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Episode 107: How to Scale to Multiple Locations
185 Plays4 years ago
Sarah Chancey of Chancey Charm joins me to chat about scaling her wedding planning business. Originally founded in Denver, she eventually moved her business to Atlanta and scaled to 13 cities across the United States. This episode is jam packed with practical information and even if you have no interest in scaling your business to other cities, you can use the tips that Sarah shares to level up your marketing efforts.
We cover her process for moving to another city and some of her favorite tips around concepts like Search Engine Optimization. And I think you'll be able to tell that Sarah is one of those people who knows her stuff. If you're interested in learning more from Sarah, be sure to check out the Wedding Planner Academy which can be found on her website at chanceycharmweddings.com.
For the show notes, visit https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-sarah-chancey-episode-107/
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Transcript
Core Values: 'We Over Me'
00:00:05
Speaker
Really, we have like a little slogan that we say at Chancey Charm, and that's we over me. And that is the heart behind everything you see at Chancey Charm, whether it's serving clients, helping our teammates. I have an academy that, you know, it's we over me. And so that really was the heart behind the expansion.
Scaling Journey: Denver to Atlanta
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:42
Speaker
Sarah Chancy of Chancy Charm Weddings joins me to chat about scaling her wedding planning business. Originally founded in Denver, she eventually moved her business to Atlanta and scaled to 13 cities across the United States. This episode is jam-packed with practical information and even if you have no interest in scaling your business to other cities, you can use the tips that Sarah shares to level up your marketing efforts.
00:01:05
Speaker
We cover her process for moving to another city and some of her favorite tips around concepts like search engine optimization. And I think you'll be able to tell that Sarah is one of those people who knows her
Practical Business Advice
00:01:15
Speaker
stuff. If you're interested in learning more from Sarah, be sure to check out the Wedding Planner Academy, which can be found on her website at chancycharmweddings.com.
00:01:24
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at DavianChrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and I want to hear from you. Let me know what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands at Book podcast, especially as we tackle our next 100 episodes. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram, at DavianChrista. Now, on to the episode.
Gratitude and Collaboration
00:01:47
Speaker
Alright, I'm here with Sarah of Chancy Charm Weddings and we are chatting all about this planning business that she's built that spans multiple cities. So I'm excited to get into that. We just recently launched a website for Sarah as well. I'm excited to have you on the podcast. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Love your podcast. Absolutely adore you guys and super thankful for
00:02:11
Speaker
All that y'all have done for ChanceyCharm in the last couple of months with the new site, it's just honestly like I am a raving fan now. I worked with Chick-fil-A for a little while, so raving fans are a thing there. And I just cannot say enough good things about your process, your sales process all the way through to execution, and of course, beautiful design work. I mean, it's already, we're already seeing the benefits of that. So just a little free plug for you there.
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. Well, we appreciate that and love working with you as well. I know Krista really enjoyed the project, not only working with you personally, but then also the final product as well. So I feel like it was just a really good fit and made it that much more fun of a project for sure. Thanks. Well, she's a saint because it's a huge site. So, you know.
00:02:56
Speaker
She is a saint because she has to deal with me. So we're finally in our new office. We were just talking about that a little bit because you're going through the home building process right now too, which has also been for you maybe a little bit longer of a process than you anticipated as it was for us. Krista and I are sitting next to each other now, which is the first time in
00:03:16
Speaker
I don't know how many years. I don't think we've ever actually had an office together. I love it. Maybe very briefly. But anyways, that's not the point.
Passion for Event Planning
00:03:24
Speaker
I want to get into your story a little bit and hear about how you got into wedding planning in general and then of course, how it evolved into this business that spans multiple cities. So how'd you get started?
00:03:36
Speaker
For me, I was in Denver. My husband and I had moved from Athens, Georgia, where we met and got married to Denver, Colorado. So bright-eyed and like we can't fail, got out there, had a really hard time because it was in 2009. So just right when the crash happened and everybody was kind of scrambling and I had an interior design degree, which was not super marketable at that point. A lot of interior designers were losing their jobs.
00:04:02
Speaker
So I ended up working with Chick-fil-A. We ended up both working with Chick-fil-A, running one out there, and just really loved that environment, loved learning so much from them about
00:04:15
Speaker
Events marketing advertising a lot of what you see at chancy charm is built on the training that I got from chick-fil-a But I knew that it wasn't really the end goal for me since I had been in college I knew that I wanted to work from home and have freedom and flexibility to raise a family and also just creative freedom and so really the part that stuck for me when with that job was were the events, you know, I was doing a
00:04:41
Speaker
Daddy daughter date nights and traveling to do grand openings and those are the moments that I really enjoyed and so That's really why I started thinking about doing events doing weddings I had just you know, we had just gotten married We were still newlyweds and I my wedding day was literally the best day in my life so I was like I want to help other women do this like I want to be a part of their planning journey, which I know can be stressful and help take some of that stress away and
00:05:09
Speaker
And so, you know, literally in a park in Colorado is like picturesque as that sounds, we started talking about Chancy Charm and launching a business that I felt like I could serve and love people in. And that is really the heart behind Chancy Charm. And honestly, all of the planners on my team now embody that 150%. Like there are no divas in our group. We're all servants and just really, really love our clients. And that's what Chancy Charm was founded on.
Economic Challenges and Opportunities
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. And just an interesting observation. So many people I talked to mentioned 2008, 2009 as sort of a start date or a pivot date, you know, right after the crash there. I think that's so interesting, especially certainly in light of current events going on right now. I mean, back in 2008, 2009 was a difficult time period for so many different people. But at the same time, it seems like people were able to, you know, take that challenge and turn it into something awesome and something that's still flourishing a decade later. So
00:06:06
Speaker
Yes. I just think that's an interesting point from past interviews that I've done as well. So tell me a little bit more. So that's the start. Tell me a little bit more how it sort of expanded beyond just a single city.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, being that we were in Denver as newlyweds, my husband and seminary, we knew there was an end date there in Denver and we wanted to move back to Atlanta to start a family and potentially move to Charleston eventually. So, thus, the multi-location kind of scenario was born really because, you know, when you're a wedding planner, it's really hard for wedding planners to transition to new cities because, okay, are you going to fly back for all these weddings or kind of what's going to happen?
00:06:49
Speaker
I started working on Atlanta pretty much from the start, knowing we were going to move there for a little while, hopefully have kids. Then also really had Charleston on the site pretty early on, just pie in the sky hopes that we would make it there. That was a thing from the beginning. However, it was the worst and best thing that ever happened to Chancey Charm because I wasn't in Atlanta. I couldn't start planning there. I brought on a planner.
00:07:19
Speaker
in my first year of business in Atlanta. And I was doing the website and the sales. I was doing sales calls from Denver for the planner in Atlanta and working on the website, kind of starting to tinker away, which really ended up being, I always say that our chance to term successful because of Google and God. And I should put God first, but really I started tinkering away on the website and on search engine optimization.
SEO and Expansion Success
00:07:46
Speaker
I'm a huge,
00:07:48
Speaker
tech search engine optimization nerd. I love it. I had did AutoCAD in college, so it really wasn't very far away from my professional training to kind of start tinkering away on the site. I'd stay up till 4 a.m. after work working on this site, night after night.
00:08:05
Speaker
I was just really driven i was actually chatting with the founder of me pretty her husband and i would chat about like the effects of google plus on your website seo back like in two thousand eleven i mean. Just was really into that and because i didn't have anything else to do i couldn't plan events and i just i thought that was the worst like i was like i wanna get out there and start planning but it really set the foundation for our success because when i move back to atlanta.
00:08:35
Speaker
It wasn't long after I moved out back to Atlanta that I started seeing the effects of that work I had done. And we started ranking on the first page for Atlanta wedding planner and that really led to our success. Yeah, that's awesome. So the swap from or the addition of Atlanta to your wedding planning services really sort of out of a necessity almost because you wanted to move back to Atlanta. Once you move back to Atlanta, did you continue planning weddings in Denver?
00:09:04
Speaker
So I actually I brought on some planners out in Denver and they did continue to do events. Not a lot. Our Denver location really had a hard time gaining momentum and still does. Honestly it's a it's really been interesting having so many locations. When I moved back to Atlanta and things really took off I felt like
00:09:26
Speaker
well, gosh, I just like figured this out. And I mean, I need to share this opportunity with other women. That was really my heart behind continued expansion, because, you know, I think people look at Chancey Charm, they're like, gosh, you must be a narcissist. Like, why does she have all these locations? But it was really because I felt like I had discovered the secret to marketing a wedding planning business. And I wanted to share that with other women in other locations. Now, the sad thing is that
00:09:55
Speaker
my first true launch with another planner in another location past Atlanta was Charleston. It was an instant success. We started ranking on the first page there within three months. I literally had a very famous planner there calling me like, I'm so sorry, but how the heck are you on the first page? It was an instant success and that was the best and again, worst thing that can happen because
00:10:24
Speaker
I thought, wow, I really am God's gift to wedding planner marketing. I started launching these other locations, but they took so much longer to be successful. DC, for example, very successful location for us, love the DC, Virginia markets, very successful for us. That took six months to a year to see the effects. That was really hard. There were so many days where I was like,
00:10:54
Speaker
Why did I do this? Why did I took all the profit from Teensy Storm Atlanta and was just sinking it into the SEO pursuit and ranking better. And it just, it ended up being such a crazy journey for me. And there were so many days after kind of the initial like plunge happened where we started seeing success. And I would tell my publicist like, I think we're going to make it, but I'm not sure. I mean, it was, it was touch and go for a long time.
00:11:24
Speaker
Oh, that was maybe not the wisest thing to do to launch all of these locations. But, you know, I think God's blessed it at the end of the day. It's, it's cool to see. It has been successful. Yeah. So how many cities are you in right now? So it's kind of complicated. We have 13 locations. However, we don't have planners in all of those locations because some of them, so
00:11:49
Speaker
During my journey of launching so many locations, I started recognizing finally where and why we were successful. So we were more successful in destination locations. So locations where a client was Googling for a planner in that area. And then they had to hire a planner because they are not physically there. So for example, Charleston's real successful because we have a lot of clients from New York and Chicago and all these other places and they need a planner.
00:12:17
Speaker
And so finding a location where there was enough volume of search and people needed to hire a player because it was a destination location, that was a success for us. So for example, Memphis, not a success at all. We had to close that location because it's a very word of mouth, smaller market and their people are not searching online there as much. So it's been an interesting journey to
00:12:42
Speaker
figure out like what does and doesn't work. And you know, just humbly, like I have closed locations. I have made the decision in some of our current locations to say, okay, you know what? We're going to get a couple of leads there a year that are really great quality. I want to serve those leads with our best planners, but we're not going to have a planner in that location. So 13 locations, give or take with planners and probably 10 or 11 of those locations.
00:13:09
Speaker
Okay, awesome. And what do you think the difference was? So you mentioned with Charleston, for instance, like within three months, you're on the first page of Google for Charleston wedding planners, which is, which is incredible. And for people listening,
SEO Strategies and Tips
00:13:21
Speaker
I'm not sure that I'm not sure I want to set that as like a reasonable expectation for entering the new market, right? So a few questions, starting with,
00:13:30
Speaker
Maybe what do you feel like the difference was in what you were doing for Charleston as opposed to or versus DC where both ended up being successful markets. But DC took maybe a little bit longer to get started. I think that the online search engine optimization competition in Charleston was much lower when we entered that market.
00:13:55
Speaker
We have actually had to fight to keep that ranking in Charleston because it is now more competitive, much more competitive than when we entered that market. Whereas DC's market, those planners there had already started exploring SEO more. And we saw that in these bigger cities that they were really already ahead of the game.
00:14:18
Speaker
And there was a higher level of competition there. There were more planners who were optimizing their site for searches, which is one of the reasons why we worked with you guys is because you knew your stuff when it came to search engine optimization and would help build a site that not only was beautiful, but also ranked really well and would allow us to optimize because it is such a key part of our business and our lead flow.
00:14:45
Speaker
You know, I think that was really, at the end of the day, that was it. There was not as much competition, but let me tell you, they have stepped it up in Charleston. I know, everybody's going to listen to this podcast, like, I'm going to launch a location in Charleston. It's not that way anymore. Sure, sure. So do you have any, do you have any tips, especially when it comes to search engine optimization for people who want to optimize for a specific city? Like do you have maybe a, I mean, and again, I'm deviating from questions that I sent over, which I hate to do.
00:15:15
Speaker
But just out of curiosity and for people listening, if you have a few tips for people who want to optimize for a location, just things maybe they should keep in mind as they're creating content. Yeah, I think that the number one
00:15:32
Speaker
tip is obviously my number one tip is to make sure that you're if you are purchasing a template or working with someone that you are finding someone who or a template that has been built with SEO in mind that you're not just going for the shiniest thing that you want a beautiful site that converts but you also want a healthy site and
00:15:57
Speaker
you want a site that you can optimize. And I think that there are so many platforms out there that people are trying to use to have a site that ranks well. And this is like off the record, whatever my own personal opinion, but after a decade of pursuing high ranking sites,
00:16:14
Speaker
I believe that WordPress and show it, they are favored by Google. Google will deny that, but Google loves those platforms. They rank well consistently. And I think it's because they're built with SEO in mind. And when I say that, the next tip would be, you know, keywords, knowing your keywords and for wedding and event professionals or creatives in general, hopefully your keywords are pretty easy. I actually was just talking to some wedding planners about this the other day.
00:16:40
Speaker
Optimized for Atlanta wedding planner Houston wedding planner Charles, you know, we it's very easy for us to know our keyword to make sure that they are Throughout the content on our site and in the titles of our pages and just to make sure that that I've worked with a couple of copywriters and I'm like Hey, here are our keywords, you know, we don't just want Great copy. We want great copy that also is gonna help us rank well. So that's those are my
00:17:09
Speaker
top tips is making sure that you have a platform that's going to rank well and that you know your keywords and that you're making sure that you're using those. Yeah, absolutely. I think all that's good advice and I especially appreciate even when hiring a designer or finding a template, you want to make sure that your web designer has some knowledge of search engine optimization. I don't necessarily think every website designer has to be an SEO specialist, but they should understand the foundations of search engine optimization.
00:17:37
Speaker
And I encourage people to just go and check out your site too as an example because you have these pages on your website that are specific to these searches. And one mistake that I typically see people make who want to rank for multiple areas is they try to take their homepage and rank for all these different locations.
Teamwork in Scaling
00:17:53
Speaker
So it's like Houston Wedding, Houston and Austin and San Antonio and
00:17:59
Speaker
and international wedding photographer and that's what they title their homepage and it's like by trying to optimize for all of these different locations on the single page you end up optimizing for none of them. Anyways, getting back to what I want to talk to you a little bit more about which is scaling your business.
00:18:16
Speaker
And to a certain extent, I want to hear a little bit about why you decided to scale your business even beyond that first necessity where you wanted to move back to Atlanta, but maybe even more than that, challenges that you faced, struggles that you faced as you scaled your business.
00:18:33
Speaker
It was actually interviewing somebody else with a podcast yesterday about building a team. One of the things that we mentioned was building a team is so much fun. Working with people is a lot of fun. It's more fulfilling, I think, working with a team. It's also challenging working with people. Yes. You know? So I'd love to hear a little bit just about maybe some of the challenges you faced as you scaled your business.
00:18:56
Speaker
That is a great question. Really, we have like a little slogan that we say at Chancey Charm, and that's we over me. And that is the heart behind everything you see at Chancey Charm, whether it's serving clients, helping our teammates. I have an academy that, you know, it's we over me. And so that really was the heart behind the expansion. But like you said, you don't ever go into these kind of things.
00:19:26
Speaker
Well, maybe some people do. I'm not the kind of person that's going to think about all of the consequences and responsibilities that I'm building for myself. I am an Enneagram 7, 7-3, so the unicorn of Enneagram. So I like to get it done, but I also, I just have big dreams.
00:19:47
Speaker
We expanded and it was fun and exciting and I'm helping people. And then like you said, the back end process is involved with working. I mean, I have over 30 women on my team right now. That's a lot of people to manage and communicate to. And there were two main struggles for me in launching all these locations. I don't have them anymore.
00:20:11
Speaker
praise the Lord, but capital flow was bad. Like I said, I sunk all the profit from Chansey Charm Atlanta into these locations. There were months I didn't pay myself. It was not easy. I think that's the first thing if someone's looking to expand is making sure that you have a certain amount set aside
00:20:33
Speaker
that you know, this is earmarked for this expansion to this city. I'm not going to cry when this money's gone. Because for me, it was kind of a shock. I mean, I have to touch the stove to know it's hot. Like I just was, whoa, this is crazy how much money it takes to hire someone to help with
00:20:53
Speaker
publications. I hired a publicist. I had to hire an accountant to keep up with money in between myself and these planners. I had to create a team, a support team, so that I didn't completely drown in running this, these locations. And then the other struggle was HR. It was building a team because for so many years, I'm just, you know, true transparency, like maybe I'm not the best leader, you know, like I had a really hard
00:21:23
Speaker
time. I at first struggled so much with when someone transitioned off the team, feeling like a failure. I just must have done the worst job or they hate me or it's personal.
00:21:38
Speaker
And now I have people coming and going all the time. And I'm just like, it's just a season. It's a season for them. Like they're going to come be a part. They're going to leave. It's not personal. It's just whatever's best for them. And I tried to let my team know that all the time, like we're going to love you on the way out just as well as we loved you on the way in. And that is my goal. But I had to like speak that out loud for so many years to actually feel it in my heart because
Emotional Challenges of Transitions
00:22:07
Speaker
you know when you have a baby your business you let other people in and then they transition it feels personal but really at the end of the day so often it wasn't personal. Same thing goes for me sometimes there were business partnerships that were not ideal for the business anymore and we had to transition those and I know it felt personal and that's the hardest part I think of
00:22:28
Speaker
For me as a people pleaser, running a team is like, there were moments where I just bawled my eyes out and told my husband, like, I'm going to quit. I don't like doing this because I don't like making people upset. And he was just like, you got it. You can't let this be like the end of this business. It's helping so many people. And so that helped me push through. But then also what has struggled to get rhythms with my team?
00:22:52
Speaker
that made sense for them and for my evolving life because I had Boaz six and a half years ago. So four years into my business, I've got all these teammates and then I start having my own family and that was messy and there were tears and it's taken me a long time to understand what works for me and for them. So now we have
00:23:17
Speaker
a Slack channel where we're talking every day so it's available for anyone to ask questions to answer each other's questions. I'm not bottlenecking the company anymore because I'm not the only one who can answer a question.
00:23:29
Speaker
And then we have a monthly team call where we're chatting about ways to improve the business or we have a guest speaker or those kind of things. We had a huge team call to talk about the launch of the new website and the vision behind that. We're moving up towards a higher end client. Let's talk about that and how we're going to make that happen. Right now we're doing a six weeks training on sales and actually Tarika,
00:23:55
Speaker
is we've purchased her course and we're going through that together. And so we're pushing each other in that way. And then we do try to occasionally have a happy hour where we're just hanging out and talking about life. And then we have a yearly team retreats. But that took me so long to develop
00:24:15
Speaker
and to get rolling. And I also, we have a backend page, which Krista knows about. We have a backend page where people, where we have resources stored because I was just inundated with emails from people like, where's this? What's that? I heard that. I can't find that. So we have like a hub for them. So it's taking so long to figure out like, what are the processes that make this team work without drowning in emails?
00:24:40
Speaker
And emotionally, how do I let things come and go without being a wreck all the time? So those are some of the things that have been the most challenging. But just praise the Lord, things are kind of they've settled out. You know, there's no drama. It's good. But it's taken a decade to get to that point.
00:24:59
Speaker
Sure. But I'm really glad that you brought up all these different systems though too, because I think it's so important for people to hear that. How valuable systems like Slack, monthly team meetings, just checking in and communicating well with people, the team retreat, that sounds awesome. And then also just investing in continuing education too. So it sounds like people are going through formal sales training.
00:25:20
Speaker
So I think all of those things are so important to this success and especially scalability of a business. And a lot of that's been top of mind lately. One, because I had an interview yesterday where we were talking specifically about hiring as a way to scale a business. And a lot of it really comes back to, I think, systems that are put in place. Would you even say that systems maybe helped the capital flow a little bit as you smooth out some of these things, all of a sudden, you have more efficient use of money maybe?
00:25:49
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And there were, you know, I would say every six months I'm looking at our expenses and making sure are we using our funds to the best of our ability? Are we? Yeah, just, you know, constantly reevaluating who's on the support team with me. How much are we putting into those people or those areas?
00:26:13
Speaker
And are we seeing a return on that investment, making tweaks, which that's a really hard part. Honestly, that's been a hard part of the journey is figuring out what's the return and can we continue to invest in this as a team. And yeah, it definitely processes have definitely helped in so many ways in one way, just spring up my time so that I'm able to work on things to generate new revenue. I mean, that's, you know, helps tremendously.
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So going back to business in multiple cities, how do you
Marketing Across Cities
00:26:47
Speaker
consistently market? So, I mean, it sounds like you have a bunch of different systems in place, especially for managing and organizing your team, making sure that everybody's, you know, working together towards, towards common goals. But marketing, I mean, for a lot of people in a single city is feels like more than they can chew, you know? So how do you bite off marketing in multiple cities?
00:27:09
Speaker
That is a great question. And really the tips that I, or the plan that I have can work in, there's someone listening to this podcast and they're like, I just need to know how to grow where I am. It's the same process that we have duplicated in all of our cities. And we, I have seen this process work, you know, to launch six figure businesses. So it's definitely takes a lot of time. It takes work. It takes patience, but there is a process to the madness.
00:27:36
Speaker
If you're launching a new location, the first thing you want to do is have someone on the ground who can rep your brand with excellence. They really know, they really know your brand. They really know your target client. We talk about, you know, having a vision statement for our team so that we're all on the same page. We all know what Chansey term stands for. So having that person on the ground is the number one thing you're going to want. If you're expanding to a new location, all of my new locations,
00:28:05
Speaker
we're expanded with someone in that location really repping the brand. And I think that's super important. The next thing that we try to do is doing collaborating locally and having styled shoots in that area so that we can get images that are local. But then also it leads into the next point, you're going to be connecting with other vendors in a positive way. And hopefully they're going to walk away saying,
00:28:31
Speaker
wow, you know, for a planner, she's super organized or for a florist, she's so creative. I want to work with her again. And so we actually follow up our styled shoot. Obviously we submit it for publication, which is a little SEO tip. You can get a link back to your site when you get published online. But we also reach out to all the vendors to collect reviews and give reviews. And so we kind of start that snowball
00:28:58
Speaker
of collecting reviews, which is a really important part of marketing a business in a new location, is collecting reviews. Are you doing that on Google reviews? Yes, we do that on Google+. Google My Business. And then I'm assuming you can use those on your website as well and other places if you need them. But when you ask, you're asking people to go to Google My Business and leave a review there. Exactly. And you know, if you have a planner
00:29:25
Speaker
That's transitioning to a new location obviously past clients of theirs can also review on that listing so that's something that's really important to us is to collect reviews so you know we've got a person on the ground a styled shoot with local images we're building vendor relationships were collecting reviews.
00:29:46
Speaker
from there, we make sure that we're on all the local listings. So we are on WeddingWire. We are on Google My Business. We're making sure that we're listing our site as many places as we can. And then my very favorite tip, especially for planners, but honestly it works for anyone in the industry, is having
00:30:06
Speaker
venue or vendor partnerships. So obviously a venue partnership doesn't work for a venue. So we're going to say venue and vendor, but having partnerships with local event professionals or creatives, you know, obviously somebody can be listening to this. It's not in the event industry.
00:30:22
Speaker
forming those key relationships. So for us, we go to a venue and we're like, hey, can we help you do a styled shoot here or do an open house? And in exchange, you can put us on your list and refer us to other people. And obviously there's many referral systems in the creative industry, but we basically are trying to do
00:30:42
Speaker
We're trying to create what I call the sweet spot, which is where you have online leads and word of mouth referrals coming into your business. When you reach that point, that is when you have a healthy business. So for me, launching a new location with a planner, I can do all the things online. But if they don't get on the ground and form those local partnerships, it's not going to be a successful location.
00:31:08
Speaker
Sure, sure. Yeah, I think that's, there is so much there. I feel like that was an entire, I could just cut that piece and that could be the entire podcast, I think, or an entire episode for people. But I mean, there's so much good stuff there. And again, a lot of stuff that, you know, I mean, just to highlight a few things, one, collecting and giving reviews, I think people really
Styled Shoots for Marketing
00:31:28
Speaker
discount
00:31:28
Speaker
how important that is to local businesses and being able to show up in the local pack or get good search visibility there. And it's so easy to do because really people just have to have some sort of interaction with your business. So even if it's another vendor, that's totally fair game for them to come alongside and leave your review and say, hey, they're so talented, they're so good at what they do, so on and so forth. Did you guys feel like that? Was that a big part of your photography business?
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, so we were a few, I guess a few things about the photography business that I think are a little similar to some of the things that you've talked about. One, having different pages that were dedicated to different areas, especially being, you know, when we were shooting and, you know, we don't live in the area anymore, but it,
00:32:13
Speaker
when we are in Annapolis, there's Annapolis, there's the Eastern Shore of Maryland, there's Baltimore and DC, all right next to each other. So making decisions as to what our homepage was going to be optimized for, and then also making sure there's other pages that would be optimized for the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the beaches, Baltimore and DC, which were both 45 minutes away in different directions.
00:32:32
Speaker
And then making sure that we had built local citations across things like WeddingWire and The Knot and Google My Business. So a lot of those things, I mean hearing you say that, I just kind of shake my head like, yeah, yeah, it works. But one thing that I think I really appreciate about what you're saying is that you just, you make the most out of each thing that you're doing, you know? So you have that collaborating locally. So the practical aspect of that might be doing a styled shoot.
00:32:58
Speaker
But then just from that one styled shoot, you're talking about, okay, well, we're going to trade reviews with those vendors, all right? And then from there, we're going to try to form venue partnerships and maybe help venues organize styled shoots. And so it's this web of stuff I think that you're doing that really compounds. And it's such an interesting and very practical, I think, possibility for people, just steps for people to take to implement in their business.
00:33:27
Speaker
Thank you. Hopefully it's not so overwhelming. Yeah, no, I don't think it's overwhelming at all. I just thought it was great. I mean, everything seemed to build a build on top of each other there. And then it was also that concept of making the most out of the different things you're doing. It's not just doing a style shoot, but it's doing a style shoot, using that to form relationships, getting that published, getting reviews from that, you know, so right there you have, I mean, I know a lot goes into a style shoot, but it's worth it when you're doing all of those things on top of it, I think.
00:33:56
Speaker
So what would you say, and I know that there is, you talked about the sweet spot in terms of getting word of mouth referrals and getting consistent online referrals. What would you say your best referral sources are in general? For us, venue partnerships, I've literally seen those launch six figure locations for us.
Venue Partnerships & Growth
00:34:18
Speaker
It really, really makes a huge impact for someone that's new in the industry.
00:34:24
Speaker
to form a venue partnership because venues are such a gateway vendor. And for planners, we really struggle with how do we become, we're a gateway vendor, but where are we getting our leads? Venues have just been our number one referral source by far.
00:34:45
Speaker
And I get a lot of pushback on that. You know, a lot of people who are new in the industry are like, well, I mean, all these venues that are downtown, they are really hard to get on their list. You know, you have to like do an event there first. And I'm like,
00:34:59
Speaker
Those are not the kind of venue partnerships that we started with. We started with venues that were new, venues that were on the outskirts of town that people didn't have as much knowledge about. And we were leveraging our clients and our lead stream to help form those relationships and get those things rolling.
00:35:19
Speaker
And I think that's, you know, important to think about when you are first processing, like what venues are going to be a fit for me or what vendors or what other creatives are going to be a fit is you might not be successful reaching out to the number one florist in your area. I know I did and that was not a success for me, but there are other people that are
00:35:44
Speaker
in a similar season to you with their business. And that's where I had success was I really started doing shoots and partnerships with people who were also just as eager as I was to get this going. Yeah. So as far as Google goes, does that still is that still a big part of your strategy?
Google's Role in Lead Generation
00:36:04
Speaker
Absolutely. We still get a lot of leads online.
00:36:08
Speaker
And I know a lot of people are like, are those like leads really? Are they good? I'm like, yeah, they're good. We just got 150K lead in our inbox from Google. Like girlfriend, got to get on board. You know, this is so important for business, especially I think as the new generation comes up, they are on their phones constantly. They're googling everything. And your target client is on Google, 150%. They're on Google.
00:36:36
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, and I find that the people who maybe don't feel like Google leads are all that good are maybe taking some shortcuts. I feel like it's a combination of your website and your brand presence in a given area, that social proof and trust factor combined with optimizing for search engines. But likewise, we got a lot of really great
00:36:56
Speaker
leads from Google, but I think that they're well qualified coming in. And there's so many other things that you're talking about, I think that help with search engine optimization, like getting published and getting reviews and things like that. And so people might Google you to find out about you, but then they see you in 10 other places online and all of that comes together to make for a really good lead.
00:37:16
Speaker
I really appreciated this content that you shared today. I know that you have resources available for people who are interested maybe in unpacking some of the content that we talked about today and then expanding on that as well. You have the Wedding Planning Academy. Can you talk to us a little bit about what people can find there?
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah, and Krista just made that look a million times better than it used to, the Academy. The Academy is literally born out of the fact that I lead 30 plus planners and had to create resources for those planners and then was like, hmm, maybe I should repurpose. I'm all about that repurpose. We haven't even talked about blog posts, by the way. Repurposing is everything. And I was like, I should start selling these. And so I did probably, I think it's now been, it's been at least four years, if not five.
00:38:07
Speaker
and launch some courses and that kind of thing. And at this point, it is morphed into kind of a mix of things. I have a launch bundle and a community pass for new planners. So a planner that is like just getting started in the industry. It's a great, great bundle for them because it's going to have everything from planning basics and design basics.
00:38:33
Speaker
Canva design templates, a sales guide, welcome guide, all kinds of stuff. But it also has a couple of marketing PDFs in there that will help you figure out what is your target client and your vision statement and all those kind of things and help you with some of the basic things that we talked about today. And then it's a community pass. So we have a Facebook group where I'm constantly
00:38:56
Speaker
I answering questions and engaging with people who have purchased that and then actually just. Well I shouldn't say just launched I have a beta group so I'm about to launch a marketing mastermind because if you can't tell that is where my true passion is is wedding planner marketing I love it.
00:39:16
Speaker
I'm a nerd for it. And so decided recently, like, I think this is a thing that I want to do and will have a lot of fun doing. And so inside the mastermind, it's a yearly subscription. And you're going to find a lot of these advanced marketing resources like SEO.
00:39:35
Speaker
help and social media and all these kind of things, but also video trainings. And that was one reason why spitting out some of this stuff was so easy for me because I've been in the midst of doing these video trainings for people to basically expand upon how to rank well and how to get published and all those things that I just love talking about. And then we also have a Facebook group for that group where I'm going to go live monthly and answer people's questions because
00:40:04
Speaker
It can just feel really super overwhelming to try to figure all of this out. And I'm an open book. I am so here for answering people's questions, but really, I think in a live format, that's going to be the best way to do that and have a Q&A and stuff. So that's going to be launching in November. So I'm really excited about that.
00:40:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. So lots of resources to check out. You can find those at changeacharmweddings.com and I believe it's in the top level navigation, right? There's wedding planner Academy. So click there if you're interested in learning more from Sarah and Sarah, thank you so much. Maybe I'll have to have you back on for an SEO specific episode and we can dive into things like blog content and some of your other strategies, especially around search engine optimization, which is a shared passion. So thank you again for your time. Really appreciate all the content you shared today.
00:40:52
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me. I just adore you guys. So happy about your new house. Love seeing all the beautiful fall foliage photos and dreamy videos of your dog on the front porch. And just honored to know you guys and be business partners with y'all in that respect with the site. And just thanks for having me and letting me ramble about all my marketing passions. Oh, so much good practical advice. Thanks, friend.
00:41:24
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.