Wedding Business Solutions

She said the quiet part out loud!

• Alan Berg, CSP, FPSA, Global Speaking Fellow

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0:00 | 11:10

Are you treating your wedding inquiries like sales calls instead of conversations? What might you be missing when you skip the human touch and rush to booking a tour or a meeting? In this episode, I explore why couples want genuine connection, how industry habits lead to ghosting, and practical ways to start real conversations that win more bookings.

Listen to this new 9-minute episode for actionable advice on adapting your inquiry responses, reducing ghosting, and meeting couples where they are—so you convert more leads by creating meaningful engagement, not just transactions.

f you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/



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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks. 

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site: 

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com 

She said the quiet part out loud. Listen to this episode, see what I'm talking about. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. Uh, this is from a post that was on LinkedIn the other day by Beth Fox. She had said that I could share this, and I'm going to read it to you. Beth is engaged. She also works in the wedding industry, but she's engaged, and And here's what she wrote: I've done it.

I've ghosted my very first venue as a Gen Z bride-to-be. And then there's an emoticon there, which I can't tell what it is. Looks like frustrated. It says, here is why, with a finger pointing down emoji. We are holding a much smaller celebration with our loved ones for our official wedding and are currently in the process of hunting for an event space to host a much larger evening reception. One venue, comma, fit my vision. My questions were simple: which room would they recommend to suit my guest numbers, what are the catering options, and can they provide a ballpark cost on the date we are interested in? Their reply answered none of my questions. Yes, capitals and periods on all that.

There was no character, no warmth, only, we can do a tour at 8 PM tonight or tomorrow night, which suits you. "Let's stop treating inquiries like sales and more like a conversation, please," with a frustrated emoji. "If you made it this far, any recommendations for venue?" And it goes on. That's it. So I posted this. I actually shared it because it came up in my feed. And I asked Beth if I could, and she said, "Sure." So I shared this. It was really interesting to see the conversation that went around because a lot of people were saying, "Listen, I get it.

This is what's going on." But a lot of people were, defending the venue or saying, well, you didn't show us what the venue wrote. So I asked Beth, I said, what did the venue write? And it says, hi Beth, thank you for your inquiry. Would you be available tonight or tomorrow at 8 PM to book you for a tour to see the venue? In case those times are not suitable, can you please suggest the date and time to, uh, to get a manager to meet you? So that's all they had written. They literally went right for the tour without saying anything else. So the people that are saying, well, you didn't show us what the venue wrote, this is exactly what they wrote. And Beth's point is, it's right here. Let's stop treating inquiries like sales and more like a conversation, please. She said the quiet part out loud.

I have been saying this out loud for years. The conversation is started when the inquiry happens, whether they fill out your contact form, message you on social media, message you through an ad, call you, email you, text you, WhatsApp you, whatever. That is the beginning of a conversation. And if you're rushing right to that— now, this is right now, we're dealing with Gen Y and Gen Z. We're actually dealing with what are called the Zillennials. If you haven't heard of that, the Zillennials, they're the young Gen Ys, the old Gen Zs. They're the same people, just like the Xennials with the older Millennials, younger Gen X, and the Jones Generation, which is kind of weird, but it's called like because of Keeping Up with the Joneses, where the young baby boomers and the old Gen Xers, right? They're the same people. They've grown up in the same world.

They've been around the same movies and TV and the access to technology. So they're the same people there. And here's Beth saying that she's a Gen Z, saying that all she wanted was somebody to have a conversation with her, and all they did is go right for that. Now, I had a lot of other people saying, well, you know, it's just isolated incident. No, it's not. We've secret shopped over 900 companies in the last 2 years, and almost half of them This is how they respond. And I was just working with a group, a group of country clubs, and we shopped all of their country clubs. And even the people that followed up the most, which I was so happy to see that they followed up many, many times, 6, 7, 8 times, but their inquiries were all— their responses, I should say, were all asking for the tour, asking for the tour, asking for the tour.

You need to have a conversation, earn the right to this, right? This is who we're dealing with right now. Many people in the industry— and tell me if this, this sounds like you— when you started, the people you were communicating with were about your age. And then you're in the industry 5 years, 10 years, some of you 15, 20, 25, 30 years, and you're no longer communicating with the people that are your age. Now, doesn't mean you can't communicate with them. It doesn't mean you can't adapt to them, but you have to adapt to them. They're not going to adapt to you. And that's why so many people are getting ghosted and they're blaming their ads ads on social or their Google ads or their website or, or The Knot or WeddingWire or Zola or whatever, when really it's the way you're responding that's doing this.

And if you've seen me present on ghosting, you might remember an image that I put up, and it was a bride doing a mic drop. That's what it was, a bride doing a mic drop. And the reason I put that image up is because somebody on Facebook, when this conversation was going back and forth and people having this discussion— and I still call it a discussion— about ghosting And then somebody did the record scratch moment and said, "They didn't ghost the one they booked." And it was just a perfect way to respond to say, yeah, you know, what you're doing might work some of the time, but it's not working enough. And you're blaming them instead of looking in the mirror and saying, I need to do something different.

That's the place I always start. When something isn't working, I look in the mirror and say, what can I do differently? What can I change? I'm not gonna blame a customer. I'm not gonna blame a platform. I'm gonna say, it's me. It's why when I do promotional pieces, I have a new postcard now for Ask Alan Anything because I'm going to some trade shows. And the old one was okay, but I always print kind of the smallest amount that I think I'll need to get me through to the next event so that I will change it because there's always a better idea. There's always better wording, better imagery, better something to do that.

So let's scroll. Let's recycle back here to she said the quiet part out loud. So many other couples are thinking the same thing she is, but they're not telling you. They're just ghosting you. Now, all Beth wanted was a conversation. Uh, some of you heard the episode that I did about my son's wedding in 2024, and my daughter-in-law wanted— actually wanted a phone call with the rental company, and they told her to just go to their website because there was a catalog and tell them what she wants and they'll make a proposal. If she knew what she wanted, she would have done that already. But she didn't. And she asked for a call and they said no, which is kind of the opposite of what we're talking about here. She wanted to have a conversation. Oh, no, I shouldn't say that. She wanted a conversation. She just wanted it on the phone. Beth would have been fine with messaging because that's how she reached out.

So where are you creating the same type of friction that is causing people to go elsewhere? Because that's what happened with my, with my son and daughter-in-law. They chose a different rental company because the one would not meet them where they are, would not have, in this case, a phone call, which is crazy because so many of you are like, I want the phone call. And she asked for it and they said no. So where is it that you're creating that same friction? And it's hard. It's really hard for us to know where we're doing that unless we get this feedback, unless we get the feedback from the people that are not booking us because of this, or maybe even the ones that are, but we're making it difficult for them, making them jump through hoops.

Uh, one of my clients was just asking me about a new CRM system because the one they have now, it works good for some things, but for other things they have to make multiple steps to do something that another system probably can just do in one click or two clicks. So the quiet part being said out loud, take that as not just a warning, right? But take that as advice. She wanted a conversation.

She says, let's stop treating inquiries like sales and more like a conversation, please. And let's not treat this inquire is immediately, I want a phone call, a Zoom call, or come into your venue, right? Immediately that. If they want that, they'll ask for that. They will message you and say, when can we come in? When can we have a meeting? Can we talk with someone? Like my daughter-in-law did, and they said no, right? But if they're not doing that, just continue the conversation. And even if they take the easy route and just use the preset text that's in, you know, the easy one that's there for the Knot or WeddingWire or some of the other sites where they're just asking about price, It's because they don't have a better question, because if they did, they would have asked it. Or maybe your contact form just asks for information and then there's a box and they're not putting anything in the box because you say comments or questions instead of tell us more about your wedding or tell us more about your event. Encourage them to write something so you can actually know what they want to talk about.

So thank you to Beth for letting me share this. Thanks for listening to this. Again, the quiet part being said out loud. If you want to convert more deals, convert more leads, people that already think you're a good fit, you need to meet them where they are and you need to continue the conversation that they've started and don't rush the process. Don't jump 3, 4 steps ahead when right now they just want to find out some information. I hope that helps you. If you need more help with that, you know where to find me, alan@weddingbusinesssolutions.com, or you could always ask Alan anything. And it could give you answers like this 24/7.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2026 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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