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Episode 224 - Shifts in the Wedding Industry
718 Plays8 months ago
Elizabeth Sheils, co-founder of the popular CRM, Rock Paper Coin, joins Davey on the podcast today for a wide-ranging interview. Any service-based business could benefit from this conversation but especially those in the Wedding Industry as the conversation. Initially we set out to discuss proposals and her unique take on where unique proposals fit into the booking process but the discussion evolved to focus more on shifts in the wedding industry.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check ’em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/shifts-wedding-industry-btb-224/. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Redefining Sales in the Wedding Industry
00:00:00
Speaker
it is not a bad thing exactly like you said sales get such a bad rap because everyone thinks it can be so icky and pushy and it doesn't have to be but your commodity so i mean everybody should act like it and then you'll be treated like it and i think that's really what we miss a lot of the time.
00:00:18
Speaker
You're listening to The Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites. You're listening to The Brands That Book Show.
00:00:41
Speaker
Elizabeth Shields, co-founder of the popular CRM, Rock Paper Coin, joins me on the podcast today for a wide-ranging interview. Initially, we set out to discuss proposals and her unique take on where proposals fit into the booking process. But the discussion evolved into a discussion about the current climate of the wedding industry and what Elizabeth has learned about Gen Z's purchasing motivations and patterns, and it was a fascinating conversation.
00:01:06
Speaker
Any service-based business could benefit from this conversation, but especially those in the wedding industry.
The Evolution of Wedding Proposals and Gen Z Influence
00:01:12
Speaker
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at DavianCrista.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts. Now, on to the episode. All right, I have Elizabeth Shields with me here on the Brands To Book podcast, one of the co-founders of Rock Paper Coin. Elizabeth, welcome to the podcast.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you today.
00:01:36
Speaker
I'm excited to chat with you, especially since our topic is really, I think, sort of central to booking clients, you know, actually getting, you know, payment and a contract from clients, all things that Rock Paper Coin can help with. Your view on proposals in particular, I think, is pretty interesting too, so I'm excited to dive into that.
The Birth of Rock Paper Coin: Simplifying Bookings
00:01:56
Speaker
But for our listeners, could you just give everybody sort of your backstory? You know, how did you start Rock Paper Coin? Is software something you've worked on for a long time?
00:02:04
Speaker
Did the wedding industry or event industry come first? Give us the background. Yeah, absolutely. So my longtime business partner, Nora and I, we were operating a wedding planning company out of Oregon in Washington. And it just started to grow and get really big. And we were starting to look for systems that would streamline our own process at the planning company.
00:02:25
Speaker
This was back in 2016, so HoneyBook was just starting to come on the scene, and there were some other players as well. But we always just felt like at the end of the day, we wanted something super simple. We didn't want a ton of bells and whistles. We didn't want to overhaul our own systems.
00:02:41
Speaker
We simply wanted to marry DocuSign and PayPal. We really just couldn't find that solution for our own company. So it was through that process, we very naively were like, how hard could it be to build software? So we decided to build software for our own company. We said we were going to put aside a small sum of money. I think it was $50,000, which was a ton of money to us.
00:03:07
Speaker
And we met up with some friends who had built software before, and they were like, oh, so you're going to probably need half a million dollars to just get started.
00:03:14
Speaker
We're like, what? No way. Didn't believe them. So we went out and we did a bunch of market research about what other people want this tool and what were the tools that everybody was using. And it all came back really interesting. Because of our network and just being industry veterans, we got surveys all across the US and we almost collected about 800 different responses. And it was through that we really saw this gap in the market for simple
00:03:41
Speaker
clean streamlined technology around the booking process. So we went out, we raised some money that allowed us to start building the software and from there we just continued to iterate on it and we fundraised through some angel networks and ended up getting some venture capitals to invest in us which really allowed us to get a product into the market and what it is today.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. So, you know, your friends told you 50K wasn't going to be enough. My guess is that it turned out maybe not to be enough, right? But you still went ahead and raised money. So I'm guessing that the feedback you got from these surveys was pretty overwhelming. You know, people wanted a tool like this.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think there was two interesting pieces to this is that we knew our pain at the company was so great that we knew we couldn't necessarily be alone on this island. Like we knew that others were experiencing this and the survey validated that. The survey came back that on average, an average business was paying three and a half percent in processing fees and using seven systems to simply book with the couple.
CRM Critique and Proposal Misuse Discussion
00:04:48
Speaker
So that would be everything from, you know, we didn't have Canva back in 2016. So that would be building proposals on like Word documents or in PowerPoint, exporting that, using that as a PDF, getting their contract again in Word or PDF, uploading it into DocuSign. And, you know, you can then carry those steps throughout the entire booking process. We're like, well, if everybody's using seven to 10 different software platforms, like what if we just built one? And
00:05:15
Speaker
Everyone kept asking once the survey came back to us, for the next three or four months, people were emailing us, like, did you find anything? Would you be willing to share the results? And it was through that we kind of thought, OK, if people are coming back to us and asking about this, I think then we should move forward and we should build this software and to see where that goes.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah. And so you initially said that you were trying to basically marry DocuSign and PayPal. You know, that was like the initial feature set. Is that what you also heard from people? And I ask in part because we use a CRM and really it has all these features, you know, like a proposal feature, for instance, and we don't use any of it except the contract portion and the payment portion. You know, that's really at the end of the day what we need. So are we outliers there or is that pretty much what you found?
00:06:02
Speaker
That's exactly what we found is a lot of these CRMs, they get a lot of bells and whistles because they're built for more like horizontal. So when you think about the wedding industry being like one vertical, and then you think about interior designers being another vertical, well, HoneyBook and Thebsado and Seventeen Hats, they have to account for every single like potential vertical when they're building this software and all of these different use cases that these business owners are bringing to them as a pain point.
00:06:31
Speaker
And I think that's really the downfall with going with like generic CRMs is that you then are in workflows that are not pertinent and they don't address your pain points within the wedding industry. The wedding industry, it's very simple. It's very straightforward. We don't need complicated technology. And it's through this that in building Rock Paperpoint and listening to our customers that we've been able to really understand
00:06:58
Speaker
clean, easy-to-use technology is harder to build. What we're doing is harder because it would be easier for us just to start releasing all of these features that people are requesting. But at the end of the day, that core product then gets diluted and the value diminishes. And I think that's what we're seeing today with brands. And I love HoneyBook. I love Dubsado. But it doesn't work for the industry because we have very clean, clear practices around booking for couples. And whether you're a photographer, whether you're a
00:07:28
Speaker
event designer, planner, caterer, the booking process, it's the same.
00:07:33
Speaker
So when I sent you an email, I wanted to talk specifically about proposals. And I was curious about where you felt like they fit into the booking process. And when you got back to me, you were like, well, you know, I actually don't, I don't feel like they fit into the booking process. So I'd love to hear, you know, just generally your thoughts on proposals. And maybe that can shift us into a conversation about generally the booking process and ways that we can make the booking process easier. And maybe just some best practices you've picked up from people using Rock Paper Coin.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I've become more passionate about proposals, like truly in the last like three or four weeks. There's a huge disconnect. And again, I'll go back to the CRM companies are fueling this disconnect of what a proposal should be.
00:08:19
Speaker
everybody should have a proposal, but a proposal is not a quote. And those two need to be completely teased out. Because when you send a proposal to a potential client, it should be a template and it should be a proposal of your business, it should be who you are as a business owner, what you're going to bring to the table, almost like a lookbook of maybe some of the your best work, some testimonials. And on the last page, if you want to include the package that you talked about with that couple, that's totally fine. But a proposal
00:08:49
Speaker
is not a line by line item of a price breakdown, whether you're a florist or a planner and a list of all the other things that could be included in your services. That's a quote. And that should happen after the booking because when somebody is booking your business, they want to see a proposal because they want to know that you're going to do a good job. You're going
Pricing Strategies and Client Communication
00:09:08
Speaker
to see their vision through.
00:09:08
Speaker
And yes, that you're within their price range, but allowing them to nitpick through line items and negotiate the price point before you've even had bigger conversations about design or colors or packages. That's later. And so you're selling yourself short, I think, by offering that upfront.
00:09:27
Speaker
prior to a contract in an invoice. And those documents that I've seen, somebody just asked us on Rock Paperpoint if they could upload a 70-page proposal. I was like, dear Lord, why do we have this? Like, I want to talk to you about this actual document, because yes, at the end of the day, but from a business standpoint, no, my God, please don't upload that. And so I think where people are building software that's encouraging you to act like the proposal
00:09:54
Speaker
you can pick and choose from, which then fuels into a contract and fuels into an invoice. I think at my core, that's a bad business practice. And you're not able to book your full value if you're doing that upfront before they understand the value your company can bring to them.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. It reminds me of a conversation that we have with a lot of people on the web design side of things, people asking if they should put their full pricing on their website. And we've always recommended that people don't put their full pricing on their website. And it has nothing to do with hiding pricing or trying to be shady or anything like that.
00:10:26
Speaker
And a lot of times there's a middle ground there like putting a starting out price or putting average couple spends, such and such. But at that point, you are really trying to show the value and experience that you provide a couple and at least for our workflow on a discovery call, we're always going to go through in detail pricing. And then before somebody books, they're going to very much understand the estimate we're giving them for their project.
00:10:52
Speaker
So there's not hiding it, it's just a matter of where it comes in the process. And I think, you know, to your point, when you put all that information in front of somebody, I think it can be overwhelming. Like, I can't imagine a 70 page proposal, you know? I don't know when you have time to go through a 70 page proposal.
00:11:09
Speaker
You don't. It's so interesting because it ties into all sorts of other conversations I've had recently too, like just with lead magnets. I think a lot of people think lead magnets, courses, things like that, the longer, the better. It's really like, no, you want to meet somebody where they're at, answer the questions that they have, explain your value. You might be able to do that in one page. I would love to get back to talking about pricing a little bit.
00:11:34
Speaker
So where does pricing fit into, I guess, the booking process? So if you send over a proposal and it generally has maybe information about collections, where do you include those other line-by-line items that somebody might need to know about before they actually make a decision?
00:11:51
Speaker
Absolutely. So I think pricing starts at the website exactly like you said, you want to remove price shoppers from your initial consultations with people. So having a starting at price point for your collections packages, the average client spend, if you have maybe like more of a floral business, that's a great example, giving people some sort of baseline. That way your inquiries, if you don't have pricing right now and you do that, your inquiries are going to decline, but your conversion rates going to incline.
00:12:19
Speaker
and that's a direct correlation between removing price shoppers. Once you have these ideal clients that are coming to your site, they see that you are within their budget and they're going to book a consultation with you having those conversations, that's really when you get to understand what it is that they're looking for.
00:12:35
Speaker
and you can then build out the pricing. They already know what your package starts at. And so if you're a planner and your package starts at $10,000, they know that starting at. So then you could quote them 12 because maybe their wedding is more complex or you have to travel, whatever it is. So I think
00:12:51
Speaker
Those are the key parts to understand how pricing plays into the selling part of this. When you're in those conversations, the client shouldn't leave having to decide what package is best for them. I think that you can navigate in your conversation what package is best for them, and then sending them that booking, that contract, or that one pager about that exact contract. So if we took
00:13:18
Speaker
Like photographers for example, they might have three collections Sending that to your client saying here are the three collections Well, what if that client just picks the lowest price and it's five thousand dollars and six hours of coverage But you know that on their wedding day
00:13:33
Speaker
they explained the day in depth and it sounds like ten hours right there that's gonna be a huge disconnecting is gonna cause friction when it comes to then building the timeline so why not have that conversation say you know i really understand like pricing is a thing i would encourage you to go with ten and then in that circumstance you can say why don't i include.
00:13:52
Speaker
And you add in a value add to the package to make that package more valuable so that they can book at that higher price point to get what they need.
Optimizing the Booking Process for Speed
00:14:00
Speaker
And I think as our job as vendors, we have to educate them to educate them about what it is that they're going to need or what it is that they want. And yes, everybody does have a budget. But if you deliver something just because of a budget, you might not meet that client's expectation. And then what does that look like?
00:14:17
Speaker
So I think we have to think also about how I can set myself up for success for the wedding day today at the booking. Yeah. 100% agree about education and how important that is, I think, to the client experience. And as the expert, I mean, it's an opportunity to, I guess, establish ourselves as the expert to be able to say, hey, you know, I hear what you're saying about this. I think for your needs, this is really what you're going to need for your wedding day in terms of hours of coverage or, you know, additional planning, you know, whatever it might be.
00:14:46
Speaker
So just try to get an idea of the workflow here. Somebody lands on the website, somebody sends you an inquiry. Is that when you would send this sort of initial proposal out, but maybe not with?
00:14:57
Speaker
Pricing, I guess what do the steps look like based on your experience with Rock Paper Coin? Because Rock Paper Coin, you all work with so many different event professionals. We do. And so we do see a lot of that. Yeah. And you get to see sort of the ideal setups too, you know, maybe some of the more high converting setups. So I would love to hear from your perspective, like what does that booking process look like for some of maybe your higher converting customers?
00:15:23
Speaker
I think there are a few categories that are outliers that would not be included in this conversation. And those are things like photo booths where you're just selling a product, you know, they're picking truly like probably an hour package and maybe the backdrop color. I think that actually can go into more automated workflows.
00:15:42
Speaker
because you don't need to fully understand right away what it is that maybe they're needing. So there are some outliers to, I think, the conversation, which I do want to just call out. But as a whole, what we have seen is a lot of people will have consultation. So they'll hop on Zoom or a phone call, 10, 15 minutes, maybe 30, chat with every client, the potential client,
00:16:06
Speaker
move them then into that proposal contract invoicing. I think higher converting clients actually skip the proposal process.
00:16:14
Speaker
And so if you remove a proposal and you just talk about it and you actually just put your pricing in the contract and you put the package in the contract and sales, there's something called an upfront contract, which you do in a consultation. And I'll just go on a tiny little tangent here for a second. So an upfront contract is at the beginning of a consultation, you just state the expected outcome. So you're like, I've got 45 minutes for this call. I'm super excited to chat with you. I want to hear about.
00:16:39
Speaker
what you're envisioning, what you want when you're looking for a wedding planner. I would love to then tell you about our services. And if all that goes well, I'd love to send you a sample contract.
00:16:49
Speaker
That's the upfront contract. You don't actually say, you know, I'm giving you this upfront contract, but you're agreeing already to the sample contract. So after the consultation, you say, you know, I think what probably would be most helpful is I'm just happy to pop over that sample contract so you can take a look at the terms. I'll put all of the pricing in there, you know, so you don't have to remember exactly all the items that we talked about today.
00:17:10
Speaker
That sample contract is the real contract you can sign and through digital signing you don't have to collect addresses anymore you don't have to collect social security number you don't have to like these like sensitive information i'm joking about the social security number part that.
Confidence in Closing the Sale for Creatives
00:17:26
Speaker
Digital signing allows you to put in text box. So you don't need any of that. So just send them the sample templated contract with that pricing, that package that you've talked about, let them review it and let them sign it if it works. And you've just taken out and saved yourself two to three days. And with Rock Paper Coin, with HoneyBook, with Dubsado, with all of these contracts are now attached to invoices. So when you build out that contract, you're building out that invoice the minute they sign the contract,
00:17:54
Speaker
They're prompted to pay the invoice. It's a package deal. So that right there, you can have a conversion within 24 hours by moving to a workflow that is supporting the booking. And I think that is the key part with the industry that I really see people being afraid to do is to ask for the booking. And we as creatives, inherently, it is not in our blood to say, can I send you the contract? Are you ready to sign the contract?
00:18:23
Speaker
We very much want to be in service. So we're like, talk to other florists. Let me know if I can answer any questions. And as a planner, I sat in these meetings where the vendor is talking themselves out of the sale. And I'm like, time out. I need you to sell yourself because I sold you before this meeting. And I think that's something we miss as creatives is just being a little bit more upfront and it's OK. You will have a higher conversion rate.
00:18:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting because not everybody would probably agree with this, but I think one of the most disorienting things about going to Carmax or something like that is that they don't try to sell you. I think once somebody raises their hand and says, hey, I'm interested in this,
00:19:04
Speaker
Like at that point, basically what they're asking is, hey, can you tell me what would be the best fit for me? You know, like they're giving you permission to sell to them. And so, you know, at that point, like when somebody is like, ah, you know, I don't know any of these would work to me. I like, as a consumer, I find that very disorienting. I think like, you know, of course you think about, you know, that salesman who just catches you as you're walking into another store or whatever and tries to sell you something that you haven't raised your hand.
00:19:31
Speaker
expressing interest in. Obviously, yeah, yeah, that's a very different situation. But somebody who's already got to the discovery call or consultation call or something like that.
00:19:40
Speaker
they're obviously interested and they're asking, hey, which is the best situation here? I think a few things that we've done in the past and I'd be interested in like just your observations and your, I guess your past experience as a wedding planner as well. Some of the things that you did to ask for the sale, you know, for us, one of the ways that we did it, which felt like this isn't super pushy, but just kind of stating the reality is like, hey, you know, we book on a first come first serve basis.
00:20:04
Speaker
So we'd love to send you a contract just so that you have it. Just know that we can't hold your date until we receive the signed contract and the retainer. You know, something like that. And we felt like that was a non-pushy way of saying like, hey, this opportunity might not be here forever. But I don't know if there's some other ways that you've coached people in the past or have had experiences just asking for the sale.
00:20:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's brilliant and everybody needs to find what works for them and what they're comfortable saying because for you that rolled off your tongue perfect.
Gen Z Buying Behavior and Social Media Influence
00:20:36
Speaker
It sounded very confident and it works really well for your business. If there was another person that doesn't feel comfortable saying that, then if you get awkward, it's going to sound awkward and it's going to feel then salesy. So I think businesses just have to practice in consultations, what works, what doesn't, and you might bomb some and that's okay. But once you find what works, then it's just a step and repeat.
00:20:55
Speaker
And then at that point, you watch the bookings just come in for us. I have, I think, an 87% conversion rate. I still do consultations for the planning company. For me, the sample contract is what I use through and through because it's so non-committal. And then I have an expiration date, and that contract expires in four or five days, whatever it is.
00:21:15
Speaker
At that point, I'll let them know, just be like, I'll send you that sample contract. It is going to be in a digital signing format. If you want it in a PDF, just let me know. It does expire after four days, so just take your time and let me know if you have any questions. They make it sound so casual, but there's a clock ticking. Then they feel this like, okay, we have this amazing conversation. They might not have time to meet with that many other people, so they're under that same pressure as you are putting out.
00:21:43
Speaker
It is not a bad thing exactly like you said sales get such a bad rap because everyone thinks it can be so icky and pushy and it doesn't have to be but.
00:21:54
Speaker
you're a commodity, so I mean, everybody should act like it. And then you'll be treated like it. And I think that's really what we miss a lot of the time. Yeah, I think one of the other things I love about the sample contract as well, and would love to hear about maybe some tips you have for, you know, getting to an 87% conversion rate, because that's awesome. But it's just that by sending the sample contract, you were
00:22:15
Speaker
There is an element in the background of the assumption that, yeah, this is going to happen. During discovery calls, oftentimes we're going to talk about the project as if we are planning the project back when we were doing wedding photography way back when. It was like, hey, when would you like to do your engagement session?
00:22:31
Speaker
And so it's not, do you want to do an engagement session or not? It's like, hey, when would we schedule this? And so all of a sudden, you're already planning the process with the client. And I feel like there's more buy-in that way, and not only more buy-in, but they can start to imagine what it would look like to work with you a little bit. So I wonder if there's any other sort of levers that you pull during a call.
00:22:55
Speaker
So I forget where I read this stat, but I just did a presentation about proposals to a NACE group in Seattle a few weeks ago. And a couple of interesting studies were done about Gen Z buyers, because that is who's going to be starting to buy and come up through the wedding industry. And you are 21 times more likely to book a client if you respond to the consultation request or the inquiry request within five minutes.
00:23:24
Speaker
And that stat blew my mind. But the further I read through the study, it made sense because when you respond first, you book the first meeting. And when you book the first meeting, you become the expert.
00:23:37
Speaker
you are telling them about your business category for that first time. So any other meeting they have behind that is in constant comparison to that first meeting. And that's really where you want to be is that expert. And the other statistic that followed on that is that is because 50% of the people that are buying in the wedding industry buy from the first vendor that they meet with. So right there, just getting that first meeting, you already have a 50% chance.
00:24:07
Speaker
of booking them. So why wouldn't you want that first meeting? So I think that is one of the biggest things to take away from a sales process. Yeah. I have a couple questions too on the Gen Z side of things and even answering inquiries and maybe some things that you've seen. One of the things that we used to be pretty strict about was if someone reached out via DM on Instagram, it would be like, hey, send us an email here and we'll get back to you. We didn't want to deal with
00:24:33
Speaker
Facebook messages and things like that, right? But now what we found is like, we'll respond to that inquiry on Instagram, just as we would via email. I guess not exactly the same way, right? Like the language is probably more casual, but we'll just send over information in that channel. I was talking with another friend who runs a wedding venue and he was basically like, yeah, we're trying to, we'll send over our venue walkthrough link via DM now because like,
00:24:59
Speaker
this younger generation, they just don't want to send you an email. Or if they have to go through the extra step of sending an email, they may not do it. So I was wondering if you've seen any trends like that. So the other statistic was that more people find their wedding vendors through Instagram and TikTok.
00:25:18
Speaker
than Google in the current state. So more referrals are coming in from social media than from Google, which I think for us that have been in the industry long enough, Google reigned king or queen for all of these years. So this is a huge shift is that social media is going to be where people are reaching out to you. And to your point, I think being able to have tools set up to
00:25:40
Speaker
chat over DM is really important because if you are not on social media then don't allow that to be a channel for communication where if somebody sends you a DM have an automated message that goes out that says like thanks so much for your email here's a calendly link you know set yourself up with tools so that they can then book and get that information
00:26:00
Speaker
But if you can't respond to a DM within a couple of hours, then don't pretend that that's a great way for people to reach out to you on. And I think that's the big disconnect. If you are heavy over email and that's where you can respond within an hour, two hours, great, then get those messages over to email. Otherwise, have a Calendly link. Have tools to set up automated messages that people can get the information. I think the LinkedIn bios are really
00:26:27
Speaker
a wonderful tool for a lot of companies with social media now, whether that's a link tree, that's a hidden page on your website, you know, I think there's like bio.site or something where when they click on that link, it can pull up various links where you want to direct them so that they can find your pricing, they can find your past photos, they can find your contact form or just your email and your phone number.
00:26:52
Speaker
They then have all of the information at their fingertips through that one link.
Generational Shifts in Wedding Bookings
00:26:56
Speaker
And then if they decide to DM you, they get your Calendly link sent right away so that they can book that consultation.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah, and there's so many tools like many chat now too that can like really automate your, you know, yeah, social media in a big way. What about, and you know, I know I want to respect your time, but what about trends in the wedding industry right now, especially when it comes to bookings, you know, there's this big boom post COVID. And then, you know, I'm trying to remember the term I feel like I read recently, there's a term for the swap. Yeah, the engagement gap, right?
00:27:27
Speaker
So, you know, what are you seeing on your side? Do you have any general thoughts about the engagement gap and what wedding vendors in particular can expect over the next couple of years? Yeah, so I think we had three years of utter chaos in this industry. It was COVID. And then it was post COVID. And it felt like post COVID again, with like, you know, just this huge boom. And I think we have forgotten what the normal
00:27:52
Speaker
like engagement timeline is because we didn't have anything until we don't have anything since 2019 to compare it to. And that's four years ago. So I do think this engagement gap is something we're just assigning a term to, but I think that the buying behavior
00:28:10
Speaker
is completely different because it's a completely different generation. So don't think that it's a little unfair as the industry for us to assume that this next generation is going to do exactly what the last generation did. And we're seeing the shift. We are moving from millennials to Gen Z.
00:28:26
Speaker
And this is the new buying behavior of Gen Z. They are way more thoughtful. They are way more methodical. They want to align with brands that they see they have values. They see that they have the core values on their website that they have there.
00:28:41
Speaker
diversity pledge or their, you know, I don't know, conserving water pledge, whatever it is. This is a generation that has bleeding hearts. And so it's going to take them a little bit to find the people that they want to work with, which is just having a longer time for them to book their vendors. And we're seeing that firsthand at the planning company, too. There are still millennials getting married. So that's why it feels like this engagement gap is a real thing because millennials are fairly quick to buy. They also still have a lot of
00:29:11
Speaker
COVID trauma where they think that they're not going to get their vendors, they're not going to get their venue. So there's these bookings that come through and they have this rushed sense about them. And then there's these bookings that come through and they're like, well, if that doesn't work out, like then that wasn't meant to be and I'll keep looking. And I think it's this big generational shift and less about an engagement gap. Yeah.
00:29:31
Speaker
All right, well, that's really interesting. I can't believe you do it all too, running the software business, also running the planning business as well. Well, I really appreciate your time. Anything else that we should chat about before signing off here?
00:29:44
Speaker
No, this is so fun to chat. And I know we actually took this conversation a little bit of a left turn and kind of left proposals hanging a little bit. Sorry about that. No, not at all. I mean, these are a lot of conversations. I still have a ton of friends in the wedding industry. We design a lot of websites for wedding industry professionals as well. So I think it's really interesting to hear, especially in light of some of the conversations that I've had recently. So I think other people find this fascinating as well. Where can people learn more about you and Rock Paper Coin?
00:30:12
Speaker
Yeah, so we're rockpapercoin.com and you can follow us on Instagram, TikTok if you want to see some bad videos from yours truly. And then if anyone has any questions or wants to reach out, you can email me Elizabeth at rockpapercoin.com. Awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.
00:30:30
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands of Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DavianChrista.com.