Own Your Business

Most wedding pros I talk to have a love-hate relationship with social media. You love scrolling your own feed, but hate posting on your own account. Kidding. But not really. Social media is hard. What do you post? How do you write the caption? What cards do you drop in your Story? What images look good in this Carousel? Do you put your face on the screen? If so, what do you talk about? How much of...

A few weeks ago I did an episode about how wedding business owners are being sold a single version of luxury and told it’s the only version available. It struck a chord with many of my clients and others who reached out, because I busted this myth that if you want to find success you have to do it a certain way - usually represented the way the people on top have done it themselves.  I think that...

What’s the difference between simple and easy? It’s pretty nuanced, but the distinction is important.  Here’s what a quick search turned up on Google: While simple and easy can sometimes be used interchangeably, simple refers to something that is not complicated or complex in its structure, while easy refers to something that requires minimal effort to accomplish. Let me say that again, because, a...

Welcome to part two of my top 10 Engage takeaways. The first five aired last week, so if you haven’t listened to them yet, you should go back and start with that episode. I provide useful context to the conversation, and it’s all done in my most gravelly, shot out, baritone voice in 173 episodes.  Here’s a quick summary of the first set of takeaways: Go in with no plan Pay attention to those who p...

11 years ago I attended my first Engage. It was like a roller coaster. At first I was scared to got, but then once I was on it was the time of my life. And when I was done, I wanted to jump in line and go again. Engage has been a big part of my life since that first one in Scottsdale, Arizona. I met my wife, Katy, at my 3rd Engage, in Grand Cayman. I got a job running Todd Fiscus’s companies at th...

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. The wedding industry pushes an unrealistic version of what it means to work in “luxury.” Million-dollar budgets? Amangiri and the Amalfi Coast for every wedding? Couples who look like models in every photo? Sorry, but that’s not the luxury wedding market. That’s ultra-luxe. The top 1%, not 10%.  And that pie-in-the-sky version of “luxury” is a lot harder to achieve...

We’ve all heard of “growth mindsets,” but what does it really mean? Here’s a definition: A belief that intelligence, abilities, and talents can be developed through effort, hard work and guidance from others. I first heard about it in the book Mindset by Carol Dweck, a Stanford professor who coined the term back in 2006. In her research, she found the growth mindset was the #1 predictor of long-te...

We all know it’s a crowded marketplace out there right now. I’ve never believed there’s enough business for everyone who wants it (well, maybe in 2022). But now, more than ever, wedding pros are feeling the pinch of not enough business to go around. Even if you are filling your calendar, it’s harder than it’s been in a long time. Not counting the early days of the pandemic, I’ve not seen times thi...

The measure of your unhappiness is the distance between where you are and where you want to be. For many right now, that’s a big gap. You should work smarter and harder to close the gap - but don’t fixate on how far you’ve got to go.  When times get tough, it’s more motivating to look at how far you’ve come. At my family for Thanksgiving, we did that cheesy thing where you hold hands and say what...

One of the things we’re seeing with couples is their lack of decisiveness. It’s taking a lot longer to make a decision.  I see lots of reasons for this, including overscheduled lives, multiple decision-makers, a noisy marketplace, and general concern about the economy. As a business owner, you can’t control ANY of these things. Sorry, I wish it was different - but it’s not. Instead, I want you to...

Today’s episode is focused on tips and tricks to DIY a website. But it’s also a big day for Katy and me, and our entire team, because we’re opening up our Showit template shop.  Of course, everyone who owns their business would gladly have an expert take care of their website if it was as easy as, say, emailing the marketing department of the company you work for and saying, “Hey, we need a new si...

I hear a lot of talk about ideal clients in the wedding industry, including us.  We put out content on the regular to share information about who and how and why and what for those perfect buyers you want on your calendar. And we’ll talk about it on today’s episode too. But we’ll also dive into what it means to be an ideal service provider, because very few people are talking about that - and it’s...

Not gonna lie: Copywriting is tough. Especially for websites. You have to do so much all at once. Communicate messages. Maintain interest. Stay in voice. Persuade people. Provide reassurance. Provoke desire. Impress Google.  Like any skill or craft, it takes a long time to get good at it.  And like any skill, when you get training and insights from an expert it shaves years off the learning curve....

If money grew on trees, you’d have the best of the best do everything for you. But money doesn’t grow on trees or fall from the sky, and extra zeros don’t show up on your bank account statements. So we have to deal with reality - which, for entrepreneurs, means wearing all the hats. Social media, bookkeeping, sales, system set up, technology. You name it, and you probably do it at some level in yo...

To rebrand, or not to rebrand. That is the question on the minds of many right now. What exactly does it mean to rebrand, though? Is it just a new logo? Is it a full overhaul of your style kit? Does it always have to involve a name change? More importantly, when is it a good idea to do? And when should you hold out to see where you can get with your current brand? Because rebrands are not inexpens...

For those who don’t know, I write a newsletter for nearly 6,000 subscribers every week. I’ve done it for nearly 6 years now, and it’s filled with great advice like you get on the podcast. One of the cool things about a newsletter is that I can talk about exactly what’s going on in the industry right now. It’s why I usually only do 2-3 at a time when I batch out content, because I want to make sure...

There’s this terrible myth out there that SEO doesn’t matter as much as it did, say, 5-10 years ago. Or even last year. The SEO-is-irrelevant idea is especially widespread in the luxury space - which is a crying shame for all those wedding pros who’ve put ALL your eggs into the referral basket. Yes, referrals are important, even essential, when you get to luxury. However, you can’t NOT have key SE...

Anyone else feel like it’s a little “weird” in the wedding industry right now? Actually, it’s probably been about a year since it started, but we’re just now starting to talk about it openly. The sentiment hit a tipping point recently, and people are beginning to share how hard it’s been to book couples. Today’s episode is a megaphone on the conversation. But it’s not just me, it’s a panel of indu...

Everyone talks a big game when it comes to attracting ideal clients, so why is it so hard to actually make it happen?  It’s because there’s a LOT of work that goes into getting from A to Z, from I know what I want in an ideal client and now I have a calendar filled with them. That gap is filled by the buyer’s journey, and your job as a marketer and salesperson for your business is to craft a path...

Filling your calendar with clients you love is almost as hard as finding a potential partner on a dating app. It’s hit or miss - with a lot of ghosting. Before you blame the game, though, look at how you’re playing it. I’m not going to offer dating advice on this episode, but Katy and I will share 10 mistakes we see wedding pros make on your websites and in your sales processes. Take note so you c...

Today you’re going to get a first - and a second. What do I mean by that?  In the past 3 years we’ve run a new episode each and every week. We’ve done a few different kinds of podcast approaches: - Solo episode - Guest expert on a particular topic - Katy talking about websites and copywriting with me - Celebrity guest talking about their career trajectory - Client case studies to dive deep into ho...

Hi, I’m Sam, and I’m a perfectionist. I used to think I wasn’t a perfectionist. After all, I tend not to focus on the details, and I often leave projects undone, let alone done perfectly. Then my therapist called BS on that, and because she is not only a licensed expert but also knows me better than anyone else - well, I listened to what she had to say. Once I became aware of my version of perfect...

Today I discuss luxury weddings with KT Merry. She’s one of the savviest, experienced, and plugged in wedding pros I know, and I value her perspective. Not only does she photograph in the ultra-lux space herself, but she leads a vibrant community of aspiring luxury photographers with her signature education program, The Abundance Plan.  I think you’ll see from the breadth and depth of the conversa...

We all know referrals are helpful to booking more clients at higher prices. It’s too bad too many wedding professionals waste too much time, energy, and money chasing the wrong referral partners. I want to be clear: Many educators, mentors, course creators, speakers, conference organizers, etc. offer excellent advice. In this episode, I’m not speaking to, about or against what they’re saying. In r...

Communication experts have known for a long time that what you say is not nearly as important as how you say it. The most often-cited study I know concluded that 93% of communication is made through non-verbal and vocal communication, while only 7% comes from the words being said.  The study was done a long time ago with a fairly small sample size and in a sales situation, so the numbers I just me...