280. 3 Things I Would Do TODAY If My Business Was Brand New

If you had to start your wedding business from zero today—no clients, no reputation, no audience—how would you get booked FAST? Most wedding pros waste years figuring it out, but I’m handing you the roadmap in this episode.

The truth is, success isn’t just about talent—it’s about strategy. 

If you’re tired of feeling overworked, underpaid, and wondering where your next booking is coming from, this is the episode you can’t afford to miss. 

Hit play now and get the exact blueprint to start (or restart) a wildly profitable wedding business!

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Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Wedding Pro CEO Podcast. If you find these strategies helpful, make sure to share this episode with your fellow wedding pros. And remember, in the world of weddings, it's all about building genuine relationships and showcasing your best work. Until next time, keep shining, CEOs!

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Chapters

• 0:00 If I Lost Everything Today
• 0:43 Don't be Vanilla
• 1:37 What Makes Your Company Unique?
• 3:14 Short Form Content
• 4:49 Sales Funnel Optimization
• 7:24 Free Training

Transcript

Brandee Gaar: 0:00

If I lost everything today, my business, my reputation, my audience, and I had to start from zero in the wedding industry, here's exactly what I would do to get booked fast. Most wedding pros waste years trying to figure this out, but I'm handing it to you right now in the next few minutes. Hey there, CEO, you're listening to the Wedding Pro CEO podcast, the podcast to help you grow and scale your profitable wedding business. I'm your host, Brandee Gaar. And over the last 17 years, I've grown one of the largest planning firms in Orlando, Florida, and grossed more than 6 million in revenue. But if I lost it all today and I had to start over, there's a few things I know that I would do right away to start seeing those bookings start flooding in. So first things first, we've got to make sure that we create the best offer out there. Now, in the wedding industry, you're probably like, Okay, what do you mean I have to create the best offer? Literally, we all do the same things, and I would agree with you. However, the marketing challenge that I see so many brand new wedding pros making is that they are so vanilla. When in reality, what people are looking for is rocky road, mint chocolate chip, Like, how are you unique? And how do you directly serve what your ideal clients are looking for? What I see so often from brand new wedding pros is they create their marketing to just say, like, we help you plan flawless details or, you know, we capture your love story on film. And it's like, well, No kidding. Isn't that like your job? You know, like you're a photographer. Aren't you supposed to capture my love story or you're a planner? Aren't you supposed to make sure that all my details are going flawlessly? But what is it that you specifically do? What makes you unique? What kind of clients do you specifically serve and what problems do you solve uniquely? You've got to stand out in the marketplace. You've got to make people think, Ooh, wait a second. I want to know more. For example, instead of saying, we offer stress free wedding planning. Boring. So does everyone. Hopefully. That's a wedding planner. Instead, I want you to say something like, we offer stress free planning for discerning couples that actually stays on budget without the nightmare of doing it all alone. Do you see the difference in helping people to understand they care about their budget? They're discerning. They understand that they need help. They don't want to do it all alone and they want to be stress free. But it's much different than just saying, we offer stress free wedding planning. I want you to speak directly to the couples that you're looking for. There's a couple of students inside of my program that really master this and I love reading their marketing because they really focus on Clients that are specifically in different venues or locations. For instance, one of the planners that's inside of my program She really focuses on Private estate weddings that are often very very difficult to manage because they have a lot of logistical challenges And so she speaks directly to how they work with couples that are in challenging locations So that they don't have to worry about the details and it's like yes That is who she serves and for those couples. They like know okay She's our girl because that's what she does, right? So that's what I want from you, especially right at the beginning I want you to speak directly to the people that you serve What makes you the best? What makes you different than the other people in your market? Speak to that client. Okay, the second thing I would do is I would become a master of short form content. And this is absolutely a non negotiable at this point because short form content is king when it comes to marketing. And what I mean by that is I want you to master being on camera. Talking on your stories, Reels, TikToks, now these videos can also be used on LinkedIn and Pinterest. They can be used absolutely everywhere and they are the key to getting people to know, like, and trust you. The reality is wedding pros love to hide behind the camera and just show the pretty details of their work. but the wedding pros who are actually killing it are the ones who are showing their face and showing who they are showing the personality of their brand. Since this video is all about what I would do if I was brand new in the market or I had to start completely over from zero, I'm going to be super honest and tell you that I would be posting three to five short form videos per week with my face in it. And I know that that might sound like Holy Potato Sticks, Brandee. But if you were to batch them all at the beginning of the week, and you're just literally answering questions that your clients have, helping them to understand and navigate the planning journey that they're going through, you would easily have so much content. You just sit down, like I'm doing right now on YouTube. You can see me if you're watching this on YouTube. I'm literally just talking to the camera and pretending that my ideal customer is right behind the lens, and I'm just talking directly to you and solving a problem. That's what you're going to do in your short form content. And if I was starting from zero, I would be posting at least three to five times a week, short form on both Instagram and TikTok. And the third thing that I would do if I was starting completely from zero is I would be obsessive about my sales funnel. And listen, I'm 17 years in and I'm still obsessive about my sales funnel. I literally look at our sales numbers for blush every single week. I look at how many inquiries came in. I look at how many of those did a consult. I look at how many of those consults went to booking and where we are in the process. How long are they taking to book? Are the inquiries that we're getting quality inquiries? Are they at venues that we want to work in and that we like to work in? I want to know all of it. I'm obsessive about my sales funnel now, and I always will be. But if I was first starting out, I think this is a really huge piece of the puzzle that gets missed is you're only focusing on how many Bookings that you got. In reality, if you're focused on every piece of the sales funnel, you'll start to quickly understand where you need to apply more pressure in your business, where you need to really focus to continue to scale. And that's the name of the game, right? We don't just want to book a few weddings. We want to book a lot of weddings. We want to build a multi six figure empire. And to do that, you have to understand how each section of your sales funnel is performing. So you want to understand when you're doing certain marketing, Is it bringing in more leads? Right? If you're posting three to five times a week, is that starting to turn out leads? If you go to a networking event, are you starting to see more referrals come in? As you're networking with different venues, are you starting to see referrals come in from that venue? What can you do differently to see more leads come in? Once you start seeing those leads come in, are those leads actually going to consult? Do you need to work on your follow up process? Is your pricing off base? How are you getting more of those people to book a consult? And then once they do get to that consult, are you closing them? Are you selling them? Are they taking too long to book? Are they ghosting you? Are they giving you all kinds of various reasons why they're not ready to book? That's going to be a conversion issue. And I would be completely and totally obsessed with this. I would be watching my sales numbers every single week I would want to know where my sales funnel is dropping off. And that would be something that would be a non negotiable in my business. Every single week I would have time set aside to review my sales funnel. And listen, if you're listening to this and you're 15 years into your business and you're like, wow, I literally have never. Really obsessed about my sales funnel. Now's the time, CEO. I want you to know every single step of your sales funnel off the top of your head, because here's the thing without sales, you don't have a business. So becoming obsessive about your sales funnel is a reality, whether you're just starting out or you're 17 years in business. Okay. So let's recap what I would do if I was starting completely from zero in the wedding industry. Number one, I would be rocky road, mint chocolate chip. I would be anything but vanilla. And I would stand out with exactly who I was speaking to in my marketing. Number two, I would flood the algorithm with short form content so that I got noticed from so many engaged couples who were ready to book with me. And number three, I would be completely obsessed with my sales funnel so that I can understand how to optimize it at every single stage. So those bookings start to scale. If you actually start to apply all three of these, you're going to see your wedding business start to book, book, book without having to discount your services and without wondering where your next leads are coming from. hey, CEO, if you're serious about scaling fast and you're listening to this and you're like, I want this, like, I want to be able to scale my business fast. I want to invite you to my free training where I break down exactly how to 2x double your wedding bookings within 30 days. Thousands of wedding pros have watched this free training and doubled their bookings right away. I get messages all the time that are like, Brandee, I used it. And right away I booked the next client. And I absolutely love hearing that. The link's in the description below. It's absolutely free. It's about 15 minutes long and I'm going to break down Step by step exactly how to double your wedding bookings within 30 days. And Hey, listen, CEO, I absolutely am so honored to be here in your ears every single week and to get to pour into your business. So thank you so much for being here. And I'll see you next time.