Welcome everyone to the Wedding Pro Academy podcast. I'm Nicole, your host. I'm an expert in the wedding industry, and I've personally built two 6 figure businesses from the ground up. I am obsessed with building businesses that make lots of money, but do so in a way that also create luxurious amounts of freedom. So if you're looking to build, grow, or scale a wedding business in a way that doesn't burn you out and you'd love some guidance from someone who has done just that, this podcast is for you.
Nicole:Each week, I'll cover strategies, ideas, tips, and tricks that will give you your dream wedding business too. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Let's dive in. Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 15.
Nicole:Today, we are going to talk about what I would do if I were starting a wedding business from scratch. So, if I were to do it all over again with all the experience and knowledge that I have now after being in weddings for, jeez, over a decade now, I would do things a little bit differently from the way I did it the first time. And I think by doing it this way, I would get a lot more traction and things would move a lot more quickly, and I know that these are the things that actually work. So I wanted to make it pretty simple. In case you are someone who is thinking about starting some kind of a wedding business, whether it's in photography or as a wedding planner or as an officiant or videographer, hair and makeup, whatever.
Nicole:I think it's all kind of the same because you have to put in this sort of groundwork to get your business off and running, and these are just the foundational stuff that you would need to do. So I just did in a quick little 10 step process to make things really easy for you. And this is what I would do now if I were starting a wedding business all over again from scratch. So number one, I would come up with a name for my business that had keywords in it. So, just to, I don't know, explain this a little bit.
Nicole:When I came up with my business name initially, I didn't think about this because I wasn't even concerned at all about SEO. And once I got into SEO or search engine optimization and I had to get my wedding business ranked on Google so that people could find me, so I could get work and make money, I, all of a sudden, had a really hard time because the keywords that people were searching for were not in my business name. So I named my business best day ever, Hawaii, which is, like, super cute. Right? It has a really nice ring to it.
Nicole:It's fun, but it doesn't say anything weddings. And so people who are searching for weddings aren't like, my business website is not gonna pop up. So that meant that I had to do a lot more extra work with SEO to actually get my business ranked. It took a lot lot longer than if I had named it something like hawaiibeachweddings.com. Anytime then somebody searched for a hawaii beach wedding, my website is just automatically gonna pop up because the name Hawaii beach weddings is in the title.
Nicole:It's the name of my business. It makes it so much easier. So if you know the types of weddings that you wanna do or the location that you're at, like hair and makeup Texas. You wanna try and have those keywords in, you know, the name of your business so that when people search for it, it pops up. It just makes things a little bit easier.
Nicole:You don't have to do it that way. You can do it the hard way like I did, but just know it's gonna take a little bit more time to get your business ranked on Google and it's gonna take a lot more work. So that was number one. Name it something with keywords if you can to help with your Google ranking. Number two, I would design a very simple website.
Nicole:Initially, when I built my business, and I know so many people do this, you spend so much time making this very elaborate beautiful website because you think it needs to be perfect and you spend months building this website. I wouldn't do that if I were doing it again. I would just make it super super simple. A home page with keywords with something like, you know, if I was doing a wedding business in Hawaii, it would say, we plan beautiful, simple beach weddings in Hawaii. Just simple keywords in a home page with one beautiful professional photo on it.
Nicole:And then I would have a services page that was also very simply outlined, but looked professional and a contact page. That's it. I wouldn't try to go overboard with, you know, detailing it out all the services, but just keep it super simple. Make sure it looks professional. Make sure you have some, you know, specific keywords in there.
Nicole:Use professional photos. Use a web building, app like show it or, you know, you can really use anything, but it needs to look professional and you should use professional photos. And if you don't have any, you could just buy them. So that's what I would do. Second thing, design a very simple professional looking website.
Nicole:Number three, after that's done, I would make an official social announcement like on your socials, on Instagram, on Facebook, on whatever, tell everyone you know that you are a wedding planner. Tell them that you are a wedding photographer and here's my website Here's what this does, it just puts the word out there and it helps you to step into that identity. Now you're all in on this, right? No backing out. You're telling everyone you know I'm going all in on wedding photography full time.
Nicole:So tell all your friends if they need a wedding photographer, call me. And you'd be surprised how many people you know from, you know, decades ago will reach out because you might be the only person they know and they think, oh, I can get a deal with them. So you just wanna get the word out, let people know, and start stepping into that identity of a wedding photographer wire, just a place where you can collect testimonials. And once you get a couple of weddings under your belt, you you have some place to send people to write a testimonial. That's only gonna take you like a data setup, so you just wanna do that right off the bat.
Nicole:And it's one of those things that is gonna help with SEO too because it will have a link back to your website. The more backlinks you have, the more Google sees you as a reputable legit business and then your ranking will slowly start to grow. Number five. If I were just getting started all over again, I would sign up for a local wedding expo. Yes.
Nicole:This will cost money, but this is a very easy way for you to get experience. So you have to think of it like, I'm gonna spend a little bit of money upfront, but I'm gonna get all these new couples all in one place who are all looking for what I have to offer. And here's what I think you should do, what I would do. I would put a simple booth together, and I would have a raffle where I would give away something like 50% off discount for whoever won that raffle off of a package, like a basic package that you know everybody wants and who wouldn't want a 50% off deal or you could even say like 175% off or even free, but I think 50% off is a really nice place to start because then you're giving them a really killer deal. And if you're a photographer, you could offer like a free engagement shoot, something like that, or a $200 engagement shooter.
Nicole:Whatever sounds like a really, really awesome deal, that's what you wanna do. Then you get people to enter and then you have like a whole bunch of people that you can choose from to reach out to later that you can work with and get experience from. And here's the other part about the wedding expo is you need to make sure that you're showing up professionally, that your booth is cute, that it's got, you know, it's well designed, that you spent some time thinking about this. You should have printed materials, a printed marketing price sheet. You can do that through Canva, super easy, or you could even have a graphic designer do it for you through Upwork, and it's not very expensive to get something that looks professional done, but make sure that you have your prices outlined.
Nicole:It's very thorough, but very simple. You don't want to overwhelm couples. It should be like a couple of packages not a hundred different options. You also wanna have sample photos or albums and then a raffle box. Keep it easy.
Nicole:Show up. You know, get excited. Talk to people. Get to know people. Get to know other vendors and that's a really easy way to get some experience under your belt.
Nicole:So number six, once you've actually done one or two weddings, you gotta make sure to get testimonials. So you need to reach out to that couple and ask them to write you a testimonial. Ask the bride, ask the groom, ask the parents, ask everyone. The more testimonials that you get, the better. Ask them to cross post these testimonials on the multiple sites.
Nicole:It doesn't matter if it's the same exact testimonial posted multiple times. The more testimonials you can get, the better. And number seven, you need to make sure that once you're actually at a wedding, doing a wedding, you're working on one, whether it's for free or at 50% off or whatever, whether or not it's your ideal wedding, you need to over deliver. That's number seven, over deliver. That means, like, go above and beyond for the couple.
Nicole:You wanna make sure their day is perfect. You wanna do everything extra because you need to ensure that you're gonna get a killer testimonial. And if you're over delivering, they are not, you know, they are gonna have to write you one because you did such an amazing job and of course, they want to to tell everyone, so over deliver. Number eight. Now in between working on these weddings, so while you're waiting to actually book one, or waiting for one to happen, you should start learning everything you can about SEO, search engine optimization.
Nicole:If you end up joining my wedding pro academy business course, I have a whole section on SEO because it's so important. And SEO is what is gonna help your wedding business to get ranked on Google. So you want to show up when people are searching for, you know, Texas wedding photographer or wherever you're at. You want to show up on that first page of Google and so in order to do that, you need to start working on SEO now and implementing these strategies and this takes time and energy and it's sort of a long lead item, so you want to do things like blogging, creating listings to get backlinks. You want to work on getting your keywords right in your website.
Nicole:And if you need help with this, there's tons of programs. I have one that is very specific to wedding businesses, but search engine optimization is going to be key to getting your business to have a steady flow of clients of brides and grooms coming through. You want to start working on SEO as soon as you can. Number nine, join your local wedding association. Some places may have one that you might need to pay a little bit of money to join.
Nicole:It's usually not very much, but you want to do this when you're brand new to just make connections. You wanna meet as many people in the wedding industry as you can. You wanna go all in on this and try and, like, be a part of the wedding community. And the wedding industry is super cool because we're all very creative, fun, you know, people that love love that love weddings and everyone's super nice like get in there, meet people, make friends. Number 10, I would also one time a week reach out to somebody in the wedding industry who is starting a wedding business, who is at a similar stage of business as you are and just connect with them over coffee.
Nicole:Like, these people that you meet right now, you might meet them through the wedding association or you might find their website or whatever. Call them up, make a coffee date, make friends that are in a similar stage of business as you. And then what's gonna happen is you're gonna have a lifelong friend and you guys can grow together. You can help each other out. You have somebody to talk to about what they're working on, what you're working on.
Nicole:You can throw each other business. It's a really really great connection to have and the more of these connections you make the better and these are where you're gonna get your referrals from. So start doing that, you know, a couple of times a month if you can. So, those are my 10 tips. And one more little note, I wouldn't niche down.
Nicole:I wouldn't be picky when I'm just starting. You don't really have that opportunity. What you wanna do instead is take all the weddings, all the events, everything. Anything that comes your way, just do it. Just do it for the experience.
Nicole:Do it for the testimonial. Do it to just try it out because you don't really know what kind of weddings you're gonna like, which are gonna be your, you know, type of weddings. And eventually, you will niche down and find your specific type of weddings. And you might think you know what you want, but that might totally change once you've actually got some experience under your belt. So in the very beginning, don't be picky.
Nicole:Just do them all. Do as many as you can. Be prepared to work hard and put in that grind because that's what it's going to take to kind of get your wedding business going. So let me recap. Number one, if you haven't already named your business, try to choose a name with keywords in it specific to the place that you're located, what you do, and it should have the word weddings in it, if possible.
Nicole:Number two, you want to design a simple but professional beautiful website. Don't over complicate this. Keep it super simple. You can always add more to it later, but you need it to just be simple, look professional, and have a basic outline of your services and a contact page. Number three, make a social announcement.
Nicole:Tell everyone. Guess what guys? I have started this new business. I am a wedding photographer and here's my website. Tell everyone you know.
Nicole:Would love to work with you. Something like that. Just keep it simple and if this scares you, do it anyway because this is part of stepping into that identity of who you are becoming, and that will push you to become that person more quickly. Number four, set up a testimonial site. So, Google business page, Yelp, WeddingWire.
Nicole:You need to be ready to take in those testimonials. Number five, get into your local wedding expo. Have a booth, buy a booth. You're going to have to spend a little bit of money here, but it's going to be worth it because what you're gonna do is create a raffle, get a bunch of people in, couples to sign up for that because they think they're getting this awesome deal, and this is how you get experience right away. Then do as many of those weddings as you feel comfortable doing at a very very discounted rate just for the experience, just for the reviews.
Nicole:After you've done the wedding, this is number six, get testimonials. Get these couples to cross post the testimonials. Number seven. Over deliver. Always over deliver.
Nicole:You should do this regardless, but in case, like, you needed a reminder. Definitely wanna over deliver as much as you can in the beginning because the more you give, the more people are going to be happy and the better reviews you're going to get. Number eight, in between working on these weddings, SEO, Search engine optimization. Focus on that. Put all of your attention into SEO.
Nicole:Number nine, join your local wedding association and make friends. Number 10, reach out to one person a week in a similar business stage and make a genuine connection, make friends. That's it. That's what I would do if I were starting all over again, And I think that's a very clear cut, you know, steps that you can follow that is very, very doable and it will definitely get you some business that will get you experience, which will then help your business to actually get off the ground and get going. And just so you know, this beginning stage of building a business, the first year is the hardest.
Nicole:Most businesses don't make it past the first year or the first two years. People just quit because it's that hard. It's so hard to get a business rolling and then get started, but if you can stick it out and you have the tenacity to just keep going, you're like driven and you're determined to just make this happen, it is 100000000% going to be worth it because wedding businesses are so fun. They're They're just the best. The community is awesome.
Nicole:There's so much potential to make large amount of money and working in weddings doesn't feel like work. So, what kind of better job is there than a job in weddings? I mean, honestly, it's just such a fun job to have because you get to be a part of this special moment, and you get to really relive this love that where it starts and how it grows, and you get to be a part of this intimate moment over and over and over again, it's the best. So putting in this work now and knowing that it's gonna suck. Yes.
Nicole:It's gonna be hard. Yes. It's gonna be slow. It's gonna feel like nothing's working. It's gonna feel like you don't know what you're doing and it's, like, too big.
Nicole:But then, one day, the the wheels are gonna start to turn and it's just gonna start to work. People are gonna start to find you naturally. You're gonna be able to charge more. You're gonna all of a sudden think, oh, now I know what kinds of weddings I like best, and things will start to fall into place, but you gotta get through the hard part first, and you gotta be willing to put in the grind. And that's what it really takes to start any business, not just wedding businesses, but any business.
Nicole:And I know you got it in you. And if you really, really want it, this is a really awesome business to start. I know from experience, it's just the best. So I hope you guys found that helpful. You can check me out at weddingproacademy.com.
Nicole:And if you have any questions, definitely shoot me an email. Leave me a review. I would love that. I don't have any reviews yet. It would be so cool if I just had one.
Nicole:Anyway, I am super thankful for all of you guys who are listening, and I can't wait to come back and talk to you again next week. Have a great weekend. Bye for now.