Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Decoding Client Inquiries - MARGAUX FRAISE
191 Plays2 years ago
Happy Woo Wednesdays.
I med Margaux at a couple of WIPA events and she is a powerhouse planner and educator. She hosts a 2X YEARLY FREE ONLINE SUMMIT FOR WEDDING PROS CALLED WEDDING SUMMIT SERIES. GET ON HER WAITLIST.
Today's Topic: Decoding Client Inquiries - What are your potential clients really trying to tell you? Let's read behind the lines. Also, are you tracking where all of your inquiries are
MARGAUX FRAISE IS THE OWNER + CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF HARMONY CREATIVE STUDIO, an award-winning boutique wedding firm in Los Angeles, CA. Since moving from retail consulting to events in 2011, her goal has been to design weddings with intention, infusing celebrations with her signature organic and minimal style yet still tailored to each couple.
A Stage IV breast cancer survivor, she has a unique perspective on what is truly valuable in love, life and weddings – and brings that viewpoint to help her clients hone in on what matters to them. As a result, her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Style Me Pretty, Brides, and Green Wedding Shoes, among others.
What is Margaux's Woo Factor
Having a strong visual aesthetic (minimalism/neutrals) to go along with a calming presence. She hosts a
FAVORITE SALES TECHNIQUE: HOW DO YOU GET A HECK YES FROM YOUR DREAM CLIENTS?
Having a strong funnel so only ideal clients get through
www.margauxfraise.com / www.weddingsummitseries.com
Ideal Client Workbook + Training: https://bit.ly/mxidealclient
Connect with Carissa Woo
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sales Process
00:00:00
Speaker
Happy Woo Wednesdays! If you are a wedding photographer, go to my website heckyesmedia.co and download my 7-step sales process to getting a heck yes! It's pretty much my life's work for free!
Guest Introduction: Margo Fazze
00:00:14
Speaker
Today I have Margo Fazze on the podcast, Wedding Planner of Harmony Creative, Motivational Speaker, Downer of Wedding Summit Series, one of the best and largest summits in the wedding industry.
00:00:26
Speaker
I love her story of overcoming stage four breast cancer at age 33 and how it changed her perspective on life and her business as a whole. Stay till the end and she gives a fascinating exercise you can do to plan the vision of your business.
Helping Wedding Creatives & Mindset Shifts
00:00:42
Speaker
Enjoy this episode!
00:00:47
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,
00:01:16
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 Wednesdays so that you say heck yes to listening to this podcast. See you guys soon.
Margo's Style and Cancer Influence
00:01:38
Speaker
Hey everyone. Happy Woo Wednesdays. Today's hot topic is decoding client inquiry. Such a cool topic.
00:01:45
Speaker
And today's guest is Margo Frays, and she is the owner and creative director of Harmony Creative Studio.
00:01:52
Speaker
an award-winning boutique wedding firm in LA, and her goal has been to design weddings with intention, infusing celebrations with her signature organic and minimal style, yet still tailored to each couple. A stage four breast cancer survivor, she has a unique perspective on what is truly valuable in love, life, and
Career Transition and Authentic Branding
00:02:14
Speaker
weddings. And she serves a wedding business as an educator, a frequent podcast guest, and motivational speaker.
00:02:21
Speaker
She hosted twice yearly premiere online summit, which is super popular for wedding pros. It's called the wedding summit series. Welcome, Marco. Thank you so much for having me excited to be here. Yes, I met you at a WIPA event, I think one of the summer survey ones. And I got to see you at the holiday party.
00:02:45
Speaker
And I got to sit next to you and get to know you a little bit. And I can't believe you're here now. Yeah, here I am. Yeah, I remember seeing you in a lot of events. And then we were finally introduced, I think, by one of our mutual friends. And it's always nice to, you know, meet the people that you like see around. So I was really excited to, you know, get to know you a little bit at the WIPA holiday dinner. And here I am excited. Yay. So tell everyone the audience
00:03:11
Speaker
a little bit about your journey and what you do and who you serve. Yeah, absolutely. I am a wedding planner here in Los Angeles. I own a boutique firm called Harmony Creative Studio, like you just said. And by boutique, it just means that at this point we're serving between 10 and 12 couples a year. And the reason for that is that I've moved into education and I host a summit,
Clientele, Comparison, and Authenticity
00:03:34
Speaker
like you just said. So where we used to serve between 25 and 35 weddings a year,
00:03:40
Speaker
now after the pandemic and my switch to education, we only serve about 10 to 12. But I wasn't always a wedding planner. I'm in my former life, my former career, I was a retail consultant. So I worked for a firm out of
00:03:56
Speaker
But yeah, I'm gonna, I work for a firm out of New York, but I've always worked in LA. And basically it just means that, well, it can mean a lot of different things, but for the firm that I work for and what I did, it means that if you go into a, like a Macy's department store and you see that like Ben Sherman or Lucky Brand or Nike has fixturing that looks different,
00:04:19
Speaker
and signage that looks different. It's because the company that I used to work for designed all of that. So they specialized in what they call shop and shop spaces. So those big box stores, we designed stuff for Lucky. Nike was their biggest client. So it was really interesting and really fun. I also worked on a contract for Yahoo. So I worked for in a Yahoo office in Santa Monica, like as kind of a go-between between the people who were designing products because they had Yahoo stores back in the day. Chris, I'm talking like
00:04:47
Speaker
2007. I never been to one. Oh, they don't exist anymore. I think there were only like four in existence. But after the 2008 economic, you know, crises or whatever you want to call it at this point, they moved into kind of merchandising management, and my job was less creative and more
00:05:13
Speaker
managerial and I was not about that life, right? Like that's not what I had signed up for. So one of the last things I did for them with Yahoo, because it should come as a shock to no one,
00:05:26
Speaker
Nobody wanted Yahoo branded swag except the Yahoo marketing and events department.
Impact of Cancer on Life and Business
00:05:33
Speaker
I started working with their events department and discovered that I really loved events, right? So I would help them with their holiday party and things like that. And then at the time, one of my girlfriends was getting married. She was like, you can do my wedding, right? You do some of that stuff. So then I kind of figured out that I really love weddings more than corporate events, you know? Yeah. Personalized touch. So I
00:05:57
Speaker
I found a planner here in LA and I worked under her for about a year and then I kind of in earnest went out on my own. I think a lot of wedding pros kind of have the same story, you know, as they're transitioning from whatever their past career was to what they're, you know, what they do now. And then I slowly just kind of like
00:06:16
Speaker
took less work and went part time. And then in 2012, when I eventually married my husband and was able to be on his health insurance, that's when I quit my job totally and was able to, you know, go full time with Harmony Creative Studio. So that's kind of like my journey. And then now I'm on the education side. Yeah, I love that. We'll talk more about the summit in a second, but how did you get into like retail design work?
00:06:46
Speaker
So not
Client Inquiries and Sales Funnel Strategy
00:06:48
Speaker
unlike a lot of people, I have several useless degrees that I never use. But what I did to get those degrees was work retail in college. And I've managed stores, including like Footlockers,
00:07:05
Speaker
sunglass huts. I managed to store in an outlet mall that specialized in like those like really expensive jerseys that were really like popular in the early aughts, you know. Yeah, and then I was doing district management and then I was headhunted by the consulting firm to come and work for them. So
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah. The thing that I was doing while I was headed somewhere is what I ended up doing. And I think that's common for a lot of people is that life happens while you're making plans. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you are published in like all the, the best wedding blogs, but how would you describe your style as a wedding planner?
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, I actually teach on this. I do coaching on this. I have a VIP day on, you know, becoming the only option for clients. So it's something that I really pride myself on having done really well in my business. I don't, for a podcast people, you can't see my background, but it's completely neutrals, right? And my brand aesthetic and my brand as a person is very calming, very minimalist.
00:08:13
Speaker
very organic. And that's the style that if you come to my website, you know that immediately. So if you're looking for maximalism and colorful, you know, the weddings that our mutual friend Holly Grey does, they're like the opposite of what I do. So and we laugh when we do like zoom stuff. And you can see even in the backgrounds, like she has this very colorful mural and mine is very, you know, very neutral.
00:08:36
Speaker
So my brand is all about calming, minimalist. My tagline is stress-free, minimal, and organic weddings for stylish professionals. Ooh, I like that. That sums it up pretty well. Oh, I love that. And what is your secret sauce or woo factor? What makes you stand out from the crowd? I think that it's that I haven't been afraid to very clearly define
00:09:01
Speaker
who I wanna work with, but also who's not a great fit. I think that people out there will hear a lot of messaging about niching down, about finding their ideal client. And that's amazing and that's well and good, but you also have to decide who you don't wanna work with and not be afraid to kindly repel those people, right? Because
00:09:27
Speaker
Again, anyone who comes to my website or comes to my Instagram or comes to anything about me should be able to tell pretty quickly if I'm the right person for them in not only the way that my weddings look through photos, but also the way that I'm talking to them.
00:09:44
Speaker
the things that I'm talking about. I'm talking about avoiding the comparison trap. That was an article that I did for Green Wedding Shoes that I talk a lot about. I talk a lot about being a calming presence on their wedding day. So if they're looking for a cheerleader type of person, like a raw, raw type of person, they're not getting that vibe from me.
00:10:05
Speaker
I do think that it is a very, my woo factor, my secret sauce as it were, is that I'm not afraid to be myself.
Budget Perceptions in Wedding Planning
00:10:14
Speaker
And I know that myself is a little bit more low key than some people and that's okay. And my people are drawn to that. Oh, I like that. It's interesting because yeah, you hear those words, hype girl, woo woo, like, you know, my last name. Okay. I'm your girl, excited. What would you say like,
00:10:35
Speaker
You're maybe not that, but what would you say you are instead? It's funny because there's a lot of terminology on there about like,
00:10:44
Speaker
I'll be your best, for planners specifically, right? You know, I'll be your best friend or your fairy godmother or your, you know, that kind of terminology. What I tell people is like, you have friends, you have friends, you have family. I think there's terminology on my website where it's like, I'm like your aunt that you go to to solve a problem. That's who I am, right? Because that's what I'm there for. I'm also a professional. So a lot of my verbiage and a lot of
00:11:15
Speaker
What I consider to be inherently me is I come from a corporate background. Not a lot of people in the wedding industry have that. They just kind of fell into the wedding industry. But I have a corporate background and that lends itself to some structure, lends itself to some processes, lends itself to some things that other professionals are drawn to, which is why my clients tend to be solidly in their 30s.
00:11:40
Speaker
They're paying for their vet themselves. I do not contract with parents because I just noticed that I never met them until the day of. Things like that. And it's about knowing
00:11:52
Speaker
what you'd like to do and also what you'd not like to do and who you are and putting that out into the world. Because some people think they have themselves all figured out, but if you ask the next person over to look at their website, look at their socials or whatever, they're not getting the same vibe.
Wedding Summit Series and Motivational Speaking
00:12:09
Speaker
Interesting. I love that. To be honest with you, I never heard that before.
00:12:14
Speaker
That's pretty cool. And congrats on getting that feature in Green Wedding Shoes. Let's talk about how to avoid the comparison game. Yeah, yeah. Well, the reason that I wrote that, I pitched that article to them. It's mostly about couples, right? Because so it's Green Wedding Shoes is a couple or client facing blog, right? It's not geared towards wedding professionals, even though we all read it like we do. It's not me pretty or Martha or Brides or whatever, right? But it's speaking to,
00:12:42
Speaker
couples. And right now the pandemic is over, right? And they're not dealing with like the impending doom of, you know, their wedding being canceled.
00:12:53
Speaker
What has come out of that and what I'm seeing because I'm in a bunch of Facebook groups for couples, I'm in a bunch of Facebook groups for wedding professionals also, but I'm in a bunch of groups for couples mostly because I'm there to collect data. I'm there to see what their problems are so that then I can coach on that, right? Like, and have those themes in my summit. But I noticed a very overarching
00:13:19
Speaker
anxiety for couples, especially women, especially brides, right? But couples also, they just have this impending anxiety. And I'm not sure if it's
00:13:30
Speaker
lasting effects from the pandemic or the age group, the under 30s, the Gen Zs just are more anxious just because of the way they've been raised on social media. But they all have an impending sense of anxiety. And part of that is comparing themselves to their friends, to social media, to the people they follow. And so that article was really about
00:13:53
Speaker
very tactile ways to help with that. You know, something even as simple as one of the tips that I gave the couples was, I know that you're doing a bunch of research when you're in the planning, when you're in the first planning stages and you're following hundreds of people. When you find your people, go ahead and go back and unfollow all those people that you didn't hire, that you don't like, because all you're getting is bombarded with more wedding stuff and that sort of thing. So confusing.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, I like that because we always talk about the comparison trap for us vendors, but no one talks about it for these couples that are just like scrolling and getting really confused, which I was one of them and, you know, going to Pinterest. I like that. Oh, shoot. I like that. Oh, shoot. I like, oh, shoot. I like colorful. I was like, you know, it's just.
00:14:40
Speaker
It's really funny because when couples send me their Pinterest boards, because I always ask them to loop me in, I can see the evolution of what they like. And there is a really strong like, because if you scroll all the way to the bottom, that's the oldest stuff, right? And the oldest stuff is a mishmash of all different types of things.
00:15:00
Speaker
And then in the middle, they get solidified, and they're like, this is what they really want. And then the top is them getting distracted. The most current stuff is the shiny object syndrome. So when I'm designing a wedding, I always focus on that middle stuff that always looks cohesive. But that's how social media works and how Pinterest works. It's shiny objects. Oh, I like that.
00:15:23
Speaker
that doesn't have anything to do with my style or my wedding. I just think it's cool, you know? So it's very interesting to see how people get distracted. And it does happen to wedding professionals also. We allow ourselves to compare ourselves to the people who are getting the awards, the people who are getting, you know, those, you know, luxury weddings or whatever it is. And I always tell people, especially my coaching clients,
00:15:48
Speaker
Don't believe anything you see on social media. That's not real, right? Because I could tell you on social media, a whole bunch of things that aren't necessarily true, right? That my business is doing, you know, a million dollars a year. Like I could put that on the internet. It's not true, but you know what I mean? Like I could put that out there if I really wanted to.
00:16:08
Speaker
You never know what's going on in other people's business, so I always want to tell people to bring the focus back to themselves. Focus on what you need, how much money you need, how many hours a week do you want to work, what clients do you want to work with, because that's not the same as the person next to you.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, I've been, I was struggling a lot with that for years and it actually took me to go to like a Reiki healer to understand I was being blocked by, she said I had really good intuition but something inside of me was telling me like,
00:16:40
Speaker
kind of, I wasn't good enough, or I was second guessing myself. And she was like, how did you become successful in your wedding photography business? And I was like, tunnel vision. And she's like, there you go. Do that for your coaching business. And I was like, it kind of brought me back because it's like, pick something, follow it and just start with stop looking.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, I can disassociate with the best of them. It's one of my best qualities. But it really did help me when, you know, you mentioned in my bio in 2014, which is, you know, two and a half, three years into my wedding business, I was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.
00:17:17
Speaker
And so I really had to kind of disassociate my needs from my client's needs, from other people's needs and really have that tunnel vision. So I totally get that when you're like very focused on what you're doing. And I think people need to do that a little more, but it is hard in this day and age where you're constantly being bombarded with other people's good or bad news all the time.
Travel's Role in Personal Growth
00:17:41
Speaker
Totally. How did that change like your outlook on life and your business, family, priorities, and just maybe it's kind of your wedding summit came out of it, but just tell me more about it. Yeah. So in 2014, I think like most people in our industry at like the three year mark, you're like, I'm finally getting it. I'm finally getting it. Like everything's going well.
00:18:08
Speaker
you know, at age 33, to be diagnosed with breast cancer is kind of a random thing, right? I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, that's horrible. So I did have to take a couple years off from my business. And now looking back on it with the value of hindsight, I call it my pre pandemic, personal pandemic. Because that's what it was. It was like the pandemic was happening only to me, right? That's what a personal emergency is. But
00:18:34
Speaker
it afforded me things that other people don't get, which are time, right? Like there was almost a whole year where I couldn't leave the couch, you know? So because I had to go through chemo, radiation, 12 surgeries because they found a metastasis in my lungs. So I actually had to have several surgeries on my lung alone. So if you hear me breathing a little bit, it's because I'm actually missing a huge part of one of my lungs. But
00:19:02
Speaker
It afforded me a lot of time to sit down and think about what I wanted my business to be, because I don't think
Goal Setting and Achievement
00:19:09
Speaker
a lot of people slow down and think about the kind of business they want to build, the kind of people they want to work with, and how to make that happen in terms of business strategy, in terms of processes. I had nothing but time, so I had a lot of time to figure that out.
00:19:25
Speaker
So one of the things that I do in my business now to kind of get back to that is I make sure that every two years I have like a working vacation where I go to Ireland. That's where I've been. I go by myself to Ireland for several weeks, for like two to three weeks. And I will just sit in cafes, enjoy the scenery, and work on my business plan.
00:19:51
Speaker
because I know that it was that game changing for me to just have that time away, right? Yeah. In terms of my life, I mean, I don't have any children now. I think if I hadn't had cancer, I probably would. So that's a big lifestyle change. Personally, I've come to terms with that. It does afford me
00:20:16
Speaker
to be able to go to Ireland for three weeks of a couple of years where I want. So it does have its perks. It has its downsides, but it has its perks. So yeah, it has really changed my outlook. It's caused me to appreciate the people in my life. I mean, my husband is a total rock star. I'd never dealt with insurance or anything like that because he did.
00:20:40
Speaker
It caused me to really appreciate, but also I turned that focus to my couples because I started to talk to them in a different way about their marriage as opposed to their wedding and how they wanted their wedding to be a jumping off point to a marriage. Because I think a lot of people in our industry forget about the marriage part of the wedding and I've learned to focus
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:21:05
Speaker
more on that.
00:21:05
Speaker
Oh, I love that. Oh, I want to dig so much deeper into that. But I'm going to switch gears a little bit to our hot topic. And we're talking today about decoding client inquiries. I didn't want to ask you before we started recording about this, because I'm really curious. I have no idea what it means. So tell us why it's so near and dear to your heart.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because increase, right, are when people reach out to you and express interest in your business. And at their core, they are this pure data collection from people raising their hands and showing an interest in your business. And I think that people miss that.
00:21:45
Speaker
So if you're listening to this and you hear nothing else from this podcast, from me, if you are not keeping track of your inquiries or leads, whatever you'd like to call them, in some meaningful way, right? We have an Excel spreadsheet that we work off of.
00:22:04
Speaker
If you're not keeping track of them and looking for trends and doing some data collection, then you are really, really missing out. Because that Excel spreadsheet, I look at it at the end of every year for the off season and I look for trends. I look for, hey, are these...
00:22:21
Speaker
Leads or increase coming from the places I've paid. Like my paid or my paid advertising sources giving me the ROI that I'm looking for. Is there a vendor that's sending me a lot of leads that never convert? Let's dig into that. Maybe they have old information. Maybe they have old pricing, something like that. Is there a venue that tends to convert? Let's dig into that. Like if you're not looking for trends in your overall increase,
00:22:50
Speaker
you're really, really missing out. Oh, I didn't know that that this is where it was going. I thought it was more like.
00:22:57
Speaker
Well, we can talk about like, there's more. I don't, yeah. Top line stuff about, we can talk about like, you know, yeah, there's definitely like decoding in the sense of like, what they say, which I'm happy to get to. But as a top line thing, if people aren't just, if wedding professionals aren't just taking the time to like, go through their leads every see at the end of every season, and figuring out some trends,
00:23:23
Speaker
That's where you figure out where to spend your money, where to spend your time, where to develop your relationships, you know, figure out what's working and what's not. That's top line inquiry stuff. So I just wanted to put that out there. No, I love that. I think I if I've I've been doing this for like 13 years and if I were to be if I had done that, you know, 10 or seven or five years ago, it would have been extremely helpful. What else? What are their tips for decoding inquiries?
00:23:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's really, I say it's funny a lot. I need to stop saying that. I always start sentences with like, it's so funny. But sometimes it is because one of the things that I really want people to focus on is actually
00:24:09
Speaker
reading what people say and listening to what they're actually saying when they contact you versus what you'd like to hear. And so let's just say an inquiry comes into your photography business. How does Carissa Wu get most of your inquiries?
00:24:29
Speaker
I didn't know how to get into spaces that I wasn't invited into. My aha moment was I finally found a venue that I jammed with and I think that we're gonna have a great relationship so I'm super excited to be on their list.
00:24:46
Speaker
I have presented myself, my art, and my business in a way that is speaking to someone, that is speaking to somebody enough where they recognize my brand. They know who I am and I don't know who they are, which is amazing, and they want to work with me.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yep, she's just one of my dozens of students crushing it. Go to my website, www.hecyesmedia.co and book a 15-minute strategy session with me. Only if you want to be booked out on multiple preferred vendor lists and have a proven marketing plan.
00:25:24
Speaker
me. Good question. Referrals and yeah. So referrals are hot leads, right? They're like hot increase, meaning that they already have familiarity with you. They already have had somebody give them some social proof. They've already whatever, right? So that is like a separate thing that we can talk about in just a second.
00:25:46
Speaker
But in terms of what I like to call cold leads or cold inquiries are things where people like saw you on Instagram or, you know, saw you on a preferred list, right? Like that's still kind of a cold lead. It's in the middle somewhere. But like these things where they're coming to you
00:26:03
Speaker
and they maybe haven't had a recommendation or been to a wedding or whatever, right? So they're coming to you and you're very excited. People have this thing when they get an inquiry, they're very excited, right? They're like, yes, somebody wants to hire me, right? But then they don't actually read what people are saying. So I want people to actually like read the between the lines of what people are saying. Because when I get an inquiry,
00:26:29
Speaker
And if at any time in the inquiry, they say things like, we're looking for help.
00:26:36
Speaker
Help is a word that I don't love because help is a devaluator, right? Like it makes me seem like an assistant and not a professional. So like if they mentioned anything like we're looking to have our perfect dream wedding day, like this verbiage that I don't use myself that isn't in our website or any of our branding, but they're using it. That's usually a red flag. You know, there's a lot of weird stuff that people just don't even like
00:27:06
Speaker
really read. They just look at it and go, someone's interested in me and they fire off the information, right? And so I want people to get in the habit of actually reading what people say and knowing if it's a good fit for you, you know?
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah, especially for me and you because we shoot 10 to 12 and do 10 to 12 weddings and rest education. So we want to pick the good ones. Yeah, absolutely. I have a really tight funnel at this point. One of the talks that I give is about sales funnels.
00:27:38
Speaker
And I, just in another talk last year at wedding MBA, I was speaking in front of a room of about 800 wedding professionals. And I asked any of them if they had, I asked people to raise their hand, who has a funnel? And I swear it was like maybe a hundred hands. So maybe like every one out of eight person. And I was like, Oh no, that's not good. That's not a good ratio because my sales funnel, the process by which people find me.
00:28:06
Speaker
They come to my website, they click a button, they get more pricing, they get more info, they're enrolled in an email sequence. It is a very tight funnel. People who make it all the way to the end to actually schedule a call with me have proven that they can follow directions, that they can read, that they have heard a lot of information about what I'm into. So by the time they schedule a call usually, they're ready to book me.
00:28:30
Speaker
So that's like one of the real secret things is having a really tight funnel. So by the time they come to you, you know that they have some qualities that you're looking for in your clients, whatever those are to you, right? Yeah, it's the people that send me the one-off emails.
00:28:49
Speaker
or they inquire about pricing or things like that, that I'm like, hmm, that I get a little, that, you know, I follow my own advice and actually read. Yeah. It's cool. I mean, it's cool that me and you could actually maybe that mindset, like we could screen the clients, not them, or interviewing them.
00:29:09
Speaker
It's great to be in that situation. And I think me and you talked about this at the summer story with the event that yeah, a lot of photographers aren't so like, kept up with the sales funnels, I learned everything through my coaching business, because I've, you know, I've been coached by coaches, and they're all about that. But that's so that's so cool. Yeah, I don't know. It's just
00:29:35
Speaker
I feel like I really like to read the inquiries from start to finish, especially like two minutes before the sales call. So I know everything. And just really mentioning what they said on the inquiry forum, because if they know that you actually read it and you care, I think it's more of a connection.
00:29:56
Speaker
I think you can tell when people are just like price shoppers and they just like, you know, they want to get the lowest price ever. You could kind of tell that, especially when they don't write much on the inquiry board. Well, people ask me, and one of the things I talk about, people say,
00:30:14
Speaker
Okay, this is all well and good, but I need you to tell me, is there something I should be looking for in these inquiries? Like, what's a big red flag in an inquiry, right? And there is something, there is a key phrase that people need to watch out for. And here it is, duh duh duh duh, drum roll. When people say, I just need
00:30:37
Speaker
That is a very small phrase. What I just need is, again, it's a devaluating proposition, right? Because usually that's followed by things like, I'm only looking for, or we only need help with this. We can do it all, except this. Oh, I don't need all eight hours. Can we just...
00:30:59
Speaker
anything in that family, right? Those are, because it's a minimizer, just as a minimizer word. They're trying to minimize your value. So when they, they do that right out of the gate, people would say like, well, isn't them asking for pricing a red flag? No, because like Allen Berg says, they don't know any better, right? They don't know what else to ask. But if people are very quick to tell you or minimize your value, right? With, you know, minimizing words, things like just
00:31:28
Speaker
quick, easy, simple, blah, blah, blah. What they're looking for is a way to minimize your value, pay you less. They're not going to appreciate what you do. And it is amazing how I can tie that one phrase to every bad client I have ever had.
00:31:49
Speaker
It is something that is wild, right? Or some version of that, just need, I only need, we're just looking for, we don't need all of this. They can come back to you and say that after they've seen a proposal or something, but if you see that in a very first inquiry, that's their first
00:32:06
Speaker
thought is to devalue you. And that is something that you do need to watch out for. And that's, you know, top line red flag. Oh my gosh, I never put two and two together. But it's so true, because those people that say, I just need those are the people are gonna say, I just need more.
00:32:26
Speaker
That's true. They just need less or they just need more or that those are the people that photography, they'll be like, we don't really need eight hours. We only need six hours. And you're like, that's great. But I'm the photographer. I know what the job requires. I know the timelines, blah, blah, blah. It's the people who
00:32:45
Speaker
think that they know better and think that they have already a good idea of your value when that's not necessarily the case, right? It's those people. Oh, I never thought about that, but it makes so much sense. Maybe one little more tip before, because I really want to talk about the wedding summit, but one last thing or tip about the decoding client inquiries.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think the second thing is that, again, people get really bogged down in pricing and budgets, right? So if people come to you and they have a budget that is lower than the ones you normally work with, right? Because that's a big thing. People are like, I don't even respond back to those people.
00:33:28
Speaker
I think you're missing a big thing because most couples spend between 10 and 25% more than whatever they thought they were going to spend, right? Yeah. And one of the big things is a couple's budget is not necessarily correlative with your fee.
00:33:47
Speaker
I'll give you an example. I usually work with budgets that are between 80 and $200,000, right? That's a nice budget here in LA, but it's not, it's not luxury. It's not over the top, but it is budget that is going to get you a nice wedding, right? It just is.
00:34:06
Speaker
I have a relationship with a loft venue downtown that people tend to have smaller budgets. And with those, we'll usually do just month of coordination because I helped him open this venue. I'm very familiar with this venue. We only do month of coordination at places we're very familiar with.
00:34:23
Speaker
But I had a couple come to me for their wedding in 2021, and she said, I need a planner. I don't know what I'm doing. I need help. And I'm willing to pay for that help.
00:34:37
Speaker
she valued what I did so much that she paid me $8,000 of her $35,000 budget. Wow. Right? So, her budget was not necessarily correlative to my fee because $8,000 is obviously way more than 10% to 15% of $35,000, which is a normal planning fee, correct? So,
00:35:01
Speaker
Because of that, she figured out what she valued, which she didn't really value flowers. She didn't really value food. She valued the party. So she spent a lot on the planner and the music and the DJ, right? Like those were her two top things. And she had a food truck and she had very minimal flowers. So sometimes people get really bogged down in whatever the budget is.
00:35:24
Speaker
But the budget doesn't necessarily equal what they're going to pay you. It's all about you explaining your value and figuring out if it is a client that values you and is willing to pay your fee. That's more important.
00:35:36
Speaker
That's amazing. I mean, I learned that hard lesson too when I would realize or figure out that they pay like the videographer like way more than me. And then I felt like, oh crap, I need to raise my prices like that sucks. Let's talk about value. It's all about intrinsic value. It's all about what they value.
00:35:55
Speaker
And in any sales coach or sales coach or sales coaching or anything, they'll talk about building value. And when you build value in you and your business and your services, then people will pay more, especially if you're doing what I'm doing, and you're speaking only to your ideal clients, and you're repelling the ones you don't want to work with, and they come to you already really, really wanting what it is you have, and then you build value, and then it's a much easier sell.
00:36:22
Speaker
Oh, I love that. Okay, let's talk about you as a motivational speaker starting this wedding summit, which is crazy what you built. A little bit in the nutshell, like how you created it and like how you became this motivational speaker to our whole industry. Yeah, I do motivational speaking also outside of the wedding industry. I speak at like medical conferences and oncology conferences about female patient advocacy. Just because
00:36:50
Speaker
I had a very interesting experience with cancer. And people would think that being in Los Angeles, being a white cis woman of a certain type of means, that that would have equaled a certain type of experience. And it didn't necessarily. So there are still a lot of problems with our healthcare system. So I speak at these places about like, you know, cancer retreats and also two oncologists telling them like, hey, y'all got to do better. And here's how you can.
00:37:20
Speaker
Oh, wow. So I started doing that first, right? And then during the couple years before the pandemic, people were like, huh, you had cancer?
00:37:34
Speaker
I don't know if I knew that about you. How did you keep your business afloat? We'd love to hear about that, right? Like, locally. So I started a talk that was called Worst Case Scenario, Protecting Your Biz from the Unexpected in 2018. And some people liked it, but the majority of people did not find that topic very sexy or very interesting until 2020.
00:37:56
Speaker
And then in 2020, everybody wanted me to come and talk. I did like 40 or 50, you know, virtual webinars with that talk that year. Like everybody wanted to hear that, right? Because it was all of a sudden very relevant for everyone. So because of that, I made a lot of connections. I had already kind of in earnest been selling a course about styled shoots, a couple smaller courses. So I'm like, okay, in the summer of 2020,
00:38:26
Speaker
Here in LA, we still couldn't do anything and all of my clients had postponed for the second time, right, into 2021. So frankly, I was bored. I had nothing to do. That's the impetus. And I really loved the Summit model going to them.
00:38:41
Speaker
You know, same as when we were talking about the sales funnel and the coaching, because we're looking at it from a different viewpoint. Summits were very popular in other industries, but only one person was doing a summit for Wedding Pro, my friend Heidi Thompson. And I loved Heidi's summits, but she talks about sales and marketing, like that's her jam, right? And I was like, wouldn't it be interesting if I did a summit and it was a deep dive topic on something different every time, because that
00:39:11
Speaker
education would have spoke to me 10 years ago about something that I would have thought was really interesting. So that's how the wedding summit series came to be in February 2021. We had our first event. That first topic was community, because I felt like that's what people needed at the time. So we talked about networking, referrals, partnerships, you know, associations. We had WIPA, ABC, ILEA,
00:39:37
Speaker
the National Society for Black Wedding and Event Professionals all join and talk about their associations and joining their associations. So it was a really great community building event. And then we just kind of kept moving on with design and client experience. And we just finished our fifth summit, which was about marketing and advertising. A little full circle moment, Heidi was a speaker at that, and she still does her summits about sales, about marketing. We're very good friends. Actually, people find that weird, but it's true.
00:40:07
Speaker
Yeah, I love Heidi. That's kind of the emphasis on how it came about because I was bored. Yeah, that's amazing. How many people attended the last one? So we usually have somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 people attend because it is an online summit. So it lends itself to more people. Of those, I would say we usually have around 1,500 active participants.
00:40:31
Speaker
people who watch the videos, come to the panels, things like that. But we usually have, this last one we had just under 4,000 people grab the free ticket. Wow, that's amazing. And then I asked you this question when we were talking at the holiday event, but how did you become such a great motivational speaker, Girl Scout? I wish I had a better answer for you other than I have zero stage fright, which is true. Yeah, why? Why is that?
00:41:02
Speaker
I don't know. It's something inherent to me. I would love to be able to teach it. It's just always been that way. I think you were like a travel girl. I was I was so because of that. When I was younger, I spoke I was the speaker for the Girl Scouts of America.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yeah, they have a program called the Annie Girl Scout program, which is basically girls who want to do Girl Scouts, but don't have a troop or there's not, you know, enough girls in their area to support a troop. They can be an Annie Girl Scout. And keep in mind, this is the 80s and 90s. Y'all I don't know if they still even have this program.
00:41:36
Speaker
I haven't checked in in a while. And so me and my mom would travel around and they, I would, like when I was nine, 10, 11, I'm like, talk about being an anti-girl scout because they were
00:41:50
Speaker
They found me doing a stand-up comedy routine at one of my, like, when I was nine. And they were like, isn't that a nine-year-old child doing a stand-up comedy routine? That's awesome. And they talked, and they asked if I was Girl Scout. And my mom's like, yeah, she's a nanny Girl Scout. So they thought that that was really funny. But so I did that for a couple years.
00:42:12
Speaker
And then I would speak at events for some of the charities that my parents were involved in. And I just noticed that it's easier for me to talk to people from stage almost than it is in a one-on-one environment. So if you meet me at an event and you're like,
00:42:29
Speaker
this person doesn't seem that interested. It's because it's actually easier for me to talk to 100 people than it is for me to talk to one. So it's the reverse of a lot of people. Only because I feel very put on the spot when it's a one on one conversation. And from the stage, it's just me doing my thing. So it's a weird. So everyone has their things when I say I have no stage fright that don't think that that translates into
00:42:56
Speaker
no fear of talking to people in general. Like that's not the same thing. I think that's kind of a lucky quirk of yours. It is. And I fully understand that that is not common. So
00:43:11
Speaker
What I try to do is in our summits, when I had that summit about community and we're talking about networking and stuff, I always made sure that I had speakers that are talking to introverts, to people who aren't like me, an extreme extrovert, because I can't speak to that. So that's something I've tried to do with my summits.
00:43:33
Speaker
is as an overriding thing is diverse voices from around the country, from around the world. We had a speaker both from the UK and Australia last time. Like, I'm trying to get people to have someone that will speak to you no matter where you're at. And sometimes that's not me. Sometimes someone who looks like me talking about how she has no stage fright is not helpful to people. I realize that. So
00:43:58
Speaker
I have a lot of different voices, a lot of different people talking to where people are at in their business journey. Oh, yeah. Because of you, I'm going to sign up my daughter for Girl Scouts because she is a shy girl. Girl Scouts was amazing. Even though I didn't have a troop, I went to camp. I was then a Girl Scout camp counselor. Wow. I caught archery. It was very unsafe.
00:44:21
Speaker
And I really enjoyed my experience, and I probably would have enjoyed it more if there was a group of girls that I could have done it with, but everyone in my area was more into sports, which I also did. Oh, nice. Well, okay, so I guess the last couple minutes, just some fun questions, but what do you like to do for fun?
00:44:42
Speaker
Fun. So my husband is in the TV and film industry. He used to work for a studio. He used to work for Roku. And so we watch a lot of movies. So that's something that I love to do. I love to read. I love to travel. Travel is the main thing that takes up a lot of time.
00:45:01
Speaker
I tell people, I'm like, whatever travel you can do, I would implore you to do it, right? It's something where my parents were really big into traveling. So throughout my childhood, we would travel around the US, when I could travel internationally, when they thought it was safe, we did that. And learning about
00:45:21
Speaker
people who are different than you is one of the cornerstones of having more empathy, of having more understanding of people, of being able to enjoy different walks of life.
00:45:37
Speaker
I would encourage people to travel as much as they can. I understand not everyone can, but if you can, it's something that I encourage. And it's something that I love to do and we travel a lot. And I also am now traveling even more because I'm traveling for speaking, usually around the US. Like I was in Boulder, Colorado a couple of weeks ago speaking with a great group, Emerge Event Collective, when it was snowing, which is something I'm not that,
00:46:05
Speaker
that familiar with. So it was really fun. They were like, why are you so excited? It's cold. And I'm like, you understand, it doesn't get cold where I live. So this is very exciting to me. That's what I like to do. I love that. Okay, this is not really a rapid fire question question. But you talked a lot about big picture like you had time on your hands when
00:46:26
Speaker
you're like, you know, getting chemo for the whole year. And then you know, you take like these trips Ireland and like you really think about your big vision. But what is one thing you could do for a listener to do today to like, think about their big vision and like how they want their life to be like or their business to be like, I think saying it out loud to another person,
00:46:47
Speaker
is something that makes a huge difference, whether that's your partner in life, whether that is a family member, whether that is a business partner and accountability buddy, whatever it is, the simple fact of
00:47:03
Speaker
speaking your intentions out loud to another person. You can journal all day long. I love journaling, but journaling is still an internal personal process, right? Speaking your intentions to another person makes them real. And so that's like a really small thing that you can do that makes whatever's going on in your head become, you know, something real, something tangible, something that that person will then come back and ask you, what have you done?
00:47:32
Speaker
to get towards that goal. And it's a very simple thing. You don't have to be like me and go to Ireland and hang out for three weeks or whatever. But when I do that, when I come back, I sit with my husband and I say, here are the things that I want to do over the next two years. I talk about how that fits into our life overall. And I tell him the things that I want to do so that he can then be like, hey, how's that in-person wedding summit coming? And I'll be like,
00:48:00
Speaker
Okay, I need to get back on that, you know, because that's that's a goal of mine for 2024. But
00:48:07
Speaker
I don't know how much I would be doing on it if I hadn't told him and then told a lot of speakers at the summit and told everyone. I'm kind of accountable for this thing that I want to do. So that's the one small thing that everyone can do. Yes, thank you for that. Speaking it into existence. And where can everyone find you and work with you?
00:48:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you can go to MargoFrazie.com. My name is weird, so hopefully you can have it somewhere in the show notes or whatever. It's M-A-R-G-A-U-X-F-R-A-I-S-E.com. And that talks about, you know, my coaching and the courses that I have and the Summit, which is just weddingsummitseries.com. You can go get information on the next, you know, couple things we're doing there.
00:48:54
Speaker
some exciting stuff there, including some one-day vendor-specific workshops on the horizon, you know, an in-person event. Hopefully, hopefully I'm speaking it out, you know, here as well. Yeah. And then also, Instagram at wedding summit series is probably the best place to, you know, hear from me. Yay. Thank you, Marco. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
00:49:22
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!