BONUS The Must-Attend Event for Wedding Pros: Inside the Wedding Business CEO Summit with Heidi Thompson

Unlock the secrets to a thriving wedding business and a balanced life as we welcome Heidi Thompson, the bestselling author behind "Clone Your Best Clients" and the mastermind of Evolve Your Wedding Business. 

Discover how the upcoming Wedding Business CEO Summit on the 17th February can transform your work weeks from exhausting marathons to sustainable journeys. 

Heidi shares her unique motivation for creating a free, accessible space where wedding professionals can focus not just on booking more weddings but also on nurturing their personal well-being. With specialized sessions like Caitlin Blair's on ADHD-friendly workflows, this summit is designed to meet diverse needs and help you create a business that fits your lifestyle.

Join us on an exhilarating global journey as Heidi and I explore the excitement and challenges of embarking on worldwide tours. 

Together, we delve into the transformative experiences that come with such ventures, and I express my enthusiasm to join her remarkable podcast as a guest. Heidi's contribution as an inspiring speaker at our event is invaluable, and she leaves us with insights that resonate deeply. 

Don't miss out on the opportunity to learn from 45 incredible experts, and be sure to secure your free ticket using the link in the show notes. This episode promises to be an empowering and enlightening experience for anyone in the wedding industry.

🎟 Grab your free ticket here 🎟
Event kicks off 17 February 2025

Chapters

• 0:30 Wedding Business CEO Summit Preview
• 14:10 Global Wedding Business Tour Discussion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

We are thrilled to welcome back Heidi Thompson to the Wedding Empires podcast in this very special bonus episode. Heidi is the bestselling author of Clone your Best Clients and the powerhouse behind Evolve your Wedding Business, where she helps wedding professionals attract more of their ideal clients and build profitable, sustainable businesses without the burnout of their ideal clients and build profitable, sustainable businesses without the burnout. She's also the creator of the upcoming Wedding Business CEO Summit, where Heidi is going to help thousands of wedding pros worldwide level up their business. This summit kicks off on the 17th of February and it features an incredible lineup, including myself, and, best of all, it's absolutely free to attend. So I'm going to catch up with Heidi now and get the down low on what is happening at this huge event kicking off next week. How are you darling?

Speaker 2: 1:22

I am great. I'm excited. We've got thousands of wedding pros signed up for this event and I'm excited to just dive in and nerd out about stuff next week.

Speaker 1: 1:35

So this isn't your first wedding business CEO summit, is it?

Speaker 2: 1:39

No, no, I've done. I think I stopped counting it like 10 of these, but I've been doing them yeah. I've been doing them for the past five years, so Okay.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Excellent, All right. So what, I guess? What inspired you to kick it off in the first place?

Speaker 2: 1:56

Well, I knew I wanted to create some sort of an online conference and the two big things people come to me for is first, how do I book more weddings?

Speaker 2: 2:08

So we created Book More Wedding Summit around that, but then inevitably what happens is people walk right off the cliff into the next problem of how do I run this business, how do I grow this business in a way that doesn't kill me, that doesn't take 80 hours a week, that allows me to make the money I want to make, do the work I want to do with the people I want to do it with, and still have freedom and flexibility.

Speaker 2: 2:37

So Wedding Business CEO Summit is really focused on helping people, yes, book more weddings, but in a way where they're escaping long hours, because, quite honestly, I don't care how many weddings you're booking, I don't care how much money you're making If you have absolutely no time to enjoy your life. That just sounds miserable to me, and our industry is like we are, so for better, for worse, like hard workers, and it's really easy to get pulled into this whole 60, 80 hour week cycle and just normalize it, and I really want to change that because I've certainly seen over my years in my business that that is the default. It's what we stumble into, but it's definitely not the way it has to be.

Speaker 1: 3:29

Hearing about burnout is so common, so common in all of our groups and all of our discussions. And you know, it's all the other stuff, it's not the creative wedding stuff, it's all the. You know the admin, the contracts, the calls, the chasing leads, all of that. You know there's plenty of software and things out there. But definitely being able to sort of achieve that work-life balance that so many of us want, but also, I think, prepare your business to be able to scale right and be sustainable, it's also that as well. So why is this summit different from any other sort of industry events or conferences?

Speaker 2: 4:10

So it's different in a couple of ways. First off, it's free to attend. You can get a free ticket to it. It is a full conference lineup. We have 45 incredible experts that you'll learn from, as well as a bunch of different live sessions with wedding pros from around the world. We have people from everywhere join us for this. So the fact that it's free is a huge differentiator.

Speaker 2: 4:36

But I see a lot of focus on booking more weddings. Getting more sales, like which I get, yes, is important and I care about and I spend a lot of time with my clients working on. But you know, to what I was saying earlier, like, at the end of the day, does that matter if you don't have time to spend with your family and your friends and live the life that you want to live? Stuck in this cycle for years, decades, and realize that's all they've really done, is like just work and hustle and they don't have a ton to show for it. So the emphasis on doing this in a sustainable way, in a way that's not going to burn you out, in a way that's not hey, do this and do this and do this, like more and more and more, is definitely different and not something.

Speaker 2: 5:37

I see that often in the industry Because yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm all for booking more clients, but we got to do this whole thing in a way that makes sense for you and your life and where you're at Like, do you have young kids, Do you want to travel more? Like what is it that you want to do? And then building the business around you. That's what I really get excited about, and so that really makes this a different approach.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Can you give us a hint of some of the you know sessions that you're going to have and who they're with, of some of the you know sessions that you're going to have and who they're with there, any that you're particularly excited about?

Speaker 2: 6:17

Yeah, absolutely so. I have a few in front of me right now. There are, they're all so good. This is like picking my favorite children, right. So we have Caitlin.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Blair is talking about ADHD friendly workflows to convert more leads, which needs to go to that.

Speaker 2: 6:37

Oh my God, so many of us. I was so excited when I found out that, like, this is something that she talks about because you know we can look at like, oh yeah, I could do it this way, I could do it this way, but if it doesn't work for your brain, you know that doesn't actually make any difference. You know you're not going to get any we have a session about.

Speaker 2: 7:00

We have actually a couple sessions that talk about using texting as a means for more streamlined follow up, but also a better way to close leads. Right now, we have Adriana McDermott talking about why couples don't trust wedding vendors right now and six steps that we can take in order to fix it, because if people don't trust you, you know they're not going to hand you several thousand dollars for the best, right? Uh, we've got Rick Liston talking about automating and delegating. We have a couple of financial topics that I'm really excited about, because they're things we don't talk about much in our industry. Whether that is yeah, I mean there's like the taxes part of it, and Braden Drake is phenomenal and is talking about that. But also we have, you know, alexandra Dennison talking about financial literacy in your business, making sure that you are in a good financial position.

Speaker 2: 8:04

We have Matt Mitchell talking about figuring out your retirement. What does that look like? What does that look like financially for you? So we have these five different tracks where everything falls within, and it really is a range from things that are going to streamline your workflows, things that are going to allow you to be more profitable, things that are going to allow you to attract and book more clients, get out of overwhelm and master your mindset. So we're coming at this from a lot of different angles, and then, of course, we have your presentation. Why don't you tell people a bit about it?

Speaker 1: 8:46

Mine's very simple, but it's something that's absolutely transformed our business the Wedding Academy, which is creating your own custom GPT. So taking it that next level where you know you're creating your own GPT that intimately knows your business. So I created a questionnaire which basically the attendees can download and fill out, and it's going to prompt them to give the GPT all the information that it needs to truly understand the brand, the voice, ideal client. You know how the copy should sound, all of those things. So when they go forward every time that they're getting their GPT to do a task, it's going to have all that in its brain. So it's simple, but I think it'll change. It'll just make customers you know ChatGPT so much more streamlined and with their brand in mind, with everything that they create. So a little one, but a powerful one.

Speaker 2: 9:48

Yeah, and it's one of those things that, like, once you get it up and running, it's one of those things that you can be using on a daily basis. Like I'm always in GPT, like it makes my life so much easier and makes things so much faster, and I'm sure, with the process you went through of creating your own custom GPT that you talk about, you've definitely saved a ton of time as well.

Speaker 1: 10:12

Oh yeah, I mean we have a few. We have a wedding academy, we have a Wedding Academy one, a Wedding Empires one, a Jack Bowie one, a Problem Solver one. There's quite a few. So what can attendees expect in terms of format? So how are these sessions kind of structured?

Speaker 2: 10:27

Yeah, so all of the presentations are pre-recorded. They all come out each day at 9am US Pacific time, which is Los Angeles time. They're available for 24 hours, so no matter what time zone you're in, you have 24 hours of access to them for free. You can upgrade to one of our upgrades if you want to get lifetime access and some other amazing bonuses as well, but each day they come out, they're available for 24 hours.

Speaker 2: 10:55

You can pick and choose, watch through whichever ones you like, and then we also have some live sessions happening each day, whether that's, you know, something like a networking session or a speaker panel or hot seats, q&a really everything you would expect at an in-person conference, plus the ability to head over into the Facebook community and ask any of the speakers any questions you have about you know any specific situations, like how would I apply this for this specific situation? I think sometimes people are a little nervous to do that, but we love that. Like yes, take what we taught you and run with it. Let us help you do that. So it is as flexible and time zone agnostic as it can be.

Speaker 1: 11:48

Excellent. Have you heard any stories from past attendees that have really been able to implement things that they've learned at Summit and transformed their business?

Speaker 2: 11:58

Oh, my god, yes, I have like the biggest folder of screenshots.

Speaker 1: 12:03

Messages. I've seen a few of them on the website.

Speaker 2: 12:06

yeah, it's really incredible the kind of impact that this makes, even if you take one thing and go and apply it, one thing and go and solve a problem in your business. I mean, we've seen people clients during the summit using things that they've been taught. We've seen people you know streamline their business free up 510 hours a week during the summit so that you know every week going forward, things are going to be a million times easier for them. So, yeah, this is definitely like an action taking event, because if you can take anything, you learn and go and implement it like that immediately starts paying you dividends, and I love seeing it. That's my favorite thing is to see people be like oh my god, this thing just happened. And it's always amazing to see people actually like go take action, because we, you know, we talk about this stuff all the time and it's great to talk about it, but ultimately we want you to go change your business for the better.

Speaker 1: 13:10

I love it. I'm excited. You're going to be very busy next week, aren't you, with all these sessions and stuff well, that's why all the presentations come out at one time.

Speaker 2: 13:22

So it's like, okay, that's one area where I'm not, you know, tempting the uh, the tech gremlins to come and mess things up I must say, you're very organized, you know you kept on my tail.

Speaker 1: 13:35

I had some tech issues of my own getting mine working, but um it was it was always the way it is.

Speaker 2: 13:41

I mean, like, like, it's funny, like these summits have made me more organized, just because there are so many moving parts.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Yeah, oh, it's going to be very exciting. So I am going to put the link to the summit in the show notes, because I've got a specific link that I want to share with everybody. But if you are wanting to be there for the Wedding Business CEO Summit, make sure you are, you know, registering well before the 17th of February and you can make the most of the whole time that it's running. Also, if you'd like to connect more with Heidi, she can be found on evolveyourweddingbusinesscom and, of course, she's got her own podcast, which is awesome, and I'm waiting for my invite. When's that coming? I've got you.

Speaker 2: 14:25

I have this list Like these are people I need to get, and you are 100% on that list.

Speaker 1: 14:32

I think I think we might need to catch up and talk about these crazy worldwide tour that I'm about to do for starters.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Yes, yeah, I want to hear all about that, because that sounds like an incredible journey.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm going gray just thinking about it. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure, heidi. Yes, as I said, the link to go and register for your free ticket will be in the show notes for this episode. But take care, heidi, hope it goes really really well and we will catch up soon, thank you, and thank you so much for being one of our amazing speakers.

Speaker 2: 15:05

I can't wait for people to learn from you.

Speaker 1: 15:07

You're welcome.