The Wedding Pro CEO Podcast: Episode 191 With Brandee Gaar and Tom Chelednik

Hey there, CEO’s! Welcome to the Wedding Pro CEO podcast. I’m your host, Brandee Gaar, and my mission is to help you, the wedding industry entrepreneur, to build a profitable wedding business that you’ve always dreamed of.

On today’s show I’m talking with Tom Chelednik of the Knot and we’re talking all about why you’re getting leads and they’re not booking you or why you feel like you’re not getting good leads.

We’re breaking it all down and there are so many practical, helpful nuggets in this episode, and Tom brings just an incredible wealth of knowledge from working with thousands of wedding pros all over the country. I promise you, you’re gonna wanna notepad for this one and you’re gonna wanna make sure that you’re buckled in tight because this is going to be a game changer episode.

Let’s dive in!

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Tom used to sell Yellow pages in the day, yellow page advertising when there wasn’t such thing as the internet out there! Then I realized, boy, that industry’s going down. So I applied at a company called The Knot. I was at the Knot for about 12 years. Many different jobs there, regional sales director, director of sales, training and enablement, and leadership development. Later, he was offered aa job by a wedding venue here in Florida called the Treasury Venue Collection. Eventually, he made his way back to the knot.

The biggest part of Tom’s job now though, is going in the field, talking, shaking hands, identifying clients through big round tables, small round tables, what needs to improve at The Knot.

“To get the quality of leads you want, take a step back and think of the past 10 clients you had that you liked working with and that you made money on.”

Tom Chelednik

Why are wedding pros not booking clients?

If you have 32 but aren’t booking any you don’t have a lead problem, you have a booking problem. Right? But it sort of becomes a lead problem too. If you back it up and you look at your website, you might be having an identity crisis problem… do you know what you ideal client actually is?

So first off, to get the quality of leads you want you should think of the past 10 clients you had, that you liked working with and make a list of those clients and their demographics and take it even a step further, What are their hobbies? What are their lifestyles? What are their passions? and you will find similarities not only in the demographics but in their lifestyles!

Whatever you find out from studying those demographics, put that out there in blogs, Instagram, your website, and start connecting to the people that you like to work with, and that will make you money. That’s number one.

You should be able to ask anybody in the wedding pro industry who’s your ideal client, and they should be able to, in one minute, say not only their age and their income and how much they’re spending, but also what their passion and what their hobbies are.

“Treat every lead like gold because you paid for that lead. Respond as quickly as possible and answer their questions upfront.”

Tom Chelednik

After we make sure our marketing matches our ideal client, then what?

So you get a lead. You should remember you paid for that lead no matter where the lead came from. Whether it came from a referral, a vendor friend, you’re on a list, you take that lead and you treat it like gold because you paid for that lead. This is no secret, you want to respond as quickly as possible. This generation has an attention span a little longer than a goldfish. It’s about 12 seconds. So when you’re responding, you want to answer their question and face it. What are they asking when you get a lead? Are you available? And what’s the price? Answer those questions right up front. You don’t have to go into the details and, those emails should be no longer than a hundred words and ALWAYS end it in an open ended question. If you prompt your client they’re more likely to res respond from that prompt. So within as quick, as humanly possible, follow up with that first email.

Next, stay at the top of their inbox for 30 days! That’s enough. 30 days. So what does that look like? Seven touch points. That’s it. So it’s day one, day three, day eight, day 16, etc. Within those emails, we want to build rapport and be helpful. Another way to reel them in is by linking a blog that answers the client’s question in your email follow up.

You need to be blogging, you need to be blogging, you need to be blogging. Those blogs come in handy with lead emails too, because if you can have two to five evergreen blogs that you’ve written on your website that are helpful to your audience, right? Having those blogs and then linking to those blogs and these emails of saying “Hey, I know that a lot of times people are struggling with the budget conversation early on. Here’s a great blog we’ve written to help you have those conversations with your parents or with your families”, and linking to those blogs can get traffic to your website. It then helps them to see other things about you. So, I feel like writing some of these great evergreen blogs, they have so much value because you can link them in so many places, but it really poses you as an expert as well, because now you’ve helped them, but it also helps them to see that you really know what you’re talking about. Like you’re an expert and you’re already helping them, right?

Lastly, ask the client, what is your preferred method of communication. Huge wedding studies shows that thousands and thousands of couples prefer you to reply the same way they sent you a lead. So if they sent you a lead by phone, you call by phone. If they sent you a lead by text, they email it, keep it in that same format.

Check out Tom’s download

Listen Now to Episode 191 of the Wedding Pro CEO Podcast, Are YOU the Reason They’re Not Booking?

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Bye for now!!! 😊

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