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Certified Speaking Professional®

5 Reasons They Leave Your Website in 5 Seconds

By Blog, Uncategorized

Whether it’s couples shopping for their wedding, or you shopping for whatever you need, there are some websites that make us want to get comfy and look around – and others that make us rush to the BACK button. Is your website inviting, or is it chasing away the very people you’re trying to attract?

By the time they get to your website, they might already know a little about you; whether it’s from your profile on WeddingWire, social media, or a referral from another wedding/event pro. Don’t waste that foundation by doing some of the very things that make you want to leave a site – quickly!

Here are 5 reasons prospects might be leaving your website, in 5 seconds: Read More

Get The Most Bang For Your Buck – Exploring Your ROI

By Business, Uncategorized

Understanding and measuring the Return On your Investment will help you understand your business and take it to the next level.


If you’re like many wedding and event pros, it was your creativity that brought you into the industry, not your business acumen. To be successful, you need both. Once you decide to sell products or services, you need to develop your business skills and an understanding of the many ways to measure your success.

HOW DO YOU MEASURE SUCCESS?
Any good financial advisor or consultant will tell you that it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep that matters. In the early years of your business, you should plow back much of your profits (if you have any) into growing your business. A growing business should invest 10%-15% of its anticipated sales into marketing and advertising—not 10%-15% of their actual sales; the higher sales number that they’re trying to achieve. Then, once you’ve gotten there, you can lower that percentage to maintain your sales. Read More

It’s Not What You Want, it’s What Your Customers Want

By Blog, Uncategorized

I was doing sales training the other day and I noticed that one of the sales reps was using the word “I” too much. I was trying to teach her to have a better digital conversation. She wanted to get the prospect on the phone, because it would be better for her to find out more about what they needed. I can’t disagree with the logic, but the reality is that if they had wanted to talk on the phone, they would have called you! So, if you hear yourself saying “Well, I’d like to schedule a time to talk with them” or “I’d like to get them in for a meeting/tour”, it’s time to pause. Read More

Whose Vision of Success Are You Living?

By Blog, Uncategorized

As I travel from conference to conference, event to event, I often hear wedding pros talking about different speakers and well-known industry people. They often debate the success of that person; but, hang on – who are we to debate someone else’s success? Success, as with beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Each of us gets to define our success. For some, it’s a monetary value. For others, it’s quality time with family.

Choose your own benchmark
The key is that no one can really tell you if you’re successful, or not. Only you can determine that, using your own benchmark. A problem I see, all-too-often, is when I see someone trying to achieve what they perceive to be someone else’s success. It may be trying to do a certain number of weddings or events, or reaching a certain dollar value of sales. Read More

What Crossword Puzzles Can Teach Us About Life and Business

By Blog

Crossword puzzles are my diversion. I do one almost every day. It’s both a brain stimulant and meditation for me. When I’m doing a puzzle my mind is focused, not wandering or multi-tasking. What’s your diversion? For some of you it’s Sudoku, or maybe a game on your phone or tablet. For others it may be yoga, or reading a book.

As my family and I live in the New York area, I get The New York Times delivered daily. I rarely get to read more than a few articles in a day, while eating breakfast, and I can get the same news on my NYTimes iPhone app. I get news alerts on my phone, so I’m up to date on the latest in world happenings. I find that reading the actual newspaper, as with reading a physical book, is a different experience than reading on a screen. Read More

The Problem Lies Between the Keyboard and the Chair

By Blog, Uncategorized

I’m a happily married man. So, when something goes wrong, it’s always my fault. That may sound like a joke, but accepting responsibility when there’s a problem is a major step towards getting past it. Rather than trying to find blame, we try to find solutions. Chapter 15 of my new sales book is even titled “Do you want to be happy, or right?” I’ve often said that I’d rather be happy, and successful, than right. Proving to my wife (or a customer) that they’re wrong, never works out well. Read More

First-World Problems

By Blog, Uncategorized

The battery on my iPhone dies faster when I wear my Apple watch. That’s a classic example of a “first-world problem”. If you’ve never heard the expression, a “first-world problem” is something that a person in a third-world (developing world) country would never say, and probably wouldn’t understand. People who are wondering if they’re going to eat today aren’t worried about having “nothing good to watch on TV tonight”.

I recently visited Mumbai, India, and I was struck by the close proximity of poverty and wealth. I travel a lot and I see both poverty and wealth – but never intermingled the way it is there. In most major cities, the poverty and wealth are separated. You can tell when you’re in a wealthy area, and you can tell when you’re not. But not in Mumbai. As you ride from one place to another, you pass 5-star hotels and extreme poverty, almost randomly. New apartment buildings rise next to ramshackle huts, protected only by tin roofs and plastic sheeting. Read More

Success Comes from Action, Not Ideas

By Blog, Uncategorized

If you’re like me, you have more ideas than time. You may have pages and 
pages of notes from conferences, books you want to read, and videos you want to watch; now, if you could only find the time for all of it! Well, I hate to break it to you, but with all the modern technology at our fingertips, the one thing we’ll never invent or create is more time. It’s a finite commodity, and every second that passes is one that will never exist again.

OK, enough of the gloomy words. I want this article – as with most of mine – to be inspirational and to get you motivated to act. That’s the idea that prompted me to write this. Knowing that you can’t do it all is easy. Deciding to take action on some of your ideas is the important first step in achieving greater success. Success is not a product of having ideas or money. Success comes from acting on your ideas, and since you can’t do them all, it means prioritizing them so you can get started. Too many people get paralyzed trying to do too much. You end up spreading your precious time between too many things, only to complete very few (if any) of them. Read More

The Power of Our Words

By Blog, Uncategorized

Regardless of your political leanings, a lesson we can all learn from this election year is the power of our words. People judge you, and make assumptions from the words you say and write. From your advertising and marketing, to your website and email conversations, your words have a huge impact on your bottom line. If one prospect decides to not contact you, or not return your email, because of your choice of words, what will that cost you in lost business? As with so many things in your marketing chain, if you could see that business going away, you’d pay a lot more attention to what you say, when you say it, and where you say it. Read More

Real Life versus Facebook Life

By Blog, Uncategorized

Have you ever noticed that, for the most part, everything we see on Facebook paints a rosy picture of someone’s life and/or business? We see their best work and their personal and business successes. What happens in between the posts? What is it that they’re not showing and talking about? That folks, is called real life. Not reality TV life. Real, everyday life, like the ones you and I lead.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as guilty as you are. With rare exceptions, I post only the good stuff, too. You’ve probably seen my “#ConferenceSelfies”, where I take a selfie, from the stage, before almost every presentation. Some of you picture me jet setting around the world, living the glamorous life. Well, I am jetting around the country, and internationally, but it’s usually in a coach seat on a commercial flight. No private jet here. Now imagine how much time I spend in TSA lines, and waiting for flights. Or how about the 133 nights I spent in hotels last year. You rarely see me posting about that – although I have been known to tweet out of frustration to an airline or two. Read More