Have you ever heard the Bible parable that Jesus taught about building your house on the rock? It is a story about how someone who listens to his instruction and puts them into practice is like a person who built their house on a rock or solid foundation. When the winds blew and torrent came and the streams rose, the house stood firm.
In comparison, there is a person who built their house on the sand (heard the instruction and warning but did nothing). When the storms, wind, and waves came, their house was washed away.
I believe building a solid foundation with your business is the same. We have to prepare our businesses for storms and have a plan to clean up after the storm passes. Unless we have the solid foundation, our business will be washed away. The key is in receiving instruction and following through.
If you’ve been struggling, wondering what you should be doing in this in-between time, Lou and I came up with three ways you can position your wedding & travel business for the post-pandemic recovery. 👇
1. Sales Funnel
If you don’t have a sales funnel strategy implemented, please get this prepared. You will need to create the content your ideal client is looking for, offer them a lead magnet (a.k.a. bride bribe) where they give you their name and email, direct them to a consultation with you and/or have an email sequence to follow up (in case they aren’t ready for the consultation yet).
2. Wedding & travel planner contract terms and list of services
Second, I believe we all need to update our wedding & travel planner contract terms and list of services to make sure they reflect our new way of doing business as well as protect our businesses.
- We need to have proper terms on our contracts to protect us and make sure it covers things like cessation of travel, acts of nature, things outside our control. Make sure your planning fee is stated as non-refundable.
- We need to be clear on what our services cover to maximize our value vs someone doing a DIY wedding. Think about all the things you had to do for your clients as a result of the pandemic and add those services to make sure your future clients understand your role in assisting them should an emergency arise. This also gives them peace of mind that you have a plan.
3. On-boarding process
And third, we need to get our on-boarding process in place because once the travel ban is lifted, we have to be prepared for the future travel demand.
Let me give you an example. Recently, I hired someone to help me with Facebook ads. We are getting to ready to open enrollment for our destination wedding course and I am swamped and need some help.
I found the ads expert online and went through her sales funnel and consulted with her. After the consultation I hired her, and she immediately had a process that I needed to follow to get things rolling. This made me confident that I made a good decision in hiring her.
Unfortunately, she reached out the next day saying that her long-time best client needed help with a campaign, and she could no longer help me.
She referred me to someone else. I consulted with this new person and hired her. After paying her invoice and signing her contract, I didn’t receive a formal next steps guide. I reached out to her and gave her some details of what she would need from me. The only reason why I knew this was because of the on-boarding process from the other ad expert.
This made me nervous about my decision. I started getting worried that she wouldn’t be able to get me the results I wanted. I second guessed my decision.
Can you see the difference between how I felt? While both people could have had the same qualifications and both could have given me the desired results, from a consumer’s perspective, one person’s process made me feel confident and at peace with my decision and the other’s made me feel worried.
As a destination wedding planner, you must have a process after someone hires you to give them peace of mind in choosing you over someone else. 👍
If you want to learn how to become a destination wedding planner, take a destination wedding planner course to increase your business or add destination weddings to your existing wedding planning services, then I invite you to join me for my next Masterclass! 👇
