Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / Lessons learnt from the Wedding Business Retreat

Transcript

Lessons learnt from the Wedding Business Retreat · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

• 0:00
  Becca: Last week I had the most incredible week at our wedding business retreat.
• 0:04
  It's the third time that we've run the retreat and it was incredible.
• 0:08
  The people who came showed up with so much energy and enthusiasm to
• 0:11
  grow their wedding businesses and we learned loads and of course
• 0:14
  had a lot of fun along the way.
• 0:16
  In today's episode I want to share with you some of the things that I learned
• 0:19
  on the retreat that I think will help you and your wedding business too.
• 0:23
  I'm Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert.
• 0:28
  Speaker and blogger and you're listening to the wedding pros
• 0:31
  who are ready to grow podcast.
• 0:33
  I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies and real life
• 0:36
  examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
• 0:40
  If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
• 0:44
  and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you
• 0:47
  love, then you're in the right place.
• 0:49
  Let's get going with today's episode.
• 0:52
  The wedding business is an experience like no other.
• 0:56
  We go away for three nights in a luxury hotel and it's a real
• 1:00
  opportunity for us to dive deep into the businesses of the attendees.
• 1:04
  It's the third year that we've run it and I run it with my wedding
• 1:07
  industry colleague, Kelly Mortimer.
• 1:08
  It's the only thing that we do together, but I absolutely love that we can bring
• 1:12
  our knowledge and experience together.
• 1:15
  to give the guests that week the best possible experience.
• 1:18
  This year, we had our retreat up in the gorgeous Beamish Hall
• 1:21
  Hotel up near Newcastle, and it was the most stunning venue.
• 1:24
  We had exclusive use of the hotel for the whole few days.
• 1:28
  All of the facilities, we had singers, magicians, gorgeous food cooked for
• 1:32
  us, and the most beautiful bedrooms.
• 1:34
  We just felt like we were treated like.
• 1:36
  Queens.
• 1:38
  So I wanted to share with you some of the things that came out of the retreat
• 1:41
  this year that I thought might help some of you in your wedding business as well.
• 1:45
  Now the first thing is actually from a guest speaker session.
• 1:49
  So this year we had the fabulous Carol Perez came and gave a guest session during
• 1:54
  the retreat that me and Kelly could also benefit from because we could sit back
• 1:58
  and listen to someone else talking rather than doing all the talking ourselves.
• 2:02
  And it was something totally different for us.
• 2:04
  Carol was Talking all about joy and happiness and how we can bring more
• 2:09
  joy into our daily lives and more happiness into our lives as well.
• 2:14
  And she said something that really resonated with me that was that one
• 2:17
  day she woke up and realized she'd become too serious in her business.
• 2:22
  I'm going to say that again.
• 2:23
  One day she woke up and realized she'd become too serious in her business.
• 2:27
  And I could really see how that can happen.
• 2:29
  I feel like I can be quite fun and bubbly, and I've got loads of things I love.
• 2:33
  I love Disney.
• 2:35
  I love musical theater, but sometimes the world around us tells us that to
• 2:39
  be successful and to run a business, we have to be a certain kind of archetype.
• 2:43
  We need to present really professionally, or we need to dress
• 2:46
  in a certain way, or we need to look a certain way on Instagram.
• 2:49
  And we can.
• 2:50
  kind of fall into this trap of becoming too serious.
• 2:53
  And as I talk about a lot in my sessions, becoming quite vanilla,
• 2:56
  trying to fit in with the crowd, trying to be like everyone else, instead of
• 3:00
  injecting our personality into it.
• 3:03
  And I really enjoyed what she said on that because actually we should
• 3:06
  all have more joy in our businesses.
• 3:08
  We can all find more joy in just Being ourselves and bringing a bit
• 3:12
  of personality into our businesses.
• 3:14
  So if you feel like you've become too serious, maybe you feel like
• 3:18
  you've got to fit into a certain mold, or there's aspects of your
• 3:20
  personality that you're squashing that you don't want people to see well.
• 3:25
  Actually, you can have permission to do what you want.
• 3:28
  One of the things I said, I'm going to do more of is just seeing and have
• 3:31
  fun and talk about my personality more on my social media and not feel
• 3:35
  like I've got to be this archetype, perfect professional person.
• 3:39
  So that's the first learning from me is actually from Carol's talk.
• 3:43
  All about joy is if you've become too serious in your business.
• 3:48
  It's time to change it up a bit.
• 3:49
  If that's your personality, absolutely fine, but if you feel like you've
• 3:52
  become something that you're not really, then it's okay to inject a
• 3:55
  bit of fun and a bit of personality into your life and business.
• 4:00
  Okay, the second learning is all around customer service because
• 4:04
  my experience at Beamish Hall as a retreat venue was incredibly good.
• 4:09
  I have very rarely been to a venue or a hotel where every single member
• 4:15
  of staff is polite, is friendly, is helpful, says good morning to you, says
• 4:19
  good afternoon to you, says how are you doing, can I do anything to help you.
• 4:23
  And that was my experience at Beamish Hall.
• 4:25
  So big shout out to the Beamish team, thank you for being so amazing.
• 4:29
  Because often in these places, you know, you have some people who are maybe
• 4:33
  running the event, who are really kind and polite and helpful to you, but maybe
• 4:37
  some of the other members of staff, maybe the Bar staff or the waitresses or the
• 4:40
  reception don't necessarily have the same energy or maybe are a bit short with
• 4:45
  you or maybe even sometimes rude to you.
• 4:49
  And it really stood out to me this week at how much the staff at
• 4:53
  Beamish Hall were not like that.
• 4:55
  Every single member of staff made me feel welcome.
• 4:57
  Every single member of staff was helpful and friendly and that made
• 5:02
  such a big difference to the week.
• 5:05
  As a whole, if your whole team can bring that kind of positive energy,
• 5:10
  it has a huge impact on your guests.
• 5:13
  So it's a reminder really that a real positive good customer service experience
• 5:18
  makes all of the difference because ultimately sometimes things do go wrong.
• 5:22
  All right, you're in a hotel, maybe something breaks in a room or, you
• 5:26
  know, someone forgets to do something, they forget to do housekeeping or, you
• 5:29
  know, mistakes happen all of the time.
• 5:31
  But when you have that level of good customer service.
• 5:35
  It's much easier to apologize and make a mistake better because
• 5:40
  you're already in a good light.
• 5:41
  You know what it's like when we start complaining about something,
• 5:43
  then we start finding more and more things to complain about.
• 5:46
  Well, it's the other way too.
• 5:47
  So when we're in a really good thought and mindset about something,
• 5:50
  we'll find reasons to defend it.
• 5:52
  So are you thinking about the customer service level in your own business?
• 5:57
  Whether it's just you making sure you're always doing things with a
• 6:00
  smile and always replying on time and doing all those good things, or
• 6:04
  if you have a team making sure...
• 6:06
  All of your team are having a positive impact because one team
• 6:10
  member that's letting the side down really can make a difference to
• 6:13
  that experience for the customer.
• 6:17
  Okay.
• 6:18
  Third thing.
• 6:18
  And we are going to be bouncing all over the place because over the retreat,
• 6:21
  we learned about loads and loads of different subjects over three days.
• 6:24
  So some of these things might be a little bit left field and not quite
• 6:28
  concurrent with each other, but I want to share them all with you.
• 6:31
  So.
• 6:32
  The next thing is that each different stage of your business
• 6:35
  needs a different level of help.
• 6:38
  One of the things that's interesting when we come together for something like the
• 6:41
  retreat is that often people in the room are at different stages in their business.
• 6:46
  That's always going to be the way, whether you're in an online membership,
• 6:49
  a free community, going to a training day conference, or coming on the
• 6:53
  retreat, you'll have people that are just right near the start of their
• 6:56
  journey that are wanting to launch onto the scene in a positive, impactful way
• 7:01
  and they're investing in learning how
• 7:02
  to do that.
• 7:03
  You may have people that are very, very experienced, but actually have
• 7:08
  kind of lost touch with how to do marketing and things like that.
• 7:11
  Or you might have people that are incredibly successful, but know how
• 7:14
  important it is to keep their personal development up to date or how important
• 7:18
  the networking side of things are.
• 7:20
  Or if it comes to the retreat, just want a bit of a rest from day to day life.
• 7:24
  And it's okay that everyone's at different stages of business.
• 7:28
  But it's also important for you to recognize the stage that
• 7:31
  you're at and to know that not all training and not all business help
• 7:36
  is for everyone at every stage.
• 7:38
  What do I mean by that?
• 7:39
  Well, actually, sometimes you need to realize that a certain business
• 7:43
  training is possibly too advanced for you or isn't relevant to you right now.
• 7:47
  So, for example, if we're talking all about finance and we're talking about
• 7:52
  higher tax brackets or becoming VAT registered, and you're just at the
• 7:56
  start of your self employed journey, that probably isn't necessarily 100
• 8:00
  percent relevant to you at this stage.
• 8:02
  Now it might be down the future and hopefully it will be, but don't use
• 8:06
  up your time listening to trainings that aren't relevant to you now.
• 8:10
  On the other hand, if you're really struggling with just the basics
• 8:13
  of what to post on social media or how to use Instagram, then don't
• 8:17
  feel like you're any lesser because you're having to watch more basic.
• 8:21
  kind of levels of training.
• 8:23
  In fact, that's your superpower.
• 8:24
  You want to go through those basic levels to make sure you understand that
• 8:27
  before you move on to the greater levels.
• 8:30
  So I just want to encourage you to think about the training that you're
• 8:33
  immersing yourself in, the things that you're watching, and to think
• 8:37
  why you're watching them and are they relevant to this stage of your business.
• 8:41
  Sometimes we can get a bit Training and challenge and free training overloaded.
• 8:47
  Sometimes it's important that we take a step back and think about,
• 8:49
  okay, what do we actually need help with right now, rather than whats
• 8:52
  shiny on the internet right now that I feel like I need to watch.
• 8:57
  Now, this realization has actually changed a huge amount in my own business.
• 9:01
  So you may or may not know, I have a community paid membership called
• 9:05
  the wedding pro members lounge.
• 9:06
  That's been going since 2019.
• 9:09
  So it's been.
• 9:09
  established quite a while now and inside there we have loads of business training.
• 9:14
  However, because we've been going so long, there's now loads of training and
• 9:18
  it has become a little bit overwhelming and not all of the training is relevant
• 9:22
  to all of the people at all of the levels, exactly as I've just said.
• 9:25
  So even in my own world, I'm addressing this.
• 9:28
  So within the roadmap.
• 9:33
  So that when you come into my membership, you start at the bottom
• 9:37
  and you can go to the build level and watch all of the trainings that
• 9:40
  are suitable for you when you're just starting to build your business.
• 9:43
  And then when you've completed those, if you feel like you're at the next
• 9:46
  level, which is grow, then it tells you what trainings to watch at that stage.
• 9:50
  And then we go up to advanced as well.
• 9:52
  So if you're a more advanced level, you can watch the more advanced trainings.
• 9:57
  So I want you to have a think about where you're at right now and make
• 10:01
  sure that you're listening to and learning from things that are relevant
• 10:05
  to the stage of business you are at.
• 10:08
  There is no point in watching a training about growing a team and outsourcing if
• 10:12
  you're right at the start of the journey and you're still getting things set up.
• 10:16
  Instead, you might want to watch something about branding or marketing
• 10:19
  messages or sustainability, but you don't necessarily to be watching things
• 10:24
  on VAT returns or employing staff.
• 10:29
  Okay, the next thing I want to talk about is how people
• 10:32
  will pay more for convenience.
• 10:35
  Okay, we're going off on another different tangent as well, but this
• 10:37
  is just from my experience last week.
• 10:39
  Now, at the retreat, we were in the middle of nowhere.
• 10:42
  That's often the case with these beautiful manor houses.
• 10:44
  We were in acres and acres of beautiful land.
• 10:46
  We had the place to ourselves.
• 10:48
  We were But there's one thing that I really like to have in
• 10:51
  the morning and turns out Kelly does too, which is a nice coffee.
• 10:54
  Now I'm a bit of a coffee snob.
• 10:57
  Most of you have probably looked down on me for this, but I just
• 10:59
  don't like pure coffee, right?
• 11:01
  It's too bitter for me.
• 11:02
  I like sweet coffee.
• 11:03
  So I love a caramel latte, anything like that, but just a pure filter coffee.
• 11:08
  I just can't drink it.
• 11:09
  Tea.
• 11:09
  Yes.
• 11:10
  Coffee.
• 11:10
  No.
• 11:11
  So as we're at the hotel, obviously all of the coffee available at the hotel
• 11:14
  while we were there was filter coffee and instant coffee, which is fair enough.
• 11:18
  And Most people were happy with that.
• 11:20
  However, I kept thinking, I just wish I could have another kind
• 11:23
  of coffee and it turned out Kelly was thinking something similar.
• 11:26
  And so I went on to Uber Eats just out of curiosity to see if I
• 11:30
  could order coffee to the hotel.
• 11:33
  Well, it turns out even in the middle of nowhere, I could order a Starbucks coffee
• 11:37
  for myself and Kelly directly to the hotel to be delivered within half an hour.
• 11:41
  Now obviously I'm going to be paying a premium for that.
• 11:44
  I could use the free filter coffee in the hotel that was provided.
• 11:48
  I could have had an adequate.
• 11:49
  cup of coffee.
• 11:50
  But because I wanted something better and it was so convenient, I was willing,
• 11:55
  and we were willing, to pay a little bit of a premium to get that service.
• 12:00
  Now, why am I telling you about my coffee?
• 12:02
  Well, not only because this poor man had to cycle with my coffee all
• 12:05
  the way down to the hotel that day.
• 12:07
  Don't worry, I gave him a nice tip to say thank you.
• 12:10
  But it's a reminder to us that people will pay more when things are convenient.
• 12:15
  If you could help someone at the last minute, or you can help someone
• 12:18
  with a problem they're struggling to solve, or you can make it easy
• 12:21
  for them to work with you, they are more likely to pay a premium.
• 12:26
  So if you've got this money mindset, that the only way people will
• 12:28
  work with you is if you're cheap.
• 12:30
  Or if you cost less or if no one else is offering it cheaper, then
• 12:34
  you need to change that perspective because people will pay more if they
• 12:38
  want something, if you're offering a superior or luxury product, or
• 12:42
  if you're convenient, if it's easy.
• 12:44
  I mean, how often when we can pay for something on Apple
• 12:47
  Pay, do we do it really quick?
• 12:49
  Like I have, um, thing where I have to pay for my child's football
• 12:53
  and they now let you do it on Apple Pay and I do it every time.
• 12:57
  But when someone sends me an invoice and I've got to log into my internet
• 12:59
  banking and find the details, normally it takes me slightly longer to do it.
• 13:03
  It's not convenient because I don't have my card to hand.
• 13:06
  So the more convenient something is, the more likely you are to make the sale
• 13:09
  and the more likely they are to pay.
• 13:11
  Premium.
• 13:11
  So have a think about your offering and your own money mindset and think
• 13:15
  how could you make it more convenient?
• 13:17
  How can you charge a premium for a service and what can you
• 13:20
  do to solve people's problems?
• 13:23
  Okay, the next thing that I want to talk about is how you are the expert
• 13:27
  and you need to tell people about it.
• 13:29
  One of the exercises we did on the retreat was to get people to create reels
• 13:34
  and blog posts in the room because me and Kelly are all about action taking.
• 13:38
  We don't want to just teach you the theory.
• 13:39
  We want you to actually go out there and get stuff done.
• 13:42
  So we set people a task to find something that they're the expert in
• 13:47
  and to talk about it on a reel or on a blog post and to go away and make it.
• 13:52
  And the response people had back to those reels after they posted
• 13:55
  them was really, really positive.
• 13:57
  If you want to help your couples, education is one of the best
• 14:00
  ways to stand out and to do that.
• 14:02
  And making it really simple, just because you know a lot about your
• 14:05
  subject doesn't mean that they do.
• 14:07
  It's the first time they're getting married, and probably, or one of the
• 14:10
  first times, and they're not an expert.
• 14:12
  in the wedding industry like you are.
• 14:14
  Now, if you're a cake maker or a florist, you're doing this stuff day in, day
• 14:17
  out, and you understand it to a tee.
• 14:19
  But the general public don't understand what you do.
• 14:22
  So if you can break it down for them into some really simple tips on a video or a
• 14:26
  reel, that's really going to stand out.
• 14:28
  Now, don't overcomplicate this.
• 14:30
  You don't need to do a half an hour live or a really long
• 14:32
  podcast like I'm doing here.
• 14:34
  Instead, you can just say something like how to choose your wedding
• 14:37
  dress part one, and then just give a really simple tip about being open
• 14:41
  minded and making sure you go into the appointment with an open mind.
• 14:45
  Now, the great thing about doing a series like this, as in, you know,
• 14:48
  how to find your wedding dress part one, is you can then do how to
• 14:51
  find your wedding dress part two, part three, part four, part five.
• 14:54
  And down the line, when people find part five or part three and
• 14:57
  they enjoy it, Guess what they do?
• 14:59
  They go to your profile and they start watching your other videos as well.
• 15:02
  Keep it short, keep it snappy, but remember you're the expert and the
• 15:06
  people that did this on the retreat had a really great response almost
• 15:09
  immediately from people commenting and liking and contacting them because
• 15:14
  people like to be educated and if you can show yourself to be the expert
• 15:18
  then that's a really great thing.
• 15:20
  Okay, my next tip may sound really obvious, but I think sometimes we
• 15:25
  doubt ourselves, and that is to go with your own gut instincts.
• 15:28
  I had some great conversations with people on the retreat about ideas they
• 15:32
  had for their business, or things that they wanted to do differently, or creative
• 15:36
  ways to exhibit at a wedding show, or creative ways to market themselves.
• 15:40
  And quite often they have a sense of doubt, they're looking for approval
• 15:44
  and what happens in that scenario is maybe they go to their friends or their
• 15:47
  family to ask their opinion and because maybe it's outside of the box, their
• 15:51
  friends and family say, Oh, I don't know if you should do it like that.
• 15:54
  Well, actually, I want to say to you.
• 15:57
  Be brave and go with your gut.
• 15:59
  You know, your business, you know, yourself, you know what you want to do.
• 16:03
  So sometimes you need to go with your gut feeling just because your friends
• 16:07
  and family maybe don't agree with it.
• 16:09
  Doesn't mean that they are right.
• 16:11
  They are not experts in the industry.
• 16:13
  They're not running your business for you.
• 16:15
  They don't necessarily know.
• 16:16
  They just know what everyone else is doing out there in the world.
• 16:19
  And as you know, comparisonitis is not the way to grow your business.
• 16:23
  So I want to remind you to go with your gut.
• 16:25
  If you want to put your prices.
• 16:27
  If you want to make a change in your business, if you want to take away a
• 16:29
  service, if you want to offer a new service, if you want to change your
• 16:33
  branding, change your website, do something totally different with your
• 16:36
  marketing, and you feel in your gut that you should, why not go with it?
• 16:41
  Go with your gut.
• 16:42
  Don't look for approval from others all of the time.
• 16:44
  So some of you might need that reminder right now to go with your gut.
• 16:48
  And if you are looking for approval, go to places where people understand
• 16:52
  what you're talking about.
• 16:53
  So go into a group.
• 16:54
  of wedding professionals.
• 16:55
  Talk to your wedding professional friends, go to someone like myself
• 16:59
  or Kelly and talk to us about it from a business strategy perspective.
• 17:02
  But don't undermine yourself and don't let your friends and family influence
• 17:08
  you when they don't necessarily know what they're talking about.
• 17:13
  Okay, this brings me to my final learning from the retreat.
• 17:16
  There's so much more I could talk to you about the retreat.
• 17:18
  We had so much fun and I think particularly the importance of having fun.
• 17:23
  We let our hair down and it's so good to see wedding pros having fun.
• 17:26
  Honestly, so important, but that's not my final point.
• 17:29
  My final thing is this.
• 17:31
  Remember to surround yourself with people who get it.
• 17:35
  Find your people.
• 17:37
  Whenever I do anything in person, I remember how important it is to surround
• 17:41
  yourself with people who get it.
• 17:44
  The thing that makes The Retreat incredible isn't just the teaching
• 17:48
  that myself and Kelly give, but it's the people in the room and the way
• 17:52
  that they show up for each other, the way they lift each other up, encourage
• 17:55
  each other and grow their businesses.
• 17:58
  together.
• 17:59
  And it's really important to find your people.
• 18:02
  One of the questions I got asked when I was away was, how do I decide
• 18:06
  which wedding membership to join and what communities to be part of?
• 18:09
  And my answer was, They might be teaching you the same things, but
• 18:13
  you've got to find a leader that you align yourself with and a group of
• 18:18
  people that get you and you get them.
• 18:22
  All right.
• 18:22
  The culture of a group, the culture of a leader is so, so crucially important.
• 18:28
  If you are going to invest in any kind of wedding membership or wedding business
• 18:32
  training, if something or someone makes you feel uncomfortable, then maybe
• 18:37
  it's not quite the right thing for you.
• 18:38
  That doesn't mean it's not the right thing for someone else, but
• 18:41
  you know, yourself best and you want to find the right people.
• 18:44
  I absolutely love it when my members get together or when I see people
• 18:49
  in my world get together because I know they're my kind of people.
• 18:52
  They're up for a laugh.
• 18:53
  They're not taking themselves too seriously.
• 18:55
  They can appreciate my love of Spice Girls and even if they don't like it themselves.
• 19:00
  But most importantly, they're not putting each other down.
• 19:03
  There's no culture of I'm better than you and you're not good enough.
• 19:06
  And you need to stop treading on my toes.
• 19:08
  There is none of that.
• 19:10
  The people in my world lift each other up, support each other, promote each other,
• 19:15
  tell each other, encourage each other.
• 19:16
  And that is so crucially important.
• 19:20
  And that's what happened on the retreat.
• 19:22
  The culture of the people in that room, it was just incredible.
• 19:25
  They are the most incredible people and they've made great business relationships.
• 19:30
  And that isn't by accident because they put themselves in the right
• 19:33
  room with the right kinds of people.
• 19:36
  So I want to encourage you, if you feel like you're not in the right space,
• 19:40
  if you don't feel like you've got a community, if you don't feel like
• 19:44
  you've got wedding industry friends to support and encourage you, or you feel
• 19:48
  out of place, or like something's a bit weird and cliquey, then change it.
• 19:53
  Go find your people, whoever your people are, wherever your people are
• 19:57
  in the wedding industry, go find them and be part of something incredible.
• 20:02
  Because surrounding yourself with people who get it, who are there to inspire
• 20:06
  and encourage you in your business walk, who are there when things feel hard and
• 20:11
  are there to celebrate you when things go well, is completely invaluable.
• 20:16
  So if you're listening to this and you haven't yet found your
• 20:19
  people, go out and find them.
• 20:21
  It is the best feeling in the world when you have a great group of
• 20:25
  wedding pros to be your friends and to support you in your business pursuits.
• 20:30
  However, that's with me and my members, which you'd always be welcome to pop.
• 20:33
  be part of, or whether that's elsewhere, go out there, find your
• 20:37
  people and enjoy being part of a community that lifts each other.
• 20:43
  The wedding business retreat was so, so incredibly exciting.
• 20:47
  I absolutely loved it and I hope that today from me sharing just some of
• 20:51
  these things that I learned has given you a bit of a taste of what it's
• 20:54
  like and given you an opportunity to learn from the experience.
• 20:59
  as well.
• 21:00
  Go out there, find your people, be unapologetically you, and
• 21:04
  back to what I said at the start, don't be too serious in business.
• 21:07
  Life's too short.
• 21:08
  I'll see you next time.