Meghan Ely – PR for your wedding business
I love having interesting guests on, especially friends that have so much to share. Meghan has pivoted from doing weddings at a 5-star hotel to being one of few people in the world that specialize in helping wedding businesses, like yours, with PR (Public Relations).
Listen to this new episode for ideas you can use, right away, to help get your wedding business more visibility outside your advertising and social media efforts.
About Meghan Ely
OFD Consulting owner, Meghan Ely, combines in-the-trenches event experience with a love of wedding PR to empower her clients to take their businesses to new heights.
A long-time industry speaker and writer, she is a WeddingPro educator with The Knot + WeddingWire, as well as a regular contributor to Wedding Planner Magazine, Catersource and SpecialEvents.com.
Meghan represents clients globally and has earned them coverage with the New York Times, Martha Stewart Weddings, The Knot, Refinery 29, Domino, Forbes and Real Simple, among other outlets.
Her team’s publicity efforts are regularly honored by the Public Relations Society of America. Special Events also has featured her as one of the top 25 young professionals in the event industry. Most recently, she was awarded 2021 NACE Speaker of the Year.
A longtime supporter of industry associations, Meghan served as the 2022 International President for WIPA.
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– Another pivot into a niche. Yeah, yeah, you’re going to want to hear this next guest. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. I am so happy and honored to have my friend Meghan Ely on with me today. Meghan, how are you today?
– I’m great, thanks. I’m so thrilled to be here.
– Well, I am thrilled to have you. People who don’t know you, you’re with OFD Consulting. We’re going to talk all about that because of how this became a thing. But first, let’s go back. You and I met under a very interesting circumstance and we love to share this story.
– I love this
– And I love sharing it because, you know, I have so many people in the industry that we are ships passing in the night, never get to meet. And you and I actually met in Limerick, Ireland.
– Of all places. Absolutely.
– Of all of all places. And we were both speaking at a very small conference, which started my journey of speaking in Ireland and some other countries, because I think I’ve spoken there eight or nine times now. But that was the first time. And you and I met, but almost didn’t meet because didn’t you get food poisoning or something?
– I did, Alan. So here it was, you and I, we had been ships passing. I had seen you speak years ago at Wedding MBA, da da da da da. We had been, I had done this Business of Weddings Ireland conference prior. They asked me back and said you were coming. I was very excited at the opportunity to spend some more time with you. You know, I was a big fan. And I was about 20, 22 weeks pregnant. And I had come early to hang out with some of my Irish wedding pro friends. I ended up with food poisoning. And so here I was, the day before the conference is starting, I’m being tossed onto a, with my husband Travis, onto a train from Dublin to Limerick. And I get there and I’m just not good. It’s not good, Alan, I’ll be honest. And so just, everyone can use their imagination. And I get there. Annie picks us up and the first thing I said, “Annie, listen, I have food poisoning. I’m fine. I’ll be fine for tomorrow.” Like, I just, I’m willing myself. And she understood I was going to pull it together. But then she goes, oh, and would you love to come to dinner tonight with, you know, you and Travis, Alan and his wife? And I said, “Absolutely not.” Like under, like, I cannot have my first foray with Alan be dinner where I want to throw up the whole time. So anyways, that’s our humble beginnings. And then we got to actually spend time together which was… I recovered. I ate some fruit, got on stage. And then you and I have had the pleasure of traveling together when we were wedding wire education experts. So that’s like the humble beginnings of our long friendship.
– And that baby that was inside you is how old now?
– Oh my gosh. He is nine, he is nine years old. So we’ve known each other almost 10 years. I have not picked out an anniversary present for us yet though, so we’ll work on that. We have a few months.
– We’ll definitely work on that one. So you actually started in the wedding and event industry at venues, right?
– Yeah, I did, correct. I’ve dabbled a little bit here and there. I spent the primary amount of time… I’m in Richmond, Virginia, and I started mainly at a five star property called the Jefferson Hotel. So under that I call myself, I was catering sales. So I did the food and drinks, of course, the wine tastings, and then execution day of.
– Okay. But now you’re doing PR among other things.
– Vastly different.
– Is PR and that’s what I know you as and that’s what a lot of people know you as. And those who don’t know you are getting introduced to you as that. There had to be a pivot in here somewhere.
– There was, there was a pivot. So, you know, my background as much as, you know, I love the wedding industry. My background’s actually in PR. I won’t bore you too much with this, but I took a career test when I was 14 and it said I’d be great at PR and that’s… I guess I’m a rule follower. I was like, well, I don’t even know who to think for that. But no, over the years I realized that that really, you know, they were correct. This is truly what I wanted to do, you know. And so I went to school for it, went to JMU and James Madison University, but really felt a pull towards the wedding industry, I think for a lot of reasons that other people feel too. It’s like, well, you know, I’m learning PR and I love it, but the wedding industry, it seems fun and glamorous. I mean, in that I’m 20, right? So what do I know? It sounds fun and it sounds like it’s a happy place to be. So I decided to, if you will, pivot within a pivot. I headed into the industry and I’ve got to tell you, I spent about seven and a half, eight years doing corporate, social weddings and so on and so forth. And there’s nothing like, you know, you have, you and you do these great holiday parties, weddings, and so and so forth. But then there really truly is nothing like, you could do something like that big six figure event. Everyone’s so happy. It’s very thrilling and it’s very hard and gratifying. But there was nothing to me like, I mean, you compare that to a one inch mention in a local magazine, you would’ve thought I’d won an Oscar. And so I knew I needed to head back to my original beginnings to what the career test told me to do.
– And so you left the hotel and you just started your own business?
– Well, there’s a little bit of a, you know, it has to come fraught with challenge, right? It wouldn’t be a great story if it wasn’t. And so what I decided to do is, it was 2009. As you can imagine, that’s, I mean, you and I both remember those times. Do we want to remember those times? It was a tough time. Recession hits all the things. And at the time I was being courted by a local brand who wanted me to become their director of catering. And all those years ago, I don’t mind being very candid, that they brought me in, it was a yes, it was going to be a six figure salary. Which at that time in Richmond that I would’ve been probably one of the highest paid at that job at the age of 27. And so I accepted with vigor. And my thought was, you know, I’ll work here for a couple years and I will save money. I had spent years not making that kind of money. So I could live like that and save the money and start OFD, which was always the plan at some point. I want to start my own thing, want to do PR for wedding pros That was always the plan, but I needed to save for it. Well, Alan, you and I know plans have a way of changing. They certainly humble us, right? You know, you come up with these plans. And I left after three weeks. Three weeks, I put in two weeks notice. It was the first and only time. I just knew it was not the right fit for me. It was the right move for me. That’s the polite way of, you know, saying it. It’s just, it wasn’t the right fit. And my now husband and I, Travis as you know him too, we were about to get married. We just bought a house, about to pay for a wedding ourselves. So why not start a business, which as you and I both know, makes tons of money in the first year, right? That’s what, absolutely.
– Yeah, yeah.
– And so I, you know, I had left my job. I’m in the middle of a recession where there aren’t a lot of options. I was being told I was too qualified for, like you know, some of this other stuff. And I was talking with my good friend Heather, and she goes, well why don’t you start this company early? And I said, well that wasn’t the plan. She goes, well I hear you, but plans have a way of changing. So I ended up starting OFD early, in 2009, spring of 2009. And I accepted a part-time job with an association management firm, which was perfect. I negotiated hotel contracts and did that for conferences for a year. I basically told people, listen, I worked 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM every day for this group. And then from 1:01 PM to 11 o’clock at night, I worked for myself. And I went on my own after a year. But that’s very humble beginnings. Definitely, as someone who’s very type A, I like to, I mean, my goodness, my career is built on a career test that told me I should be this. Like I’m a rule follower, right? And then to go in a totally different direction, I was so glad to do that.
– So what does OFD stand for?
– Oh, I get that often. I get that often. You and I both speak, right. And we get on stage, I’ll talk for 45 minutes about PR and so any questions? And that will be one of the first ones. So OFD is, when I was in college, I originally thought I wanted to be a wedding planner. Which is a great career, right? And I was going to call it One Fine Day. I came up with the idea in design class. My good friends were there, beflanking me for that. And when I decided to make a change and said, you know, I actually want to serve in a B2B space because of many reasons, some of which I’ve shared with you, I knew that One Fine Day, it was going to be hard enough to change the conversation in my local market because I was known as this reception gal to move into publicity. One Fine Day was definitely too weddingy, if you will. So I shortened it to OFD, which is its formal name. It’s kind of a nod and a wink to prior aspirations. It’s kind of an inside joke with myself.
– Got it, got it. Well, when I published my first book, I self-published and my speaker friend said, Alan shouldn’t publish Alan’s book. You should come up with a publishing company name. I was still at The Knot at the time. So Carol and I, my wife and I were talking about this and she said, “I got it. We’re going to be Left Of Center Publishing.” And I said, “Why Left Of Center?” She said, “We’re not quite right.”
– I always wondered that about you.
– Right.
– I Love that.
– And that was the name of the company until one day I was in Texas and someone was writing me a check for services that I had rendered and they said, “What do I make it out to?” I said, “make it out to Left of Center Marketing And Publishing.” And they said, “Oh, you’re one of them northern liberal guys.”
– Oh my gosh.
– I said, time to change the name. No left or center because we’re not quite right. That’s what it means is we’re not quite right. That’s when I changed that. And many other things in your story sound familiar. I’m in the wedding industry because I hated the job I had before this and I think I was there a week longer than you before I gave my two weeks notice.
– I did not know that.
– Yeah, I had taken a position that I just realized quickly it was not for me. And I think after four weeks I gave two weeks notice. So I had one week on you. I stayed one week longer.
– Here you go. You and your loyalty.
– And then I got downsized from a really good job and had to start my business. So there’s a lot of similarities there.
– I remember those days. Absolutely.
– So let’s talk about PR for wedding and event pros.
– Yeah.
– Describe PR first of all because a lot of people don’t really have a handle on that.
– I think it’s important to draw baseline too because I think the words PR, and marketing, and advertising are said interchangeably, which is not quite accurate. So public relations in like the purest sense, in the most informal way to say is, when you have a message, which is typically I am great, right? Like I’m the best destination planner in the New Orleans market. Like we get specific, right? And you’re trying to get out to an intended audience. That audience is typically engaged couples, people in a position to refer business to you. You and I both know the power of vendor referrals. And PR is when you’ve got a message and you’re trying to get it out to a particular audience and you’re utilizing the media to do that. And that could be through real wedding features, people’s events getting featured. It could be expert quotes, guest articles. A bit meta here, podcast interviews, speaking, things like that. There is a wonderful quote out there that essentially says that PR is when other people say that I’m great. That’s what it is. It’s a third party credibility through the power of the media.
– As opposed to social proof being the reviews and things that your customers say, which is other people saying you’re great. But it didn’t start with you, whereas the PR-
– Actually PR falls under social proof. So if you have a social proof umbrella, PR is under that. Advertising is often compared to PR where both times you have a message both times you’re trying to get to an audience. But the biggest difference is with advertising, which has a lot of benefits as we both know as well, when you advertise there’s an exchange of money and there’s a control that comes with it. A great control to say I know what the ad looks like, when it’s coming out, there are no surprises. PR can be a surprise. You can pitch the New York Times, they quote you and you say, “Oh dang, is that what I said?” Like there’s less of control, but you’re not paying for the privilege of control, which is is good. So yeah, PR falls under social proof. But I would say PR is often, I would say, compared to advertising in the differences there.
– Right, and the difference between you doing it yourself, which you could do.
– Versus having somebody like you do it is you have the connections, you know how the systems work, things like that. Because you can do PR yourself. You could submit to The Knot Real Wedding Stories things. Not guaranteed to get them. But as I recall from my days at The Knot, we had PR on staff because we were trying to get The Knot on Tv. We were trying to get The Knot-
– They still do. They still do.
– Absolutely. Absolutely. So what are some of the things, thinking about the people who are listening, which are people all around the world, mostly in the US but I have people listening from all around the world, thank you all those folks in the southern hemisphere and in Europe and all around. What are some of the, let’s go with the low hanging fruit first. What are some of the easy things people can do and then we could ratchet up?
– Yeah, absolutely. Couple things that they can do to get started, if they’re really starting from the very beginning. If you are a planner, venue photographer, designer, florist in particular, let’s talk about those guys. One of the best low hanging fruit is going to be real wedding submissions, to this day. Now I’ve been doing this 14 years and The Knot has been doing this longer and have leaned into it. This is not going anywhere. Statistically speaking, it’s still one of the best ways to get in front of people in a position to refer business or people who want to hire you, right? So that’s what we hear from Splendid Insights. And so essentially that is when you have great events and you want to go ahead and start pulling them and writing the story of them and gathering the vendors and submitting them to blogs and publications. So for anyone in those categories, I say the first thing you want to do, low hanging fruit is your own events. People want to see those. There’s great tools that are low cost and free, such as Two Bright Lights which is owned by The Knot, and they work with all sorts of different… Like it’s a great software where you can just start plugging in some of these great events as long as you have the right permissions and they can even make recommendations as to where these things can potentially go. So that’s one side of it. Now if you’re on the other side of it, let’s say you’re a DJ and you’re like, well that’s not going to benefit me. There is, if you really want to get started, two things you do. One, if you advertise anywhere, get with your advertorial contact, the sales contact, the person that you buy your ad space from. Ask them like at this place, this magazine, this blog, are there any editorial opportunities I’m not aware of? Because a lot of times, even though advertorial and editorial should be kept separate, I’m a firm believer in being very mindful of that. It’s a great way to get started. “Hey, what did I miss?” Oh yeah, we need to gather the top… Like we’re doing a magazine article on the top trends. Last but not least, if I may add a freebie here, help a reporter out, it’s called HARO. In helper reporter out, you want to talk free and easy and low hanging fruit, it’s a free program. You sign up for it and what you’ll do is, I would say Monday through Friday, three times a day, with the exception of holidays, you get press leads from writers who are already looking for experts. So there’s a few different ways you can go to get started on your own.
– Right, and I was part of HARO for a while there. And again, not all of them are going to apply to you. But you never know. Going on podcasts, there’s the thing again.
– Absolutely.
– Right. Which again is meta because you’re on a podcast. We’re talking about that podcast.
– I know! And that it depends on your strengths. You know, low hanging fruit’s hard because it’s like, well I’ve got the images, great. Submit them. I prefer writing, join HARO. I prefer to be a talker. Great, go listen to podcasts and start pitching yourself and be a part of that conversation.
– Right, now I remember from my days at The Knot sitting with the photo editor and she would get in tons and tons of submissions. But so many of them were very similar to something they had already published. And what she said to me was, I’m looking for something different, right? But what people do is they see a picture and they see, oh, I did a wedding like that. And they submit a wedding just like that. Not as likely to get shown, right?
– Correct. It’s all about fresh and inspiring. You have to remember, and by you I mean the royal you of the audience here, from all over, no matter where they live, when it comes to publications, the way they monetize in part is going to be by their audience and seeing an increase in audience and people going to their site. And the same old same old is not going to attract new couples. They want to see, yes, it’s great if they can see themselves a little bit in those, but what they want to see is something that inspires them, they’re not going to see elsewhere. It’s called exclusivity. And so that’s one of the biggest mistakes. To your point that people make when it comes to submitting real weddings is they will submit and they go, “Oh, well I have this inspiration shoe. I have this wedding, it looks just like this one that you just had on green wedding shoes ruffled.” And it’s like, no, no. Inspired to be different. Think ahead.
– And unique stories, right? The story behind the story.
– I would say less so though. It’s going to be all about the photography and the details that lead into it. Now the story is going to be secondary to it. Some publications will lean into it more than others. It’s never going to hurt to have a great story, but really a carefully curated gallery with the right photos of the right details, that’s what’s going to attract the editors.
– Okay, now Editors again is for online as well as for offline.
– Correct. Blogs, publications, magazines.
– So my humble beginnings are with publications for many, many, many years. BI. Before the internet. I don’t know if it was really before the internet, but before the internet really took off for stuff like this.
– Correct.
– Those that don’t know The Knot started in about 1996. Was a channel on AOL and then eventually became TheKnot.com, had their IPO in 1999. So my beginnings with The Knot started in 2000. But I had been in the industry before that in publications called WeddingPages. And then at The Knot we had local magazines, regional. When I was VP of sales, we were publishing 17 regional magazines. It’s now 2023. Print. Is print relevant?
– Print continues to be relevant in a different way. Now I was going to say, I’ve been doing this part of the business for almost 14 years. And we have seen a decline in print. We have seen a decline, you know, have people pulling back. You know it’s like The Knot doesn’t have their local print anymore. Brides is now exclusively online publication. I actually just got off a phone call with someone about this. Print still has a place. There’s still a gravitas that comes with it. It just looks different than it used to be. And really a great print publication that’s still out there, I find that hyper-targeted local does very well still. And then also really like, The Knot national is beautiful. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a WeddingPro educator. I’d say that not being a WeddingPro educator, but they have to have a robust online presence. There’s just no way around it anymore. So I would say that wedding publications have fared better than other areas of the world. You know, you’re going to see they certainly are faring better, but it just looks different and you can’t get away from having that great online presence to pair it no matter how great the magazine is.
– My thing with people when they ask me about print is I asked them what you kind of said before. You said, you know what, that one inch in print just, you know, in a magazine you said years ago was like, wow, you know, you got that. And what I say to people is, would you like to be featured in, fill in the blank of the magazine they’re asking me about, like a local publication, whatever. And if they go, “Eh,” I said, well then it doesn’t matter. But if you go, “Oh yeah, sure, I’d like to be featured in there,” then you know, it’s still relevant. If there’s a value to you to be there, which a lot of people, the value is that laminated thing that says, “As seen in,” you put in your office that says, here I am in there. If there’s no value to the customer that walks in to go, “Oh, you’re in that magazine,” then I guess it doesn’t matter. But you started hinting at something there, you said something about local, right? You said some of the value there you said still could be in local. Now The Knot doesn’t do local publications anymore, but The Knot’s publications were not hyper-local. They were local because it was New York, it was New Jersey, it was, you know, Southern Cal. Big, big areas there. Are you still seeing value in some of those local, smaller publications?
– Absolutely. Because here’s the thing, when, you know, with the exception of Destination Companies, right? It looks different. It all goes back to that channel. I’m going to give an example of Richmond Market because that’s where I live. And if I was a Richmond wedding planner, right, I would still, even if I love the idea of, you know, discerning couples want to see as in The Knot, Martha Stewart Wedding, Brides, don’t get me wrong, they want to see that. But the channel that connects you to the local market, it will be the local channels, period. So I would still be exploring and giving love and time and effort and resources to the hyper targeted local. Because even if a local, and I’m just making this up, you capture 5,000 people, 10,000 people a year, well guess what? It’s engaged couples in your area with this full of cash versus, you know, I’m out at this other national site, which is wonderful and it’s great for the links and all of that stuff, don’t get me wrong, you know, SEO. But you’re not going to necessarily capture someone in the the Virginia market who’s going to hire you. So you got to figure out what the balance of that is. And so the big thing I always tell people is, please make sure you’re giving love to the targeted local as well as niche. You know, if you want to be the number one, you know, South Asian wedding planner, well, hopefully you’re a Maharani, you know?
– Yeah. And I think about here in the local market in New Jersey, njwedding.com, Eric Kent, good friend of mine. Actually going to see him tomorrow to mastermind. And he’s hyper-local. He’s at every wedding show. He is out there with vendors. And the thing different versus The Knot is getting to Eric and telling him you have a wedding that you think would be, you know, good for his website is a whole lot easier than getting to some national editor who has people coming from all over.
– Absolutely. It’s less competitive, but it’s also focused. They still want fresh and inspiring. But you talk about the story, right? And you said to me, well what about… The story matters more locally. The story matters more within each publication. That’s where it’s going to matter more, a little bit more well-rounded versus I need these crazy details that no one has seen yet. You know, there’s going to be a lot, like, local. So I always say it’s never one or the other. It’s just a mix that’s going to make sense for your company and goals.
– Which is the key with just marketing in general. You want to be everywhere where your customers are looking for you
– One hundred percent.
– And the thing with ad placement is guaranteed you’re paying, it’s going to be there. The thing with PR, like you said earlier, it’s not guaranteed. They may not accept it and the next story comes out and it pushes it down and things like that. But you want to be everywhere that they can. You want to be able to say I’m in all these places. And then you mentioned some numbers before. You know, so let’s say it is 5,000, that see it instead of 500,000. How many weddings are you going to do?
– I know, right? You want 5,000 winnings? Okay. Like, you know, you’re right. You’ve got to be mindful of that. And keep in mind that press doesn’t always mean it’s going to connect. Like it’s also the, to your point again, what’s going to impress them as well? What’s going to give that gravitas to them.
– Right? And then, you know, what can you do to run with it and give yourself little bit of leverage because you have, like I said, the laminated thing that says, “As seen in”, you know, if it doesn’t show the date of the magazine, it stays on your wall for a little while-
– Forever.
– And here we are and there it goes. So that, that’s kind of low hanging fruit there. What’s the next level. Like, what is it that you do for your customers that people either can’t do themselves or aren’t doing themselves because it’s just too hard, too time consuming, whatever.
– Sure, well obviously some of the more higher end publication real wedding submissions, it takes a more discerning eye, editorial eye. We have a staff that, you know, with degrees in photography who can come in and do that. So that is next level. It’s like you start with getting featured, but then it’s that next level up and having that strategy. But one of the biggest things that we assist with in particular, it’s twofold here is part of it is being quoted in things. Like people who come to me and say, well I want to be that expert when Martha Stewart wedding comes to us. Or brides.com comes to us and wants us to speak on trends or whatever they want to talk about. So what we do is we’ve created a model, it’s six years old now, it’s called OFD Collective. And writers come to us now, which if there’s a publicist listing they would say, wait, what? Like, because usually a publicist does the outreach. But we are so fortunate at this point where we work with billions of different wonderful writers over the years who say, I need help with this article, I need help with that. And so what we do is we connect our our members for that. Because you can absolutely do that on your own. I teach people how to do that. I would never want someone to think they can’t do it. But boy does it take years. It takes years. Find the right person, follow them for six months, obsess over their articles, then figure out how you can pitch them. Find the right time. So that’s something that we expedite for people. But it would also say, believe it or not, because you mentioned podcasts. Podcasts, speaking, things like that. Those are things that as you know, can’t be done overnight. I mean, I’ve known about your podcast for how long? But I don’t think I’ve ever pitched myself ever until recently. And there was a reason for that. I needed to get to know your content, make sure it was the right place at the right time for you and for myself as well. So that’s next level. It’s that just the really thinking about putting it together. Who am I going to pitch? What conversation do I want to have with the larger audience?
– So it’s the curation. So one of the things I’ve noticed on The Knot, or maybe it’s WeddingWire where people can submit their own real weddings, just upload them. There is a difference in the look when somebody just uploads their own stuff versus when a photo editor is curated. And if you don’t believe me, just go to The Knot, go to the Real Wedding Stories and go look through and you see, gosh, like four photos in the row that look very similar except for one thing is different. That’s not interesting to the reader, to the viewer of things like that. And I’ve noticed, because I get your emails about with the collective, you’re kind of like HARO, you know. Help a reporter out.
– Actually are a hundred percent like, I mean we literally are HARO for the wedding industry. Like, correct. Like we just, yeah, I love the model. So I adapted it to the wedding industry.
– And I see you’re coming through saying, listen, we have this, somebody needs quotes for, fill in the blank, whatever it is. And that’s where you’re the connector with that kind of stuff. So if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I don’t know where to start, well just like anything else in the world, right? I have an accountant because yeah, I could do my own books to a certain point, right? I have a graphic designer because I’m dangerous with Photoshop, right? But then when you go to that next level, right? I don’t lay out my own books because there’s an expert in that and things like it. And your company is an expert in this. So, I think one of the other unique things with what you do is you come from a background of doing weddings and events.
– It comes in handy. And I’ll tell you why, because most of the writers that we work with don’t have a background in the wedding industry. There are rare exceptions, right? There are people who’ve interned, who’ve had jobs, who’ve made their way over. And so what’s nice is they may come to me and say, “Hey, hey Meghan, I really need your help on this article.” And I often, like, depending on my comfort level with them, I can start to not only pitch additional ideas for down the road, but I could also help come up with questions because I’ve seen all the angles of the weddings. Like I was there, I’ve been in it. I can dig in more because I was in the trenches. And for a long time, about 75% of my team at one point or the other have been in the wedding industry. And I think there’s a lot of value to that.
– Yeah, absolutely. because you understand it’s like, you know Mark Chapman.
– Yes.
– And I’ve had Mark on because you know, his focus is the wedding industry. Yeah, you can get somebody else to help you with your TikTok ads, your Instagram ads, but they’re generalists, you know. Whereas he’s a specialist. And the same thing with you, you focus on the wedding and event industry.
– A hundred percent. And I’ll be honest, it’s mainly weddings altogether. Like let’s be honest here, we’re a few minutes in now. I do get pushback. I mean you talk about a niche and really specializing. I do get pushback from people who have said, they’ll say, well what can you help me with? And I said, listen, like I need 24 hours in a day in a day just to really want to dominate this market. Like, there’s a power in knowing the ins and outs a hundred percent of an industry versus me trying to dabble elsewhere and be a master of nothing, you know?
– Yeah, so we could describe your business the same way as mine has been described, which is your niche is an inch wide and a mile deep.
– I love that. I’m absolutely borrowing that and crediting you.
– And it was a focus that I did years ago where I said, I’m going to focus on the wedding and event industry because I could be the sales guy because you know, sales is sales. I could talk about that.
– Of course.
– But because I narrowed my niche, I’ve spoken in 14 countries, right? I mean, because I’m one of the people that they’re looking for with that. And that’s the same with you. You know, your niche is the same niche. Actually yours is less because I do weddings and events.
– I know, I was going to say, I won’t even take on, like I’m an expert in bar and bat mitzvahs. Not for me. I mean I just can’t, like there’s just so much, and I think you and I can both agree, humbly, that so much has changed with the pandemic. I had just done at the end of 2019, the changing media landscape and the minute pandemic hit, I had to take that presentation and set it on fire because it was no longer relevant. And so I can’t imagine needing to know more than that. You know, I just need to focus on that.
– So that was BC. Before COVID.
– Before COVID.
– That’s new BC. That’s what we’re calling it, BC.
– After internet. BC, before COVID.
– Right, right. That’s it. That’s it. We have it in there, we have it there. So we have and could talk for hours, but we’re not going to do that on the podcast because we like to keep this till about a half an hour or so. If people want to find out more about you, we’re certainly going to put it into the podcast notes. But anybody who’s listening here, where would they go to find out more about your services and the collective.
– Best way to find me, ofdconsulting.com. That will take you anywhere else you need to go. You can find me on Instagram. @ofdconsulting is my handle. Don’t find me on TikTok yet. I’m still trying to find my way. I’m over there, but don’t find me yet. I’m still working on that.
– I’m with you. I grabbed @ Alan Berg so I could have it, and then I’m pretty sure I deleted the app.
– Oh well no, I mean, I’m on it a hundred hours a day watching cat videos, so don’t get me wrong, but that’s… Your listeners don’t need to connect yet there when it comes to me.
– And if you look up Meghan at all, you will know that she is a cat lover, Grey’s Anatomy expert.
– Yes!
– Right. Didn’t, didn’t I introduce you once?
– Yes, you did. Okay. This is my favorite story about you and I besides the food poisoning, which I didn’t fare well in, is you and I both know, I mean, and we can share. So, we were WeddingWire education experts, what is it, before merger? BM? Before merger.
– Yeah. Let’s not go BM. That’s not a good one.
– No, let’s not do BM. But, BTM, before the merger. And we did that and we traveled around and they ran it like a tight ship. You and I both know that. There were scripts and okay, Meghan, you go on with 30 seconds to go and all this and whatever, and we would all have to introduce each other. But it was planned within an inch of his life. That’s why they were so successful. And I was doing WeddingWire World DC. You and I, you and I are punchy behind the scenes. Like you and I don’t need to get into our zone. I mean, we’re in our zones. But you and I are noted extroverts, so we’re having fun backstage. Remember how Catherine would like go in the corner and not want to talk to anyone. And you and I are like, dit di dit di di. So as you’re about to walk on stage with this pre-planned to introduce me, you turn to me and say, “How should I introduce you?” And that was not the plan. You had a script. And I said, because it’s my market. I said, call me a Grey’s Anatomy historian. And you just got the, they just got the best laugh out of that. And that just set the stage for one of my favorite… It really set the tone for one of my favorite presentations I’ve ever done thanks to you. So I loved that. I was like, oh, that should be every time I’m on the road now. You know, we could be an act.
– That’s it. We could. And we’ve been on a lot of stages together.
– A lot of stages.
– We have! I keep seeing your name pop up for some upcoming stuff that you and I will both be at. So I always know I can come find you for a hug.
– Absolutely. And AC, after COVID we need all the hugs we can get, so.
– Yes.
– So there we go. Okay. So ofdconsulting.com I’m going to put it into the show notes as well. You can find out more about Meghan, find out more about the collective, how the collective can help you maybe be quoted in some of these articles and how she can help you with that. Meghan, thank you so much for joining me. Thank everybody for listening here and stay tuned for the next episode of Wedding Business Solutions Podcast.
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 [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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