More Clients Less Hustle

Jump on the waitlist to save your spot for the 2026 Wedding Pro CEO Summit: www.weddingproceo.com/summit

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Are you ready to break free from the cycle of endless consultations that lead nowhere?

In this episode of the Wedding Pro CEO Podcast, you'll uncover the top three reasons why you're not converting your warm leads into paying clients and provide actionable solutions to fix them. 

From escaping the dreaded pricing "black hole," to refining your sales process for confidence-driven consultations, to revamping your messaging so it's bold and clear—this episode equips you with the tools to boost your bookings.

Discover exactly what you need to do to dominate your marketing, using your reviews:

https://youtu.be/h3GpmOO2Ews

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EPISODE SHOW NOTES BLOG & MORE:

https://brandeegaar.com/3-strategies-to-book-more-clients/

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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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Have a question you’d like Brandee to answer? Ask here: http://bit.ly/3ZoqPmz

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Transcript

0:00

Hey there, CEO. It's Brandee and I wanted to let you know that we are hitting pause on new episodes for the month of July so that our team can rest, reset, and gear up for all of the new strategy that we are bringing you on this back half of 2025. But don't worry, we are not leaving you hanging because all month long. We're bringing back some of our most downloaded, most talked about most DMed about episodes that you could not get enough of. Today's episode that we're bringing you back is our most popular episode, and it is three strategies to book more Clients this engagement season. Now, you may be thinking, Brandee, why are we talking about engagement season? It's July. But CEOs, let's be real. If we're not thinking about engagement season until October, we're toast. We need to be thinking about engagement season right now in quarter three. We need to start thinking about our marketing. We need to start thinking about our funnels. If there's any updates we need to make to our CRMs, to our pricing, to our pricing guide, to the way we sell, to the way we market. These are all things that we need to be gearing up for now So that we don't wait till we're in engagement season to start making those changes. So I'm super excited. One, this is our most downloaded episode. It's our most popular episode. But number two, I'm really excited to bring it to you here in July where you're gonna be able to make the most out out of these strategies. So I'm gonna give you three top strategies to be able to book more clients this engagement season inside of this episode. Now, behind the scenes, while we are taking this rest reset period for July. We are working on two major things inside of Wedding Pro, CEO. I wanna quickly draw your attention to number one, tickets open in less than 10 days for the wedding Pro CEO Summit 2026, they will open to the wait list first. So if you are not already on the wait list for the tickets for Wedding Pro CEO, summit 2026, I'm telling you. Please do not wait. We are gonna open the tickets to them first, and once the tickets are gone, they are gone. And we cannot wait because we are gonna be back in Orlando, Florida. You're coming to my home market to my backyard for year five, all of that wrapped together means we are gonna have one incredibly epic summit next June, first through fourth. So head over to weddingproceo.com/Wait list if you are not already on the wait list to make sure you're there so that you can get first dibs on those tickets. Again, it's wedding pro ceo.com/waitlist to make sure that you are first to know when the tickets drop here in less than two weeks, we're gonna be dropping those tickets. I'm so excited to get them into your hands and to see all of your faces next June. The second thing that we are working on is called the Shift. This is our daily email that has been going out for the entire month of July. It is one high level shift delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Designed to grow your profit and buy back your time. And these emails take less than 60 seconds to read. They are one, easy thing that you can implement into your business today quickly to be able to move the needle, grow your profit. Buy back your time, we are having an absolute blast writing these, but we are also having so much fun getting your response to these emails. Now, like I said, this is just a test for the month of July to see if you love a daily email to see if it's moving the needle in your business to see if you're loving the strategies. so we're almost done with it for the month of July, but we'll be sending out a poll here soon to see. Is this something you want us to keep? Should we move it to weekly? we love running tests for you to see how we can bring you better strategy to grow and scale your business. So if you're not already getting the shift, head over to wedding pro ceo.com/the shift make sure to jump on that email newsletter one so you can get the rest of the month, but two, so you can have an opinion and whether we keep this daily email or not. So again, that's wedding pro ceo.com/the shift. And. CEO. Whether this is your first time tuning in, or this is a much needed refresher, these replays we've been doing for the month of July are packed with the gold that you need to keep building the profitable, scalable business that you love. Thank you so much for being here every single week, and let's dig into this week's episode. Are you tired of hearing crickets after every consultation you're getting leads, but for some reason they always say they need to think about it or they're just not sure, and they ask you to follow up, but you get no response. It is one of the most frustrating things to not be able to close your sales and trust me, CEO, I've been there. In today's episode, I'm diving into the three biggest reasons that you aren't booking those warm leads that are coming into your funnel and exactly what to do to fix it. If you've been struggling with your sales conversion, then this episode is for you. Hey, their 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 six. Million in revenue. Our company consistently books five figures every month. And in this episode, I'm gonna be real with you, if you aren't consistently bringing in new business, it's not just the market, it's not your competition. It's not bad luck. No. It's something you can control and we are gonna fix it today. So grab a pen and paper because I'm giving you the three hard hitting reasons why those clients aren't signing with you. And spoiler alert, it's probably not what you think. Number one is pretty simple. It's because you are caught in a pricing black hole. If you aren't booking clients, once they sit down for a consultation with you, my guess is that your pricing is caught in a big ole miss for absolutely everyone. You're too high priced for budget seeking couples, but you're too low priced for high-end luxury couples. What I see most often when pros come into our programs is that they want to raise their prices, but they're afraid to do so. So they just inch it up a little bit, which means they've now priced themselves out of that budget category that they used to be in, but they didn't jump high enough to be considered legitimate by the higher end couples. And I know you might be thinking. Randy, no. There's no way that I could sell at that super high rate. And the problem actually is that when you sell at a rate that's too low for your market and too low for the high end couples that you're going after, they actually start to think that you are an amateur or that you can't deliver on the quality of services that you say. You're going to remember that most of us in the wedding industry are service-based businesses, so all we have to show them are our reviews and our past work. We can't show them a. Physical product, so when your pricing doesn't match what you're saying you're gonna deliver, they start to think that you don't actually know what you're doing, that maybe you're too new to the market. They're like, Hmm, everyone else I've interviewed is much higher, and this is almost a red flag that it's so low, and so they'll move on. You need to get out of this black hole, which means you either need to stay at your old pricing, which you know, I'm not gonna recommend. Or you need to make a pretty significant price jump. High-end couples are willing to pay for quality, especially when it comes to their most important day of their lives. Time is more important to them than their money, and the bride who wants an 80 or a hundred thousand dollars wedding is not looking for. A wedding planner, she's looking for the best wedding planner. She's not looking for a band. She's looking for the best band that her guests are gonna be talking about for years to come. When you price yourself too low, you're actually screaming to those couples that you're not confident in your own service and you're not gonna be able to deliver on what you're promising. If you're finding yourself in this pricing black hole, I want you to really look at the customers that you serve. Are you serving a more budget conscious client whose biggest pain points are pricing and staying on budget and keeping things as tight as possible? Or are you serving a more luxury high-end client who actually values their time more than their money? Look at your last favorite five. Clients that you've worked with, and this will tell you so much about the type of clients that you work with, what they value, and make sure to ask those questions as well during the consultation process. This will tell you so much about your couples and help you to understand where you need to go with your pricing, but I can tell you this right now, absolutely. Do not stay stuck in this pricing black hole. The number two reason that you're not booking new clients. This one might sting a little. I'm fully aware, but it is because your sales process is weak. I know, I know you probably hate the word sales anyway, but let me tell you this right now, you can have the best portfolio, the best reviews, the most amazing work, but none of that matters if you can't close the deal. A consultation is a sales conversation, and way too often in the wedding industry, we completely miss this. We think about it more like a discovery call, like we're learning a little bit more about them. They're learning a little bit more about us, and this is an old school mentality. Back before social media was so rampant before every single couple was using it to research their vendors, yes, you had to use this consultation time to really help. Learn about your couple, but also for them to learn more about you because all they saw was maybe an ad in a magazine or a static online ad, or maybe they got to see your website, but they didn't get to learn so much about you. Now in the age of technology, trust me that your couples have been stalking you for a while. I. By the time they get to the consultation, you've made the short list. You aren't trying to help them learn more about you. You'll be shocked about how much your couples already know about you by the time they sit down for this consultation. They've listened to your stories, they've poured through your bio, they've checked out your website. They've seen your last 15 Instagram posts. At least they've been referred to you by multiple people, so when they sit down, you've already really gotten. 80% of the way there in their mind, and now they're here for a sales conversation. When we forget that, we forget that our job is to actually help them to take the next step during that conversation and close the deal. This is the process that I call the assume method, and it means that you assume that they are ready to work with you, and at the end of the consultation you tell them exactly the next steps to go ahead and sign the contract. Pay the retainer and secure their date with you and the next steps of working with you. No proposal, no follow-up date, but moving straight into a contract. Now, some of you might be cringing a little bit listening to this thinking. No way could I do that without sounding like a used car salesman. However, I would encourage you CEO to think about it more like this. If your marketing is doing its job, if they are warm, if you are showing up consistently on social media, trust me. They already know everything there is to know about you before they sit down for this consultation. They have your pricing. You've already told them that you're available for their date. So the only thing that they're doing during this consultation is really making sure you are as cool in person as you are online and understanding what the next steps are to working with you. You cannot miss this step. You need to be confident in closing them and moving them into being a paying client. This is actually the exact method that I use inside of my planning company to book five figures every single month for the past many, many years, and I promise that you can do it too. I believe in this method so much that actually created a free training that you can watch that shows you exactly how to warm your clients up. During your sales funnel, and then to use the assume method to close them. I walk you step by step as to what to do in your consultations to confidently use this closing method to make sure that you are converting those worm leads into buying clients. You can check that out over at Brandee Gaar dot com slash freetraining, and you can watch the exact method that I use to make sure that these clients are moving into. Paying clients every single time. And the number three reason that you are struggling to book clients right now is because your messaging is literally all over the place. You can't market to everyone. You can't even service everyone. And if you think that you can, let me stop you right there. If your Instagram bio says something like, now booking 20, 25, 20 26 clients, you're missing if your website is full of generic content that says something like, we create unforgettable memories. No kidding. So does every other wedding pro that exists, right? Like that is vanilla. That's boring. It's not making anyone relate with your content. Couples wanna know exactly what you do. And what makes you different from the hundreds of wedding pros all vying for their attention? Are you an incredibly talented wedding planner and you handle all the logistics that are needed for a wedding on the remote island in your market? Are you the DJ that can pack the dance floor because you are literally the best mixer in your market? Or maybe you create custom watercolor artwork for clients to bring their entire paper suite to life. You have to be known for something. It's not good enough to just be known. You have to be known for something so that when couples are looking for you, they can immediately resonate with what you're posting, not just on your website, but throughout all of your marketing and in your Instagram bio. You want them to land on your page and immediately say, oh my gosh, yes, this is exactly who I was looking for. But if your messaging is vague or even worse scattered, I promise you they're gonna bounce and move on to the next wedding pro who they feel more aligned with. Be bold in who you serve. You are not for everybody, and that's actually a really good thing. If you still aren't sure what sets you apart from your competition, what your special sauce is, what your unique differentiator is. I'm gonna encourage you to head over to my YouTube channel where I created a full step-by-step walkthrough of how to use your reviews to tell you what that differentiator is and how to use it in your marketing so that you can start to increase the number of warm leads coming into your funnel. We'll put the link in the show notes below, so make sure to go check it out. Alright, CEO. There you have it. Three reasons why you aren't booking new clients either. Your pricing is in the black hole of doom. Your sales process needs a confidence boost, or your marketing is vanilla and it's time for some flavor. Baby, y'all engagement season is literally breathing down our next, and now is the time to get these things on lock so you can ensure 2025 is your very best year yet. Thanks so much for being your CEO and I'll see you next time.