service because if they're not profitable,
21:17
then they're going to go out of business.
21:19
Quite often we see these businesses entering the market.
21:22
Being really cheap and then going out of business, leaving couples out of pocket.
21:27
So be reassured not to let these things worry you, not to make you
21:32
think you need to go and price match them or that people will look at you
21:35
and think that you're too expensive.
21:37
Just let it go.
21:38
Let people go and book with them.
21:40
And quite often when we buy something cheap, we end up coming
21:42
back to the more expensive option.
21:44
I often talked previously about my ring light.
21:48
So I wanted a ring light for my computer.
21:49
I went on Amazon and I was in a cheap mood.
21:51
I bought the cheapest possible ring light on there.
21:54
And it was quite honestly, absolutely naff.
21:56
It was rubbish.
21:57
It keeps falling over.
21:58
It didn't stand up right.
22:00
It wasn't very good.
22:01
So what happened?
22:02
I had to go back on Amazon and spend even more money on a more expensive light.
22:05
I should have just bought the more expensive, more
22:07
experienced one straight away.
22:09
Cheaper is never better.
22:11
So don't worry about it.
22:12
Let those people do that.
22:13
They'll find out in their own time why you charge what you charge in order to
22:16
have a profitable business so that you can pay for things like your insurance
22:20
and your accountant, so that you can pay your tax and do things above board.
22:24
And remember to educate your clients on why you do that.
22:27
Secondly, if there's businesses that are not very good, then they won't survive.
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Okay.
22:33
You can only get away with pretending to do something well for so long.
22:37
Again, customers are savvy.
22:38
You will get a bad reputation in the industry.
22:41
There will be people that pop up and say they can do something, charge hardly
22:44
anything for it, and then guess what?
22:47
It's not very good.
22:47
And the customer complains or they get a negative review or it word spreads
22:52
and people don't recommend them anymore.
22:55
So again, you can't do anything to control that.
22:57
Let it happen.
22:58
Help them if you can to be better, but if not, or they're not willing
23:02
to have help, or you don't have relationships with them, just let it go.
23:05
There will be businesses that will come and go.
23:08
You want a business that lasts for a long time, is profitable, and
23:12
it has longevity in this industry.
23:14
So your business will grow.
23:15
survive.
23:16
Just let them come and go and you will still be there after it's all.
23:21
There's an exercise that I quite often do in my in person workshops.
23:25
I'm going to talk you through now and it's trying to reframe the way you look
23:29
at this competition because quite frankly all of us have people in our mind that
23:33
we think are our direct competition.
23:35
It's not.
23:35
Even though we know that it should be community and collaboration over
23:39
competition, there's those people on Instagram that we secretly look
23:42
at and see what they're up to.
23:44
So I'm going to talk you through this exercise that you can do.
23:46
Grab a piece of paper and a pen to help you reframe that.
23:50
So I want you to write down the names of one to three of these
23:54
people that do the same thing as you and you see as direct competition.
23:58
Perhaps it's another venue in the local area.
24:00
Maybe you're a photographer and it's another photographer down the road.
24:03
Maybe it's a more experienced person than you.
24:05
them down.
24:06
You don't need to share this with anyone.
24:07
It's for your own benefit only.
24:09
Then I want you to write a list of all of the things that that
24:13
business does better than you do.
24:15
Alright, dig deep, reflect and work out what they do that's
24:19
better than what you do.
24:21
Once you've done that, I then want you to write a second list of all of the things
24:25
that you do better than that competition.
24:27
What do you do that's better than what they do?
24:31
Once you've done this exercise, you should have a long list of things that
24:34
other people do better than you and things that you do better than them.
24:38
I want you to take the list of things that other people do better than
24:41
you and use that as a goals list of things you need to improve on.
24:45
If they've got an incredible Instagram page, if they've got better terms
24:48
and conditions, if they've got better imagery, well they're all things
24:52
that you can improve on yourself.
24:53
So spend some money improving things or join my membership and
24:57
learn how to use Instagram more effectively or how to market yourself.
25:01
Better.
25:01
You have control of these things.
25:03
You can get yourself up to the same level or better than they are.
25:07
Then take the list of things you do better than them and realize
25:10
this is your marketing messaging.
25:12
These are things you need to be shouting from the rooftops, across your website,
25:15
across your Instagram, across reels.
25:17
If you think that you've got better customer service, talk
25:20
about your customer service.
25:21
Share testimonials that back up that you have good customer service.
25:25
Because if you're doing something better than the competition, you want
25:27
to make sure you're shouting about it.
25:31
As we bring this episode to a conclusion, I want to finish by saying that I
25:35
believe in this industry we should be making friends with everyone.
25:39
Make friends with as many different wedding professionals and venue
25:42
owners as you possibly can, even, and probably definitely, if
25:47
they do the same as what you do.
25:50
You know, We're such a lovely industry to be part of, and we should be raising each
25:54
other up, not knocking each other down.
25:56
We shouldn't be afraid of people coming into the industry.
25:58
We should embrace it.
25:59
So make friends with them.
26:01
Someone who's new today might be a really successful business owner in five years
26:05
time, and you'll be glad that you took the time to learn from them and work
26:08
with them and collaborate with them.
26:10
Don't look down on them for being new.
26:12
New doesn't mean that they're not better than you.
26:14
In fact, you should be looking to them because they may have a
26:16
fresh idea and a fresh perspective that you could learn from.
26:19
There's more than enough work for all of you.
26:21
And when we collaborate together, we can pass work on
26:24
to each other when we're busy.
26:26
Imagine if you've got friends in the area, if you're friends with all the
26:29
people in the area that do the same thing as you, and they all have the odd
26:32
dates that they can't do, and they send them your way, you'll have lots of work.
26:37
community and collaboration over competition every time.
26:42
I hope from the end of this episode you're now thinking that this idea
26:46
of having local competition isn't a negative, it's actually a positive.
26:50
So go out there, embrace it and use it to make your own wedding business better.