How To Build Passive Revenue Streams In A Wedding Business

You can run an incredible wedding business and still feel one bad season away from panic. That’s why we sat down with marketing consultant and multi-hyphenate founder Taylor Tusick Holman to get practical about passive income for wedding professionals, and what “passive” really means when you’re also juggling clients, deadlines, and weekends on the tools.

We unpack the revenue stream mindset shift: diversifying income so you’re not relying on one service, one offer, or one booking cycle. Taylor shares options that fit the wedding industry especially well, from digital products like templates, spreadsheets, guides, and checklists, to affiliate marketing for the products your couples already buy, to physical products, studio or equipment rentals, and education like mini courses. We also talk about how to find the best idea inside your niche by spotting demand signals, including the questions people keep asking you, the blog post that takes off, and the Pinterest pins that suddenly explode.

Then we get into the marketing systems that make these offers sell: email marketing with automated sequences, retargeting ads, and using blogging and Pinterest as a long-term traffic engine. Taylor also shares emerging tech that’s making content creation faster, plus why AI and search behavior are changing so quickly that staying current is now part of staying competitive. We close with a blunt but important legal reminder: protect your work, and don’t steal other people’s.

If you want a calmer business model and a smarter marketing engine, hit play, share this with a wedding friend, and subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next. After listening, will you leave a review and tell us which passive income stream you’re most tempted to build first?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Alright, so welcome back to Wedding Empires. I'm your host, Jack Bowie, and today I'm super excited to introduce you to one of my great friends. We connected over copywriting of all things. Back in the day when I had wedding planning business, darling, don't panic. I went on the hunt for an incredible copywriter that understood weddings, but also could speak with personality. And I came across this incredible woman called Taylor Tusick Holman and her business called Tailored. And wow, what a life-changing experience. The copy on my website has never looked so good and sounded so me. So that's how we met. But there's a lot more to this lovely lady than copywriting, that's for sure. Thank you so much for joining me, Taylor.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be having this chat with you today, and I'm always so happy to see your name pop into my email inbox. Always making noise.

Taylor’s Entrepreneur Journey

SPEAKER_01 1:28

In the past, you've worked with Isle Planner, and that was interesting to me. I love Isle Planner, and obviously, from you know being with the Wedding Academy, we absolutely you know adore Isle Planner and love to push that as a preferred tool. But in you've got lots of other projects that you have going on. Some of our listeners will know Sourced Co., which is a beautiful style stock subscription service. Uh, and and possibly they might know about your latest project, which is NG. So I guess a good place to start would be Taylor, why don't you spill the spill the tea on your business journey?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Well, you know, I mean I'm trying to get used to describing myself as a serial entrepreneur or a multi-hyphenate because it's it's abundantly clear, right? I have a lot of brands to my name at this point, but it still feels so strange because my intention was never to be an entrepreneur. I, you know, I went to graduate school and my intention was to be a pro a college professor. And so it's like where my life ended up is so so starkly different from where I thought it was going to go, but I'm so glad that this is where I've landed. And really, when I take a step back and I think about what all of my businesses have in common, it's really, I guess it's my life's, my career's goal to help make marketing a heck of a lot easier for everyone because it's just this big, confusing, kind of overwhelming and scary thing that is also such an important part of running any kind of business. And especially actually, it's it's really important for anyone who's running a business in the wedding industry because of the fact that you have to find new clients every single year, right? Yes. And so you don't have this opportunity to do what other types of businesses have in terms of like remonetizing the same customer. And so marketing is even more important to businesses in this space. So, you know, whether it's marketing, consulting, and copywriting or stock photography, and now NG, which is software to help people actually do their marketing and it's a marketing system, it's all just my attempt to make your life easier in, you know, in this really important and impactful space. Fantastic. And NG, is it just for wedding professionals or who who is it for? Yeah, so it's actually built for any type of small business owner. I mean, a lot of, or I'll say most of the marketing that I've done since we launched in May of 2023 has been in the wedding industry because this is kind of like my my corner of the universe, my home. And so I knew that this was gonna be an industry that I was easily gonna be able to tap into my network to help really build the brand. Because, you know, when you're building a brand from nothing, no one knows you exist. And so you try to find people who are gonna be most excited to help you create some noise. So that's why right now a lot of my time and energy has been spent in the wedding industry, but the tools themselves are built for anyone who is running a small business and needs to do marketing on their own.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Amazing. And that's that's big when it comes to the wedding professionals. I mean, there's so many solopreneurs out there, and you know, I know firsthand I was a wedding planner and doing it all, doing the ads, doing the marketing. So we'll we'll come back to NG for sure. But I guess I'm interested from a wedding perspective. Um, you know, what's drawn you to working in weddings?

Why Passive Income Matters

SPEAKER_00 5:23

You know, I always will I have a soft spot for uh women who are trying to create something for themselves. And the wedding industry is overwhelmingly, you know, female-owned, operated, founded businesses. And so that's a big part of what drew me to this industry. But on top of that, I just I love the fact that it's this wonderful combination of creative problem solving, but then like this unique experience that you're trying to build for someone. So it's just like this this special place that honestly, I talk to business owners in all sorts of industries, and it's it's very misunderstood, which draws me even more to it because it is just like this own unique space that's so fun to be in. And you guys throw the best parties, obviously. Oh my god, I know, I know. Every time I get to go to something, it's like, oh, I get to I get to get dressed up and fancy and not just hang out in my casuals.

Breaking Down Revenue Streams

SPEAKER_01 6:31

I remember when um I started as a wedding planner, every Saturday I would go to like a different winery and like try their wine and their cheese board and ask to see the manager and have that conversation, but it was like, really? I have to go to a new winery every Saturday? Wow. Tough life. I know, I know. Okay, amazing. Um so today we're going to talk about something specific, which is ways to add passive income to your wedding business, something that you've done really, really well. And when I was researching on who would be a good fit for this topic, I actually found that you'd written a few articles about this exact topic. So I was like, oh my god, Taylor, of course, would be perfect for this. Um look, I've always known you to be someone who diversifies and is able to create multiple income streams. So you instantly came to mind, of course. But may I be nosy and ask what your current revenue streams and projects are?

Passive Income Ideas For Weddings

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yes, of course. I am I'm an open buck. Like, you know, if people want to know something, all you have to do is ask, and I'm gonna tell you because I don't know how to I don't know how to not tell the truth. Um my parents did did me my did me right in that regard. Um, so I have three businesses right now that are, you know, I'm actively still marketing and running. So talk about talk about wearing hats. But so if we're looking at tailored media and designs, which is my consulting business, that has multiple streams of revenue. And so the core of it is the done for you services, which for the at least the last few years has been really heavy on the copywriting side of things. So that's service-based. But then I also have templates in a shop on that website. So, you know, marketing templates, some easy copywriting templates, like company mission, vision, and values. And so those are all digital products that can just, you know, sell, people can purchase them at any any hour of the day. So that business has two income streams. And then with Source Co., there's actually, I guess, three, four income streams there. And so there's a lifetime membership to our stock photo library, so that's one. We also have an online shop of select images. So if people just want to buy one-offs, so that's two. Then we have our acrylic styling blocks for when you're styling flatlays, so we have a physical product, and we also have that physical product on an Etsy shop. So that's why there's four streams of revenue for that business. And with NG, there's just one. It's just, you know, it's software as a service, so it's a subscription-based piece of software. Um, and so that's that's where things are coming over there. So it's like there's a lot of things that I have to pay attention to, and they all need their own little bit of attention in a different way, but that's I don't even know what that added up to. Someone's gonna have to do the math for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Um, there's definitely some pieces that seem to be automated and sell while you speak, like the templates, for example. I'm sure you've automated the delivery of those templates and you know, welcome series and all of that sort of jazz that goes on afterwards. Yeah. Um, so can you think of some examples of passive income streams that are particularly well suited to wedding professionals?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yes, there's actually quite a few. And I think that most people they they get a little narrow-sided when it comes to thinking about ways that they can make money. And so this is always a really fun conversation to have because there are many ways that you know, any wedding professional and business owner can actually, you know, start to diversify their income, which is basically what we're doing here. So I think the low-hanging fruit, meaning the one of the easiest ones to get started. I'm explaining it because I'm like, is low-hanging fruit also a turn of phrase in Australia? Yes. Like so an easy one to get started with are things like resources and templates. So digital products, right? And so whether that's, you know, PDFs or kind of sometimes digital products are just glorified Google Docs that you're selling access to to other people, right? Spreadsheets, right? So there's so many ways that you can create resources and templates, almost not having to spend any money, which is fantastic. Uh another one that's really an interesting space to play in, it's more common in the B2B, like the business-to-business space, but it definitely has a home if you're just selling to couples, but it's affiliate promotions. And so, you know, in the business-to-business space, you know, when companies feel like there's a lot of cohesiveness and common goals, then people are often promoting somebody else's product because it complements theirs or it's a value add for their customers. But even as a wedding professional, if you're only talking to couples who are getting married, you know, if you have affiliate relationships with the companies that make the products that you know your couples are going to want to buy as a part of the wedding planning process. So even if it's on Amazon or you know, different retailers, then you know, you can make a small percentage of the sales that are that you are pointing to that business. Um then there's things like branded and physical products. So the the sourced co example of you know branching into physical styling blocks for flatlays is a good example. But you know, for some folks, there is some there is a way for you to sell a physical thing that goes along with your business. And then for anyone who has a studio or equipment that I mean, I hope that no one is working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and using their studio and equipment all the time. But you could think of renting out your studio or your equipment when you are not actively using it. Yeah. Or your props, right? So much stuff there. And then the last one is the education space. And so creating courses, um, whether they're you know mini courses or more long form, getting into the education spaces is another really great way to think about adding an additional income stream to your business.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Definitely, especially especially if you've got something of a niche to teach people if you're you know particularly good at, I don't know, as a photographer at glamping weddings or something like that, um, bottle that up and and sell that in your sleep. Uh I know with um my wedding planning business, Darlingtonic Panic, we ended up turning a lot of our sort of run sheets and spreadsheets and things that we made for that business into templates for the wedding academy because it just saves people so much time figuring that stuff out. Like we've already done it. So why not why not make that available to everybody? Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

And didn't you also have like travel agency services rolled in? So, you know, that's that's like diversification more so than passive, but it's still kind of along those lines of encouraging people to think outside of the box.

Diversification As A Safety Net

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yes. I mean, I I don't know if adding that just before COVID was the best idea looking back because then I had like two businesses that weren't working. Um however, in in theory, yes, it was a great idea. I had been a travel agent in a previous life, and we were doing destination weddings, so I was kind of doing the wedding and then sending all these dollars elsewhere about booking the rooms and booking the flights, but I knew how to do it, so um, yeah, I didn't even think of that. Of course that's relevant. Yes, yes. Um, coming up with something like that. So thinking about another skill set that or another revenue stream to add to that service, definitely. And it could be as simple as uh I know with the wedding academy, a lot of people come to us with with a clear, I want to be a wedding planner, and and then think very quickly, oh, I need to add on styling because why are they cli why do clients coming to me for planning and then going to someone else for styling? So that's a common one that we see very, very often is that they'll add on that second course to be able to add on that second service. Um I interviewed a lovely lady uh the other day, Nina Clappard, and we talked about SEO and uh you know, just even another one, turning your website, you know, if you if you start getting a lot of traffic in your blog, monetizing that with display advertising or joining a blog network and things like that, that's that's also money for clicks and things. Great. So I guess one of the benefits of adding passive income streams as a wedding business. I mean, for me, it's making money while you sleep, but which everybody loves. Yeah, yeah. Uh can you think of anything else? I you know, I I I guess it's just really maximizing uh, you know, your your products and your services and your abilities, isn't it?

Finding Your Best Product Angle

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah, and you know, there's I think one of the lifelong lessons that we all learned from the pandemic is the importance of diversifying where your income is coming from. Right. And so adding additional revenue streams and thinking of ways that you can, you know, create some passive income means that if and when something maybe starts to go into a lull, that you have something else that's already created that you can lean into and try to, you know, spin up and build more momentum around. And you know, it's not very likely that one will easily replace the other, right? If you find yourself in a real pinch. But you at least have something where you're not feeling like you're totally stuck and like or caught with your pants down. So I think the concept of just diversifying your income, to me, it's like a safety thing, right? Where when you're self-employed, having all of your eggs in one basket is just really scary. And so this is a way for you to kind of spread out some of the risk.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Great. Uh so how do you think wedding professionals identify opportunities for for passive income within their niche?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

You know, that's it's like I I it's one of those things where I wish I could get into everybody's head and know. Like, what are they, what are you thinking about when you're trying to figure out how to get into, you know, some form of passive income. But you know, from where I sit, I think what's important to keep top of mind is really figuring out, okay, well, where is my my niche, my zone of genius, where am I a subject matter expert? Because if you if you are those things, then it's gonna be easier for you to turn it into something else because you already have all the knowledge versus trying to decide, oh, I'm gonna go learn how to, I don't know, write code. Like, and then you're gonna sell those services. That's not that's what we're talking about. Um but the other thing that's really a good way to start figuring out, okay, well, what is going to be easiest for me to do, but then also the easiest thing for me to find customers for is thinking about what do people already come to you for when it like when we're talking about advice or is anyone, is anyone sending you emails or text messages saying, Hey, can I pick your brain about something? Right? Like that's the surefire. Hey, if someone's asking you, can I pick your brain, that means that they know that you hold the knowledge and they respect you as a thought leader or an expert in that space. And so those are the two things that you really need to have like a a good chance at creating a digital product or a passive income stream that you know is gonna hopefully take off.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

I think another simple one is what's that blog post that's gone viral, that single blog post. I know with us, uh, we were doing wedding planning in Australia, and I and I was sort of dabbling with the idea of doing destination, sorry, dabbling with the idea of doing destination weddings in New Caledonia, and that was something that nobody else was doing from Australia. You could kind of go there and find someone, but chances are they didn't speak English, and no one had a website or anything like that. So um that's something that we started offering, and I did a couple of blog posts around like the steps you have to take to get married in New Caledonia, and that went nuts. It was like, because actually, like people are looking this up, right? There's there's obviously great tools out there as well where you can, you know, answer the public is one, um, and lots of sort of key search and keyword tools that you can sort of find out what people are searching for. Um and let's not forget Chat GPT. Chat GPT, I don't know, I'm like, am I dare saying it's to a copywriter, but surely, surely you've embraced it.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Oh, yes. When I mean NG has an AI copywriter, so I've already gone through my like come to Jesus moment about a copywriter creating an AI copywriter. We're past that.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So, but this the simple task of like look at this business and suggest ways that we can, you know, create additional revenue streams. Um I did that early on in my first few days of playing with ChatGPT, and it was telling me you need to do courses, we're doing that, you need to do templates, we're doing that. You know, so I'm sorry. I felt very chunk, but there, but there were you know, there were suggestions that I thought, oh, I hadn't thought about that. Um it made some really smart suggestions around wedding academy, should do retreats, it should do real life events, it should do um, you know, more online, like it came up with things that didn't actually make sense. So I think I think that's another great tool as well, just sort of putting there what you're already doing and have it make some suggestions, right?

Wedding Academy Sponsor Message

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah. The other thing, kind of to to continue on the what you shared about, hey, what's your what's that blog post that just went viral? Taking that same lens and looking at your Pinterest account.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

What are the pins that just exploded and you know are generating all of this traffic within Pinterest? Like, that's another way that you can really hone in on identifying where that need already exists and where there's already momentum.

Marketing That Sells While You Work

SPEAKER_01 21:46

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SPEAKER_00 22:51

Yes, so the first one is probably one that most wedding business owners are not leveraging, and that's email marketing. Like you got you this, if you're gonna try to get into a passive income stream, it's almost a non-negotiable. You have to set up email marketing. And so when you're doing that, the important part is not just like setting up the platform. You have to actually then create these automated sequences that are going to do the nurturing and selling on your behalf. And that's what makes it passive, right? Nothing is ever truly passive because you can't just build a product, physical or digital, and think that, hey, I'm gonna make a million dollars off of this. That's not the way it works. But it becomes more passive because you leverage technology to automate certain things. And so it's not high touch. So email marketing is a must-have. Then there's also this concept. Well, it's not a concept, it's a thing, but it's a new concept for most uh wedding pros, is retargeting advertisements. And so most people are familiar with you know creating an advertisement. But then if you've ever like clicked on a product and then you go to a totally different website, you're like, why am I getting an ad, an advert for that product from that website? Why is it following me around? That's a retargeting ad. Yes. And so retargeting ads are a really interesting way to stay top of mind. And they can work really effectively for things like digital products and online courses, right? Because sometimes people need to think about it, but you don't want them to walk away from your website or your online shop and just forget that you exist. And so those retargeting ads are a way for you to just kind of like tippy-tap on their shoulders and make sure that they remember that, hey, remember you you were interested in this at one point, so it's still there. Um then there's the usual suspects, social media for you know building brand awareness and some interest around it. And then the other strategy that I really like is really leveraging blogging and Pinterest as a pair, not just doing them separately, but really using them as like a power couple.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

And and the easiest way I can think of to do that is when you do your blog post, create a pin and put a link to that blog uh and make it, you know, very simple and very SEO-friendly, that description of that PIN. Uh it's interesting talking about sort of strategies with these passive incomes when it when they are low-ticket items, and you've done the research to find out that that$7 template or that free PDF download is of interest to people, and you know, because you had a blog post about that exact topic and it went nuts. So you've created this great little freebie. Uh, but thinking about it as an entire funnel. So uh, you know, we could talk about funnels, I'm sure the two of us all day long. So we'll have to we'll have to park that as an episode, but but in a in a really brief summary, to to be able to think about that passive income item that's low low price as as your sort of top of funnel, which uh, you know, that's that's if I take the wedding academy for an example, uh, you know, they could be downloading a seven dollar template that we've put on Pinterest or we've put in a blog or whatever, but they've never heard of the wedding academy. But capturing them enters that them into that funnel. And and one thing I learned early on with funnel is if you want people to go through that journey and buy that expensive thing at the bottom, you've got to keep that funnel full, right?

Time And Effort Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 26:53

So Yep, you can you have to have so many people in the funnel. And that's one of the things that people underestimate how much effort it effort it takes to keep people coming in, right? New eyeballs, new potential customers, right? It's that's what makes passive income not passive, because you you do have to put in effort to make sure that you are continually building brand and product awareness around this thing that you want to sell, even if after that point it becomes more passive for you.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yeah, excellent. So uh how much time and effort is tip typically required to establish and maintain a passive income stream in the winning industry?

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I mean, how much time you got? That's the question. How much time do you have? I mean, I have been talking to, I mean, in the last year I've probably talked to like close to a thousand small business owners. And I I'm one of the questions that I I ask a lot is how much time do you have to work on marketing every week? And the answer is typically they in conjunction with this phase. They make this phase. Yeah. They're like one to two hours a week. And so no, and maybe there are some people who are are listening to this episode, and they're like, oh, well, I have like five to ten hours a week that I can work on marketing. That's great. But also I think it's important to share that one to two hour stat because a lot of people feel like they're not doing a good job or they're not doing enough. But I think it's important for people, yeah, it's super common. And I want people to know that if you only have an hour or two a week to work on your marketing, you're in the norm. So don't feel bad about it. But I share that because, you know, if we're thinking of, well, what does it take to get a new stream of income up and running or create a new product, right? Like that's you're gonna end up needing to invest quite a lot of time on the front end. And depending on what it is you're trying to accomplish, it could be you could probably spin something up if we're just talking about, you know, you're you're turning a Google Sheet or a Google Doc into a digital product, right? Like you could probably get a you could probably do most things in a couple days. Yes. If you dedicate a coup like nothing else, right? Like you're not replying to any customer emails, you know, you go like I'm dead to the world, this is all I'm working on right now. Um dead to the world. But dead to the world. Not here. Um so like you could do something very quickly.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

But if you're wanting to do something like a robust course or an ebook, right? Like that's gonna take you weeks, if not months, to just create the product. Yeah. And then that's probably gonna be something that's at a higher price point, which means then the automated email sequences and all of the marketing around it needs to be more robust as well, because the more money you're asking for someone to give you, the more convincing it takes. So, like you said, the$7 template, someone that's an impulse buy. But if you're selling a$500,$1,000 course, people are gonna do I want this, they're gonna investigate it, they're gonna show up and look at it, they're gonna go away, they're gonna have to like somehow bring them back. So in summary, it could be as short as a few days or as long as, you know, a handful of months, depending on what you what it is you're trying to build.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

I think it's important to also say that you you can go down the path of producing this stuff regularly and making a workflow out of it. We certainly have with the Wedding Academy in that we're trying to create templates constantly and things that'll help people and things that are trending. And we'll lean on Chat GPT sometimes to come up with what that actually should be in terms of the product type and the name. Um, and but we'll we'll lean on our whole team in terms of is someone making that on Canva, or we've we've now just engaged a graphics subscription service where we can pump that idea in and leave it with them and pick it up in a few days, and it's we've been given the product image and and you know the customized PDF. So um, yes, Kimp I used for that, they're fantastic. Uh so but you you can get into a workflow and be able to create these things uh every week, every day, every month, if you want, if that's if that's your model to have this sort of passive re-interring in income stream. And um, you know, and then you and then you, as you said, push it out to Etsy, push it out to Amazon, uh, you know, see see where you can repurpose it and and and use it.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah. Um and you know, every, you know, your every wedding business has a slow season, right? And so this is a great way for you to really utilize that slow season so that you know you're bulking up potentially your income even when you're busy, but then also in future years, you're gonna have, you know, you're gonna reap the rewards of the work that you did now. So, you know, it's it if you're willing to commit to the work and the workflows and you know, continually touching on this and and iterating, then it's totally worth it.

Branding Trust And Visibility

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yeah, I agree. And I think I think the way that you and I think is the minute that we start making a template every week, that's a membership, you know? People will find value in in the library that we've built and you know the new material coming in. So so it's having that that presence of thought to go on doing this, like what else can I do with this? And I'm building this library of assets, you know, that's valuable. How can I also turn that into another revenue stream? You know, so having that that kind of presence of thought. Excellent. Uh so what role do you reckon branding and marketing play in the success of a passive income stream?

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Everything. Everything. Everything. I mean, when it comes to your brand, if you have a brand that is already recognizable and trusted, then that's the biggest advantage that you can have. Because I mean, if you think about your own buying habits, when you discover something that's brand new and you've never seen it before, you're it you have a healthy level of skepticism on whether or not it's a quality product coming from a quality source and all that kind of stuff. So making sure that your brand is is tight is always important. Um and making sure that your brand is visible is always very important. And then obviously, as a marketing consultant and someone who built marketing software, I'm gonna tell you that the marketing is so, so like even more important because if you like I think I said this earlier, it's not if you build it, they will come. That's just not the way the world works. And so even if you have a really strong brand, there's very few brands that can stand on their own two feet and like the brand itself does the selling. That's like the luxury space, right? Like, you know, your Louis Vuitton's and your Chanel's. I don't know why I don't own any of those products, but so it's funny that my mind went there. But the type of marketing that those brands need to do is very different from even a company like Nike, right? So um, so my point in saying that is you have to have a new marketing routine that's dedicated to just that passive income stream, right? So you're gonna have your marketing routine around selling your wedding services, and then you also need to have a routine around marketing and selling your, you know, your passive income product or service.

New Tools For Course Creation

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Definitely. And I think that there's plenty of people out there that might have gone on Fiverr and got a logo done, but didn't invest in the whole brand kind of voice and font and color, like mood board. Uh you know, that's when that stuff really comes into play. You know, you can whether you're going into Canva yourself and you're uploading those brand assets, uh, or you know, you're giving them to a graphic designer to make these these items for you, uh, having that clear direction on always use this font, always use this colour. This is the tone of voice that we always use. That's the stuff that's going to reinforce your brand 100%. Um, and I know I know from you know, dabbling in camera a lot, uh for a lot of the people out there that that's that's how they make most of their graphics. You know, that there's that great tool where you can change all now. So you change a heading and put it into your brand font and press change all and every chapter everywhere that that that font is, it's changed it for you. So, you know, we you might have had a 20-page document that you're building, but very, very quickly you can roll out that it that it feels like your brand and looks like your brand, you know, very quickly and easily. You don't have to go page by page and do it.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

So yeah, that's so tedious. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

The light bulb moment when I saw that change all thing when someone told me about that. I was like, why did I not know about this? That would be, you know. So I use it all the time, as I'm sure you do. Uh, are there any emerging trends or technologies that you think that wedding professionals should be aware of when they're exploring passive income ideas?

SPEAKER_00 37:22

You know, there's actually a new platform that came across my, you know, my universe not that long ago. It's called The Leap. L-E-A-P. Yeah, everybody, stop what you're doing, write it down. The leap. The leap, hot off the press. And it is, if I'm remembering correctly, and I feel terrible if I botched this, but I think I'm doing it. I think I'm remembering correctly. It's um it's basically another product revenue stream from a company called ThinkIphic, which is a big like course creation online shop uh platform. And so they create they created the leap, and it's a way for, and it's free as of last time I checked, which is wild, but it's a way for creators and educators and influencers to create short form like courses that are consumed on your phone. So everything is in this in the style of you know, like an Instagram story, essentially. And you can do it really quickly because they have incorporated artificial intelligence into it, right? So it's like, what's what type of course or short course do you want to create? And then it's using AI to create the foundation of it after asking you a few questions, and then it's written most of the copy for you, and then what you need to do is go in and record your videos. So, like a really easy way and to start getting or creating like your first course. So that's the that's the cool new kit on the block that I've recently discovered.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

I noticed that Kajabi are doing something similar.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Have you noticed that? I haven't seen that one, but I mean it it wouldn't surprise me.

Staying Current With AI And SEO

SPEAKER_01 39:15

The AI in that, I I went in and uh it prompted me to come up with a new certificate course for the Wedding Academy, and I and I said, Oh, certificate in wedding photography. And it pumped out suggested modules and lessons to get me started, and they were bloody good. They were bloody good. There's a lot more to be done in terms of videos and and and fleshing out that content, but but the AI abilities in some of this software to just get you started and give you that framework is is quite exceptional at the moment. So, how do you think um talking about that ongoing education and and sort of l staying on top of these systems and the technologies that's super important, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:01

It is. Lisa. I mean, the the pace that technology is changing right now is objectively fast, like faster than it has been maybe ever. You know, it's so I've I've had the opportunity to give a couple presentations about AI and how we can leverage it as small business owners. And you know, I I often tell these kind of narratives around how what we're living through is different even from when we went from like horses and carriages to cars, right? Like, because that was one transformation, and then it, you know, the cars got better, but it wasn't like the cars got better every day.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

And with artificial intelligence, the technology is changing and getting better every day. So it is it is important to try to stay a little bit more on top of what's going on in this space because I I don't think that anybody wants to be like not a not a grandparent and asking like the kids to explain how to do use the technology, right? Like I don't want, I'm 38 years old. I'm like, I need to be, I need to understand how to use this technology. I can't be acting like my 94-year-old grandmother who's trying to get like I need to teach her how to use a you know text message. So there is that's why it's important to stay on top of technology right now, is because it is it is moving so fast, and none of us want to get left behind. And they're actually, this is not hyperbole. This is you actually could get left behind if you don't figure out how you can leverage it and incorporate it into your business. Because everybody else is going to.

Legal Basics And Protecting Your Work

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yeah. And look, I I'm really, really passionate about finding the latest tools and materials and str and strategies. Uh, and it's part of the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to be really honest. Like Wedding Empires for me is all about you know getting getting people like you in to talk about what we need to talk about in order to stay on top and to stay current and to be using the right tools and using the right strategies to stay on top because it's it's absolutely so competitive in this space. So we need all the help that we can get. Now I I have one more question for you, uh, very, very, very serious one. Um in that are there any legal considerations or challenges that wedding professionals might need to be aware of when creating these additional passive income streams?

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Yeah, don't steal other people's shit. Definitely don't break the law by stealing someone else's stuff and trying to sell it as your own. And I know that, you know, you laughed because it sounds outrageous, but I actually have a friend who is a stationary designer who is dealing with that right now. She had one of her digital products. Someone who purchased her digital product straight up like didn't even try to change, like didn't even remove her business name from the product and just put it up in her own shop and has been selling it for years. So again, it sounds outrageous, but it happens. So, from a legal perspective, my advice as a non-lawyer, but a human who's trying to be a good one is don't steal other people's shit.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Yeah, and protect yourself, right? Protect your own brand, get your trademark, get copyrighted, you know, protect these these ideas that you have that are unique and you know, brand uh assets, um, protect them as well. I think that's that's that's really important. It is. Oh, I love talking to you. Can we do this again?

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Yes, you know, I was gonna say, as we were starting to dip our toes into the AI pool, we for sure should have another chat about how artificial intelligence is going to change how our Customers find us on the internet. That is my new soapbox. I did give that as a part of a presentation recently, and everyone in the audience was like, What? Yeah, okay. So if you want to blow some minds, that let's let's definitely have a follow-up chat about that because that for sure, when we talk about needing to make sure that we are not getting left behind, maintaining our SEO is of utmost importance.

What NG Does And How To Try

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yeah. It came up, I interviewed, as I said, Nina Clapperton, she's from she knows SEO. That's coming up on Winning Empire soon. But we we dabbled into the fact that, you know, even just the voice search, you know, how are you going to start thinking about that? You're not just thinking about people on a desktop searching your exact business type on Google anymore. It's it's it's uh, you know, where's the wedding photographer near me, Siri?

SPEAKER_00 45:20

It's yeah, right. We should do a conversation with the three of us. That would be so fun. That would be so great. All right, I'll line that up.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Taylor, thank you so much. Before we uh finish up, I'd like you to give me your little two-second plug about what NG is, how how wedding business owners can use it, and how the hell do they go and sign up and try it?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yes, I'm happy to do that. So NG is marketing software for small businesses who have to do their own marketing but are not marketing experts. And so what we are is basically, if anyone knows me, it's my brain, my marketing consultant brain turned into software so that you can use it to actually plan, organize, and do your own marketing. So you can create your marketing strategy. It creates recommended tasks that you should be doing in order to actually do your marketing strategy. It has an AI copywriter, a social media scheduler, a place for you to organize all of your brand assets, and a place for you to track your metrics so that you can understand what's working and what's not as time goes on. But I would love for everyone to start a free 14-day trial so you can get in there and tinker away. And you can do that. I know uh Jack is going to put her link in the show notes. Yeah. And I would love for you to check it out. And if you have any questions along the way, you can just say, Hey Taylor, how do I do this? Because you know a guy.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

I love it. A-N-J-I-N-G. Where'd the name come from?

SPEAKER_00 47:01

You know, actually, you know Jillian, my my copywriting partner at Tailored. I actually hired her to do a naming session. And so, you know, I completed an intake form for her, and she went and did her magical wordsmithing and she came up Yeah, she came up with a list of like 40 options. And we loved NG because it's a playoff of the word engine, because we're trying to help people create their marketing engines. Yeah. But it turns out that as we spell it, E-N-J-I, it's also a masculine Japanese name. So when you Google it, there's a lot of anime that still pops up. So I'm still working on all of our SEO to make sure that NG is showing up for NG's name on the internet. But you know, little bit by bit, I will, bite by bite, I will eat this LGBT.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

You know what? It doesn't matter what your name is if you've got a good a good thing going on, right? Yeah. I mean, there's been some weird brand names out there, and you just think, how the hell, but it works. It works and we're gonna do it. Totally. You know, so before you know it, NG will just be absolutely everywhere, I'm I'm sure of it. I hope so. That's the goal. Thanks, Taylor. It's been a joy, as it always is, and I will definitely love to see you back on Winning Empires as soon as possible. I'm sure we've got plenty of things that we can talk about.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Yes, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to be a guest, and I always love seeing your face. Me too.