Podcast Transcripts & Articles

Dec 16 2015

Making it Right, When You Got it Wrong (or even if you didn’t get it wrong)

By Blog, Uncategorized

I was conducting a group mastermind the other day and the subject of handling
problems and issues came up. While we all agreed that making the customer happy should be paramount in our decision making, that’s easier said than done in the real world. It’s even harder when it’s your business, and your money that’s at stake. The connectivity and access of today’s world adds another dimension. So how should we react when something goes differently than planned?

The worst thing you can do is to look for why it happened. The customer doesn’t care why, they only care that it happened to them. The importance and emotions of a wedding day are just fuel on the fire. Advertising and marketing sells the idea of having a ‘perfect’ wedding, but that’s an unattainable dream. There are just too many variables Read More

Dec 07 2015

You Win Some, You Lose Some – 5 WAYS TO HANDLE LOSING A SALE

By Uncategorized

This article was published in the November/December 2015 edition of Wedding Planner Magazine entitled You Win Some, You Lose Some – 5 WAYS TO HANDLE LOSING A SALE.   If you would like to use this on your site or blog, email Alan to receive the .pdf and Word versions, along with the attribution to include.

You Win Some, You Lose Some – 5 WAYS TO HANDLE LOSING A SALE
By Alan Berg, CSP, WWW.ALANBERG.COM, Kendall Park, NJ

In a perfect world, we’d get every sale we want, for the dollars we want. But we don’t live in a perfect world, do we? There are no trophies for second place when it comes to winning a sale. You either get the sale, or you don’t, so what’s a wedding planner to do? Here are five ways to handle losing a sale:

1) Rejection is in the eyes of the beholder. When you don’t get a sale, you might feel like you’ve been rejected, but that’s not usually the case. They just liked/trusted/believed in someone else more. Is that semantics? I prefer to call it optimism. When it comes to choosing a wedding planner, there can be only one winner—that doesn’t make everyone else losers. Prospective clients may like you enough to hire you, but they have to choose one pro among the many available. How many weddings do you do each year? That’s how many times clients chose you and not another planner. Are you the winner? Yes, but you may not have been their only choice. Had you not been available, they would have chosen someone else, someone very capable, nice, and likely at a similar price point. This isn’t like second grade, where everyone gets a trophy these days, there’s a winner and then there’s everyone else.

Read More

Nov 20 2015

Gratitude vs. Entitlement

By Blog, Uncategorized

There’s a lot of talk about how today’s couples, the millennial generation, has a
strong sense of entitlement. Rather than appreciating the opportunities, they often act as if it’s their right to have virtually unlimited choices. It makes sense since they’re the children of the baby boom, a time of unprecedented prosperity and hope in our country. It makes sense when you think that they can search on Google for free, interact on Facebook for free, and read/post reviews online for free.

What’s your first thought when you receive an inquiry?
The wedding industry is one that should be based upon gratitude. It costs very little to get married, just a license and someone to perform the ceremony. Yet, billions of dollars are spent on wedding celebrations each year, money they don’t have to spend if they just want to be married. Read More

Oct 14 2015

GOAL is a 4-Letter Word

By Blog, Uncategorized

We live in a society driven by goals, whether in sports, school or business; but IGoals had my perspective on goals changed a few years ago by my uncle. He told me not to use the word GOAL because goals, by their nature, can be self-limiting. If you’re trying to achieve the goal, you may deprive yourself of achieving more. In other words, if we just do our best, every time, we’ll achieve exactly what we’re capable of. On the surface that sounds plausible, but does it work in the real world?

When are goals good?
When you’re driving down the road you need to know the speed limit, as that’s the maximum allowable speed for that particular road. Did you know that many roads also have a minimum allowable speed? If you drive 20 mph on the interstate (when there’s no traffic slowing you down) you can get a ticket for driving too slow. Your car is capable of much more that any legal speed limit, but you have to hold it back to the target speed (or something close to it ;-).

Minimum goals, or targets, have their place as well. Besides not driving too slow to be a danger to others, it’s OK to have a minimum target when it comes to your sales and/or income. We all have to cover our expenses, put a roof over our heads, feed our families, etc. Many theme park rides have signs “you must be this tall to go on this ride”, and that’s for your safety. So, there are times when a minimum is good.

Goals don’t all have to be monetary Read More

Sep 20 2015

What’s Your 1, 3 and 5 Year Plan?

By Blog, Uncategorized

I recently attended a conference session about creating 1 year, 3 year and 5 year What's Your Plan - Ready Planning for Success Strategyplans for your business. The speaker, Liz Weber, posed some very interesting and introspective questions. I wanted to share with you some of my key takeaways and how I’m using them in my business, and with the wedding and event businesses with whom I consult.

My biggest takeaway was that my 1 year plan can be written in ink, but my 3 year, 5 year (and longer if you want) will be in pencil—or dry-erase marker if you prefer. While I have my 1 year plan written in ink, I keep the white-out handy (as when I do the NY Times crossword puzzle in ink).

As I look back at my current business (a little over 4 years now as an independent speaker, author, consultant and sales trainer) I can see that I’ve changed my business model and product/service mix a few times. There are certain services I used to offer that I no longer do. There are others that have been added to my product/service mix that I hadn’t imagined 4 years ago. Still others proved to be either not profitable, or not enjoyable for me; both good reasons to vote them off my island.

Read More

Aug 14 2015

Friday and Sunday Pricing – Should It Be Lower?

By Blog

I often see heated discussions on social media about whether you should charge Calculator How Much Can You Afford or Savethe same for Friday, Sunday, weekday, and off-season weddings and events, as you do for Saturday nights. There are passionate arguments on both sides. Some people contend that you’re doing the same work, therefore you should charge the same. That’s a sound platform. Others say that they’re only going to do a limited number of events per year, therefore they hold to their price, also a sound argument.

The other side speaks of not getting as many inquiries for Fridays, Sundays, or weekday events—so they offer a discount to encourage those to book. That too is a sound platform. There are successful businesses on both sides of this discussion.

So what’s the right answer? Read More

Jul 24 2015

Four Reasons Businesses Fail—and How to Avoid Them

By Uncategorized

This article was published in the July/August 2015 edition of Wedding Planner Magazine entitled “Four Reasons Business Fail–and How to Avoid Them”.   If you would like to use this on your site or blog, email Alan to receive the .pdf and Word versions, along with the attribution to include.

Four Reasons Businesses Fail—and How to Avoid Them, by Alan Berg, CSP

The things that make you great at planning weddings don’t necessarily make you great at business. That’s a harsh reality, but one you have to address if you want to have a successful wedding planning business. The skills and tools you need to be successful in business are available to you through the pages of this magazine, through the Association of Bridal Consultants, and at the myriad of conferences held locally and nationally.

Here are some of the top reasons businesses fail in the wedding industry:

Read More

Jul 16 2015

The High-End Wedding – Debunked

By Blog

For as long as I’ve been in and around the wedding industry, businesses have been chasing the “high-end” client. When I ask them what they mean by high-end, they usually say that it’s someone who’s spending a lot on their wedding. In theory that sounds right, but is it in practice?

What makes it high-end?
A high-end client sounds like an aspiration, but just because someone spends a lot, doesn’t automatically make it classier, or creative or (in plain words) better. Lots of couples spend lots of money on things that make others scratch their heads and go “Huh?” We wonder why the money went to those elements of the wedding, while there may have been elements that seem a little lacking—at least in contrast. Read More

Jun 23 2015

What do you want when you’re the customer?

By Blog
What do you want when you’re the customer? What a simple benchmark, and one that we should all strive for when we’re serving customers. So why is it so hard for others to use such a simple benchmark?  I think it’s just a matter of paying attention. Too many people are just skating through their day with no thought other than getting to the end of their shift. There seems to be no sense of ownership. Years ago businesses were family-run and people understood the value of good customer service. The store, and the people who worked there, were a package deal. They greeted you when you came in, they thanked you when you left, and encouraged you to “come on back and see us”.

So what’s changed?
I think it’s a short term outlook. The feeling that this is only temporary, so why care. Whether temporary or not we should all care. My list of job stops is long and circuitous. I didn’t know it at the time, but each of those jobs provided valuable lessons in customer service.