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How to get your REELS to convert - Brandee Gaar
89 Plays4 years ago
Brandee Gaar is a visionary in the wedding industry and her podcast for wedding pros is my favorite.
✨She helps wedding pros build a business and a life they love! 👏🏼 She is a mom of 3 daughters and believes you CAN have it all👏🏼 🎙Host | She Who Dares Podcast
Check out her REELS course.
https://offers.brandeegaar.com/reeltraffic-01
Use the code CARISSA for $10 off
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https://www.instagram.com/brandeegaar/
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http://instagram.com/carissawoo
Download my lead magnet: How to get constant leads.
https://carissa-woo.mykajabi.com/lead-generating-machine
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, it's me, Carissa. If you're enjoying this podcast, please subscribe and leave me a review. It takes five seconds. Today in this episode, I interview Brandy Gar. She is a true leader and visionary in the wedding industry, and she is a queen of reels. We are going to talk about how to get your reels to convert. Enjoy.
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. I'm your host, Carissa, and I've been a Los Angeles wedding photographer for over a decade. I've traveled the world, built my team, and seen it all. I now coach wedding photographers hit 10K a month and build a thriving business. In this podcast, we are going to deep dive into how top wedding creatives get that heck yes from their dream clients. We are not holding back on the struggles of the business and how to push through the noise. Some healthy hustle, mindset shifts, up-leveling your money story,
00:00:51
Speaker
time hacks because I'm a mom of two, a little bit of woo-woo, and most importantly self-love and confidence are just a few of the many things we will talk about. I want to give you a genuine thank you for following along my journey. I hope to inspire you every Woo Wednesday so that you say heck yes to listening to this podcast. See you guys soon!
Brandy Gar's Podcast Journey
00:01:13
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome to my podcast again. Get a heck yes with Carissa Wu. I'm here with a very special guest, Brandy Gar. She's a host of She Who Dares podcast. And she's been a wedding planner for many, many years and has three daughters. She's a coach and has a mastermind for wedding pros to scale their business and live a life they love. And she is the queen of rills and a visionary in the wedding industry.
00:01:39
Speaker
Welcome, Brandi. That was quite an introduction. Thanks so much, Carissa. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I've been working on it all morning. I was listening to or watching all your Reels this morning and just cracking up, but you are the queen of Reels. Our friend Gabby is the queen of Pinterest. But yeah, we're going to learn so much about Reels today, how to make your Reels convert and everything.
00:02:04
Speaker
I wanted to start by asking you a question about your podcasting journey. I wanted to say congrats on having 100 episodes, but tell me about your podcasting journey and any tips for me because I just started. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It feels so surreal that we just released the 100th episode honestly because I really had
00:02:27
Speaker
This sounds so terrible, but I had no desire to start a podcast. It was not something I wanted to do. We had a brand manager at the time who was a good friend of ours for a long time, is a good friend of ours, still not our brand manager anymore.
00:02:42
Speaker
And he and my husband somewhat schemed, maybe not behind my back, but around my back. And they they really were trying to figure out how to get me to do a podcast. And, you know, I had decided I didn't want to kind of travel into the coaching space. And they were just like, well, then let's just dive headfirst. And I was like, No way, I'm not ready. So they wanted me to start a podcast. And honestly, I kind of warmed up to the idea.
00:03:09
Speaker
But I thought it would be a podcast I would just kind of do myself. Like I would get behind the mic and I would talk and it would not be an interview based show. But I did three recordings. I recorded three podcasts. I hated all three of them. Like hated. And I was just like, this is not going live. I'm not doing it.
00:03:30
Speaker
And so they convinced me to keep the first one, which is actually our first episode. Um, but the other two I trashed and that's when I realized I really don't think I'm a solo podcast host. Like that's not my thing. And so yeah, I feel like
00:03:48
Speaker
I thought that I could just sit down and ramble, which now I can. I can get behind the mic and go. But back then, I still was trying to figure out what I was and who I was and what I wanted to teach. And so yeah, I really didn't know. And so I ended up one afternoon, I just sat down and I was like, if we're going to do this, I need to have
00:04:08
Speaker
I need to have a whole year of content built out before I'm going to agree to go live with this. And so I wrote down 52 guests I would want to have on my show. And then we started. So I was like, OK, well, if I can do this, then yeah, I think we can give it a shot. So I didn't actually release another solo episode after that first one, I think, until episode 12 or 13.
Transition to Wedding Planning Business
00:04:35
Speaker
But now I'm much more comfortable with it.
00:04:38
Speaker
I really only release a solo episode maybe every eight or 10 episodes. I just really enjoy getting to know people and interview them and hear their story and let them kind of pour into my audience. Yeah. I think the way you approach things is I kind of get to know you a lot when you're interviewing other people. So it's totally fine. I haven't done a solo episode yet, too. So I'm a little nervous.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think for me, too, I, you know, I love to go live and I don't mind being off the cuff at all. I think sometimes, you know, you need a little planning for a solo episode. Yeah, that's I don't really love to be planned. So now, though, I can just kind of have my points that I'm going to talk about.
00:05:26
Speaker
And then just go and it feels a little bit better but yeah I agree with you I try to just kind of weave my story in a little bit as I'm interviewing guests and that's how people get to know me but for the most part.
00:05:37
Speaker
It's all because it's all interview style. So I love it. I would say always stay six to eight weeks ahead of the content. Honestly, that's been the biggest tip. Yeah, that's been the biggest tip somebody gave to me. And at first I was like, really? But it has helped so much because you just never know. Like right now you guys can probably hear my voice. I have been sick this week.
00:06:00
Speaker
as we're recording. And so if I had tons of podcast recordings, I would be having a rough time with my voice. And so just things like that where you, or like I've had a guest have to cancel last minute because of a client meeting or whatever. And that can really set a tailspin into your release calendar if you're not, if you don't have buffer room built in.
00:06:22
Speaker
I think definitely staying six to eight weeks out on content and then on recordings so we're typically recording about two months in advance of when an episode will release anywhere from six to eight weeks and then
00:06:37
Speaker
I think the other one was just be really strategic with your topics. So we have guests now, finally, we have guests pitch us all the time. And it's not even that their topic might not be great. It's probably a great topic. It's just that it's not strategic for where we need our listeners to go next. And so I want to make sure that I'm protecting my listeners and that they are kind of going on a journey.
00:07:06
Speaker
Oh, I love that. Just always protect and be strategic with your content. Yeah. OK, so I was a guest on your show a couple of weeks ago, so it hasn't gone live yet. But I just got to say, like, you're such a natural. I felt very comfortable. And a lot of my industry friends, I've been in the industry for 12 years. I know you've been in the industry for like 15 or less. But yeah, everyone's like, oh, you got to get Randy Gar on the show because she's amazing. And you truly are a visionary in the industry.
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, tell me about how you got started with wedding planning and then now coaching and masterminding and more about you because I don't know that much about you even though I listen to your podcast all the time. Thank you so much. That's so sweet. Honestly, it feels like, I mean, I did bumble my way here. I mean, that's just the reality of it. I wanted to be an event planner since I could walk and talk. Oh my gosh.
00:08:05
Speaker
Oh, you know, I kind of just found this my way into this industry. No, I always wanted to be an event planner. And so I was a corporate event planner for a long time at a big hotel here in Orlando. And then I had my first daughter, and I wanted more time with her. So I decided to strike out on my own and start my own company with my husband's support. And honestly, my background at the time was all in corporate. I don't know that I ever really had a dream to be a wedding planner.
00:08:34
Speaker
But I was 26 and it just made sense at the time because I was kind of of that age where all of my friends were getting married. Yeah. And so it was kind of like lowest hanging fruit. Totally. And so I was like, well, let me start a wedding planning business.
Coaching and Business Scaling Tips
00:08:50
Speaker
And I kind of just learned as I went. And what I found really interesting is that business has always been something
00:08:58
Speaker
Really interesting to me i went to business school i didn't go to hospitality i went to business but it's shocking how little you know once you become an entrepreneur no matter how much training you had in business like. It's almost like you need entrepreneur school which is really what i try to do now for.
00:09:18
Speaker
wedding and event professionals because so many of us get into the industry because we love what we do. We're amazing at our craft. But then it's like, how do I hire and what do I charge and how do I know if I'm profitable and what do I spend my money on? Just all the things behind the scenes
00:09:36
Speaker
Oh, yes, so much. Yeah. And so I really felt like, you know, when I I've coached for a long time because we have a huge hospitality school near us. And so I sit on the board there and I teach students. Yeah, I teach a lot of students. And so I've loved that part of it. But my husband was like, you really need to start teaching other wedding planners. And I was like, you know, so I kind of dipped my toe into it.
00:10:05
Speaker
And what I started finding was that I didn't love teaching wedding planners how to be wedding planners. Because one, I think that there's an incredible amount of resources out there for that already. There's great people already out there teaching that. But two, that just wasn't where I struggled. I feel like for me as an entrepreneur, where I struggled the most was learning how to scale my business.
00:10:30
Speaker
Wow. And really in that like five to seven year mark where it was like, we had more business than we could handle. And so it was always like, how do we keep this level?
00:10:42
Speaker
and do it well. And it was just so much trial and error. And so now that I feel like we're kind of on the other side where I mean, there's never no bumps, don't get me wrong, like things right that we work through. But for the most part, we figured out the team dynamic and the scaling.
00:11:00
Speaker
And so yeah, so I just said to my husband, I'm like, I don't want to teach people how to be wedding planners. I want to teach wedding and event professionals how to scale their business so that they can have a business that doesn't burn them out all the time. And I love it. I absolutely love it. Okay, so I'm very interested. So this, is it a mastermind for wedding pros? Or is it a mastermind for wedding planners?
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a mastermind for all wedding professionals. So because I am a planner, obviously, a lot of planners tend to come first, right? They end up joining first. So about 70% of my students are planners, but I also work with photographers and florists and DJs, stationers, like it's the whole industry. Because at the end of the day, you know, it's so interesting, it's business, it's not
00:11:56
Speaker
It's not what a wedding planner do. It's the business of how to scale. And so that's really universal across all, really all small businesses, but yeah. Okay, so I guess in three words or like three headlines, how the heck do you scale?
00:12:14
Speaker
That's such a great question. Okay, so the first thing that is the most imperative is to just know your numbers, which is you would be in like shock and awe at how many people don't know the answer to that. And it's no shade because really no one knows this. Exactly. Like if I looked at you and said, how much does it cost you to run your business every single month?
00:12:35
Speaker
It's literally like less than a percent of people could tell me the answer to that question. Wow. And that makes it very difficult to scale. So knowing your numbers, understanding what your goal is with your business. So how big do you want to get? What does success look like for you? It's different for all of us. So you could want a million dollar business or you could want a hundred thousand dollar business. What do you want out of it at the end of the day? What do you want your life to look like?
00:13:03
Speaker
Those are really the two biggest things for me. And then once you can answer those, then it becomes, okay, so how many team members are we adding? And what does that team look like? If you want to stay small and boutique, then maybe it's a contractor or two to help you kind of settle back and be able to grow.
00:13:22
Speaker
But if you want to be you know, no I want to dominate To be really looking at how to structure full-time team members
Mastering Reels for Business Success
00:13:31
Speaker
and part-time team members. So Yeah, so that's what we work through No, I mean I'm so interested but this portion of the episode is not even supposed to be about our hot topic yet But I think I got to sign up for your mastermind because I need to learn how to scale my business So yeah, not just a queen of rails, but you're the queen of scaling
00:13:52
Speaker
Well, it's funny because Reels really kind of just happened. That for sure just happened. I did not plan that at all. During COVID, I actually tried to get on TikTok. Yeah, I listened to that. It was crazy. And I was like all about TikTok and I hated it. I literally hated it so much. And then once Reels rolled out, I was like, okay, this is my jam. Now I've learned how to do short form video.
00:14:18
Speaker
But I can stop trying to build an audience in a place That's not where my audience is right now. And so I decided to go 100% in on reels and what I started realizing is that they're actually quite easy to do and to really make a huge impact on your account and So I thought well I should teach other wedding pros how to do this. So literally last October I released like a
00:14:46
Speaker
workshop on how to make reels in five minutes or less for wedding professionals. And it blew up. I was like, what the heck? I just did it in November for like a Black Friday thing. And my husband edited the video for me. It was like a 45-minute video workshop. And we sold like 170 of these courses. And I was like, what the heck? Holy crap. You've got to get on like the new platforms as best as possible. Yeah. So then I was like, well, we kind of have something here.
00:15:12
Speaker
And so then we ended up kind of reformatting the course a little bit. And then I added a lot more to it where I was helping you to understand how to batch. And then I added cover templates and 150 ideas on reels you can make plus music and things like that. And so that's the reels thing really just kind of happened. And now everybody's like, you're the queen of reels, which is funny because honestly, I don't even, I only have one reel that's ever even gone viral. I talk about that a lot.
00:15:39
Speaker
But I think it's just that I really enjoy teaching people what I've figured out how to do easily. And I do think that, you know, I talk about bold visibility a lot on my podcast, you've got to be bold and be visible, make sure your company's visible. So Reels is really the way to do that right now. So yeah, totally. Yeah, I have a coaching program too. So I have like a three part framework and
00:16:04
Speaker
one of them, I call it show face reels. So I guess that's the bold visibility. Yeah, you got to show your face. I mean, your reels are like goodbye. They're funny. Like there's good value. There's a good caption. So I highly recommend like people taking your course if it's still available. It is still available. And actually, I have a coupon code for your listeners if they want to use it. So
00:16:29
Speaker
If they jump over to learn.brandygar.com, you can grab the real traffic toolkit and just enter code Carissa and you'll get $10 off of the course. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'll link that up too in the show notes. I want to ask you one more question before we actually go into our hot topic, which we were already talking about so many fun, good tips for people. But what is your biggest accomplishment in business? Oh gosh, in business. That's a cool. That is a tough question.
00:16:59
Speaker
Um, I think my biggest accomplishment is I have a lot of my team and students now, um, that have kind of this. I don't really like to talk about myself. So I feel like this is weird, but, um, they, I, they will say that I've been a mentor to them. And to me, I can't think of a higher honor, like somebody who can say,
00:17:24
Speaker
you know, it wasn't just that like you taught me the right thing to do or you you know, you changed my business, it was like, you let me see that I was more valuable than I thought that I was and that I can do so much more than I thought I could. And so to me, I feel like that's like the highest honor. And so my team has said that before, but now to be able to coach other people outside of my bubble, it just feels really great for people to kind of
00:17:52
Speaker
say that. And so yeah, so that's why. Yeah, I mean, your mama Brandi Gar. So you're like this mentor to many people on the podcast, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna inspire hundreds and thousands of aspiring wedding planners and wedding pros. So it feels so good.
00:18:08
Speaker
Thank you. So this question I'm curious because I've been doing this coaching thing for not too long. I started the whole framework and coaching program like about a year and a half ago. So and I've struggled a lot and I had to get through so many mindset things. And it's been a struggle as a whole brand new business. But what has been your biggest struggle and like the coaching business and how did you overcome it?
00:18:34
Speaker
100%, probably exactly what you just said is mindset. I actually was just talking to a friend of mine yesterday who was going open doors with her membership. And this is like her sixth time launching open doors for her membership. And she texted me and she was like, I am having massive imposter syndrome.
00:18:55
Speaker
And I think we forget that what you see on the outside is not always what's going on in the inside. And what I always like to tell people is that doesn't mean it's fake. I genuinely, I know within my deepest soul that I can help people believe in themselves and reach a higher standard for their business and have a better business life balance. I know that. But
00:19:24
Speaker
it still creeps in. And I think for women, especially, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this on your podcast, but it seems pretty chill. So hopefully, but like cycle has a lot to do with that. Yeah, only since I've become a coach, have I started tracking my mood with my cycle because you know, sometimes you're like,
00:19:43
Speaker
Of course, I know I'm more grumpy around certain periods, right? But now I'm able to see what days I'm going, I know there's days in my cycle where I'm going to be super down on myself. I'm going to have higher anxiety. I'm going to think I'm not worthy. And I'll be like, why do these people want to learn from me? Like what? And I like, yeah, so I have to be super careful about like,
00:20:07
Speaker
not not scheduling a solo podcast around that time or you know, one day saying this. Yes. I mean, one day I remember sitting down to record a solo podcast, I started crying and my husband was like, what is wrong with you? And I was like, I have nothing to say. And he was like, what? And I was just like, I, I don't even know why people listen to my podcast. And he's like, Brandy. And I think it's that's just the very raw and real of it.
00:20:32
Speaker
And then two days later, you're like, I am the best freaking person. I love how you're saying this. Yes. Yes. So I think we all go through it. True. Like I just got kind of open, open my eyes that that book do less with Kate Northrup. Okay. And I was actually interviewed on the Boca podcast with Nathan. So he's a guy and asked me what my favorite book was. I was like, Oh, not to be kind of gross, but it's about kind of like the period cycle. That's awesome.
00:21:00
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's so nice to chat about this. I'm so the same way. Like sometimes I just want to cry because I'm just like I suck. Like, you know, like I'm horrible the next day. I'm just like, I'm queen. Like, yes. So oh, my God, I love how you're saying this. So I have to I have a tracking system, too. But I have to be like more intentional about like journaling and like the moon and everything that a swimming go through. Crazy. Yeah. But I think the most important thing is just for everybody to know that
00:21:28
Speaker
we all go through it. We all go through it. But I think no matter what you have value to add to somebody else, because you are if you're steps ahead of somebody else, even if it's one step ahead, I mean, think about how wouldn't you have loved somebody to give you the secret to the next step in your business if they knew it. And so yes, I wish that coaching was a thing when I was starting my business, you know, so it's great.
00:21:55
Speaker
Oh my God, we have like a lot of parallel lies, me and you. Yeah, yeah. So cool. I love it. So our hot topic today is tips on how to make reels convert. So this is super exciting because I love reels, but take us away with tip number one.
00:22:11
Speaker
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00:22:39
Speaker
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Creating Engaging Reels
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, so tip number one is just to know your audience. So you want to know your audience and speak to their pain points. I know that sounds so obvious, but it's like,
00:23:03
Speaker
Who am I talking to? Don't just make random reels to make them go viral. The whole point of social media is to draw in the right person so that they can become a paying client. So who is your audience? So I'm guessing most people listening to this are a wedding or event professional in some way.
00:23:23
Speaker
And so you are audience is probably engaged couples are soon to be engaged couples. So what are the things that they're struggling with around the first of the year with all the engagements happening at engagement season, they're going to be really be struggling with like, how do I make a budget? How do I make my guest list? And who pays for what? Like all these things make a real about it. And they can be so simple, they don't have to be crazy. But know your audience and speak to their pain points.
00:23:50
Speaker
Oh my God. I love that. Yeah. So my coaching journey, like I've literally like had coaches and I bought like every course and mastermind, but I'd literally after doing all this training with different people, um, I want to like tattoo on my forehead, like pain points. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Oh, I love that. Okay. So pretty much like this is really good for your content because people always think, Oh, I don't know what to pose. So pretty much.
00:24:18
Speaker
just really understand who is your audience. You could actually use a poll and Instagram stories, and then just talk about what are they struggling with. For me, it would be...
00:24:30
Speaker
wedding photographer struggling. So are you struggling trying to close a deal? Are you struggling trying to get inquiries? Are you struggling trying to make reels? Are you struggling knowing how to price yourself? So just, oh my God, now I have a whole content calendar for my whole 30 days or whole rest of the year. So thank you, Brandi. Yeah. And for anybody that's listening that is the
00:24:52
Speaker
is a wedding professional and you're trying to say, well, what are the pain points of my couples? Sometimes when you sit down at your computer, you can't think of any. What we do is we keep a running note in our phone. And so if I'm at a wedding and something happens and I'll be like, oh my gosh, I need to make a reel about that. Write it down so that you don't forget when it's time to make a reel.
00:25:13
Speaker
silly things for wedding planners. We cannot stand that no matter how many times you tell a bride to send you their escort cards in alphabetical order, they send them to you in table number order. And it's like, how is this so difficult? So like little things like that that are funny that you can make a reel about or like we made a reel about, you know, the best man's toast, like the things that are appropriate and not appropriate to do. And that was because we were at a wedding and there was a highly inappropriate toast. So we were like, we should make a reel about this.
00:25:40
Speaker
How funny, these are all things I haven't heard before because I'm definitely on the different side from you even though we're both wedding pros, but I'm a photographer, you're a planner, but those things I had no idea. Yeah, it's so funny. Okay, before we get into tip number two, I'm not sure if you're going to talk about this, but can you tell me a little bit about planning your post or your content calendar?
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So no, I hadn't had that as one of my points. But yeah, absolutely. So what I always look at doing is really creating the same content for a full week at a time, which sounds crazy. But Instagram has told us that less than 10% of your followers actually see your posts, which is crazy if you think about it. Yeah. So we spend all this time curating our posts, and we only post the same thing once.
00:26:28
Speaker
So let's say you write a blog as a photographer about three things to bring for your photographer on wedding day, and you want to make sure that people know to bring these three things. Well, now you've got it on your blog, so you can make a
00:26:44
Speaker
Instagram post about it. So you could do an image post of one of your beautiful detail photos from the wedding day and say, don't forget these three things. Go to our blog to read more. You can do a carousel post where it's all graphics. And then you can make a reel about it, the same exact thing. And so that's three posts in one week that are all about the same blog that you wrote and pushing them to the blog.
00:27:07
Speaker
But a reel can do the same thing. You can hold up a pair of shoes. You can hold up an invitation suite. You can have fun with it. You can show your detail photos. So you really want to try to not overthink your content and post all different things all week long. On my social media, we post seven days a week.
00:27:24
Speaker
And we post about this, we only post about two topics every single week. And no one really notices that because we post it in different ways every time, but we only post about two topics, one in my podcast and the other one's my blog. And it's seven different posts all about the same things.
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah and I think it's just kind of knocking that hammer over the head and people like it because they'll see it and then they'll see it again and then it'll kind of come in clear to them and then they actually get value from it because they're like oh I remember Brandy saying this is it's very important so it kind of stick but if you only post it once first of all they're probably not going to see it and second of all like they might not register it in their minds so that's really good good advice.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah. And I think everybody consumes content differently too. I loathe reading blogs. I hate them. I never read them. So I am an audio learner. So if I can watch or listen to a podcast about it or watch a video, I'm much more likely to take the content in at all. So for me, if you made a 30 second reel about the exact same thing that would have taken me six minutes to read on your blog, I'm all about it. It's the same content.
00:28:33
Speaker
Totally. Yeah, I've been thinking about for me because I know it's all about repurposing. But yeah, I've been using that headliner app to do like the audiograms. Yeah. And I've been getting very low, low, low views. It's like really depressing. So I'm like, do I need to make a real about my podcast episode? I'm not sure. Well, you totally for the headliner app. I've actually never thought about that. We release a headliner with every episode, too. But we always release it in our story. And I
00:29:01
Speaker
I've never thought about making it into a reel, but that would be genius, especially if you can keep it to 30 seconds or less. And it's like one really great juicy 30 second tip. Yeah. And then you can say that that's a great idea. Yeah. Because my reel is get a lot like 3K plus. And then I look at the views on like 12 views. Like what the hell? Yeah, I know. Well, and I think Reels has made us jaded about views in general, right? Because you get 3000 on a reel and then you see your post and you're like, wow,
00:29:29
Speaker
Yeah. But it just goes to show you. Yeah. Reels are really where it's at. You know, like that is where Instagram is pushing content right now.
00:29:39
Speaker
Cool, cool. Okay, that's really inspirational to me. Okay, so we deep dive into that. Tip number one. So you could tell me about tip number two.
Quick Reels Tips and Techniques
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, so tip number two is to either educate, evoke emotion or inspire your audience. And so that's really the only three things you want to do with a reel. So when you're trying to think about what your content is going to be, and we talked about their pain points,
00:30:02
Speaker
There's just three kinds of reels that you want to make. You want to either educate them, evoke emotion, or inspire them. That's it. And so it's really, really simple. Education is the easiest one. We kind of talked about that in the beginning. Like if you have a blog and you've written an educational post, then
00:30:19
Speaker
you know, it's really easy to just make a real out of that. If you want to inspire them, you can do like some Pinterest board pictures, you can show your real weddings and say like, you know, there's so many out there with great music where you can just show a bunch of photos, especially as a photographer.
00:30:36
Speaker
to inspire. And then for evoke emotion, there's lots of ways you can go with that. Immediately when people hear that, they think crying, which is great. I mean, if you want to show like the groom sing his bride for the first time, like a behind the scenes of a first look or something, that's great.
00:30:51
Speaker
But you can also do like a clip from a best man's toast that's hysterical. You know, you can be funny. You can show some of your different side and that you can be funny as a human, you know, the human behind the brand. So you can evoke emotion that way, too. So making people laugh, which is really what I try to do on my reels a lot. If I'm evoking emotion, if I want to make people laugh,
00:31:16
Speaker
So just making people have an emotional connection to your reel is going to make it memorable. It's going to make them more apt to want to come follow you. Yeah, I mean, you're hilarious. And I've been doing reels just as long as you. But I think what I've learned is picking something very specific in a wedding that happened. Like I just posted the couple coming out and the grant entrance coming out on like little Land Rovers, but like the mini ones for kids. And that's hilarious. I'm not sure how many views it got, but I think a lot.
00:31:45
Speaker
But just pick in like one thing because if you don't pick one thing, you're just going to overthink it and it's going to get too long and it's kind of boring and it's going to be very typical. So just anything funny, like you said, like best man speech was hilarious or like the dad was like on the table or like the guard had tossed like, yeah, she took out granny panties, like just something funny.
00:32:07
Speaker
It's kind of hard because you don't always have your phone out and you don't want to have your phone out. But sometimes you just kind of have to grab your phone as soon as something funny is happening. Honestly, though, nowadays, I think the couples like it, you know, like they like that you feature them, especially if it's something fun from their wedding. Yeah, I think they like it. It's fine.
00:32:27
Speaker
No, they like it. Like someone had DM me a long time ago and they're like, why haven't you featured us on your Instagram? And I was like, no way. Yeah, I felt really bad. I was like, oh, my God, I totally forgot. And then boom, boom, boom, you know, post. But yeah, I really like people really look like every day like, oh, did you post about us? Did you post about us? So I try to be fair to like all my couples, like, OK, everybody. I'm going to post. So interesting. All right. So that's tip number two, educate, evoke emotion, inspire.
00:32:57
Speaker
What is tip number three? Okay, so tip number three, hopefully you guys will like this one, is just keep it simple. So many people that teach reels, and this is why I started teaching reels. So many people that teach reels are teaching you, use the InShot app and have all these tools and you have to have transitions. No, you don't.
00:33:19
Speaker
You can, if you want to go viral, they're right. You will probably need to put a lot more effort into your reel. But that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to draw in the ideal client. Now, I will tell you guys, you can take a look at my account. I'm at Brandygar over on Instagram. And I don't have a ton of followers. I think I only have just over 3,000 followers. But in December, this is September, in December of last year, I had less than 1,000.
00:33:48
Speaker
And my account has grown three times plus because of Reels. Yeah, and they're all your ideal clients. They're all my ideal clients. And I'm very particular at like, I look through my follows when they come in because I want to know like, am I starting to draw in just a bunch of randos?
00:34:04
Speaker
And I don't want to do that. So keep it simple. The whole point of reels for a wedding professional is to get the highest ROI. Return on your investment, return on your time. And so I always teach that you should make reels in five minutes or less. One reel should take you less than five minutes. Now, we've never made a reel before. It's going to take you maybe like 25 minutes the first time because you're trying to figure out the app, right?
00:34:30
Speaker
Yes, once you know where all the buttons are and what they do it should take you about five minutes to make a reel and then you make it and you post it or you save it as a draft and It's that simple as long as you're delivering quality content You don't need all the fancy bells and whistles if you watch my reels 99% of them are just me and
00:34:53
Speaker
lip syncing over a voice. That's it. I know. It's so funny. Yeah. So they're very, very simple. And I've thought every once in a while, I know how to do some of the fancier wheels, but I always think, well, if I do that, then my audience is going to think they need to start doing that. And that's not what it's about because here's the thing.
00:35:13
Speaker
We are business people. We're entrepreneurs. We have a million hats to wear, and this is just one of them. So the way to get the highest return on your time for reals is to give it five minutes, make it quick and easy, and then get out and go run your business and let it do its thing. And so I say, keep it simple. Yeah. So how do you get those voice thing, voice, what do you call it? Like audio, right? Yeah.
00:35:43
Speaker
I actually, the way I do it because I, again, don't want to use any other apps. I do everything right in the Instagram app is when I am scrolling Instagram, which for me is pretty rare. I have three girls. I'm busy, right? But when I have time to just scroll for fun, then I jump into the Reels app and anytime I hear an audio that I love,
00:36:06
Speaker
I save it. So you just click on the bottom. There's three dots. You can click the bottom and hit save and it'll go into your saved folder in your profile. And I have hundreds of them saved. So then when you want to use that same audio, you just open it up from your saved folder and hit use this audio. And it makes it so much easier so you don't have to go source your own audio. You don't have to go source and find it.
00:36:29
Speaker
The whole point of Reels and TikTok is to use the same audios, obviously. Hopefully, people have picked up on that by now. It's not stealing to use someone's audio. That's what they want you to do. The more times an audio is used, it makes it go viral. It's really pretty cool. I use a lot from the Kardashians or from the office or from friends. Interesting. I get all of those just by saying them. Okay. That's what I need to do. That's what I was curious about because I don't follow those.
00:36:55
Speaker
type of people. So I follow like the wedding photographer. So I'm like, I never hear those type of audios. Yeah. I mean, if you just go into your explore page, though, that's where I find it. Yeah, from just all kinds of I see them from all kinds of random people. It's crazy. But yeah, I save hundreds of audios. And so when I'm ready to make a reel, I just go into my saved folder and pick an audio that I have saved and use it.
00:37:18
Speaker
Okay cool thank you for that. Let's do the last tip so I could finally like go into rapid fire questions because I want to know so much more about you. You're so funny. Okay so the last one's really easy it's just always always always have great lighting. You guys a lot of you are listening our photographers you know this already but it's shocking how many people
00:37:39
Speaker
try to make a real and they have terrible lighting or it's blurry and it's like no one's even going to pause on that. They're just going to swipe right by. So obviously a ring light is like your best friend and you can find them on Instagram for like 30 bucks. So they're well worth the investment. But
00:37:55
Speaker
I did not have a ring light when i first started making reels and so you can just keep a stack of boxes nearby like amazon boxes hello we know we are and be near a window and make sure front facing on the light and have great like i mean i just can't say enough times if somebody loves your background.
00:38:15
Speaker
and you're lighting, they're going to at least pause for a second and that's what you want. You just want to hook them in. So yeah, great lighting. Yeah, that's so ghetto, the Amazon boxes, but I do it too.
Rapid Fire Questions with Brandy
00:38:26
Speaker
I know, I have a whole stack of different sized boxes that I used to use and now I still use them for random setups.
00:38:34
Speaker
Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna recap. So number one, know your audience, speak to their pain points. So you're drawing the right person. We talked about the contact calendar, repurposing everything. And then number two was educate, evoke emotion, inspire, make people laugh. Number three,
00:38:54
Speaker
Keep it simple. You don't have to do anything crazy. And then tip number four, be in good lighting. Yeah. Yes. Cool. These are awesome. Okay. So some rapid fire questions because we want to get to know you more. What has been your biggest tip or advice for me? Because you have three daughters and I have two. So of like parenting.
00:39:19
Speaker
have lots and lots and lots of open communication. How old are your daughters? They are four in one. OK, so yeah, so you are it's the number of long conversations that will never cease to amaze you. But I would say be yeah, talk all the time. Let them like be around. And so for me, that was a big piece of my business was
00:39:45
Speaker
By the time they were teenagers, I wanted to be available any time they wanted to talk. And it comes up at the most random times. But yeah, so just be super involved and available for when they want to talk. Advice. I love talking to my daughter. Yeah. OK, so what do you love most about your husband? He supports me more than anyone in the whole world. Like he's my number one cheerleader and supports all of my crazy ideas.
00:40:16
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So is he part of the business or does he have his own business?
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, he is part of the business. He's worked for Blush full-time for 10 years, this year actually, in October. And he just recently, like in the last couple months, started his own business. And he's pretty excited to have something of his own, you know, that's like his. Oh, what is it? He's doing Amazon selling. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so cool. Yeah, so he loves it. Oh my gosh, yes, exactly.
00:40:48
Speaker
Okay, what is your favorite sales technique to get a heck yes from your dream clients? Oh, that's a great question. I think it's just being 1000% confident that you can solve the pain points that they have and letting them know how you can solve their problem, not giving them a list of all the services that you do, but listening to what their pain points are, what their concerns are.
00:41:14
Speaker
and speaking directly to those like this is how I will make sure that doesn't happen on your wedding day.
00:41:21
Speaker
See, there you go again, pain point. I love pain points. I love it because honestly, I feel like we don't even have a list of services anymore because I'm like, no one cares. No one cares about it. They're all the same for every wedding row has the same. And so I'm like, no, I just want to know what do you want your wedding day to be like and what's something that you would die if it happened on your wedding day. And let's talk about that. And then I could tell you all the ways that I'm going to make sure your wedding is flawless.
00:41:49
Speaker
So yeah. I love that. Okay. Two more questions. What's your Woo Factor, Brandi Garifactor? How do you stand out? I think that I am just a really glass half full kind of a person. So I think I stand out and just like have a lot of energy and I genuinely with all of my soul care about the conversation that I'm in and what I'm doing in the moment. So yeah. So you're very present.
00:42:18
Speaker
Yes, which has not always been some that does not come naturally to me. Explain a little more. Um, I, you know, I'm a planner. So typically we're working what 18 months out and just in general, I feel like for a long time, I was always thinking about what was coming next. And I still definitely have a lot of that in me, but now I've much more. I think it could be aged to that. I just realized that
00:42:44
Speaker
you need to be in the moment that you're in. And so while I still am very much a planner, and I like to think ahead, I am very much in the conversation that I'm having. So a lot of people say, you know, like, you're such a natural podcast host. I'm like, that's because I'm genuinely interested in what you're saying. And, you know, like with this conversation, I'm genuinely interested in being here and talking with you. And so I think just being present in that moment is helpful.
00:43:11
Speaker
Oh, I love it. Okay. Last question before we tell people where to find you. This is a magic wand question because I'm a coach. I usually say like three months, but I just want to know like, where is your company going in like three months, six months a year? Like where do you see it? Soon in November, actually November 9th, we're launching a whole rebrand for my coaching business, which is incredibly scary and exciting.
00:43:34
Speaker
And so really taking, you know, when I started coaching, it was a lot of just like, Who do I want to coach? And what do I want to coach? And what do I do? And now it's so crystal clear, I know exactly what I teach and who I teach it to. And now that'll start coming through in my website and my offerings. So we've created a whole learning hub,
00:43:55
Speaker
on my website where we'll meet you at different places that you are in your business. So if you're just starting out and you just kind of want a course to help you get started, we've got that. But if you're further along in your journey and you're ready for the mastermind group or for one-on-one coaching and all different really level. So there's templates and there's self-paced courses and then there's the membership and the one-on-one. So lots of ways to kind of meet people where they are
00:44:24
Speaker
And so we're really looking forward to 2022 to just being able to add to those offerings and to make sure that we're serving people and how to build and scale their business in all the ways that we can. Girl, you got it going on and I aspire to be just like you.
00:44:42
Speaker
Oh, you're so sweet. I mean, it's all trial and error. And, you know, don't think for a second that we're not over here trial and erroring it up, you know. Yeah, every day, every day. Yeah, for sure. But it's it's exciting. It's such a fun journey. So yeah, I'm excited for you. It's really a lot of fun. OK, so where can we find you? And then just last words for wedding pros.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on Instagram. We can find me on every platform. I'm at Brandygar. But Instagram's where I hang out the most and I absolutely love DMs. So I'm not annoyed by them. I'm not bothered by them. Please come jump into my DMs. Say hi. Say you heard me on the podcast. So you can find me there. Currently all of my courses, including the real traffic toolkit we talked about are at learn.brandygar.com.
00:45:32
Speaker
And then on November 9th, everything will transition to my website, which I do have a website now, just the courses aren't there. But it's at brandyguard.com. Honestly, my final words would just be be so confident in the fact that you provide something that your clients need. So
00:45:50
Speaker
Don't get wrapped up in all the things. Just listen to your clients. Think, how can I serve them best? And then serve the heck out of them in the way that they need. So to me, I think it's just be super confident in knowing that you've got the solution that they need. Oh, you make everything so easy. Thank you for this conversation, Brandi. It's so good. Yes, thanks for having me.
Episode Wrap-Up
00:46:14
Speaker
Thanks for joining me this week on Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. Make sure to follow, subscribe, leave a review, or tell a friend about the show. Take a screenshot and post to IG. Tag me. Also, don't forget to download my free guide on how to become a lead generating machine. See you next time, wedding pros.